Chapter Eighty-Two: An Increasing Number of Genetic Entities

“Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine.” Ye Bai watched as the digits on his smart-brain’s dial flickered relentlessly, his once-calm heart gradually igniting with feverish anticipation. His palm, gripping the Jinghong Blade, grew slick with sweat—whether from excitement or nerves, he could not tell. His gaze was locked onto the mud-brick house ahead, his black pupils narrowing into slits, resembling a beast on the hunt.

“Ding.” The time on his wrist shifted from 11:59 to exactly midnight.

Not long after their departure, Xiao Ou had broken off from the group, venturing into this sector alone. No one knew his whereabouts now, and perhaps only Bai Wan’er had the means to find him, but she would never divulge that information to Ye Bai or the others.

Since entering the radiation zone, Ye Bai, Little Monk Cao, and Yao Ling dared not stray far from one another. Here, amid the swirling streams of rays and interference, smart-brain communication was easily disrupted. If they separated too far, they might vanish without a trace, irretrievable. Like the time the Savage Tiger Beast had forced them apart—after Ye Bai escaped danger, he immediately tried to contact Little Monk, fearing that he might lose the coordinates and be unable to find them. Luckily, fortune favored them; the smart-brain reconnected, and though Ye Bai had lost all communication during that night underground, once he drew nearer to Little Monk, the link was restored and he found his companions.

The ticking of time on his smart-brain was utterly silent, yet in Ye Bai’s mind, it might as well have been a thunderclap. Instantly, the Jinghong Blade in his grip trembled violently, its entire body flaring red. The white blade-light surged beyond the confines of its scabbard, radiating outwards and etching scars into the searing earth.

Still as a maiden, fierce as a tiger; at the stroke of midnight, Ye Bai drew the Jinghong Blade, its crimson attribute force wrapped in white blade-light, and cleaved toward the distant mud-brick house.

When the five remaining had split up, Bai Wan’er had urged them to stall the aberrants and gene-beasts above as best they could. That way, Xiao Ou would face less pressure alone against the high-tier Foundation Intelligence lurking below.

Last night, Ye Bai and Little Monk had pored over the map until they knew it inside out. These mud-brick dwellings had been built in a radial pattern. At the very center lay a vast, empty expanse, devoid of structures, but its soil was blackish-blue, as if something had been poured and solidified here, reinforcing the entire area.

Wind’s scouting had indicated the high-tier Foundation Intelligence dwelled beneath this region—formerly a laboratory for advanced intelligences. As for what lay within, no one but Xiao Ou could possibly know. Yet it was certain to be far more terrifying than the temporary intelligence’s basement Ye Bai had previously encountered. Still, if Xiao Ou dared to enter, he must have confidence in his own strength.

At first glance, the mud-brick houses appeared chaotically scattered—one here, another there—but from above, the pattern would astound any observer. The outermost ring held the fewest houses, but the further inward one went, the denser they became. None were built in straight lines, but rather intersected and complemented one another, interlocked in a chain where a single disturbance could set the whole in motion.

Each outer house was guarded by two inner ones; in critical spots, even three. Tug one, and three react; tug three, and nine; tug nine, and twenty-seven—so on, until the entire district was roused within minutes. No matter how many intruders entered, they would be devoured by the swarming masses of aberrants and gene-beasts.

It was unimaginable how formidable this place must have been when the high-tier intelligence was present—an impregnable fortress, perhaps only overrun by invincible beings like the Celestial Wood King.

With a roar, the blade-light—infused with fiery power—sliced the mud-brick house clean in two. As it passed through the interior, Ye Bai felt the fire attribute force erupt. He knew well the properties of fire energy: against inorganics, it passed as a highly condensed energy form, but in organics, it ignited the carbon within, resulting in explosive detonations. The crackling sounded like fire itself was detonating.

Whether before the advent of the Evolution Path, or after humanity entered the Dark Era and began rapid evolution, the fundamental building blocks remained unchanged. Humans, mutant beasts, aberrants, gene-beasts—all were carbon-based lifeforms. Fire force burned the carbon atoms within, making it the most destructive of all attributes.

No one knew how supernatural beasts had come into being; they appeared as if aliens had suddenly descended upon Earth. Though they could mimic all existing terrestrial flora and fauna, not a single one was truly akin to humans—differing even in their very biological makeup.

Back when the Institute of Science’s elders first investigated the supernatural beasts, the entire institution was thrown into an uproar. Silicon-based life! A wholly new species—those old scientists were more excited than if they had discovered a new continent.

Within the mud-brick house, the gene-beasts hadn’t even reacted before blade-light and fire force sliced them in two, their bodies immolated to ash.

Simultaneously, in three other directions, the slaughter of gene-beasts commenced.

Little Monk Cao slipped into a mud-brick house like a wraith; after a series of bone-crunching sounds, he emerged again. The girl’s technique was elegant yet deadly—like lotuses blooming on a rain-dappled pond. There was both the bloodshed of a kill, and the sorrow of life fading in the rain.

Bai Wan’er conjured five yellow earth-attribute crystals in her palm. They melted into the mud-brick walls, inscribing yellow patterns across the surface. The two women stood outside. At the sound of a crack, the entire house collapsed into a mound of yellow earth.

One strand stirs the whole—let alone four blossoming at once. The entire mud-brick settlement erupted into chaos. As Ye Bai, Little Monk, Yao Ling, and Bai Wan’er prepared to press forward, they glanced back at their kills and froze.

Wind had already entered the mud-brick area and stood atop a patch of blackened earth when the ground began to tremble. Gene-beasts crawled up from below, while aberrants began mutating outside. Without hesitation, Wind darted out of the house.

Within the mud-brick houses, one after another, creatures emerged from the ground—some houses disgorged aberrants. These must have taken up residence only after the high-tier intelligence departed; previously, the houses had been occupied solely by gene-beasts. The aberrants had evidently slain the failures and moved in themselves.

With chaos blooming everywhere, the houses of the outer two or three rings all collapsed, unleashing gene-beasts and monsters. Wind’s expression was no better than Ye Bai’s—he had scouted yesterday and knew gene-beasts lurked below, but not in such numbers.

There was no time to wonder. This was reality—anything could happen. Wind produced another dagger, gripped both in his hands, and plunged into the mass of gene-beasts and aberrants, black light swirling around his blades.

Meanwhile, Little Monk checked Yao Ling’s location on his smart-brain. She and Bai Wan’er were attacking close by, not as far from him as Ye Bai. He planned to rendezvous with Yao Ling first, then seek Ye Bai together.

Aberrants and gene-beasts surged continuously around Little Monk. He guarded himself with both hands—one wreathed in golden light, the other in blue. Where he passed, gene-beasts fell one after another.

Though Bai Wan’er was surprised by the sudden appearance of so many gene-beasts, her expression remained stoic and composed.

She spread her hands, holding the void. Yellow earth-attribute force billowed from her, condensing into short swords around her. “Go,” she whispered, her red lips barely parting—a casual utterance, tinged with a heavy scent of blood.

In that instant, all the earth-forged blades shot toward the encroaching gene-beasts.

Ye Bai did not squander his attribute force. The Jinghong Blade emitted its own blade-light; unless confronted by a powerful aberrant, he would not envelop it in elemental force to increase its lethality. In his other hand, he conjured a longsword from fire force, identical to the Jinghong Blade.

These gene-beasts were failed products left over from high-tier intelligence experiments. They could move freely, but their constitution was far inferior to those Ye Bai had faced in the D-Zone’s underground lab. Evidently, granting them autonomy had greatly reduced their physical prowess—barely reaching entry-level standards.

With Jinghong Blade in his right hand and a fire-element longsword in his left, Ye Bai swept through the gene-beasts with overwhelming might, diving in and out of their ranks seven times. Occasionally, green or blue elemental force would flare along the Jinghong Blade, reserved for aberrants lurking among the gene-beasts.

Crash! The water-attribute Jinghong Blade shattered an oncoming gene-beast. An aberrant, hiding behind the gene-beasts, lashed out with its claws at Ye Bai’s head.

Ye Bai swung the water-attribute blade at the aberrant’s head. Reluctant to die, the creature withdrew its claws to shield itself, blocking the Jinghong Blade.

Boom! The aberrant was sent flying, its claws gashed to the bone, taking several gene-beasts with it as it crashed down.

In a flash, Ye Bai hurled the fire-element longsword from his left hand, stabbing the aberrant in the head before it could react. What had seemed a sneak attack became a fatal trap. The sword pinned the aberrant in place, and within three seconds, it burst into a conflagration, reducing both aberrant and gene-beasts beneath it to ash.

Ye Bai conjured another fire-element longsword and pressed deeper inside. His smart-brain cleanly distinguished whether an attacker was an aberrant or a gene-beast; he had no fear of a sneak attack from an aberrant hiding behind gene-beasts.

Bai Wan’er had said they would regroup in the central clearing. Ye Bai was too far from Little Monk and Yao Ling to fight his way to them, and as for Wind, whom he’d yet to meet or exchange a word with, he dared not seek him out at random. He could only carve his solitary path toward the core, comforted that, though the aberrants and gene-beasts he faced were numerous, they were only entry-level threats and posed no great pressure to him.