Chapter 803: Deep Inside the Lair
Meng Chao nodded.
He was from Agricultural University, which was known as the “monster university.”
Agricultural University’s most important scientific research mission was to create biochemical pets. They wanted to implant control chips and neural current stimulation devices in the monsters’ brains and central nerves, as well as implant crystal bombs in their vital parts, thereby taming the monsters. That way, the ferocious beasts would serve mankind’s civilization.
Many of Agricultural University’s technologies originated from the ancient civilization.
The so-called “monsters” referred to the production tools and low-level soldiers from the civilization, so it made sense.
“In fact, rather than imagining the mother body as a genetic factory that produced monsters on a large scale, it would be better to imagine this place as a super-large-scale laboratory, or even a ‘university.’”
Wu Haibo continued, “The Ancients extracted the genetic essence of several thousand monsters here and repeatedly cut and pieced them together in an attempt to combine the characteristics of different monsters. They wanted to create the most efficient and powerful production as well as combat tools.
“Every time a brand-new species of ferocious beasts is completed, they are sent to the Hidden Mist Domain to kill each other. They are observed to determine whether their survival and combat abilities are strong or not.
“The unlucky losers will be recycled through the Green Tide before they are turned into food and fertilizer. Not a single bit of energy is wasted.
“The victors of the survival competition will undergo a deeper refinement and unlock their reproductive ability. They will be sent to the vast Monster Mountain Range and even the entire Other World. There, they will be allowed to reproduce on their own and remove all obstacles for the ancient civilization.
“Of course, the monsters that were sent out would absorb the sun and moon’s essence many times. After that, they would engage in a fierce battle, where their genes would mutate, and they would awaken new abilities.
“Once that happened, the Ancients would return the evolved and mutated monsters to the mother body so that they could undergo a second modification. It was equivalent to sending these monsters to university to ‘study’ and further consolidate as well as strengthen their abilities. That allowed these monsters to become the leaders of their race.”
“I understand now!”
Meng Chao’s mind spun as he suddenly realized something. “For example, amongst the Bloody Moon Wolf species, there is usually a particularly powerful wolf king that has the innate ability to release Blood Mist of Fear. Such a wolf king might not have evolved naturally, but it’s a product of the ‘mother body’s refinement?”
During the college entrance examination’s practical combat test, Meng Chao had been inspired by Principal Sun, and he had fought fiercely with a Blood Moon Wolf King for 300 rounds. In the end, he had awakened his extraordinary strength and narrowly killed the other party.
Before the Blood Moon Wolf King died, its brainwaves had also affected Meng Chao’s brain deeply, allowing him to read some of the Wolf King’s memories.
In his daze, he had seen from the Wolf King’s main point of view that it was lying in a facility similar to an incubating pool. It was waiting to be modulated.
At that time, Meng Chao had thought that it was just a nightmare.
Now that he thought about it, the Blood Moon Wolf King must have “studied” in the mother’s body.
“Yes, for the mother or the Ancients, there’s no need to produce and control every monster. It’s too wasteful and inefficient.”
Wu Haibo said, “As long as we control most of the Apocalyptic Beasts and the leaders of the monster race, it’s enough to make all the monsters submit to the ancient civilization’s will.”
“I see…”
Meng Chao heaved a long sigh of relief.
At that point, he finally had an answer to most of the monster civilization’s secrets.
However, he still could not figure it out. “If the ancient civilization is really the creator and ruler of the monster race, and we Earthlings are, on a certain level, descendants of the Ancients, why would the monsters attack us indiscriminately when we’ve just crossed over to the Other World?”
‘Shouldn’t they bow their heads and submit to us obediently?
‘Is it really as the Tree of Wisdom said? Is it because the mother absorbed a large amount of negative emotions and dark wisdom from human beings during the awakening process that the monsters became so fierce and violent?’
“It’s hard to explain the problem in just a few words. You’ll know in a while. This way.”
In front of them, a team of engineers in full power armor was carefully cutting a giant pillar in an attempt to excavate an embedded monster embryo together with its cocoon.
Meng Chao saw that when the cocoon and the giant pillar were separated, dozens of translucent tubes were connected to them.
The tubes that were connected to each other were like the intestines of animals and nerves that were magnified countless times.
The giant pillar absorbed a lot of spirit energy from the ground, and part of the spirit energy was channeled into the cocoon through the tubes. The intestines or the nerves were also absorbing the spirit energy in a weird way.
On the giant pillar, where they had peeled the cocoon off, a depression more than two meters in diameter appeared. A layer of sticky liquid was oozing out of it, but it was scabbing rapidly like a healing human wound.
This scene that made one’s scalp tingle finally convinced Meng Chao to believe in Wu Haibo’s judgment—the entire monster lair or Ruins No. 2 was once a gigantic ancient creature. It was alive!
“Is it still alive?”
Meng Chao could not help but ask in a low voice, “Now that we’ve destroyed the monster mastermind, is the entire Ruins No. 2 still alive? Could it be…”
Would it suddenly wake up and digest, as well as absorb, all the humans who had rushed into its body?
Would it, perhaps, rise up from the depths and raze Dragon City to the ground?
Would it maybe explode with a hundred times the productivity and give birth to a brand-new, hundred times stronger beast horde?
“It depends on how you define ‘alive.’”
Wu Haibo said, “As I said just now, 99% of the active tissues in the mother’s body were exhausted in the ancient war hundreds of millions of years ago. Only 1% of the active tissues were awakened half a century ago after a long period of dormancy and restoration.
“It’s like a towering tree that’s struck by lightning and burned to ashes in a raging fire. Only a part of the tissues in the tree’s core is left with extremely weak vitality. After many years of breathing, a small bud has sprouted again. Is it considered alive?
“It’s also like a person who has suffered a fatal blow and whose brain is completely dead or even removed. He can only rely on the most advanced medical equipment to maintain his heartbeat and breathing, but he’s become a vegetable forever. Do you think that he is still alive?
“Meng Chao, I understand your concern. You’re afraid that we won’t be able to get rid of the evil forever and that the monster civilization will revive, right?”
Shao Zhengyang said from the side, “Indeed. Facing an ancient civilization that is far beyond the imagination of Earth’s people… it is too naïve to think about inheriting the other party’s entire legacy without any risk.
“When humans first learned how to use fire, I believe that there were no fewer people who died under the raging flames.
“If we develop the ancient relics in an unprepared and unrestrained manner, and if we poorly imitate the ancient civilization’s technology to modulate the monsters, or even try to restore more activity to the monster’s lair and create a legion of Apocalyptic Beasts for Dragon City to use, we could burn ourselves at any moment. I am very clear about this principle, and all the Deity Realm experts are very clear about it.
“But…”
“Believe me, we have a reason to do this.
“Soon, when you see more secrets from the immemorial era, you will agree with our point of view. In order to survive, Dragon City’s civilization has no choice but to take a gamble and go all out!”
Meng Chao was slightly startled.
In fact, even without Shao Zhengyang’s explanation, he was in favor of taking a gamble and go all out.
In a sense, he was even the craziest gambler of the entire Dragon City civilization.
After all, dying from the explosion of 10,000 supernovas was still death, and dying from the backlash of the monster civilization was also death.
No matter what, it was still death. It was better to take a gamble and turn a bicycle into a motorcycle!
However, how could Wu Haibo, Shao Zhengyang, and the others become so… radical?
Meng Chao remembered that the high-level officials of dragon city in his previous life were quite conservative.
Although they chanted the slogan of “steel torrent, sweep the Other World”, they had never drawn up a set of effective and operable “strategy to conquer the Other World” and carried it out unswervingly.
Instead, they took one step at a time and were eventually taken into a ditch by someone.
Of course, the Monster War was only a bitter victory. Dragon City’s civilization, which had suffered a great loss, did not become a chess player at all and had the strength to guide the country.
But on the other hand, most of the power, force and resources of Dragon City were in the hands of the nine Super Enterprises. After the abnormal expansion of the Super Enterprises, the departments were bloated, communication was not smooth, internal friction was serious, and the assessment mechanism became increasingly rigid and even failed, blindly pursuing immediate interests and self-interest, but neglecting long-term interests, social benefits, and the progress of the entire civilization. This was also an important reason for the defeat of Dragon City.
Now, Meng Chao saw two things in the eyes of Wu Haibo and Shao Zhengyang.
A strong sense of crisis and a strong sense of enterprise.
This was something that Dragon City had lost after defeating the monster civilization with great difficulty in his previous life.
What was it that caused the senior researchers of the ancient ruins research center and the number one expert of the Red Dragon Army to undergo earth-shaking changes?
Meng Chao could not help but be curious.
After bypassing the engineering team that harvested the monster embryos, the group continued to walk into the depths of the monster nest.
The further they walked, the denser the spiritual energy that shot out from the walls and the giant pillars, gradually forming a colorful mist.
Under the nourishment of the mist, the pillars became denser and denser, and the texture of the pillars became more and more translucent. The cocoons and eggs embedded in the pillars grew larger and larger, too. The monsters that were sleeping quietly in the pillars were still in their embryonic state, they had an incomparably hideous appearance and were emitting a seemingly tangible, ferocious flame.
In the end, the pillars that were dozens of meters in diameter and hundreds of meters in height were almost made of crystals. There was only one unique cocoon or egg embedded in them, and the spirit tattoos on the translucent shell.., however, it was extremely complicated, as if countless complicated circuit diagrams had been overlapped and wrapped around the embryo of the monster.
The spirit energy of hundreds of different natures flowed slowly along the spiritual tattoos, forming spirit magnetic fields that were full of mysterious energy and nourishing the beast in its womb.