SWDnovel Chapter 76 The Cause of the Beast Tide
Chapter 76 The Cause of the Beast Tide
Throughout the journey, Qi Te, who remained perched on the roof of the vehicle, used his visual and auditory perception to observe the movements of the herd while simultaneously alerting D3 and G4, providing them with significant assistance.
Throughout the journey, he kept thinking about two key questions:
Firstly, why would thousands of unusual creatures suddenly awaken during the winter dormancy period?
Secondly, why did that golden salamander keep chasing the convoy?
The old highways, railways, and other infrastructure have long been destroyed, and their reactivation now requires clearing the border areas first. However, to date, major federal military-industrial enterprises and large financial corporations have not yet developed advanced technology capable of clearing these areas with a single click.
Therefore, all transportation between cities relies on airplanes. Unless the safety factor is within a controllable range, the Federation would never open the city gates in winter to allow non-combat personnel to enter the border areas.
In short, prior to today, there had never been a large-scale awakening of hibernating organisms in any of the world's border areas that are permitted to be entered during the winter dormancy period.
This coincidence could not possibly be without reason.
Did a large number of hibernating organisms undergo genetic mutations, leading to secondary or even tertiary evolution?
As a biology student, Zitte believed that the probability of this was extremely low.
One or two organisms might experience explosive evolution, which is somewhat plausible, but on this scale, it's almost impossible.
Unless, there is some kind of trigger.
Suddenly, the image of the Old City Hospital and the Sequence 0 aberrant creature flashed through Qi Te's mind.
"Uncle D"
Qi Te pointed to the badge on D3's chest, and the uncle immediately understood and quickly moved closer to him.
The Blue Shield badge is made of high-titanium steel and serves as both a communicator and a symbol of a team member's identity. It contains a mini chip that records a team member's identity information, blood type, allergy history, and other details.
This information can be life-saving if someone is seriously injured during a mission. If someone dies in the line of duty with their face disfigured or blown to pieces, their body left unburied, this information can be used to identify them.
"Captain Xu, this is Qi Te. I have urgent business to discuss. Please respond."
Inside the control car, Xu Su, with a solemn expression, said in a deep voice, "I'm here."
"Contact the team members remaining in the old city"
Upon hearing this, Xu Su's expression grew even more unpleasant.
When the entire collection team evacuated, the monitoring satellites did not capture any abnormalities in the border area. However, he still contacted the three team members immediately, and the reply was that everything was normal.
Qi Te firmly proposed a northward retreat, the exact opposite direction from the old city. Although large herds of beasts had not yet appeared, Xu Su, out of caution, heeded his advice.
Soon after, they discovered a large number of abnormal biological awakenings. While fighting, Xu Su ordered the artificial intelligence to contact the Old City team.
However, no one answered.
Headquarters dispatched dozens of drones to the old city, accompanied by a Scorpion fighter jet. Considering that an advance team of 19 people had already arrived, and three more elite teams would follow, the three team members designated by Xu Su were all of average combat ability.
Key combat team members like D3 stayed with the collection team to ensure the safety of Professor Liu Bochuan and his students.
Of the three who remained, the highest-ranking was the short-haired female team member, Ringo. She was a perception-type ability user with an extremely rare energy sequence, ranked B. Simply put, she was a humanoid energy fluctuation detector and display device.
Before Qi Te and his group of five entered the hospital, G4 used a range detector to check them and found nothing abnormal. From this, it can be concluded that the enormous creature that absorbed the hospital into its body has abilities such as invisibility and shielding energy fluctuations.
It's not mimicry, but true invisibility.
Because, in addition to night vision, telescope, and X-ray vision, Xu Su's holographic mask can also see through the disguises of most mimicry creatures.
But when Xu Su arrived at the hospital, he saw nothing. Instead, Ringo used her ability to project the captured biological forms onto her mask through brain electrical signal conversion.
In terms of ability level, Ringo is very strong, but her abilities are not applicable to combat. Although her marksmanship and fighting skills are among the best in the team, they are useless against such a massive horde of beasts.
"They've lost contact!"
Qi Te's heart sank, and he quickly said, "Captain Xu, in your judgment, could the reason for the large-scale awakening of abnormal creatures be related to Sequence 0 creatures?"
Xu Su raised an eyebrow; he hadn't even considered that point.
Blue Shield ranks among the top five globally in security, but biotechnology is not its area of expertise. The anomalous creature encyclopedia was built up slowly and painstakingly through monitoring satellites and teams of field agents.
Sequence 0 organisms are extremely rare, and there are only four known cases worldwide, including those from the Old City.
As a field team leader, his knowledge of Sequence 0 organisms is probably less than that of these biology professionals.
Xu Su couldn't offer any judgment, but Liu Baichuan, standing beside him, pondered and said, "We can't rule out that possibility. Didn't you say at Outpost No. 1 that the mentor, Chang Shengwu, possessed mental attack abilities?"
"Mental abilities not only apply to humans, but are also effective against anomalous creatures!"
Qi Te frowned deeply; what Lao Liu was thinking was exactly what he was thinking. The reason he suspected that the large-scale biological awakening was related to Sequence 0 was precisely because of the key point of mental attack.
Hibernating creatures usually hide deep within their caves and nests. The ability to awaken thousands of creatures lurking in various hidden corners within just a few minutes is probably only possible through mental abilities.
After a two-second pause, Qi Te thought of another way to verify it.
"Check if the area with the fastest beast tide outbreak is the Old City."
........................
The artificial intelligence quickly analyzed the data and provided an answer in just three seconds.
Xu Su said somewhat excitedly, "No!"
The footage shows that the three remaining team members and the advance team had arrived at the hospital before the beast tide broke out.
Thanks to Xu Su's reminder, or more precisely, Qi Te's suggestion, 21 team members were deployed around the hospital to conduct a thorough search for the source of the unidentified spore-like substance.
The anomalous creature awakened, catching the team members off guard. After a fierce battle, they were eventually forced to retreat into the hospital.
Satellite footage showed that half an hour earlier, team members had attempted to install a small signal tower at the hospital entrance. Although they were driven back by the wild animals, causing the installation to fail, it was confirmed that many team members were still alive.
However, being in a hospital is equivalent to being inside that Sequence 0 organism.
Xu Su frowned again, concerned for the safety of his colleagues, while Qi Te had grasped a key point.
Although he was nearly killed by the indescribable terror in the hospital, which nearly caused his heart to burst, he vaguely felt that the other party had no ill intentions and simply wanted to take back his child.
After releasing the bewildered consciousness that had been mistakenly trapped in the labyrinth of consciousness, he did indeed survive.
Based on the fact that the team members who hid inside the hospital were able to come out and try to install a signal tower, Zite can basically confirm that the Sequence 0 creature had no intention of actively attacking humans.
The loss of contact is due to signal loss.
The communication satellite coverage is extensive. While in the hospital, Qi Te had checked his cell phone; the signal strength was slightly weak, but not enough to be completely cut off. Therefore, the problem isn't with the signal itself; it's highly likely that sequence 0 activated some kind of shielding field.
Of course, this is just Qi Te's inference based on the information he has, and whether it is true or not remains to be seen. However, the monitoring satellites captured images of a large herd of animals fleeing in panic as they approached the hospital, seemingly startled.
Therefore, it can be determined that the outbreak of the beast tide is unrelated to sequence 0 creatures.
At this point, the image of the blue-haired girl naturally came to mind for Qi Te.
In the first playthrough, Xu Su called for helicopter rescue. When the group reached the top of Whistle Valley, they did not see the golden dragon.
However, after AA brought Jiang Luo to the mountaintop, Jinlong followed them, ultimately leading to a large-scale annihilation of the entire group.
so...
No, there's another group of people.
Qi Te quickly searched his memory; at the time, his attention was entirely focused on searching for the phone's ringtone, and he hadn't noticed the two people that Captain Xu had rescued.
I only vaguely remember that the older bounty hunter seemed to be carrying a backpack.
The bag is quite large, with a capacity of at least 80 liters, and its appearance and materials are noticeably different from ordinary hiking backpacks.
"All members, prepare to disembark!"
Xu Su's heavy voice rang out from inside the truck, and the pickup truck's speed suddenly decreased.
Due to the vast size of the border region, the global energy situation is critical, with fuel being the most scarce resource. The city is primarily served by trams, but many areas of the border region remain unexplored and suffer from magnetic interference, meaning trams could easily go out of control in the border area.
Therefore, all the vehicles leaving the city were gasoline-powered.
Blue Shield Company delivers supplies at fixed points every day, including fuel. However, during the emergency evacuation of Outpost No. 3, there was no time to unpack the supplies, let alone fill them up.
The six pickup trucks, which had been traveling in sync, all slowed down as they ran out of fuel.
Xu Su was the first to jump out of the car and lead the way.
Team members D3 and G4 also jumped off the vehicle and quickly lined up on both sides, protecting the collection team members in the middle.
"Uncle D, straight ahead!"
With a shout, the dwarf uncle, without hesitation, picked up his shotgun and pulled the trigger directly in front of him.
'Bang, bang'
Gunshots rang out, and at the same time, a sickening "squeak" sound came from the dense grass, which was taller than a person.
The strange sound, like a sharp object scraping against glass, sent chills down the students' spines.
From Zite's perspective, countless strange creatures were closing in on the group from all directions.
Many of them are unusual creatures that resemble lizards by six or seven points, with wings growing from their ears.
"Mimicry"
Qi Te shouted a warning, and Uncle D3 immediately understood and switched the mask to infrared imaging mode.
In normal combat situations, infrared imaging is not very useful. This is because if organisms are in a straight line, the images will overlap. Although artificial intelligence can mark the distance of each image, in emergency combat situations, team members simply do not have time to carefully identify those numbers.
"Ghost Moth, activate infrared!"
D3 looked at the dense images on the mask and quickly shouted.
"Stay close!"
G4 shielded the two students tightly behind him, continuously pulling the trigger, while the other Blue Shield members quickly switched to imaging mode and mindlessly sprayed bullets into the tall grass...