Chapter 83: Growth

What kind of civilization would emerge from a race of alien intelligences? Perhaps only the Alien King could answer that. The earth-brick houses scattered across the ground might not be buildings at all, but simply the discarded byproducts of their construction process.

If each intelligent being is akin to a queen ant, then these gene-creatures are their worker ants—moreover, the weakest and most useless ones abandoned at birth. If so, the explanation for the earth-brick houses becomes clear: they are the refuse brought up from underground by the worker ants while building their nests.

Queen ants, worker ants, soldier ants. The queen takes away the strongest soldiers, leaving the workers behind to fend for themselves.

As Xiao Ou ventured deeper into this subterranean "ant nest," he increasingly sensed the presence of a primitive social civilization—an underground laboratory paired with a soldier training ground.

If this were indeed the case, then the entire radiation zone was truly terrifying. From his first to second year in college, Xiao Ou had come across more than ten such places, from District D to District B.

District D's nests were the most basic—usually just expanded versions of pre-Dark Age basements. Once, Xiao Ou had the fortune to destroy an entire nest while the intelligent being was still inside. Because the attack was unexpected, the creature didn't have time to activate the nest’s defenses and was killed instantly. Yet he gained nothing from the venture; as the intelligent being died, all the experimental gene-creatures in the laboratory perished in the same instant. Save for the various corpses preserved in anti-decay solutions, nothing of value remained.

District C’s nests were larger and more sophisticated, with deeper secrets hidden beneath the earth. That place was like a miniature version of the one he stood in now, but it was not yet abandoned. At that time, he had not brought Feng from the main city by the Furious Sea and had attempted to explore it with Bai Wan’er and another teammate.

He hadn’t anticipated the endless gene-creatures crawling from the earth-brick houses—not the weak and infirm, but creatures as fearless as soldier ants, indifferent to death. The horde overwhelmed the three of them in an instant. The other teammate didn’t even have time to scream before being devoured, not a scrap remaining. That was Xiao Ou’s closest brush with death. Cornered and unable to escape, he held Bai Wan’er tightly in his arms, shielding her one last time from the storm, wishing to give her the hope of survival, unwilling to see her die before him.

He could feel the claws and fangs of the gene-creatures tearing at his flesh, hear the sound of his skin being ripped apart. With each slash, he felt his blood bursting forth, his life draining into the ravenous maws of the monsters.

His gaze fixed on Bai Wan’er, desperate to imprint her face into his memory for eternity. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. Bai Wan’er looked up at him and smiled—the most beautiful smile he had seen since their first meeting. Xiao Ou’s blood dripped onto her pale face, a crimson stroke upon a proud white lotus.

His entire body was a mass of wounds, bleeding from head to toe—down his face, along his arms, pooling in his hands around the Buddhist relic he carried.

The moment his blood touched the relic, it burst into a radiant green light, enveloping both him and Bai Wan’er. Outside the shimmering glow, a colossal divine sword materialized, slaying every gene-creature within a three-meter radius. Though not the Pagoda Sword itself, its shadow was unmistakable in the blade’s presence.

If the nests in District C could have so easily claimed his life, what of those in District B? When Feng discovered this place, Xiao Ou had specifically asked her to scout the nest. He did not want to give up on the seed information he had tracked three times already. But if this was an intact nest, he would have no choice but to abandon the mission.

Primitive biological civilization. Xiao Ou gazed at the underground nest—a labyrinth like those built by ants, riddled with escape tunnels reminiscent of a hare’s burrow. Unless one killed the intelligent being directly, capturing a high-level one was nearly impossible.

When a high-level intelligent being was present, all human technology was rendered useless. Those lucky enough to enter the nest were either devoured by gene-creatures after getting lost or, by sheer fate, escaped through another exit. Only the intelligent being knew the location of the main nest; no gene-creature did.

Xiao Ou’s smart-brain device continuously scanned the surroundings, generating and updating maps, cross-referencing them with the one Feng had mapped yesterday.

Walking through the nest felt like traversing a wide underground corridor, with occasional side chambers. Yet on the smart-brain’s display, the map was a tangled web of lines. Some seemed to lead directly to the main nest, but as he advanced, the device would reveal each path as a dead end.

The side chambers held the greatest surprises. Some connected directly to the earth-brick houses above, with entry-level gene-creatures crawling up from below. Others were sealed, their inhabitants—alien species ranging from novices to advanced foundations—lying dormant. Xiao Ou slipped silently past, unwilling to provoke unnecessary trouble.

He had been inside the underground nest for an hour now, still not in the main chamber, having become lost several times. The map Feng had given only indicated a general direction; he had to rely on his smart-brain to find his way.

Bai Wan’er, accompanied by Yao Ling, slowly made her way toward the nest’s center through the gene-creature horde. She had expected their numbers; last time, she and Xiao Ou had narrowly survived such a swarm.

Xiao Ou hadn’t told Ye Bai, Monk Cao, and the others how many gene-creatures there would be. Bai Wan’er guessed he feared they might be too afraid to come if they knew. But it was Yao Ling’s performance that truly astonished her.

Everyone in Green Forest Main City knew the Yao family as renowned healers, celebrated for their knowledge of medicine and their ability to bring the dying back to life. But in combat, the family was less accomplished.

At first, after Bai Wan’er had cleared a wave of gene-creatures, Yao Ling took the initiative to begin slaying them herself, telling Bai Wan’er only to intervene if her life was truly in danger.

Bai Wan’er’s beautiful eyes widened in surprise, marveling at the strength in this seemingly delicate woman. She wondered what trials Yao Ling must have endured to face these bloodthirsty beasts with such resolve.

She recognized Yao Ling’s swordsmanship as the unique style from the Yuhua Scripture, passed down in the Yao family.

The family’s scripture and pharmacopeia were coveted and unattainable by outsiders—a book of medicinal lore and the Yuhua Scripture. The Yuhua Scripture was divided into male and female volumes. The male was renowned for its ferocity, integrating many ancient martial arts from before the Age of Darkness, yet few in the family mastered it, their focus always on medicine. Only the first family head had ever fully mastered the male volume.

The female volume emerged after the Age of Darkness, created by a brilliant female ancestor who gleaned its secrets from the Yuhua Scripture.

At first, Yao Ling mechanically mimicked the sword techniques from the scripture, each thrust and strike displaying the utmost flexibility the female volume demanded, but always lacking true adaptability.

Several times, she narrowly avoided being struck by gene-creatures, her movements stiff and constrained by the strict forms of the scripture. Before long, she realized her flaw: she relied too heavily on prescribed moves, limiting her actions.

In the heat of battle, Yao Ling smiled wryly, finally understanding the opening words of the Yuhua Scripture: “Battle is ever-changing and flexible.”

Indeed, she had allowed the forms and techniques to confine her. All swordsmanship, all elemental attacks, are born from battle itself. Each technique is crafted for a single fight; the next demands innovation and change. No two leaves in the world are identical—how could two battles ever be the same? Without innovation and adaptation, one is destined to fall behind.

Yao Ling calmed her mind, studying the attack patterns of the gene-creatures, letting Xiao Mu calculate the best counter-angles. As a creature lunged, her sword flashed with green light, striking its head.

She abandoned ornamental forms, retaining only the method of channeling elemental power from the scripture, distilling its essence and discarding the dross. With each battle, her understanding of the sword deepened, her own style slowly emerging.

The red lotus blooms, and with it, the karmic fire. This was a technique Ye Bai had discovered in Zhang Jian’s notes—an explosive, fire-based burst. In the ruins of the secret realm, within the pyramid, it was only thanks to Monk Cao and Yao Ling's efforts that Ye Bai found time to unleash the Red Lotus: using his body as the core and his hands as petals, he released highly compressed fire energy, incinerating mummies, sand serpents, and sand scorpions alike.

Just now, Ye Bai noticed that every swing of the Rainbow Blade created a vortex in the air, much like the Red Lotus bloom. He didn’t know how the Rainbow Blade generated its energy, but he experimented, injecting elemental fire into the vortices. Each required only a tiny spark. At first, the fire barely made the gene-creatures flinch, causing only minor explosions.

But as his kill count rose, Ye Bai’s understanding of the vortices grew. Every sweep of the Rainbow Blade tore the air, creating a fleeting vacuum. Atmospheric pressure rushed in to fill it, generating the vortex.

As he decapitated another gene-creature, inspiration struck: he could use the Rainbow Blade to recreate the Red Lotus, even stronger than within the pyramid.

Gripping the Rainbow Blade tightly, he attuned to the pulse of the weapon. He still remembered the words carved into the old rack in the Armory Pavilion: “A weapon has spirit; respond to it with your heart.”

Though he could not sense anything special about the blade, ever since his breakthrough, he felt its difference.

Spirit might yet be beyond his grasp, but with his heart, he could perceive every nuance of the blade’s movements. With each breath, every swing, he felt the friction of the hilt, the bite of the blade through gene-creature flesh, even the shifting brilliance along the edge.

Suddenly, Ye Bai gripped the Rainbow Blade, pointing it toward the heavens. For the first time, the blade began to change.