dognovel Chapter 21 [The War Ends, Civilization Sacrifices, God's Harvest Day]
Chapter 21 [The War Ends, Civilization Sacrifices, God's Harvest Day]
In the year 2151 of the Anthill Era, at the core of the Plague Mother Nest.
When the three remaining members of the Spear of Vengeance broke through the last barrier of flesh and blood and fell into the cavity, they had almost exhausted all their energy.
Right in the center, the true form of the plague mother was revealed.
The finish line of victory is within reach.
"The carrier unit is 73 percent damaged, its energy supply is interrupted, and its self-repair program has failed to start."
The unit codenamed "Engineer" delivered a cold report; on his person was the "Gene Wedge," carrying the last hope of the entire civilization.
The wise king Katz was not unaware of the hardships of the war on the front lines; rather, he had already prepared countermeasures.
The genetic wedge was prepared for this.
On the cavity walls, countless eyeball-like structures opened, densely packed and endless.
They are the mother's immune cells, smaller and more deadly units of plague, and the last natural disaster for the guardian deities.
They surged in from all directions, determined to completely engulf these three specks of dust that had intruded into the divine realm.
At the same time, the entire atrium begins to contract.
The heaven and earth, made of flesh and blood, were squeezed together.
A desperate situation.
"Engineer, fix it." These words came from the last remaining adjudicator in the squad.
He exchanged a glance with the ghostly assassin, and without a word, their nearly two thousand years of racial tacit understanding allowed them to reach a consensus.
"How long will it take?"
"Theoretically, seventeen seconds," the engineer replied.
He crouched down and dismantled the damaged outer shell of the [Gene Wedge], ignoring the horrific scene around him.
"Received." The Arbiter and the Ghost Assassin stood back to back, forming the final line of defense in front of the Engineer.
"In the name of the King, initiate the self-destruct protocol—the final bulwark."
Only two figures stood tall, shining with the most dazzling light of their lives as the apocalypse descended.
The Arbiter's body erupted with a blazing white light of disintegration, while the Ghost Assassin's body transformed into a pure, dark blue energy.
One attack and one defense, their lights intertwined, forming an absolute domain with a radius of less than three meters.
The surging waves of units, upon hitting this area, were vaporized and swallowed up.
But there are too many of them.
Sacrifice is merely to be trampled underfoot by successors, becoming another brick in the hurdle.
The light is dimming.
The scope of the field is shrinking.
Sixteen seconds.
Fifteen seconds.
"Repair progress is 30% complete."
Cracks appeared in the Arbiter's shell, and the Ghost Assassin's energy form began to become unstable.
ten seconds.
Nine seconds.
"Repair progress is 70% complete."
"King... Kaz..." The Arbiter uttered his final farewell, his body and last pride completely swallowed by the wave of flesh and blood.
A gap has appeared in the domain's defenses.
The Ghost Assassin used himself as a thin shield to protect the Engineer behind him.
"Eternal..." Its consciousness dissipated.
Five seconds.
Four seconds.
"Repair complete."
"The [Gene Wedge] has been activated."
The engineer stood up without even glancing back.
Alone, facing that slowly shrinking world of flesh and blood, and the mother core that was so close, enveloped by a thick layer of biological keratin.
Inside the distant Nest City Temple.
For the first time, a sentiment resembling human prayer emerged within the collective consciousness network of the wise king Kazna, which had remained steadfast for over a thousand years and through countless wars.
The nearly two thousand years of history of the Kaz civilization, all its sacrifices and glories, are now tied to the figure of that most vulnerable engineer.
It placed its last glimmer of hope on that tiny glimmer of light.
The engineer was even powerless to support himself, and there was still one last barrier between him and the mother's true nerve center.
The core stratum corneum of the mother.
That was the product of the plague evolving its own defenses to the extreme; conventional injection methods were completely ineffective.
The engineer looked up and gazed into the depths of his core, where a name and a figure emerged.
——734.
That great pioneer who, through his individual wisdom, saved the hive city from the eternal barrier and established the definition of a "hero".
He made the same choice as "734".
The engineer strapped the successfully activated [Gene Wedge], which was emitting a ghostly blue light, to his body.
"In the name of hope..."
"Ultimate weapon, activate."
A light that transcends theoretical limits shines forth.
It transformed into a living drill that pierced through everything, crashing into that final barrier in a martyr-like manner.
"Pfft"
The barrier was pierced by a tiny hole.
The gene wedge has been successfully injected.
The unnamed engineer burned completely the moment he made impact, leaving no trace.
one second.
two seconds.
ten seconds...
A faint blue light spread outwards from the point of injection.
Wherever the light reached, the plague ceased its throbbing.
Blue light, the first rays of dawn.
A "war against plague" that lasted for nearly seven hundred years came to an end in this blue sea of light.
The Kaz civilization has won, but it is a victory without cheers.
Kaz and all his surviving people gazed silently at that fertile blue land.
They paid a heavy price for this victory.
Heroes have fallen, and homes have been shattered.
They won the war, but it seemed they had lost the future.
The sky cracked open once again.
A perfect circular "altar" descended from the clouds.
.......
In the real world, Xu also leaned back in his chair, his face as pale as paper.
The stock of Spirit Frost Spores is critically low, and the remaining medicinal effects are waning.
"My time... is running out." His hands trembled as he picked up a glass petri dish that had just been disinfected with alcohol.
This is perhaps the most suitable container to hold "hope" that Xu Ye could find.
When that enormous "altar" descended over the city of Hive, the wise king Khaz understood the god's intention.
What God needs is not their rest and recuperation.
Instead... it was a sacrifice.
They offered the final fruits of this war, the ultimate weapons they had obtained through countless sacrifices, as a sacrifice to the god who had always watched them silently from outside the world.
This is the only reward they can give.
It is also the only prayer.
"Supreme command."
"Initiate the mass production process of the [Gene Wedge], using the remnants of the plague as a foundation, the glory of civilization as fire, and the divine as a sacrifice, to offer the final fruit."
The entire Kaz civilization stirred once again.
Decades have passed in the blink of an eye.
In the real world, it was just that Xu Ye had taken a short nap while lying on the table.
When he looked up again, a drop of liquid with a strange luster had appeared in the center of the petri dish.
It was a drop of concentrated liquid, as dazzling as a deep blue stardust.
"This is... the Gene Wedge..." Xu Ye carefully used a sterile dropper to draw it out and transfer it to a smaller sealed bottle.
Just a few milligrams.
He had to undergo his first treatment immediately.
Delaying will only further reduce the already slim chances of winning.
Those few remaining Spirit Frost Spores were no longer enough to sustain another such conscious action.
With trembling hands, Xu diluted the drop of Gene Wedge original solution hundreds of times with saline solution, and then sucked it into a brand new syringe.
They did not choose intravenous injection, which has lower risks but slower results.
"If you're going to gamble, gamble the biggest." Xu Ye made a decision that required even more courage.
The injection is administered directly to the primary lesion in the abdomen.
He lifted his shirt and wiped the area of skin with an alcohol swab.
He took a deep breath and inserted the needle.
The cool medicine was slowly pushed in.
one second.
two seconds.
The intense tearing and burning sensation originates from the core of the lesion.
"Ugh—!" Xu groaned in pain, sprang up from the chair, and then fell heavily to the ground.
It hurts, it hurts so much...
"Did it fail...?"
Has an unknown malignant mutation occurred in the "gene wedge"?
Is it attacking its own normal cells?
Do not!
Xu Ye endured the pain, mobilizing the last trace of primordial spores within his body, immersing his consciousness into the source of the excruciating pain.
He wanted to witness the final chapter of this war with his own eyes.
Through the spores' internal vision, countless tiny drills emitting a ghostly blue light plunged into the hideous, uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells.
They triggered the long-forgotten "apoptosis program" deep within cancer cells.
Those once-arrogant cancer cells, which had been frantically devouring his life, became as docile as lambs before the [Gene Wedge].
They gave up resisting.
Cell membrane bubbling and contraction, nucleus fragmentation, chromatin condensation...
I don't know how much time passed.
An hour, or a century.
When the excruciating pain finally subsided, Xu could also feel that the cancer pain, which had been like a maggot clinging to his bones and gnawing at his life force day and night, had completely disappeared.
Xu also looked inward at himself once again.
He discovered that the tumor in his abdomen, which he knew all too well, had visibly shrunk by nearly a third.
He won.
He survived!