The connecting wire was severed at the root, and the remaining mycelium let out a dying scream, spurting out a sticky, dark red juice with a sweet, fishy smell. A powerful force suddenly pulled her from the cold metal seat. Xu Shuangyao slammed into a solid embrace, and the strong smell of blood mixed with gunpowder smoke and Pei Du's unique, cold, metallic scent instantly filled her nostrils.
It was Pei Du! Three claw marks deep enough to reveal the bone ripped through his battle uniform. Dark red, sticky, gelatinous blood oozed from the wounds, emitting a pungent, fishy odor. Tiny fungal hyphae wriggled around the edges of the wounds, their hideous forms eerily resembling the outline of the "Crown of Thorns... Dependents" totem lingering on Xu Shuangyao's terminal!
His face was pale, his breathing rapid, and sweat mixed with blood and dust dripped from his sharp jaw. He didn't even glance at his horrific wound. One arm tightly wrapped around Xu Shuangyao like an iron hoop, while the long knife in his other hand pointed diagonally at the ground. The sticky bacterial blood dripping from the tip of the knife spread a small dark red on the dusty ground.
"Scavengers..." Pei Du's voice was hoarse, panting after an intense battle and carrying a chill that penetrated deep into his bones. "They... have tamed new mutants. These aren't ordinary infected... they're weapons! They're somehow directly 'breeding' data! They're using the mutants as living data containers and harvesting tools!" He quickly tore open a first aid kit and, without even looking, pressed a faintly pulsating, dark green fluorescent sclerotium into the deepest wound on his chest. The moment the sclerotium came into contact with his blood, a sizzling sound emanated, and the frantic squirming of mycelium at the edge of the wound seemed to be temporarily suppressed. However, Pei Du's expression became even uglier, and veins bulged at his forehead, clearly enduring immense pain.
The thorny road of the new order
The wrecked, modified RV lurched wildly across the desolate Gobi Desert, dotted with gaping cracks and clumps of bizarre, fluorescent fungi. Its engine roared under immense strain, and its tail belched a thick, black smoke mingled with unburned fungal spores. Outside the car window, the blood-red afterglow of the setting sun, fragmented by the remains of giant fungi and the twisted skeletons of twisted metal structures, painted the dead landscape like a scene from hell.
The car was filled with the scent of disinfectant, blood, and a faint, fungal aroma, like soil after rain. Xu Shuangyao huddled before the scratched console, her eyes bloodshot as she stared intently at the fragments of data on the screen, painstakingly parsed by a specialized algorithm. A three-dimensional projection hovered and spun before her, countless dots of light and lines interweaving into a vast, complex network pulsing with life.
"Look here... and here..." Xu Shuangyao's voice trembled slightly with fatigue and excitement. She manipulated quickly, dynamically amplifying the data flows of several key nodes. "The traditional hierarchical data exchange structure has completely collapsed! The new order... it's like a giant, living root network! The nodes are the data sources, those points of light... the data exchange between them... my god, this pattern... is exactly the same as the symbiotic network of mycorrhizal fungi in the forest! Plunder, exchange, symbiosis, parasitism... even... war!"
Pei Du sat silently, carefully wiping his long sword, now stained with dark red bacteria, with a cloth soaked in disinfectant. The blade reflected an icy cold light under the dim emergency lighting. Hearing Xu Shuangyao's words, he paused, his gaze fixed on the spinning projection.
In the projection, the dots representing the known "bacteria dome" sphere of influence radiated an ominous dark red glow. Like aggressive cancerous tissue, they frantically devoured the surrounding dots, representing small survivor strongholds or neutral data sources. With each devour, the dark red dots expanded, while the devoured dots were completely extinguished. This was a naked, efficient, and law of the jungle of data, where the strong prey on the weak.
"Hmph, the law of the jungle..." Pei Du scoffed coldly, a tinge of intense mockery and a subtle hint of fatigue. "The strong prey on the weak, and the victor takes all. Simple and straightforward." His gaze was fixed on a node Xu Shuangyao had specially marked, a faint but distinctive dark golden glow—the exact location indicated by the coordinate fragment of the "Crown of Thorns" she had captured. "But... this 'Crown of Thorns' you discovered... doesn't seem to like playing by the rules of the 'Fungus Dome'?"
"It's the biggest variable!" Xu Shuangyao's eyes gleamed with a mixture of curiosity and vigilance. She quickly zoomed in on a section of the "Crown of Thorns" diagram. This was a stark contrast to the "Fungus Dome," a greedy, overbearing, and one-way, predatory expansion model. The thorny branches of code that comprised the crown, after each seemingly "predatory" scoop of data from a node, actually released a flood of tiny, extremely complex encrypted packets into the surrounding network space! Like dandelion seeds, these packets silently merged into the network, attaching themselves to other data streams.
"Look! It's spreading something!" Xu Shuangyao pointed at the encrypted packages highlighted by a special algorithm. "It's not a virus... more like a... countermeasure program? Or... some kind of 'vaccine'? Just like some plants, in order to fight pests and diseases, they will actively secrete compounds with antibacterial or insect repellent effects into the surrounding environment! It's trying to influence, or even... transform the underlying rules of the entire data ecosystem! It's resisting the engulfment of the 'bacterial dome'!"
Just as she was excited about this amazing discovery!
Boom!!!
The RV felt like it had been struck by an invisible hammer! The entire car emitted a teeth-grinding groan of twisted metal! The immense force of the impact sent all unsecured items flying! Xu Shuangyao was thrown from her seat and slammed hard against the cold metal wall, the excruciating pain blinding her vision. Pei Du's reaction was incredibly fast. The moment the impact occurred, he pounced like a cheetah, shielding Xu Shuangyao with his body!
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