Before everything goes out

...

"A chimera of consciousness?"

Inside the military tent, the woman referred to as "Chief of Staff" slowly turned her head and looked at a bespectacled adjutant beside her.

Unlike the other team members, the adjutant did not wear a black combat uniform, but rather a light gray overcoat.

His face didn't have much of a military bearing; instead, it had a scholarly air about it.

More like a doctor than a soldier.

"Tell me more about it."

"Um."

The adjutant handed over his notebook and began to explain.

"Two weeks ago, we found a river deer 11 kilometers away from this village. The test data showed that it was already highly decomposed, but strangely, it did not show the characteristics of decomposition that one would expect."

For example, a desire for flesh and blood, strong aggression, and physiological mutations.

To the naked eye, it appears no different from ordinary wild animals, which is a clear exception in the wild. Therefore, we launched an investigation...

Ta-da.

The woman tapped the notebook twice, interrupting the adjutant.

"These are all in previous reports, I've read them. Let me get to the point."

"OK."

The adjutant nodded and turned the page of his notebook.

Skipping over Fan Yaodong's squad that first discovered the village, skipping over Niu Zhiyuan, the liaison officer already sent to the outpost, skipping over the villagers who died in the rubble...

He skipped over various unimportant clues and gave the answer directly.

"The sixty-seven people currently living in the village are all 'hidden corrupted beings' who appeared under extremely coincidental circumstances, just like the river deer we encountered by chance."

This kind of latent corruption is difficult to achieve even in a laboratory, let alone in the wild.

Temperature, humidity, altitude, wind direction... all these factors combine and achieve a delicate balance, which is nothing short of a miracle.

Putting aside all the minor details, the most crucial condition is an underground river beneath this valley.

Unlike the decay of other inorganic substances, this river decays not through "objects," but through the nature of "concepts," and its specific scope of decay is...

The underground river extends for about 10 kilometers around Shuanghe Village.

The river water within this area exhibits unique decomposition characteristics, such as increased density and changes in morphology...

The most unique aspect is that it unconsciously receives "consciousness projections" from dozens of villagers above.

"You mean, this river is self-aware?"

"That's right. It not only has self-awareness, but this awareness didn't arise out of thin air; it came from dozens of villagers in Shuanghe Village."

At this point, the adjutant paused for a moment, waiting for his superior to process the information.

Only after seeing the woman squint her eyes and slowly nod did he continue.

"The research institute calls this a 'consciousness chimera,' which I've only heard of in theoretical studies before; this is the first time I've seen a real-life example."

As he spoke, he pulled a glass jar from his pocket.

Inside was a lump of irregularly shaped Tai Sui meat.

By chance, the villagers developed the habit of eating chimeras, which they called "Tai Sui meat".

Of course, it could also not be a coincidence, but rather the chimera projecting a command onto the villagers through its consciousness for some purpose, ordering them to eat it...

Subsequently, the villagers and the chimera formed a connection at the level of consciousness through these Tai Sui meats.

Therefore, the corrupt traits that the villagers should have exhibited, both psychologically and physiologically, were diluted and suppressed by the chimera's vast consciousness.

"I see..."

After a brief silence, the woman sorted out everything.

"Simply put, this meat is like a magic potion; only by eating this meat can these villagers maintain their human appearance, right?"

"That's right. From a certain perspective, this can be considered a kind of 'parasitism,' like the swarm consciousness of insects. Imagine the giant ant as the queen ant; as long as the queen ant doesn't collapse, the entire ant colony can survive."

The adjutant nodded.

"However, this maintenance is conditional. Once you leave the chimera's living range and go a certain distance away from Shuanghe Village, the suppression will fail."

We just tested this; the further away from Shuanghe Village the Tai Sui meat becomes, the less it takes shape, until it turns back into normal river water.

This is why all the latent corrupted entities that the team took away turned into monsters along the way.

The woman stood up and looked out of the tent.

Despite the rain, the villagers were all smiles, carrying various things in their arms, chatting and laughing as they carried them home.

"Besides the scope, what other restrictions are there?"

"stage."

The adjutant put down his notebook and ended the science popularization session.

"Corruption is irreversible. Once corruption enters the second stage, the chimera's suppression will no longer be effective, and the villagers will exhibit fully corrupted characteristics."

"So where are those second-stage corruptions? Where are they hiding?"

The woman glanced around.

Every villager was perfectly normal; there was no trace of a monster.

At least that's how it appears.

"Underground."

The adjutant held up one finger and pointed it to the ground.

"It exists in a 'cocooned' state."

...

...

"This is..."

"cocoon?"

The three of them slowly stopped by the underground river and looked at the strange spherical object in front of them.

It is about half a person's height, oval-shaped, black, and has a rough texture.

It looks like a giant cocoon.

"What is this? Is it an egg laid by a Tai Sui (a type of rare fungus)?"

Li Fei frowned slightly.

Only after Ertong walked up and circled the cocoon, wagging its tail, did he realize that the thing was probably not dangerous.

otherwise.

A regular here wouldn't be this relaxed.

I walked up to it and touched it; the outer shell of the cocoon was soft and rough, just like a real cocoon.

By placing a strong flashlight against its outer casing and letting the diffused light shine through, a human figure can be vaguely seen inside.

To be precise, it is a mutated humanoid form.