Chapter 576

To be honest, since joining Li Cheng, the Hive has never truly recovered. Even during the London battle, the corner wounds leaked oil and tissue fluid.

Subsequent battles came one after another with almost no break; now, when called out, its skull still has its lid open, its left and right chest plates temporarily welded together with steel plates, and a row of pink bandages stuck along the weld seams.

"I, and all the god-corrupted bodies I have consumed and absorbed—my brothers and sisters—"

the Mechanical Hive said in a low voice, "have never seen the true form of the Worm Lord god-corruption."

The essence of carbon-based memory is the arrangement and combination of neurons and neural pathways; when the Hive absorbed god-corrupted bodies, it also absorbed most of their memories.

Li Cheng mused: "So, within your known range, there are no eyewitness reports of the god-corruption's true form. Not even indirect contact records."

"Any living thing that might have seen the Worm Lord's true form has been eaten by it."

Grey Rain, imitating Li Cheng's gesture, rubbed his chin and raised his hand: "Suppose a Worm Lord-corrupted body encounters the Worm Lord's true form—would it trigger something like a familiar's instinctive fear of a vampire ancestor, freezing it genetically?"

"Probably not."

The Mechanical Hive paused, then said: "The infection and distortion effect of the Worm Lord god-corruption's genes comes not only from biochemistry, but also significantly from concepts."

Among the brothers and sisters I have consumed, there were those whose raw power exceeded mine and who became infected far earlier than I did.

Yet upon contact, two entities with independent evolutionary paths experience at most a vague, intangible resonance—not suppression or fear."

The true form of the god-corruption likely operates the same way—according to my and other infected bodies' conjectures, the Worm Lord god-corruption may have replaced its hosts several times; whoever defeats and consumes the previous one automatically becomes the new Worm Lord.

The most primitive genetic code within us hopes to see us kill each other, compete, eliminate, and evolve."

Li Cheng made no comment on the Hive's speculation, but the fact that the god-corruption's infection and distortion effect involves conceptual elements is indeed true.

"The contagion effect of homeopathy..."

He muttered thoughtfully, then, seeing Grey Rain's curious gaze, explained offhandedly: "Homeopathy is a 18

th-century alternative medical therapy founded by German physician Samuel Hahnemann, centered on 'like cures like' plus dilution.

For example, arsenic causes gastric spasms, so arsenic is used to treat stomach illness. Take one part arsenic, add it to ninety-nine parts water, shake, randomly take one part of the solution, add more water, shake again, dilute—repeat thirty times. Then take one final dose.

Grey Rain counted on his fingers and exclaimed in disbelief: "Can this actually work?"

"Of course not."

'Like cures like' is nonsense to begin with, let alone a solution diluted thirty times that contains not a single active molecule of the drug.

This modern nonsense called homeopathy is only believed by tens of millions of illiterates in the U. S. and India."

Li Cheng shrugged. "Long ago, I conducted a similar experiment using a Worm Lord god-corruption crystal: crushed it, diluted it repeatedly with water, then used the solvent to stimulate different types of biological cells and microorganisms.

Theoretically, the repeatedly diluted solvent contains no crystal molecules, yet a significant portion of the microbial cultures in the petri dishes still showed varying degrees of mutation.

This proves the Worm Lord god-corruption's infection carries at least some conceptual elements."

Grey Rain scratched his head and admitted honestly: "Hard to understand."

"It's normal to find it hard. When you reach higher levels of power, concepts, memes, and anti-memes enter the equation."

Li Cheng said casually: "The good news is the Worm Lord god-corruption's genetic foundation, rooted in the material plane, can be killed—it's not as ethereal as the 【Formless Conception】 or certain other god-corruptions."

I saw on the forum that the Monutong Alliance once allegedly discovered the Love god-corruption—it couldn't be seen by human eyes or any scientific instrument; all they knew was that wherever the Love god-corruption appeared, intense, unexplained emotions would arise.

Between people, between people and objects, between people and abstract concepts (like 'nation,' 'freedom,' 'happiness,' 'love')."

"Ohhh."

Grey Rain suddenly understood, pulled out his phone: "Something like this?"

The phone screen clearly showed a short-video app: Felix Taylor, the anomaly taken in and housed by the Special Affairs Bureau, was tearfully holding a permanent residency permit for foreigners, recording himself, "I'm in China! I'm in China! So happy! Hahahaha! For a moment I felt unreal—I opened my eyes and I was in China! Hahahaha! Look at this sky, so blue! Look at these clouds, so white!"

Felix walked down the streets of Old Baijing, speaking fluent Mandarin, his left wrist wearing a specially made watch from the Special Affairs Bureau (likely to seal his anomaly abilities), his right hand holding his daughter's: "Dad, I bought a basket of seven steamed buns, and the server gave me eight. Steamed buns are so delicious."

The father-daughter duo's daily life was heartwarmingly ordinary—they'd filmed dozens of short videos documenting their move to real Earth—but their dialogue was utterly absurd, constantly saying things like "Starbucks, bad! Mixue Bingcheng, good!"

"Taking a taxi in Old Baijing is so convenient—you're at your door in seconds."

"When I stepped off the plane and stood on this land, I immediately felt the air was incredibly sweet."

The video's comment section was filled mostly with script-world Beyonders who had been brought to reality by the Special Affairs Bureau but hadn't yet received their temporary Earth residency permits, or outright natives of Back-Alley Street who had no qualifications to reach the real world, all envious, jealous, and bitter toward Felix and his daughter for getting permanent residency: "Congratulations on embracing civilization."

"Evacuation successful. Congratulations on making it ashore."

"QAQ, fellow native, come back! Back-Alley Street just released another batch of enhancement agents!"

"So what? What does this have to do with my 3,000-calorie meal?"

Li Cheng, who had seen it all, wiped sweat from his brow: "Ahem, Felix's situation is still different from conceptual infection or meme contagion..."

The environment of the city where the Special Affairs Bureau is stationed is vastly superior to that of the vast majority of script worlds and Back-Alley Street, and the Special Affairs Bureau's moral fiber is far higher than other factions. If Felix had fallen into the hands of the Evil Science Alliance, Prometheus, or other factions... the outcome is unthinkable.

The environment of the city where the Special Affairs Bureau was stationed was indeed far better than that of the vast majority of script worlds and Back-Alley, and the Special Affairs Bureau's moral bottom line was also far higher than that of other guilds—if Felix fell into the hands of the Evil Science Alliance, Prometheus, or other guilds... the outcome didn't bear thinking about.

A respectful voice came through the communication channel. Li Cheng pulled out his phone, glanced at the map sent by the Servitor: "Huh? You found the original location of that Republican-era mansion?"

The straight-line distance between the Republican-era mansion and the toy factory is roughly five hundred kilometers; factoring in terrain obstacles impassable by conventional transport, it's about three thousand kilometers.

Besides assigning Servitors to pose as a film crew and deceive Ada and others, Li Cheng had earlier dispatched a portion of his Servitors, equipped with aerial vehicles and engineering vehicles, to search for the Republican-era mansion—and they've now found it on a plain.

Besides having the automata play the role of a film crew and put on an act to fool Aida and the others, Li Cheng had also dispatched a portion of automata in advance, along with flying vehicles and engineering vehicles, to search for the Republic-era old residence, and they had now found one on a plain.

"Oh?" Li Cheng's interest sparked. "Dig down three chi. Package everything—soil and all. Don't miss the trees at the entrance, the groundwater, the earthworms, the insects."

This mold consistently produces evil spirits—worth studying. If it can be cultivated like mushrooms, the alchemical magic cannon won't lack ammunition.

This mold could steadily produce evil spirits and was worth researching—if it could be cultivated on a scale like mushrooms, the Alchemical Magic Cannon would never lack ammunition.

Turned into... a fierce-ghost launcher?