Chapter 1962: The Curtain of the Catastrophe

Under the pitch-black night, two evolution wolves with pitch-black fur darted swiftly through the lush evolution forest.

Inside the brightly lit office of Territory One, Zone Seven, in northern Hui-3, Lord Zhang San's expression was just as grave as those of the Hui-3 base commander, vice commander, and research institute director in the video conference.

In the abandoned village of Territory Three, inside a small building whose exterior was patched with several long strips of cement, Xia Qing also wore a grave expression. "Third Brother didn't tell me much, but I feel this whole thing reeks of something fishy."

Yang Jin, who was on a video call with her, nodded. "This whole thing does feel deliberately staged. It's like we're being led around by the nose."

Since Yang Jin felt the same way, Xia Qing became even more certain her instincts were right. "I suspect the enemy wants to use the chaos caused by this genetically modified dog to probe the cooperative relationship and response speed between humans and fierce beasts at Hui-3 Base. That's why I called Old Four back and told it to bring the Missing-Ear Wolf to my place tonight. I'll change their fur color back. Until we figure out the enemy's objective, we hold our position."

What's the factual basis for ordering Old Four to retreat?

In these times, anyone—human or beast—who doesn't act the moment something feels off won't survive to the twelfth year of the catastrophe.

So, after receiving Xia Qing's notification, the vigilant Old Four, the former wolf king of the southern sector, immediately withdrew from the eastern wild dog pack's territory and headed toward the evolution forest in northern Hui-3 with the Missing-Ear Wolf.

Her idol was in a meeting and Old Four was still on the road, so with too little intelligence to work with, Xia Qing called Yang Jin to hear his analysis.

Drawing on all the intelligence gathered by the Azure Dragon Squad, Yang Jin analyzed the situation in detail. "Hui-1 Base is Blue Blood's stronghold. After Guo Hanmo's underground experimental projects were exposed, most of Hui-1's senior management—including the Hui City Base commander and the Hui-1 Base commander—were replaced, weakening Blue Blood's control over Hui-1 Base."

"We led the Azure Dragon Squad members out of Hui-1 Base and joined Hui-3. After Deng Yufeng led the Blaze Squad out, they occupied Blaze Volcano and also broke free of Blue Blood Alliance's control."

"Blue Blood made a meticulous arrangement to plant Qu Fangzhou inside the Blaze Squad. One purpose was to have her keep an eye on the recovery-type evolver Deng Yufeng. The other was to use the Blaze Squad, which stood in the open, to coordinate with Blue Blood Alliance members in the shadows and continue controlling the various forces and intelligence in Hui-1. This came from Qu Fangzhou's deathbed confession. After our analysis, we confirmed it's genuine intelligence."

Xia Qing offered her view. "Deng Yufeng treats Blue Blood as her sworn enemy, but her radical methods are identical to Blue Blood's."

Yang Jin glanced at the stubborn tuft of hair that always stuck up beside Xia Qing's ear and nodded. "Exactly. Fire Phoenix's revenge against Blue Blood Alliance isn't about opposing Blue Blood Alliance's extreme views and methods—it's because Blue Blood Alliance treated her as a test subject. After taking control of the Blaze Squad, she managed the squad and coordinated external relations in exactly the same way Blue Blood Alliance does. She wants to destroy Blue Blood and take its place."

Using illegal experiments to speed up drug R&D, advance the modified-human program, and stimulate evolution abilities—these are what Blue Blood does, and they're also the Blaze Squad's main means of survival.

The only difference is that in Blue Blood's plan, Deng Yufeng was a test subject, while in the Blaze Squad's plan, Deng Yufeng is the one in power—the phoenix who walked out of the underground lab reborn in fire. Anyone who blocks her rebirth, and their loved ones, will be crushed by her extreme methods—or even tied to an experimental table and made into test subjects.

"With the Blaze Squad's collapse, Deng Yufeng's disappearance, and the Hui-1 Base commander's removal, Blue Blood's control over Hui-1 Base and the entire Hui City Base has plummeted. The massive 12/23 explosion case at our base late last year, the tiger poisoning case earlier this year, the senior evolver Professor Wu's cancer case, and the slaughter-bomb case—all point squarely at Blue Blood Alliance's extreme anti-human behavior, making it a common target and causing its influence and rallying power across the bases to plummet."

Xia Qing nodded.

Wu Chengyu is a top-tier precision instrument research expert on Blue Star. For the past eleven years, for the sake of base development and his own survival, he has diligently performed basic work such as aircraft improvement and maintenance at Lan-1 Base, making outstanding contributions to humanity's fight against the catastrophe.

When Blue Blood Alliance set its sights on a talent like him and failed to recruit him, they resorted to the extreme measure of poisoning him with cancer to force him to join. This shocked all sectors of the country and triggered a tidal wave of public outrage.

"The alliance Third Brother and Sixth Brother formed in northern Zone One has become a clear banner for the academic research community in opposing Blue Blood Alliance and radical organizations."

Yang Jin continued his reasoning. "Blue Blood has tried several times—even deploying their secretly developed slaughter bombs—and still failed to tear down that banner. They'll definitely take countermeasures to turn the situation around."

"Unlike the accidental exposure of the slaughter-tiger poison test subject, this gene-edited dog actively exhibited abnormal behavior, actively provoked conflict with the jackal pack, and actively drew human attention."

"If we can confirm this is a test subject released by Blue Blood Alliance, the reason they did it isn't limited to the one you mentioned—probing the human-beast relationship at Hui-3 Base."

Yang Jin paused. Only when the thoughtful Xia Qing raised her bright, clear eyes to look at him did he slowly speak. "Blue Blood is announcing to the outside world that their gene-editing technology has succeeded."

"In last year's national census, evolvers made up 3.9‰ of the total population. Even factoring in those who actively hide their evolution abilities and those whose potential hasn't been triggered, the evolver proportion won't exceed 5‰—still a minority group. If they can use gene-editing technology to directionally trigger ordinary people's potential or boost their combat power, the landscape of Blue Star will be reshaped."

Having risen from the bottom of society, Xia Qing understood exactly how vicious this move by Blue Blood was. "Once Blue Blood Alliance publicly announces the success of gene-editing technology, ordinary people struggling at the edge of life and death will know they can change their fate this way. Even if the success rate is only ten percent, a huge number of people will try it."

Gene editing failure leads to immune system collapse and death? So what if they die—life now isn't much better than death anyway!

Editing human genes will pollute the entire human gene pool. Once key loci in human genes are damaged, the natural evolutionary path will be forcibly broken. Within decades, humanity could lose its ability to adapt to new environments, and might even see widespread genetic diseases, immune system collapse, and even the inability to conceive naturally?

When you can barely keep yourself alive, who the hell cares what happens to future generations!

Xia Qing took a deep breath, looked at Yang Jin on the screen, and offered her guess. "The true controllers of Blue Blood are very likely a few ordinary people without evolution abilities. Their thoroughly stirring up the situation this time probably has an even deeper reason—Blue Blood's lab has discovered some technology that can trigger human evolution abilities, and they need large-scale human experiments."

"They're dangling the gene-modification bait to lure ordinary survivors struggling at the edge of survival into the lab as test subjects. After Blue Blood completes this final round of large-scale human testing, those in power will use this technology to completely change the fate of themselves and the interest groups they represent."

Yang Jin nodded. "If our speculation holds, then the offspring bred between that gene-edited dog and the wild dogs in the evolution forest should have the same mutated claws as it."

And these mutated canid pups were right there in the core territory of the eastern wild dog pack, waiting to be discovered by the moderate researchers led by Zhang San.

Having Zhang San personally lift the curtain on this catastrophe is an important part of Blue Blood's conspiracy.

Because Guo Qingbin, the radical expert and same-frequency evolver who had been giving Blue Blood free publicity as their spokesperson, was turned into an idiot by Zhang San using a method of flooding him with massive amounts of junk information.