Chapter 556.2: The Threats To Humanity

[Event Announcement]

[New Year’s Eve Event Successfully Concluded!]

[Boulder Town Regional Results]

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Most popular dish among players: Creamy Leeches and Mushroom Soup

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Wastelander Favorite: Cotton Candy

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Administrator’s Favorite: Pan-Seared Corned Beef Cake

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[Update:

New "Mercenary Guild" System Added

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[Notice:

Some commissions from the Merchant Guild have been migrated to the Mercenary Guild. Players can now register as mercenaries and accept missions through the VM.

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Tail: Wuwuwu, Mercenary Guild! My Mercenary Guild! I thought of it first! QAQ

Quit Smoking: Haha! Light totally ripped it off from the forum! (evil laugh)

Sisi: There, there, don’t cry, Tail. We can start our own outside New Alliance territory.

Little Ghost: Oooh! Our cotton candy actually got picked!

Light Wind: Yay, got the limited title unlocked! Hehe, I’m so happy!

Night Ten: Damn it, another sweet dish! Last year it was sweets too! Do wastelanders really love sugar that much?! ୧(๑•̀ᗝ•́)૭

Tomato Eggs: Exactly! Why didn’t our fried Battleship Shrimp win?! It’s so delicious! T.T

Night Ten: Worst part is, Ample Time’s wife only gave us 8 points!

Ample Time: You guys... You were the ones who picked a bunch of pretty girls to be the judges. Don’t blame them for liking sweet things. (¬_¬)

He had dragged Dori to their stall last night and even gave them face by ordering a big plate.

Too bad for them, it was too oily. Dori barely touched it, and all the shrimp she peeled ended up in his stomach.

Out of 10, giving them 8 points was actually generous.

Because the final event score wasn’t based on a simple average or total, but calculated through a specific formula, both the approval rate and the number of attracted judges carried significant weight, so having a single high score clearly wasn’t enough to win.

Although the greasy Battleship Shrimp did draw quite a few customers, it was no match for the sweet scent of cotton candy that filled the entire street the night before.

Not to mention that stuff didn’t even fill their stomach! People could still have a bite or two even after being full.

With so many buffs stacked up, the outcome seemed predetermined from the start...

Night Ten: Tsk... that was careless!

Old White: Hahaha, got it. Next time we’ll pick a few drinking buddies! Something like bar snacks! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Teng Teng: Sigh, jokes aside, seeing Xiaoyu happily eating cotton candy was so cute!

Yaya: Totally～

Night Ten: !!! I vote for Xiaoyu!

Mosquito: Wuwuwu, damn it, I want to raise one too!

Tail: @Light, officer, it’s this one. This is the one right here, please catch him!

Mosquito: OI! I was just saying it for laughs! ( ˶°ㅁ°) !!

Irene: Better file a case, bro. (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

Mosquito: FUCK!

Garbage: Big news! Seems like there’s some movement on the southern expansion!

Ample Time: What kind of movement?

Garbage: Members from the Torch Church showed up in Dust Town to preach! They’ve already reached within 800 kilometers of us!

Escaping Mole: Where’s Dust Town...?

Garbage: Uh, the place I told you about before, hehe.

Eye Owe Money: Ohh, that little village of yours huh. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Construction Boy: Psh, I thought it was something big. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Garbage: Come on! I’m being serious here!

Old White: Brother Garbage, your settlement is near Brocade Lake Municipality, right?

Garbage: Yep! Right there!

Old White: Alright, we actually have a mission in Brocade Lake Municipality in a couple days. We’ll swing by and check it out. (≖⩊≖)

Sideline Slacking: Damn! What mission?

Old White: Recovering nuclear fuel.(≖⩊≖)

Sideline Slacking: Awesome!!!

Spring Water Commander: So jealous I could cry! T.T

Old White: Ahem, we’re counting on you for supplies!

Garbage: Haha, no worries! We lack everything except food here! Oh right, bring us some seeds and fertilizer, it’s been ages since a merchant caravan came by!

Night Ten: Damn, you guys doing poverty relief down there!

Garbage: What poverty relief?! This is expanding territory for the New Alliance!

Elf King Wang: Isn’t it more like being a cultist? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Garbage: Ahem, that’s all just exaggerated talk, don’t take it seriously...

Irene: I heard you even have statues built already. (¬_¬)

...

In the administrator’s office at Boulder Town City Hall.

While players chattered away on the official forum, a report from the Guardian Corps was held in Chu Guang’s hand.

Before the snowfall, he had already ordered Lu Bei to dispatch a 100-man team from the Guardian Corps to the southern Brocade River Province to gather intel on the Na Fruit.

The Na Fruit had first appeared at the New Alliance’s celebration.

Although Hyrja had told him it wasn’t as terrifying as it seemed, he still smelled a hint of conspiracy.

Now, both the Guardian Corps' investigation and the players’ forum chatter confirmed his earlier suspicions.

"It’s not just viruses and bacteria... even the Torch Church, mutants, and southern slavers, those completely unrelated trash, have all been swept up by this little fruit." Chu Guang clicked his tongue as he reached the end of the report.

According to the Guardian Corps' investigation, the Torch Church’s area of influence almost perfectly overlapped with the regions where Na Fruit was being cultivated!

That clearly wasn’t a coincidence!

The cultists took advantage of southern slavers losing access to food supplies from the Valley Province to quietly promote a cash crop called Na Fruit, then exported their faith to those survivor settlements that became dependent on the fruit.

As for why the survivors obeyed so readily, the Guardian Corps discovered that the Torch Church controlled a supposed antidote called Holy Water.

It was well known that most people and animals, after prolonged consumption of Na Fruit, became increasingly docile and would periodically enter a hallucinogenic state called the Divine Trance.

That state caused a total loss of reaction to external stimuli, and even up to death, they would remain immersed in blissful illusions. Even when preyed upon, they wouldn’t resist.

It was just like horsehair worms in mantises.

Considering the fruit’s traits, anyone or anything entering the Divine Trance effectively became a Na Fruit in another form, passing the seed along the food chain.

Only Mutant Humans or apex predators like Deathclaws, creatures born from biological engineering, showed partial immunity to its effects.

The Torch Church’s Holy Water allowed users to awaken from the Divine Trance and consciously live within the blissful hallucination.

Initially, slave traders only fed Na Fruit to their slaves to keep them obedient, but after experiencing its benefits, they began eating it themselves, and eventually pledged loyalty to the Torch Church that held the antidote.

But the Torch Church didn’t stop there.

On one hand, they played the role of shepherds, indoctrinating survivors and turning settlements into sheep pens.

On the other hand, they used those lambs to buy off local Mutant Human tribes in the Brocade River Province.

The addicts in Divine Trance were virtually unbreakable and served as both exquisite delicacies and ideal breeding hosts for the brutal mutants.

That was also a clue uncovered by the Guardian Corps.

Originally, the slave traders of Brocade River Province relied on the weapons sold by those in the south of River Valley Province to hold their own against mutants.

But after becoming hooked on Na Fruit, these once-superior survivor settlements quickly lost combat capacity and were absorbed into the Torch Church’s sphere of influence.

At the same time, mutants almost never invaded those survivor zones under the Torch Church’s control, and if they did, they retreated quickly.

That clearly indicated that the Torch Church and the Mutant Human tribes had struck some kind of agreement, perhaps even a contract.

After reading the report on Na Fruit, Chu Guang turned to another investigation, on the Torch Church itself. He had long suspected a link between the Torch Church and the Enlightenment Society. But surprisingly, the Guardian Corps' findings pointed in the opposite direction.

The Torch Project’s core ideology was to destroy the world and then remake it, achieving a kind of civilizational rebirth.

The Torch Church inherited their ideology. They too believed the world should be destroyed, but their roadmap differed completely from the Enlightenment Society.

They didn’t seek to rebuild a new world under pre-war elite rule, but to use biotechnology to transform humanity at the genetic level.

In short, to hatch a new humanity from the legacy of the old!

They didn’t have the Phase Neutron Extermination Strategic Orbital Gun, nor did they expect to wipe out all surface species with one button.

Instead, their true goal was to terraform the land, slowly and over time, to suit only the lifeforms of their choosing.

To their followers, they promised that all survivors who suffered or sinned in the old world would be eternally blessed in the new one.

In other words... As long as one work hard for the Torch Church’s cause, they would become a Complete Human in the New World.

This so-called Complete Human was none other than the source of how the Wislanders were first created. They were how fast-growing clones, and Mutant Humans came about. It was the Singularity Project of the pre-war era!

It was undoubtedly a mad plan.

If the Enlightenment Society was a form of threat aimed at post-war order and civilization, then the Torch Church was a threat aimed at humanity as a species.

Within their teachings, Mutant Humans were seen as intermediate forms on the path to becoming a Complete Human.

The crude, barbaric green gorillas weren’t perfect in aesthetics or civilization, but were still superior to old humans in adapting to the wasteland, and thus started from a higher baseline.

As such, they used some type of technology to convert some devout believers into noble mutants, granting them unparalleled strength and privileges over regular sheep-like humans.

However, high-level Torch Church leaders didn’t turn into Mutant Humans themselves. They were still waiting for a more perfect vessel.

Those mid-tier members who had already transformed were also prepared to evolve further into a new form of life.

"... Without a doubt, the Torch Church is the most urgent threat right now, far more pressing than those criminals further north of us." Chu Guang gave a succinct assessment as he finished the report.

"I think so too," Lu Bei, standing nearby, nodded with a serious look. "But one thing’s been bothering me. The nuclear fuel we’re owed by the Academy happens to be in the Brocade Lake Municipality, and so is the Qi Mutant Human Tribe... I suspect those cunning researchers are using us as pawns."

Obvious as it was, Chu Guang still gave the young man a surprised glance and nodded with approval. "Good. I’m glad you noticed."

Lu Bei chuckled sheepishly. "Only thanks to your guidance..."

Chu Guang smiled faintly and turned his gaze toward the map on the wall, eyes drifting past the Bugra Free State and Great Rift Valley, settling on the Wandering Swamp further up north.

"Many of us think of the Academy as a bunch of bookworms, but they’re anything but dumb. In fact, they’re sly as foxes."

"Their scheming probably surpasses even the Army and the Enterprise combined, and they’re masters of disguise. To get us to take the bait willingly, they’ll pretend we’ve scored a bargain. While we were tangled with the Army in the Sunset Province, they likely already had their sights on our southern flank."

Lu Bei furrowed his brow. "So it’s true then..."

Chu Guang nodded. "It’s an open conspiracy. Even knowing we’re being used, we still have to follow the path they laid out, for now."

After all, they were talking about 1,000 cubic meters of liquid Helium-3!

That was a total of 127 tons of fusion fuel!

Whether for the New Alliance’s exoframes or for the fusion reactor in West Continent Municipality, he had to get it!

Even if it meant doing one more job for the Academy, this massive haul was worth it.

Besides, the Torch Church was about to extend its hand into Brocade Lake Municipality. If the New Alliance made no move, the fuel might just fall into their hands.

Taking his eyes off the map, Chu Guang spoke slowly. "Little Seven..."

A spirited voice responded in his ear. "Yes, Master."

Without hesitation, Chu Guang gave the order.

"Notify the Burning Corps to assemble a 100-man team in Boulder Town, ready to depart for Brocade Lake Municipality in Brocade River Province within three days!"

The response was just as quick and unwavering. "Understood!"