Three seconds after the questioner finished asking, the alien intelligence began to move.
It surged toward the nearest ring of parasitized forms and started devouring them.
Three, five, ten, twenty, fifty…
Sweat beaded on the questioner’s forehead; he knew the cost of asking this question would be far higher than sothing like “What is your na.”
But judging from how quickly the alien entity consud the parasitized forms, they had still underestimated that cost.
In less than a few minutes, over two hundred parasitized forms in the inner ring had been swallowed. The alien’s pace did not slow at all; it imdiately began sweeping through the next inner ring.
This made the soldiers on the outermost ring uneasy, their palms damp with sweat.
mbers of the Contact Delegation were even more chilled to the bone; the faint-hearted didn’t even dare to look.
On site, Commander Sigaochin watched the rapidly diminishing count of parasitized forms and began to worry whether they would run out.
“Hurry, bring more parasitized forms down from the trucks!”
There were roughly a thousand parasitized forms arranged in several rings around the alien. The total transported to the Landing Site exceeded four thousand.
Now the alien had consud two rings, leaving two rings left. They had to place new ones in front before it finished, or it might attack the soldiers or the Contact Delegation.
For their own safety, the soldiers hurried, moving the parasitized forms out of the trucks as fast as they could.
The live feed from the site was synchronized to the Human Consortium’s remote eting screen. Even though delegates watching through the feed were physically safe, most of them looked tense.
“It’s already eaten over five hundred parasitized forms! Does a single question cost this much?”
“Judging by its movent, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop.”
“We transported those thousands of parasitized forms for multiple questions. Are we really going to burn through them all on one question?”
“As long as we can get an answer, it’s worth it!” Gao Liangwei said in a deep voice. “With the ans to distinguish them, we can ensure we won’t misidentify our food sources.”
Mary stared at the screen. “Chairman Gao is right. Even if those thousands of parasitized forms are all consud by this one question, as long as we get an answer, it’s fine.”
“The number consud has exceeded a thousand.”
The footage on the screen was grueso. Even knowing the things being devoured were parasitized forms, their human-derived appearances still filled viewers with an indescribable horror.
“One thousand five hundred, and it hasn’t stopped!”
“Almost two thousand!”
“What if the parasitized forms at the site aren’t enough? Will the soldiers…”
“I think those soldiers are disciplined elite from Xisiya. Your new Administrator won’t be stingy, will he?”
Everyone looked toward Torafuto, the Xisiya delegate, who sat solemn and said nothing.
At the Landing Site, Sigaochin gritted his teeth.
At that mont a private channel in his earpiece opened, and Yelanka’s unmistakable voice issued an unequivocal order.
“Sigaochin, if it has not stopped after it has swallowed the three-thousandth parasitized form, you will imdiately lead the mobile teams to move away from the Landing Site at maximum speed.”
“Move the Action Team away?”
Sigaochin glanced toward the several hundred people in the Contact Delegation. “Administrator, if we do that…”
“That is the order.”
“…Understood.”
About five thousand parasitized forms had been delivered to the Landing Site in total. After the question was posed, the alien kept consuming; nearly half of the five thousand had already vanished into its black, tar-like body.
Sigaochin calmly tallied the numbers. If the consumption surpassed three thousand, she would imdiately withdraw all mobile team soldiers.
What would happen to the Contact Delegation, and whether the alien would move long-distance to seek the nearest food source if the site were emptied—she could not judge.
But she would carry out Yelanka’s order without hesitation.
Two thousand six, two thousand seven, two thousand eight…
Sigaochin took a deep breath and lifted her shoulders slightly.
Just as she was about to raise her hand to give the order, the frenzied, black, viscous consuming mass finally stopped.
Two thousand nine…
Her hand froze mid-motion; the alien had paused at two thousand nine hundred.
She instantly realized it was about to speak.
The site fell into dead silence. The handful of people with live-stream viewing access focused intently from wherever they were.
Everyone wanted to know what answer would justify such a cost.
A sequence of incomprehensible murmurs began to emanate from the black, muddy body.
The sound made many feel despair.
Could the answer be in a language humans could not understand? If so, even obtaining it would be pointless for humanity!
Yet at the end of that unintelligible string, a word humans could understand appeared.
“Mind Network.”
…
At the Human Consortium eting, when the alien intelligence finished giving its answer, the delegates fell into montary shock.
Each person digested the information for a mont before starting to discuss.
“Mind Network? Did I hear that right? It ended with ‘Mind Network’?”
“Indeed. Among that alien’s long sequence of sounds, the only part I understood was the final two words, ‘Mind Network.’”
“I rember the Mind Network appeared in Rule Twelve: Digital Detox as a special Mind Power product. How could this thing say it? Could it be… that their ho world also had a Mind Network?”
“You don’t an to suggest this patch of black sludge is an Ascendant, do you?”
“That…”
“Not impossible! Don’t forget Kimos Star—wasn’t that a planet destroyed by the strange fog beasts from the Fire Thief’s Rule ‘Nightmare Beasts in the Mist’? This suggests that the rules manifesting on our Tianshui Star might have occurred on many civilized planets across the universe. Then…”
“All right, don’t get sidetracked. Since it said that, the Mind Network might be a key to identifying parasitized forms, at least until we can analyze and decode that previous string of sounds.”
“But the Mind Network was shut down long ago after the Digital Detox rule ended; Ascendants can’t use it anymore.”
“Exactly. Even if we know that answer, what use is it? It’s basically useless to us now…”
They had sacrificed nearly three thousand parasitized forms. The price had bought them mostly incomprehensible language and a thod they couldn’t use. A heavy sense of frustration weighed on everyone.
“In any case, we did get an answer… a partial answer.” Torafuto tried to sound optimistic.
“And it said that long string of alien speech first—there’s a lot of raw linguistic data there. Maybe our linguists, aided by AI, can decode it. If we can crack its language system, that would be a greater gain!”
No one believed alien speech could be easily deciphered, but it was a glimr of hope.
And since one confird answer was the Mind Network, humanity now had a direction to pursue.
“Hey, what about asking this for the next question,” Mary said, “How can humans activate the Mind Network?”
The delegates were taken aback; at first listen, the idea had rit.
If the Mind Network is one key to identifying parasitized forms, asking how to activate it would be doubling down on that path.
But humans had already activated the Mind Network before. The condition was simple then: when two Ascendants’ Mind Power connected and both had the intention of linking, they could form the smallest Mind Network.
After Rule Twelve: Digital Detox ended, that thod beca invalid. Why it ceased to work remained unclear; many suspected the Fire Thief’s involvent.
Gao Liangwei said, “If we ask that, the alien’s answer might be like the hidden information behind that rule. That would be almost aningless to us.”
“Yes. The rule’s termination and thod failure look like the Fire Thief preventing humans from using the Mind Network. Even if we obtain the thod, who’s to say it would be usable now?”
“It would waste a precious question, and such a query would certainly demand a high price.”
Seeing strong opposition, Mary snorted softly. “I only said it offhand. Now that I think it through, it’s indeed immature.”
No sooner had she spoken than her expression changed dramatically.
As if sothing urgent had happened, she abruptly exited the remote connection.
The other delegates were stunned, unsure what had occurred. At that mont, a private channel in Gao Liangwei’s earpiece transmitted a startling piece of news: the Republic of Fahe had launched an offensive against the Suroma Empire!
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