In the game, his role was that of an NPC. Outwardly, he was said to be a perfect AI, but if he could understand real-world memes, that realism would be hard to explain.

Real developers pretending to be AIs interacting with players wasn’t rare in exploitative game companies, but if players started thinking that NPC Chu Guang and that bastard developer Light were the same person, it would ruin the immersion completely.

He hadn’t dared show his face in front of players for days, afraid that if he did, he would break character and burst out laughing.

Just as Joey and the other veteran players were beginning to lose confidence in Operation Bodyguard, the covetous gaze that had been lying in wait outside the defenses finally began to stir...

...

Deep in the black underground tunnel, inside a blood-red palace carpeted with fungal mats, Thea stood in the center of the carpet and opened its strange eyes.

“I found their Mother Body.”

The spores hovering around it rippled slowly and carried the message to the Main Mother Body.

But their Main Mother Body’s response was far more violent than expected, as if it had heard something unbelievable. “Their Mother Body?! Those organisms have no Hive, they’re nothing but a filthy, ugly, chaotic lot!”

Thea thought for a moment, then transmitted its opinion with certainty. “No. They do have one. Remember the prey I caught last time? It was an empty shell, all three of them were. Their heads were like blank sheets of paper.”

At those words the Main Mother Body fell into a brief silence and did not immediately contradict it.

What Thea reported ran opposite to what the Main Mother Body knew, but it was not completely impossible. After all, something similar had happened once before.

It had been during the last Tide!

Those humans who had suddenly appeared in the north and the people who lived in the walls did not seem to be the same kind. There were many strange things about them that the Main Mother Body had never seen.

It knew well that those humans had been trying to study it. They had even built a great wall and had for generations rested and bred on its ruin...

The Main Mother Body became more alert.

It did not know how far the humans’ research had progressed, but if they had evolved into a unified consciousness, that would unquestionably pose a huge threat to it.

When the Main Mother Body did not answer, Thea continued to relay its discovery confidently. “Something is controlling their emotions, and I sensed its existence. Whenever it makes a sound, its sub-entities feel genuine pleasure from within... I believe that is their Mother Body, and its voice is their spores.”

It was far too familiar with that feeling. It was exactly like when it had stayed beside the Main Mother Body!

“... If we can assimilate their Mother Body, analyze it, understand it, even become it... We can control everything about them and make their experiences work for us.”

It was indisputable that the human body was frail; except for a few individuals with extraordinary strength, most needed tools to augment themselves. Yet that was precisely what made them unusual.

It could use their tools, it had mastered that ability long ago. But continuously producing those tools, like humans did, lay beyond its abilities.

Occupying the entire planet was only a matter of time, but to sow its seeds across more distant worlds it would have to do more than merely digest them. It would have to utterly digest their knowledge, and even their deeper thoughts and culture.

After long contemplation, the Main Mother Body spoke slowly. “You are the smartest of all my children; perhaps this is a remarkable discovery.”

At least it was worth trying.

Having received the affirmation, Thea felt both physical and mental pleasure. The tentacles beneath its skirts waved happily.

“I have a better idea, more perfect than our previous plan of skirting around them.”

“The people inside the wall and the ones to the north have already united. We only need to apply pressure to that wall to pin down the strength of the humans of the north. Then, by launching a sudden attack, we can seize their Mother Nest completely!”

...

Outside Boulder Town.

At an outpost on the western edge of the third ring, Joey, clad in an exoframe, was staring unblinking at the projection inside his helmet’s visor.

According to drone footage, millions of sub-entities were emerging from metro station entrances and the ruins of buildings between the second and third ring, and were consciously streaming toward Boulder Town.

Watching that surging tide, Joey’s expression sank. The adjutant beside him looked ashen and swallowed hard. “Goddamn... how can there be so many?”

After the spore concentration in the air passed the critical value, the annual Tide had finally erupted.

But both the quantity and quality far exceeded what the militia officers had anticipated.

From experience of the previous years, the visible sub-entities numbered in the millions. However, the actual deployed figure was likely 10 times that!

And what worried them was not only the number.

Aside from the Crunchers that served as cannon fodder, the Tide contained a large number of powerful combat sub-entities such as Butchers and Tyrants, and a small number of extremely dangerous Evolved Types.

There were giant beasts three stories tall, and winged types. Those monsters came in many varieties, each looking ferocious.

They all seemed to have forgotten that Dawn City existed to the north. They surged as one straight to Boulder Town.

Upon discovering that the Mutant Slime Mold were gathering with intent, Joey didn’t hesitate: he mobilized the militia’s five 1,000-man units and dispatched the 5,000-strong Punishment Battalion to the front line.

At the same time he ordered the P-2 Lightning attack planes on the tarmac to take off immediately and launch the first round of airstrikes on the Tide.

Two ion-plasma contrails split the gray, misty sky and dropped two dark masses onto the districts thick with sub-entities.

Orange-red flames shot into the sky and swallowed swathes of Crunchers, but something strange happened.

Those flames, which should have roared, were like someone had doused them with a bucket of cold water. After consuming half a street of Crunchers, the blaze did not intensify but instead grew weaker, finally leaving behind a ground littered with incompletely burned corpses and a viscous, oily substance.

If those nutrients could not be completely destroyed, the Slime Mold would quickly reuse them.

On the surface they were fighting the Slime Mold, but in essence they were getting rid of the nutrients that the Hive controlled.

The Slime Mold constantly collected organic matter from the battlefield and returned it to incubation chambers, converting it into combat units in fixed ratios. That was what made the Tide so difficult to deal with.

Joey’s brow tightened. It seemed the New Alliance Biological Research Institution’s analysis was correct. The spore cloud from the new Tide could effectively inhibit ordinary fuel combustion. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Through the drone’s lens he could clearly see that the moment the fire ignited, the gray-green mist swelled as if it had self-awareness and flowed toward the burning flame.

The Tide that had been hit from the air only stalled a moment before sweeping onward toward Boulder Town.

Some Crunchers lunged for the charred corpses, formed a circle on the ground, and ate greedily, wasting not a scrap of nutrition.

The noble Evolved Types naturally sneered down at those scrawny wretches, merely looking up coldly at the sky that had rained down flames.

They seemed to know where the attack came from, and knew someone was watching them.

But it did not matter, under their will, all resistance was futile! All carbon-based life would be reduced to the nutrients that fed their prosperity!

The vanguard of the Tide was only one kilometer from Boulder Town’s defenses.

At this rate, in at most an hour, the Punishment Battalion’s first line would collide with those creatures.

The adjutant standing next to Joey clenched his fists and finally could not help speaking. “We’ll have to use nuclear weapons!”

It wasn’t that he cared for the criminals. He didn’t give a damn about the lives of those trash. He simply did not think that that timid band could, with only a few machine guns and rifles and without incendiary support, hold back the surging tide.

Before Joey could reply, the militia’s staff officer cut him off. “No! Radioactive material will accelerate the Slime Mold’s evolution! We’ve validated it before, using nuclear weapons on the Tide only makes next year’s Tide even fiercer!”

The adjutant clenched his fists and snapped back, “Incendiaries don’t work, nukes are out... are you seriously expecting those 5,000 cannon-fodder plus conventional artillery to clear out that nonsense?”

Joey’s expression was grave. “I have requested reinforcements from the New Alliance Central Command. They promised to send more people.”

The adjutant frowned. “Strange, why wasn’t the New Alliance attacked? Why were only we targeted by the Tide? Maybe the New Alliance’s Biological Institution discovered something that makes the Tide ignore them...”

Before he finished, an angry rebuke cut him off. “Shut up!” Grabbing the officer by the collar, Joey stared into his eyes and enunciated each word.

“I need professional advice, not baseless bullshit! No one can avoid the Tide unless it’s annihilated. I saw that man. Maybe I don’t fully understand him, but I’m certain he isn’t the idiot you’re calling him!”

The officer nodded while trembling. “Understood...”

“Then do something!” Joey released his grip. “The front needs heavy gear. I need you to immediately pull another batch of heavy machine guns and mortars from inventory and send them forward!”

The officer took a deep breath, steadied himself, and snapped a salute. “Yes!”

...

News of the attack on Boulder Town quickly reached the New Alliance outposts.

Ample Time, who was still at the broadcast station, watched the lines filling in on the map and frowned; the confident look he had had wavered.

“Did our plan fail?”

“No... quite the opposite!” Clenching his fists on the map, Spring Water Commander, standing beside him and brimming with excitement, offered a completely different view.

His opinion was the exact opposite.

If minutes ago he had still had doubts about the details of Operation Bodyguard, now he could say with near certainty that their plan had succeeded!

Thea was intelligent, but it was still too naive!

But that level of calculation was too straightforward to the point of being conspicuous.

If it had been him, he would have committed a fifth or a quarter of his forces to press the New Alliance and patiently reply what happened the year before.

What it was doing was essentially telling them, “I’ve noticed you, but I’m pretending I haven’t.”

Obviously... Boulder Town’s attack was only a feint. The main Tide was probably lying in wait under the northern fog, ready to strike at any moment.

Ample Time snapped back to attention. After a brief pause, the solemn expression on his face relaxed into a smile. “I see.”

Good grief.

The Mother Body had actually put on a show with them. He hadn’t expected that.

While Ample Time recovered, Spring Water Commander grabbed the walkie-talkie on the table.

“Our enemy has taken the bait! Sideline Slacking, bring your brothers and reinforce the west of Clearspring City immediately... Right, don’t move too quickly, be ready to turn back at any moment! Wait for my signal!”

A voice crackled back. “Got it!”

After cutting the line to Sideline Slacking, Spring Water Commander switched the channel to the front line of Defense Sector 06 and yelled, “Notify the brothers on the line, get everyone ready!”

“The prey is stirring, a hard fight is coming!”