Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 682: The Reasons for the Undead Crew
"I don't know." Aphrodite shook her head.
Oh... So there are things that you, the members of the Undead Crew, don't know? Ke Lan complained inwardly, then said, "The meaning of a chapter break is that the author stops the story when it reaches a critical juncture, leaving a sentence like 'I'll update it tomorrow' or 'Stay tuned for the next chapter'... For those who have only finished reading the novel, of course they won't care about this kind of thing. But if you are a reader who follows the novel, you would want to put a knife on the author's neck and force him to finish the story."
"Oh, I see."
"I don't understand why you chose to blow up the engine wreckage... If the things inside can be brought back to the Ark for analysis, it can at least improve the Ark's technological level by hundreds of years, right? Moreover, that thing is obviously made by the Earth civilization . Let's not talk about how this Earth civilization came to Alpha, but at least the characters they use are Chinese characters, not those Alpha characters that look like ghost paintings. The difficulty of analyzing them will be much easier than those relics excavated from ordinary ruins, right?"
Aphrodite said nothing and just looked at Ke Lan silently.
"Also, the monster with a human upper body and an octopus lower body that the 776 Special Forces Team encountered in the control room at the end - that was the true face of the Alpha Man, right? You already knew that, right?"
Aphrodite remained silent.
"If you don't say anything, I'll take it as your consent."
"Yes, that is indeed one of the few Alphas left on this planet. The undead crew would have known of their existence before the Ark landed on Alpha," said Aphrodite.
"But you did not choose to communicate with them, but allowed the special forces on the mission to kill them."
"I can tell you why the undead crew chose to hide all this." Aphrodite put away her smile and said slowly.
"What?" Hearing that the other party was willing to give in, Ke Lan couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.
"The reason why we concealed all this and even sent special forces to erase all traces is not because we are afraid that the public will panic after knowing it... You should still remember the "memetic contamination" incident that broke out in the institute, right?"
"Remember." Ke Lan nodded. "As long as you 'see' it... no matter how you see it, you will be infected by the 'meme'... You mean, is the existence of the Alphas a similar 'meme'?"
"It's not the Alphas, but Him... the being worshipped by the Alpha civilization and called 'God'." Aphrodite said, "Any intelligent life that knows of His existence - no matter how they know it, whether they know it actively or passively, their consciousness will be eroded by Him in a subtle way. This erosion transcends the limitations of time and space... As their consciousness is eroded, their bodies will also change, and eventually turn into monsters like the Alphas."
"..." Ke Lan couldn't help but hold his breath, waiting quietly for her to continue.
"Although the speed of erosion varies from one individual to another, once the erosion process begins, it cannot be stopped or reversed... The ultimate outcome of an eroded life form is to become a part of Him - in the form of 'nutrients'," Aphrodite said. "Every member of the Undead Crew... has been severely eroded, so we have no choice but to completely seal our bodies... You may think that we will have a chance to come out of the Coffin of Eternal Life, but in fact, as long as we leave the Coffin of Eternal Life, our lives will come to an end in a very short time."
"That Chiron..."
"You guessed it right. Chiron was eager to merge with the living armor because his consciousness and body were being eroded too quickly. Unfortunately , he failed... and completely turned into a monster."
"But the problem is that there are quite a few people who know about the 'great god' mentioned by the heretical sects. More than 80% of the people in the Security Bureau and the military know that such a thing exists, right? As for the ordinary people, I think there are quite a few people who want to know about the existence of 'Him', right? Why are they not affected at all?" Ke Lan asked.
"The most important factor that determines the speed of erosion is the depth of cognition... The more you know, the faster the erosion will be." Aphrodite replied, "Most people only know that there is a symbolic existence of a 'god'. They don't even know whether it is some kind of creature from a more advanced civilization or a religious idol fabricated by the Alphas. For such people, the speed at which they are eroded is almost negligible - before their bodies have changed, their lifespans have already ended, so naturally they will not realize that they have been eroded by 'Him'."
"What about me? Are the changes in my body also due to... 'Him'?"
"You have been corroded more deeply than anyone else in the Undead Crew... Perhaps it's because you used the 'Holy Word'... If the progress of the corrosion is visualized and made into a progress bar, the progress bar will be filled up immediately if 'He' looks at it for a short moment... But you seem to be very lucky. You still maintain your consciousness and rationality as a human being. This is a very rare situation."
"It's very rare... Then can you tell me what a 'symbiote' is?"
"The gene fragments of the Alpha people are edited into the gene sequence of the human embryo, and the individual that develops is the symbiont. The symbiont has the appearance and thinking mode of a human, but can understand the language and writing of the Alpha civilization, and can also operate some technological creations that only the Alpha people can drive. It is an indispensable 'tool' in our process of receiving the legacy of the Alpha civilization."
"Besides me and the Prophet, how many 'symbiotes' are there?"
"We have cultivated more than 15,000 symbiotes in total. Except for those dead fetuses that stopped developing, the vast majority of symbiotes will be completely eroded by Him within twelve hours after awakening... For these symbiotes, we can only regard them as consumables. But you and Leininger are two exceptions."
"Leininger... is that the original name of the 'Prophet'?"
"yes."
"Since I have already joined the Undead Crew and have been severely corrupted, why don't you just tell me all the truth?"
"This is to protect you... The more you know, the faster the erosion will progress."
