Chapter 41 - 40: The Transparent Race
Mo Ling was utterly helpless against this freakish healing ability.
The Red Rope Worm’s power was fundamentally unsolvable, short of making two of the worms meet. Therefore, trapping it was a futile effort from the start.
His attacks were doing nothing but accelerating its evolution.
Seeing this, the soldiers behind him fell into despair.
The Sheep-headed Man stared intently at the Block. Its head tilted to one side, a gesture that Mo Ling found incredibly eerie under the circumstances.
It slowly crouched down. Seeing this, Mo Ling quickly maneuvered the Block backward to avoid an attack.
But the Sheep-headed Man instead took a great leap, landing among the humanoid creatures. A gash suddenly split open in the center of the back of its thick palm.
A miniature chainsaw emerged from the flesh. The Sheep-headed Man swung its arm in an uppercut, striking a humanoid creature on the chin.
It was the very one who had fired the first arrow!
The chainsaw’s chain spun rapidly. Its sharp teeth sliced viciously into the humanoid’s throat and burst out through the top of its skull.
The humanoid creature shuddered, its mouth gaping open as meaningless, gurgling sounds escaped its throat. Blood poured out as its eyes bulged, staring in terror at the Sheep-headed Man before it.
The gushing blood slowly turned colorless, and the humanoid creature went still amidst its trembling.
The Sheep-headed Man retracted its arm. The chainsaw, now coated in a clear liquid, slid out, and the humanoid creature fell heavily to the ground.
As if its spine had been severed, the humanoid’s body continued to twitch uncontrollably.
The Sheep-headed Man paid no more attention to the fallen creature, but slowly started walking away.
It pushed through a crowd of cowering humanoids, leaped into the distance, and gradually vanished into the dense vegetation.
The twitching humanoid on the ground dissolved into a transparent liquid, its clothes falling into a puddle.
A dead silence fell.
The group of surviving humanoids dared not make a sound, terrified the Sheep-headed Man would suddenly return and slaughter them all.
Powerless, Mo Ling could only pilot the Block to follow it for a short distance. After memorizing the direction the Sheep-headed Man had taken, he returned to the squad.
The atmosphere within the team was extremely grim. The surviving soldiers were splattered with their comrades’ blood, their eyes wide with disbelief.
"First, collect the bodies. Recover their weapons and any samples," Captain Su said, his voice heavy with sorrow.
Li Luo took out cleaning tools and began silently wiping the stains off the Block.
None of the soldiers spoke as they slowly moved forward to clean up the scene.
Captain Su stood silently before the battlefield, his fists clenched.
The nearby humanoids seemed to be debating something amongst themselves. A short while later, an old one walked over.
He approached Captain Su and began chattering in the Abyssal tongue.
"Thank you for your help. We Transparent Race People will never forget your kindness." The elder looked terrified, constantly glancing at the surrounding soldiers.
Captain Su put on a translator and began to communicate with the self-proclaimed Transparent Race humanoid.
"When did that Sheep-headed Man arrive? Why does it want to kill you?" Captain Su asked.
The Transparent Race elder thought for a moment before answering fearfully, "It arrived not long before you did. We even gave it some food when it came over, but then it just started slaughtering us for some unknown reason."
Captain Su’s anger flared when he heard this. He demanded, "You fed it? You had no idea what it was, and you still fed it?"
The Transparent Race elder quickly waved his hands, explaining, "It’s because it’s also of the Transparent Race! That’s why we let our guard down!"
The elder was clearly terrified of Captain Su, his hands gesturing wildly in the air.
"It’s also of the Transparent Race?" Captain Su was perplexed.
The elder nodded. "Yes, it is of the Transparent Race."
As if he suddenly understood something, Captain Su pointed to himself and asked, "Then what race am I?"
The Transparent Race elder’s expression became a mixture of suspicion and worry. He answered cautiously, "You are... of the Flesh Race."
Hearing this, Captain Su suddenly looked down at himself, then squatted on the ground. The unexpected movement startled the elder, who leaped back a step.
But when he saw Captain Su was just pulling up some grass, the elder crept back, confused.
Captain Su held up two blades of grass. One seeped a green pus from its broken stem, while the other was dissolving into a transparent liquid.
"Which of these is Transparent Race, and which is Flesh Race?"
Although the Transparent Race creature looked confused, he answered Captain Su’s question earnestly.
He pointed to the grass seeping green pus and said it was "Flesh Race," while the other was "Transparent Race."
Hearing this, Mo Ling, who had been listening from the side, instantly understood how these humanoids classified different races.
Theseus Cell Lifeforms were called the "Transparent Race" because they dissolved into a transparent liquid upon death.
Normal cellular organisms, on the other hand, were called the "Flesh Race."
Seeing the Transparent Race elder’s method of classification, the onlookers instantly understood everything.
"What a simple classification system," Captain Su said, exasperated.
He looked at the elder again and asked, "Explain this to me. Why did you let your guard down just because it was of the Transparent Race? We’re not from around here. Just tell us everything, and we won’t hurt you."
Hearing this, the elder once again scanned the people around him, glanced up at the Block in the air, and then breathed a sigh of relief before explaining:
"Because here, members of the Transparent Race do not attack each other. It’s the same for the Flesh Race. We only attack the other race."
"Even the weakest, most unintelligent creatures are the same. They only show hostility to the other race."
"Even the tiny Transparent Race insects flying all over the place will only chew on Flesh Race plants, and vice versa."
"So, when we knew it was of the Transparent Race, we naturally weren’t on alert. It was only when we saw you that we became afraid."
The elder’s voice grew weaker as he spoke, as if he still couldn’t comprehend why the Sheep-headed Man had attacked them.
Hearing this, Captain Su finally nodded, not pressing the Transparent Race elder any further.
"All right. We’re not going to hurt you. We don’t have rules like that where we’re from. That Sheep-headed Man came from our side, too. Understand?"
The elder nodded eagerly, much of the fear vanishing from his face.
He asked Captain Su to wait a moment while he went back to tell his people what had happened.
Captain Su waved him off, and the elder ran back to his kinsmen.
"Record this," Captain Su called his deputy over and instructed.
Li Luo had been listening to the conversation between the captain and the Transparent Race elder while wiping down the Block, a curious expression on his face.
After listening to the information-packed conversation, Mo Ling’s mind drifted to the previous battle between the tarantulas and the red-eyed dragonflies.
’It seems it was a battle between the Flesh Race and the Transparent Race.’
’So that’s why those tarantulas didn’t attack us. It’s because we’re also part of the Flesh Race.’
He had been wondering why that group of tarantulas had surrounded them, only to run off.
’Is this... a war between races?’