Published: February 5, 2025
Ye Zhongming, along with Mo Ye and Xia Lei, lay on the rooftop of a building, scanning the surroundings with binoculars.
"Aren't we supposed to be attracting the monsters? Why haven't we made a move yet?" Mo Ye squatted next to Ye Zhongming, watching the mass of corpses under the base's city wall not far away.
Xia Lei was puzzled as well. Ye Zhongming had gone through so much effort to set this up, yet they had stayed silent for over ten minutes.
"I'm looking for someone," he replied.
"Who are you looking for?"
Ye Zhongming didn't answer. He knew that the two women wouldn't understand; he was searching for the previously confirmed 'guess.'
The ability to control the hordes of corpses and mutated animals to attack the city could only be attributed to one thing at this stage, and it would definitely manifest in human form.
In his past life, people referred to this thing as a brain worm.
The brain worm itself wasn't particularly powerful; it was just fast, small, adept at concealment and ambush, and it had the ability to change color to blend perfectly with its surroundings. In every other aspect, it was as weak as an ordinary human who hadn’t evolved.
However, if one wasn't careful, they could be ambushed by it.
Once a brain worm struck a human, it could enter the body through any part, traveling through the blood vessels to the brain, where it would grow and mutate rapidly.
This kind of worm wouldn't cause immediate death; instead, it would rob its host of self-awareness, controlling them like a puppet, turning them into a different kind of mindless zombie.
Humans controlled by brain worms didn't possess outstanding abilities either. Apart from having good endurance and strong recovery capabilities, their greatest reliance was on controlling the magic crystal life forms.
Any mutated life that possessed magic crystals would be influenced by the human puppets controlled by the brain worms.
The stronger the brain worm, the higher the evolution level of the magic crystal life it could control, and the greater the number it could command.
Of course, the levels and numbers of control were not simply additive; there were complexities involved. For example, the number of magic crystal life forms controlled by brain worms of the same level would generally be the same, but could vary by individual. Even among equally powerful brain worms, the number they could control depended on the strength of the magic crystal life forms. The stronger the magic crystal life forms, the fewer they could control, and vice versa.
In the early days of the apocalypse, whether it was zombies, mutated plants or animals, or monsters, they were all in a phase of frantic initial evolution. They would treat each other as stepping stones for evolution, making the current situation of mutual non-aggression impossible.
Perhaps as the apocalypse deepened, and as higher evolved life forms appeared, their intelligence would increase, and they might cooperate due to some shared interests, but that was a matter for the future, not the present.
Yet, outside the new area base, this impossible situation had arisen. Ye Zhongming suspected that a brain worm might have appeared, something that remained rare yet terrifying even ten years into the apocalypse, controlling and orchestrating this battle for the new area's base.
During the ruins defense battle, Ye Zhongming had seen a vague figure from afar, and now he was searching for that silhouette.
However, after searching for a long time, Ye Zhongming found nothing. He knew brain worms were very cunning and could be hiding anywhere.
After some thought, he suddenly took out the Edge of the Moon and made a cut on his arm, blood immediately flowing out.
"Hey, are you crazy?" Xia Lei exclaimed in shock, wanting to bandage Ye Zhongming but was stopped.
"Since I can't find it, let it come to me."
Mo Ye and Xia Lei exchanged glances, completely baffled by Ye Zhongming's enigmatic behavior today.
"We don't have a significant amount of fresh flesh. Even if we make some noise, we can't attract all the corpses on this side of the base. If we only attract a portion, it might be safer, but the efficiency is too low. Once it gets dark, our combat effectiveness will drop significantly, while the mutated life forms won’t be affected. Instead of that, it's better to let it come to me."