Captain Su kept retreating, and soon came into Mo Ling's field of view.
Through the bandages, Mo Ling saw that Captain Su's bones were already covered in fractures. The wounds beneath the bandages cut deep, straight to the bone.
These were wounds caused by bone spurs growing out of his body!
'So the shattered bones were his own,' Mo Ling realized.
'This must be the effect of some relic. It seems both its power and its cost are immense.'
Although the fractures and wounds were healing at a rapid pace, Mo Ling could still see Captain Su gritting his teeth, enduring excruciating pain.
The two earthworm-like creatures, in hot pursuit, also charged into Mo Ling's view.
Captain Su stopped, seemingly having thought of a countermeasure, but Mo Ling had already targeted the two earthworm creatures.
Just as one earthworm was about to contract and lunge forward, a massive, cube-shaped void suddenly appeared beneath it, causing it to fall straight to the ground.
Immediately after, countless bloody holes appeared all over its body. The invisible assault instantly riddled it with holes like a honeycomb.
Moreover, to prevent it from regenerating, the invisible attacks continued to gnaw away at the creature's body. Its already perforated form vanished piece by piece.
In the end, the earthworm was dismembered in mid-air.
The other earthworm didn't seem to have much intelligence. It was still fixated on Captain Su, preparing to attack, but as its companion vanished, it froze in place.
Its thick body deflated as if it had sprung a leak, beginning to disintegrate from the inside. Its spiraled skin caved in, suddenly losing all support.
When a gap finally appeared on the surface of its skin, it became clear that the creature's insides had long been hollowed out by those invisible, cube-shaped voids.
The smooth-edged cuts continued to spread, devouring what little was left of the earthworm's husk.
The two terrifying creatures that had been on a rampage just moments ago were gone, just like that.
Captain Su watched this unfold in the blink of an eye, his eyes filled with shock.
Coming to his senses, he suddenly realized something and turned his head to look at Li Luo and the Block behind her.
Li Luo met Captain Su's gaze and nodded.
...
Mo Ling leaned back inside the Block, munching on teleported food while listening to the soldiers thank Li Luo.
Recalling the vicious battle, Mo Ling realized his teleportation speed was getting faster and faster.
'I seem to be getting the hang of it.'
Using his teleportation ability was like learning to grab things with his hands.
If he was a newborn baby when he first arrived in this world, then Mo Ling was now a three-year-old toddler.
He could already subconsciously teleport things in his line of sight elsewhere without needing intense focus, which made his teleportation incredibly fast.
Mo Ling had casually tossed the chunks of the earthworm creatures underground.
'If I can get faster than the naked eye, could I make a creature vanish into thin air?'
Mo Ling was eager to try.
Once the soldiers confirmed that the beast tide was over, they began to gather around.
Some even approached the Block out of curiosity, but Li Luo held out a hand to stop them.
A soldier scratched his head and apologized to Li Luo sheepishly, "I'm really sorry for stopping you outside the high wall earlier. My apologies."
After speaking, he ran off to help clean up the battlefield.
After standing guard for a while, Captain Su also walked over to Li Luo and solemnly extended his hand.
"Thank you for your help."
Li Luo also extended her hand and gave his a casual shake.
It seemed that only now did the soldiers of the outpost finally realize that Li Luo wasn't some helpless investigator.
Li Luo took the opportunity to ask, "Why weren't these creature anomalies reported to the monitoring station?"
Captain Su faltered for a moment. "We did report them. Everything that happens at the outpost is clearly written in the daily reports we send to the monitoring station."
Hearing this, Mo Ling was also completely confused.
Station Chief Liang hadn't mentioned any of this when he issued the mission.
Captain Su saw Li Luo's baffled expression and realized something as well.
"The monitoring station doesn't know? No wonder. We've been requesting reinforcements recently, but all we've gotten are routine responses. No backup was ever sent."
"That's why the soldiers have grown so resentful."
Captain Su quickly called over the communications officer, questioned him about the recent communication status, and double-checked the sent daily reports. Everything was normal.
He paced back and forth in confusion, then looked at Li Luo again and asked, "Does the monitoring station know about the Tree Transformation? We reported that, too."
Li Luo shook her head.
'Tree Transformation? What kind of creature is that?'
Mo Ling had assumed the outpost was hiding something, but he never expected that there was actually an information gap between the two stations.
Captain Su suddenly thought of something else and confirmed with Li Luo, "Your mission here is to investigate the Theseus Cells anomaly, right?"
After receiving an affirmative answer, Captain Su made a suggestion:
"You should go to the Tree Transformation tribe first. See what's happened there."
"The outpost has been wanting to investigate, but the beast tides have become more and more frequent. We've been spread too thin lately."
"We'll go back and check why the information isn't getting through to the monitoring station, and we'll head over afterward."
Then, Captain Su had Li Luo open her electronic screen and transferred the data on the Tree Transformation to her.
...
The Theseus Cells containment zone was enclosed by massive high walls.
All living things within this zone were composed of Theseus Cells. Everything from thousand-year-old trees to common insects had been replaced.
Except for one type of creature—
The Tree Transformation.
This was a species of gelatinous, jelly-like creatures. They could communicate with humans on a basic level, possessed a degree of intelligence, and had their own tribes within the containment zone.
After first being exposed to human technology, they sought out the humans at the outpost to trade for fertilizer.
Later, they even had dedicated couriers who would travel great distances, carrying relics found by their tribe, to trade for fertilizer at the outpost.
After discovering this, the people at the outpost were more than happy to trade with these friendly creatures.
The reason they weren't infected by the Theseus Cells was that they all appeared out of thin air.
'Appeared out of thin air?'
Reading this, Li Luo looked up at Captain Su.
Captain Su explained, "They really do appear out of thin air. They can't be replaced by Theseus Cells. We've run tests on them; all of the Tree Transformation are made of normal cells."
"We've also carefully inspected the ones that come to the outpost to trade. We wouldn't do business with them otherwise."
'What a strange species,' Mo Ling thought.
'And why would they trade for fertilizer?'
As he continued reading, Mo Ling finally found the answer.
Because, just as their name implied, the sole purpose of every single individual in this species was to—become a tree.