"Heliotrope, an ancient creature that existed 500 million years ago and went extinct about 400 million years ago. It's a kind of invertebrate gastropod of the class Monocotyledon. It's considered to be one of the first mollusks to evolve a hard shell.
"This creature lives in the deep sea, but because its existence is too early, human understanding of it is limited to its fossil structure. Still, based on known fossils, humans can infer that this creature should be a hermaphrodite. They can reproduce without mating. Not only that, but they also have special wheel-shaped nerves. This kind of nerve tissue has no nerve center. The flesh and nerves are separated. After the flesh tissue dies, the wheel-shaped nerves can continue to survive.
"Their outer shell is their own secretion, just like the rings of a tree. The longer they live, the more rings there are on the outer shell. In this way, they reproduce in their hard shell. When the old life dies, a new life is born to replace the dead body and continue to live. Although this biological characteristic limits its numbers, as long as the living environment permits, its wheel-shaped nerves and reticular cell structure will continue to reproduce endlessly in the shell..."
Chen Chen sat in the chair and looked at the screen in front of him. On the screen, a paleontologist from the Spire was explaining to a group of people.
"Heliotrope, also a strange creature with wheel-shaped nerves. It's between a vertebrate and a semi-vertebrate, and it also has a protective shell similar to the Heliotrope. It has no natural enemies in the natural world. Unless it's eaten whole and completely digested with gastric juice, it can still survive as long as a part of the nerve network is left.
"This creature went extinct during the Triassic period. Its final extinction, just like those huge insects, was due to the drastic change in the oxygen content of the atmosphere."
After the paleontologist said this, he turned to the group again. "These primitive life forms can be described as immortal monsters. You can imagine that your brain never dies. Although your body will age and die, your brain can constantly replace a new body, allowing you to live forever."
At this point, the paleontologist smiled. "Of course, this is just a metaphor. The reason why this insect can do all this is not because its life form is more advanced than that of humans. On the contrary, it's because its life form is too low-level. Their cells are far less differentiated than us humans, so they can regenerate without restrictions. It's like a bug. At the same time, this behavior also limits its evolution, allowing them to live for hundreds of millions of years as if it's a day..."
"The protoplasmic liquid we've encountered so far is a primitive organism of this type. What's strange is that the protoplasmic liquid doesn't contain a neural network, but it can infect our consciousness in a way that we humans can't understand, causing multiple infected individuals to fuse with each other …"
"This alien lifeform seems to have already regarded us humans as its nerve network. It wants to resurrect, it wants to rely on humans to resurrect itself …"
"Due to Blackwatch's contribution in this disaster, we've obtained the naming rights for this creature. After internal negotiations, we've given this newly discovered creature a name, called... Consciousnessstealer, meaning Consciousness Stealer."
At this time, Little X was standing behind Chen Chen. She rubbed Chen Chen's shoulders like a little maid and said, "The progress of the protoplasmic liquid is very slow. It seems to be a bit picky and doesn't want life forms without consciousness or low-level life forms. It only wants advanced creatures like humans to meet its requirements..."
"There's not enough time..."
Chen Chen uttered. There were dark circles under his eyes, a clear indication that he had not slept well recently. "Human society won't be able to hold on for much longer. There's already a small outbreak of panic and it's still spreading."
"Then what should we do?"
Little X pouted, a little distressed. "We don't even know how the enemy did it. Unless the creature itself is standing right in front of us, I'm afraid we'll have a chance to find a solution?"
"Hmm?"
Chen Chen suddenly narrowed his eyes when he heard Little X's careless remark. He waved his hand, signaling Little X to stop massaging his shoulders. Then, he snapped his fingers and instantly, Chen Chen's figure was directly projected in the venue!
The paleontologist was still explaining when the big screen behind the venue suddenly flashed and showed Chen Chen's face.
"Your, Your Excellency!"
"Mr. Chen..."
There was a sudden commotion in the crowd. There were two to three hundred people in the venue. Some of them were old people, some were new researchers of Blacklight Biotechnology, and some were even seeing Chen Chen for the first time.
"I have an important task for you."
Chen Chen looked at the people in the audience and said without any preamble, "I need to form a research team to clone that lifeform. Who's confident in doing so?"
"What?"
Everyone was shocked. The alien lifeform was about to wipe out the human race with just a little bit of its bodily fluid. Was it crazy to want to clone the monster itself?
However, there were still a few clear-headed people who immediately reacted. If the alien lifeform really appeared, perhaps they could find a way to fight it?
These people's eyes lit up and their breathing became heavy.
"I'll form a cloning team. If anyone wants to give it a try, you can sign up in the system."
After saying this, Chen Chen's figure disappeared again.
"Sir Godfather?"
Little X tilted her head. "Are you sure you want to clone that thing?"
"It's also carbon-based. Although we don't know the environment and temperature for cultivation, we can try it one by one."
Chen Chen rubbed his throbbing temples and thought about it. "Just like you said, the infection rate is increasing day by day and human society is in a state of panic. We can't hide it for much longer. Our only option now is to try everything we can. Still, we can't give up on the protoplasmic liquid research, so it's best we do both at the same time."
"That's true, the situation is bad enough as it is."
Little X said helplessly.
"So, let's inform the four continents of our decision."
Chen Chen nodded and then chuckled. "Also, be prepared for the experiment to go out of control..."
...
After Chen Chen personally issued the order, a new research team was immediately formed in the Spire. More than a hundred people joined the team.
These researchers were divided into ten research teams. Everyone had the same task, which was to extract the corresponding gene from the protoplasmic liquid and then clone it.
However, to everyone's surprise, the cloning of this creature was far easier than they had imagined...
A few days later.
Five research teams had produced results. These people only used the environment for the growth of human embryos. The only differences were the ratio of nutrients and the temperature of cultivation. With these variables, everyone reported their success, claiming that they had successfully cloned the protoplasmic liquid's owner.
"The embryos of this creature can grow at temperatures ranging from 35 degrees, 36 degrees, 37 degrees, up to 39 degrees?"
Chen Chen was surprised.
"That's not all."
Little X reminded, "These teams provide the embryos with nutrients such as minerals, urea, uric acid, creatinine, glucose, amylase, and so on. The embryos also absorb all of the nutrients. Even if the ratios are different, it doesn't affect them too much. It's not as fragile as life on Earth, where even the slightest difference in ratio can cause the embryo to die.
"This kind of creature is simply an existence that can grow no matter what environment it is!"
Hearing this, Chen Chen did not look happy at all. Instead, he became even more worried. "This can only mean that this creature is extremely adaptable."
However, just as Chen Chen was filled with astonishment, Little X said again, "This is bad, Sir Godfather. For the sake of easier management, we've placed these five living embryos into the same laboratory, but four of them suddenly died!"
"Oh?"
Chen Chen's expression shifted. He looked up at the screen, which immediately switched to the scene of a laboratory. In the command room of the laboratory, many people were running around anxiously with anxious expressions on their faces. From time to time, they would look at the data on the data boards in front of them.
"Sudden death?"
Chen Chen's heart skipped a beat.
"Yes."
Little X nodded. "The vital signs of these embryos were originally very stable, but after they were moved into this laboratory, the vital signs of four of them plummeted at an alarming rate. In less than ten seconds, all four embryos were dead!"
"I'm afraid this isn't an accident."
Chen Chen thought for a moment but did not show any strange expression. He only explained, "Isn't this the case with bee swarms? In a hive, there will always only be one queen bee. This is a very common biological phenomenon. The reason for this is because of the pheromone suppression of the colony by the queen bee. Only when a colony of bees splits will a new queen bee be produced.
"Since this monster can infect the consciousness of humans, isn't it normal for a similar phenomenon to occur? Within a certain area, there can only be one embryo that can survive. "
Hearing this, Little X suddenly understood.
"Tell those people not to worry. It won't die even if the protoplasmic liquid is frozen into ice or wrapped in a meteorite at a temperature of thousands of degrees. Based on these strong vital signs, it won't die that easily."
Chen Chen continued. "Of course, we can't put all our eggs in one basket. Tell the other teams that their mission remains the same until we cultivate the embryos of this monster."
"Yes."
...
Time passed by day after day.
In the outside world, the number of fusion death cases continued to increase. In just a month, the number had reached millions. This was the result of the various governments trying their best to suppress the spread of fusion death. The degree of suppression was far greater than the virus war in 2020.
However, faced with this protoplasmic liquid that could infect the human consciousness, the various countries were still at a loss.
The pressure on the continents around the world was increasing. The public was gradually losing their cover...
The official websites of the continents were not idle either. They were also looking for countermeasures in their own ways. Some of them were secretly cloning and cultivating the monster, hoping to find the monster's weakness after cultivating it.
At this time, in the Spire's laboratory, the earliest embryo had grown to the size of a fist.
The growth rate of this cloned monster was many times faster than the creatures on Earth. In just half a month, it had reached the size of a fist. Before this, many people were still discussing whether they should do the same thing as human cloning and transplant the embryo into an artificial endometrium when it reached a certain stage.
In the end, the transplant was successful. However, the artificial endometrium died in just a few days — it was completely unable to withstand the growth rate of the embryo.
Without the foundation, just when the humans thought that the experiment was about to fail, something even more shocking happened. The monster did not need to be attached to the embryo at all. It directly used the life incubator as its growth environment and grew bit by bit!
Seeing this, the researchers simply inserted a catheter into the inside of the embryo and directly supplied it with all kinds of nutrients. The embryo also took in all the nutrients, and it only took a few days to grow from a few microns to the size of a fist.
By now, this embryo could no longer be called an embryo. According to biological calculations, it was already a fetus...
At this time, there were still a lot of androids bustling in and out of the laboratory. As humans could not get within a range of 1.1836 meters of the monster, they had to be replaced by androids.
At this time, several researchers were sitting in the command room. One of them, a rough-looking man, controlled the android to come to the front of the life incubator and quietly stared at the ball of flesh inside.
Yes, it was a ball of flesh that was round and black in color.
At this time, the ball of flesh was slowly wriggling at a frequency of once every few seconds. The surface of the ball of flesh was uneven and there were many small cracks at the same time.
It was like many closed mouths...
"Little baby..."
The rough-looking man put his head close to the screen and stared at the ball of flesh on the screen. At the same time, he murmured in a low voice, "Little baby, what kind of monster are you..."
There was a look of excitement and infatuation in his eyes. Coupled with his rough appearance, he gave off the feeling of a psychopathic killer.
However, just as his face was getting closer and closer, suddenly, the small cracks seemed to move. The man was startled. He rubbed his eyes, thinking that this was all an illusion. However, in the next second, all the cracks suddenly split open and pure black pupils appeared in front of the man!
"Wow!"
The man was shocked. With a thud, he fell to the ground on his buttocks, and the stool he was sitting on flew out!
"Hahahaha!"
The rest of them burst into laughter.
"What are you laughing at?"
The man glared at everyone discontentedly, then patted his butt, stood up, and put the chair back in place. "This monster, it opened its eyes."
"It already showed signs of opening its eyes yesterday."
A blonde female researcher walked past him. "This thing changes every day. Who knows what it will eventually become..."
"This thing is a devil!"
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