Chapter 215 Forced Domestication

"Have the casualty statistics come out yet?"

Lin Yuan sat on the bone throne that was still slightly oozing fluid, twirling the Void Dagger in his hand without even lifting his eyelids.

Alita floated beside him, the red numbers on the holographic screen shocking to the eye.

"Boss, the data is terrible. The global population has dropped by nearly 30% in this insect tide, and among the remaining survivors, 40% are severely injured or disabled. Even more troublesome is the radiation sickness; the strong acid mist left behind after those insects died is irreversibly damaging the lungs of ordinary people."

"At the current level of medical care, even if we blew up all the pharmaceutical factories and converted them into production lines, we wouldn't be able to save even a tenth of them."

The hall was deathly silent.

Only the Queen, once arrogant and untouchable, was now squatting in the corner like a large figurine, blankly counting her fingers.

"Boss! Boss!"

A flurry of hurried footsteps broke the silence.

Academician Wang was carried in by two special forces soldiers. The old man's hair was as messy as a bird's nest, his black-rimmed glasses were half-broken, but his eyes were frighteningly bright, fixed intently on that lavender-colored life loom.

"Is this that... that titan miracle?"

Academician Wang broke free from the soldiers supporting him and lunged toward the life loom. He wanted to touch it with trembling hands but didn't dare, looking like an old bachelor who had just seen a peerless beauty.

"Don't drool; this is a precision instrument." Lin Yuan propped his feet on the armrest and reminded him lazily.

"A miracle... this is a miracle!" Academician Wang completely ignored Lin Yuan's teasing, rubbing his face against the casing of the life loom. "It can directly edit the underlying code of living organisms! Things like cancer, AIDS, radiation sickness—they're just spelling errors in front of it! Just change a few characters... and it's all fixed!"

"Does this excite you that much?" Lin Yuan pointed to the Queen squatting nearby. "Then what if I said I plan to turn this lady into a water treatment plant?"

"W-what?"

General Chen Weiguo, who had just arrived, slipped and nearly lost his footing.

He looked at the Queen, who was exuding a terrifying aura, and swallowed hard: "Kid Lin, don't do anything reckless. This is a monster. You want to use it to... benefit humanity?"

"What, think it's dirty?" Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.

"It's not a question of whether it's dirty or not!" Chen Weiguo slapped his thigh in agitation. "This thing is an alien species, after all, and... you said you want to perform genetic modification? If something goes wrong with this, will humans still be human? This is an ethical issue!"

"Ethics?"

Lin Yuan suddenly laughed, the sound echoing through the hall with a chill that made one's spine crawl.

He stood up abruptly, and the aura that erupted in that instant caused the surrounding air to freeze.

"Old Chen, are you lecturing me on ethics?"

Lin Yuan waved his hand, and Alita immediately pulled up several images.

They were images of recruits in trenches whose bodies had been eroded by acid until only half remained, mothers in ruins holding their children and crying, and veterans who could only wait to die because they had lost their legs.

"Look at these." Lin Yuan pointed at the images, his voice low. "In the universe, weakness is the original sin. When the insects were eating people, did they talk to you about ethics? When the titans were destroying the world, did they talk to you about morality?"

Chen Weiguo opened his mouth but couldn't say a word.

"Only by surviving do you have the qualifications to talk about ethics. If you're dead, you're just a layer of fertilizer on this planet."

Lin Yuan stopped paying attention to Chen Weiguo and turned to look at Alita.

"Start a global broadcast. I'm going to teach all of humanity a lesson."

Five minutes later.

Whether it was civilians trembling in shelters or soldiers cleaning up the battlefield on the front lines, the screens of all devices capable of receiving signals lit up.

Lin Yuan's slightly roguish face appeared in the center of the screen.

The background was that hideous and terrifying Zerg Queen.

"Hello everyone, I'm Lin Yuan."

There was no official opening, nor was there any mournful eulogy.

Lin Yuan, like a peddler selling fake medicine, went straight to the point.

"I know many of you are dying, or are already disabled. Hospitals can't save you now, and God can't either. But I can."

He turned to the side, revealing the giant "meatball" behind him.

"This thing wanted to eat you all before, but I washed its brain. Now, it's my trophy, and it's also your 'medicine jar'."

There was an uproar across the globe.

Everyone watched the monster that once brought despair, now appearing as docile as a cat, and even... with a hint of clear-eyed stupidity in its eyes?

"Alita, connect the tubes."

At Lin Yuan's command, dozens of thick, specially made conduits descended from the ceiling, ruthlessly piercing into the Queen's massive torso.

"Pfft!"

The Queen's sluggish body trembled, but because of Lin Yuan's previous "formatting" command, she didn't resist at all, simply opening her mouth obediently and even flattening her body to make it easier for the tubes to be inserted.

Academician Wang watched from the side, his eyelids twitching: "What... what is this doing?"

"It's simple." Lin Yuan patted the Queen's pale belly. "She has titan-level regeneration genes in her body. I just need to have the life loom slightly modify her secretion commands, changing those nutrient solutions used to create insects into genetic medicine that repairs the human body."

"Then, pump these medicines into the global water supply system."

"In the future, just turn on the faucet, take a sip, and your back won't ache, your legs won't hurt, and you can run up five flights of stairs without breaking a sweat."

A Ji shrank to the side and muttered: "Boss, isn't that bathwater? That's the Queen's bathwater, right? If all of humanity drinks her bathwater, isn't this vibe a bit too perverted?"

"Shut up, that's high-tech biological enzymes." Lin Yuan glared at him.

In the broadcast, the conduits began to work.

The pale green liquid, after being filtered and reorganized by the life loom, turned into a crystal-clear golden yellow, flowing out continuously through the pipes.

"Of course, talk is cheap."

Lin Yuan waved at the camera. "Let someone who isn't afraid of death come forward and set an example for everyone."

The crowd parted.

A middle-aged man in a wheelchair was pushed out. He wore a tattered military uniform, and his pant legs were empty, right up to the base of his thighs.

It was Li Desheng, a veteran who had had his legs severed by a Scythe Beetle while covering for his comrades on the third front.

"Officer Lin." Li Desheng saluted, his eyes resolute. "If I can stand up and kill insects again, forget drinking bathwater—I'd drink piss if I had to!"

"That's a real man."

Lin Yuan didn't waste words, simply drawing a cup of the freshly produced golden liquid and handing it over.

"It's a bit hot, drink slowly."

Li Desheng took it and downed it in one gulp.

Billions of eyes across the globe stared fixedly at the screen.

One second, two seconds.

"Urgh..." Li Desheng suddenly dropped the cup, gripping the armrests of his wheelchair tightly, veins bulging on his forehead as he let out a low, painful growl.

"What's going on? Is he poisoned?" Chen Weiguo was so anxious he reached for his gun.

"Don't move." Lin Yuan pressed his hand down. "It's growing pains. Didn't you ever have a growth spurt when you were a kid?"

No sooner had he spoken than a hair-raising scene unfolded.

From Li Desheng's empty pant legs, a sound like popping beans suddenly erupted.

At the previously smooth stump, countless granulations surged out like rapidly growing vines. Bones were extending, muscles were weaving, and skin was covering them.

The visual impact was both disgusting and divine.

In just three minutes, two brand-new legs, even possessing a certain metallic luster, appeared before everyone.

"This..." Li Desheng stared at his legs in astonishment, tentatively wiggling his toes.

Flexible, powerful.

He held onto the wheelchair and stood up shakily. Then he tried to jump.

Boom!

He didn't control his strength well with that jump, and he slammed directly into the three-meter-high ceiling, his feet leaving two shallow craters in the alloy floor when he landed.

"W-what the hell?" Li Desheng looked at the craters beneath his feet, completely stunned.

The entire hall was silent.

Then, there was a frenzy of cheers.

Countless disabled people and critically ill patients in front of their screens went wild at that moment. Alien monsters, bathwater, ethics, and morality—to hell with all of it!

It can regenerate severed limbs? It can turn people into supermen?

"Give me a cup! I want to drink ten!"

"That's mine! Don't grab it! That's my medicine!"

Shelters all over the world instantly boiled over, and the once deathly atmosphere was swept away.

Lin Yuan nodded with satisfaction.

He turned to look at the still-sluggish Queen and reached out to pat her face: "Not bad. Don't call yourself 'Queen' anymore; it sounds like bad luck."

"Since you're all pale, let's call you 'Da Bai' from now on. Foreman Da Bai, work hard, and I'll name you an outstanding employee at the end of the year."

At this point, the Queen had long since lost her self-awareness. Hearing Lin Yuan's words, she simply turned her head mechanically, a flash of blue light passing through those eyes that once chilled people to the bone.

"Command... confirmed. Codename: Da Bai. Production mode... set to full power."

Rumble—the Queen's massive body began to writhe violently, and production efficiency instantly increased threefold.

Three hours later.

The crowd in the hall had dispersed, and Alita was busy coordinating the distribution of global supplies.

Lin Yuan sat to the side resting, while counting the skyrocketing points in his system.

"Lin Yuan..."

Academician Wang was still squatting beside the life loom, but this time his expression was no longer one of wild joy, but one tinged with deep fear and confusion.

"What's wrong, Old Wang? If you want to get a hair transplant, I can open a back door for you." Lin Yuan was in a good mood.

"No... it's not that." Academician Wang held a holographic tablet, his fingers sliding rapidly across it, his voice trembling slightly.

"While I was analyzing this machine, I also scanned the genetic sample of that veteran from earlier, as well as... my own sample and those of a few ordinary people."

"And?"

"Then I discovered something terrifying." Academician Wang looked up, taking off his broken glasses, his cloudy old eyes filled with horror. "Our human genes... have been locked by someone."

The smile on Lin Yuan's face gradually faded, and he sat up straight: "What do you mean?"

"Literally." Academician Wang handed the tablet to Lin Yuan, pointing to a double-helix structure diagram on it that was so complex it made one dizzy.

"Look here, at the end of the 23rd pair of chromosomes, there is an extremely bizarre segment of 'scrambled code'. It doesn't belong to any product of natural evolution; it's more like... a 'restriction program' written by someone."

"This program has locked the development level of the human brain, restricted the upper limit of physical strength, and even... locked our lifespan."

Academician Wang swallowed hard, his voice dropping very low, as if afraid of disturbing some unspeakable existence.

"And just now, when that veteran drank the medicine, this lock... loosened a little bit."

"Lin Yuan, is there a possibility that the so-called titans weren't protecting us, or just passing by?"

"That this lock... was placed there by them?"

Lin Yuan stared at the bizarre genetic chain on the screen, his purple pupils slightly contracting.

This plot was getting more and more interesting.

If humans themselves were a species that had been "farmed" or "sealed", then once this lock was opened... what would be unleashed?

"Alita." Lin Yuan spoke suddenly, his voice as cold as ice.

"Present."

"Seal this information. If anyone dares to leak a single word, I will make them vanish from the face of the earth."

Lin Yuan stood up and walked to the life loom. Looking at the soft golden light, a crazed arc curled at the corners of his mouth.

"Since someone has put a lock on us..."

He slammed his hand onto the control console.

"Then I'll find a hammer and smash it to pieces."

[Ding!]

[host's intent detected.]

[Hidden quest triggered: Unlock the first genetic shackle.]

[Reward: Void Form second-stage evolution.]

Lin Yuan looked at the system panel, purple light surging in his eyes.

"It seems this is just the beginning."