492: Chapter 492 Tracing the Origins

The commotion on the battlefield had quieted down.

Forty-seven elite Zerg corpses were dragged to the open ground outside the perimeter of the base, lined up one after another, dark purple blood plasma staining a large area of the ground.

The carapaces of the three largest Zerg Kings were shattered, charred black by Chen Rong's lightning arcs, emitting an indescribable burnt smell.

Tao Zhe had already brought the people from the Research Team and squatted beside the Zerg corpses to start working.

Three researchers held high-frequency cutting knives in their hands, peeling off the carapace piece by piece along its cracks.

When the cutting knives touched the insect shells, they hummed, and the splattering debris fell onto the protective suits with a pattering sound.

The skull armor of the Zerg King was pried open, revealing a lump of grayish-purple tissue inside.

Completely different from a human brain, it looked more like a large lump of twisted insect silk, densely entangled into the size of a fist.

Tao Zhe inserted the spiritual power probe inside and gently twitched his fingers.

A string of waveform charts popped up on the screen.

Tao Zhe stared at it for a few seconds, his eyebrows lifting slightly.

"Interesting."

"What do you mean?" The nearby researcher leaned closer, with a drop of insect blood still hanging on his face without realizing it himself.

"Look at this waveform." Tao Zhe pointed to a curve on the screen that was decaying but hadn't completely disappeared, "This is the residual imprint of the Divine Sense link. The insects are dead, but the instruction poured in by the Gu Mother hasn't completely dissipated yet."

He brought up another file, which was data collected two days ago from the seven parasitized soldiers.

The two sets of waveforms were placed side by side.

Frequency, identical.

Amplitude decay curve, identical.

Even the spacing of the wave peaks matched to three decimal places.

"This is from the same source." Tao Zhe combined the two sets of data and took a screenshot, "The instructions received by the elite Zerg and the parasites were sent from the same Divine Sense source."

Su Mingyuan had been listening in the communication channel and spoke up at this moment.

"Can we trace it backward?"

Tao Zhe was stunned for a moment.

"In theory, yes. Divine Sense instructions leave energy decay gradients during transmission, just like sound wave propagation. The closer to the source, the stronger the signal. If our drones can simultaneously capture the residual fluctuations at multiple points and perform triangulation, we can roughly lock onto the direction of the transmission source."

He paused and added another sentence.

"But the premise is that these residual signals haven't completely dissipated yet. The insects have been dead for almost an hour, and the signal is decaying. We have to be fast."

"Then what are you standing there for?"

Su Mingyuan's voice came out from the communicator, his speech speed a notch faster than usual.

Tao Zhe didn't say a second word, stood up from the ground, and pulled over a researcher.

"Transfer three hundred Heavenly Eye drones over to me, divided into six groups, to simultaneously collect residual Divine Sense fluctuation data at six directional points near the Zerg corpses. The spacing is one kilometer, and crank the precision up to the maximum!"

"Yes!"

Three hundred drones were all in place within twenty minutes.

The six groups of collection points started working simultaneously, and the data was transmitted back in real-time to the Research Team's mobile workstation.

"The data from the first and third groups intersected, with the direction leaning north-west, roughly between twenty-seven and thirty degrees."

"What about the intersection of the fourth and sixth groups?"

"It's also leaning north-west, twenty-five to twenty-eight degrees, basically overlapping with the previous one."

Tao Zhe drew the last line on the paper, his pen tip pausing at the intersection.

"Found it."

He looked up at the screen and input the positioning coordinates into the map System.

A red dot lit up on the map of the Zerg World.

The straight-line distance from the Third Forward Base was about four thousand seven hundred kilometers.

That area on the map was a huge gray blank space, marked with "Unexplored Area".

"Group Leader Su," Tao Zhe picked up the communicator, "The preliminary positioning results are out. The energy source is in the northwest direction of the base, with a straight-line distance of about four thousand seven hundred kilometers, located in an area we have never scouted before. The depth is unknown; it could be on the surface or underground."

There was silence in the communicator for two seconds.

"What about the precision?"

"Currently, it can only lock down a range of about fifty to eighty kilometers," Tao Zhe said honestly, "The signal is too weak and decaying severely. To further narrow down the range, we need to push the drones to a closer position to collect."

"Fifty to eighty kilometers," Su Mingyuan repeated, his voice neither fast nor slow.

"Enough."

Tao Zhe's pen stopped on the paper surface.

"Group Leader Su, what do you mean?"

"No need to rush to push people forward yet." Su Mingyuan's tone changed, dropping several degrees deeper than before, "Frontline troops stop advancing, contract the defense line, and all mecha formations stand by in place. Triple the drone reconnaissance density, keep a close eye on that area, but do not enter the fifty-kilometer core circle."

Zhang Dabiao shouted in the channel.

"Stop? Group Leader Su, we were fighting smoothly."

"Must stop." Su Mingyuan didn't give him room to bargain, "The Gu Mother is no fool. Next step, either she runs or she fights desperately. Whichever it is, it's not suitable for us to rush up right now."

Zhang Dabiao stopped making a sound.

"We cannot do things that startle the snake." Su Mingyuan continued, "Now we roughly know where she is, but she doesn't necessarily know that we've already tracked her down. This information gap is more useful than ten thousand mechas."

Tao Zhe nodded over there, his hands already starting to input new deployment parameters into the command System.

"In addition," Su Mingyuan's voice popped out from the communicator again, his tone turning half a shade colder.

"All nuclear weapon platforms enter standby status. The Kunpeng formation has completed loading munitions, and all land-based launch vehicles have calibrated their coordinates. Once the drones confirm the Gu Mother's precise location, I want the launch completed within three minutes."

"Understood."

Tao Zhe turned around immediately.

Su Mingyuan leaned against his chair and lowered his head to glance at the tablet.

The screen still displayed that red dot, shining lonely in a gray unknown area.

Four thousand seven hundred kilometers.

He suddenly remembered something.

Those parasitized soldiers, seven of which were exposed today, had all been controlled.

But the chess pieces buried by the Gu Mother couldn't possibly be just seven.

Parasites that are not activated cannot be detected by any means.

That is to say, there might still be her eyes around him.

Every decision he made now, every word he spoke, might be transmitted back to that insect nest four thousand seven hundred kilometers away through some unknown corner.

Su Mingyuan raised his head and swept a glance at the people in Central Command.

Staff officers, communication soldiers, guards, everyone looked very normal.

Everyone's eyes were of normal color.

But normal does not mean safe.

Su Mingyuan withdrew his gaze, turned off the battlefield situation map, and switched to another channel.

"Tao Zhe."

"Present."

"Raise the encryption level of information related to nuclear weapon deployment to the highest. Starting from now, only the five most core personnel within Central Command will be retained, and all others will be transferred away."

Tao Zhe was quiet on the other end for a second.

"Understood. I'll arrange it right away."

Su Mingyuan hung up the communicator, placed the tablet face down on the table, leaned back against the chair back, and closed his eyes.

He didn't know if there were still the Gu Mother's informants around him.

But nuclear weapons were the trump card of trump cards.

This card must be firmly grasped in his own hands.

But what he didn't know was that in a supply tent fifty meters away from Central Command, a corporal who was counting ammunition boxes suddenly paused.

Deep in the depths of his eyes, an extremely faint trace of blood-red flashed past.

That blood-red existed for less than a tenth of a second before disappearing.

The corporal lowered his head, continued counting ammunition, and his movements were exactly the same as usual.

But deep inside the insect nest four thousand seven hundred kilometers away, the Gu Mother opened her eyes.

She saw every word Su Mingyuan had just spoken.

All nuclear weapon platforms enter standby status.

The Kunpeng formation has completed loading munitions.

All land-based launch vehicles have calibrated coordinates.

And the quantity was actually more than what she had learned from Daoist Wan Shi.

The Gu Mother's fingers unconsciously gripped the insect pupa beneath her tightly, her nails sinking into the insect skin, and dark purple mucus seeped out from between her fingers.

She had lived for hundreds of years and experienced countless life-and-death battles, but never once had she felt time to be so pressing.