Following Xu Xiafeng's order, nearly a quarter of the soldiers in the formation on the field raised their legs and walked out of the team. The rest dispersed on the spot and continued to work on what they were busy with before.
"Tell me the number..."
Xu Xiafeng narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at the remaining soldiers. His eyes were full of pride, like a wolf king scanning the wolf cubs below.
After a brief and straightforward counting, Xu Xiafeng got the number of forty-seven, which was neither too high nor too low.
"Forty-seven enhancers...very good! First-level ability users are out!"
As early as more than ten days ago, not long after the disaster broke out, the Ninth Military Region restored communications, got in touch with the capital, and learned the general situation of the matter.
As Xu Xiafeng thought, this disaster was a premeditated biochemical attack. By putting secondary viruses into the water source, the old order was defeated.
But the news that followed left the military commander a little confused.
As a biochemical weapon, the secondary virus seems to be not only a powerful infectious virus, but from another perspective, it does not even look like a virus, but like a catalyst.
Anyone with a little common sense knows that a virus is a non-cellular organism that is small in size, has a simple structure, and contains only one kind of nucleic acid DNA or RNA inside. It can only parasitize in living cells and multiply by replication.
Generally speaking, viruses can only reproduce themselves by parasitic hosts.
Once there is no host to parasitize, it cannot survive on its own.
Logically speaking, a virus that relies on a host to survive should not rush to kill the host after infecting it. Instead, it should reach a delicate balance with the host and live in harmony.
Because only in this way can the number of populations be continuously expanded and the purpose of continuous reproduction of organisms be achieved.
But viruses in nature all have a very retarded characteristic, that is, once the host cannot kill the virus, the virus will kill the host and then die with the host.
Siluke
There is no such thing as harmonious symbiosis.
But the secondary virus is like a wise man among viruses. While it has all the characteristics of a virus, it also eradicates the original mental retardation characteristic of "needing to kill the host".
The secondary virus is still competing with the host for control of the body, but this time no matter whether the virus wins or loses, the host's body will undergo earth-shaking changes.
However, any organism infected by the secondary virus will not experience any failure of its organs. On the contrary, it will be stronger than before infection. The strength of muscle contraction, the oxygen carrying capacity of hemoglobin, and even the activity of germ cells will all be improved. Improved to a great extent.
It's like giving the host a whole-body health care and regaining its second spring of life.
So now the following two situations occur.
In the first type, the secondary virus occupies the high ground and successfully seizes control of the body. In order to obtain more nutrients and conditions for reproduction, the host will become a zombie that drinks blood and eats flesh, always hungry, thirsty, ferocious and cruel.
The second type is when the immune system defeats the secondary virus. At this time, the virus will be transformed into a harmless enhancer to the human body, and it will still perform its duties of general health care dedicatedly, but it will no longer compete for the body's vitality. Control and coexist peacefully and harmoniously with the host.
In this case, another existence was born - the enhancer.
As you can tell from the name, Enhancers are evolved humans who are stronger than ordinary humans. They can possess the same power as zombies while maintaining their sanity.
And according to the news from above, the Enhancer can continue to evolve and become a more powerful existence.
First-level ability users are the first threshold that ordinary people encounter after becoming enhancers.
Successful immunity to secondary viral infection in the body becomes strengthened
Afterwards, the secondary virus will have a certain impact on the genome in the human body, causing the originally unbreakable helix chain to loosen.
For example, if a human heart fails, the only other option besides using a mechanical heart is to find a suitable human heart for organ transplantation.
Because if the model does not match, the recipient of the heart is likely to have a violent rejection reaction and use its own immune system to kill the newly transplanted heart.
But those whose bodies are successfully immune to the secondary virus are different. The changes in the gene chain allow their bodies to tolerate outside heretics on a larger scale. The hearts that would otherwise be rejected in ordinary people's bodies will not be transplanted into their chests. It beats extremely powerfully.
Even more extreme, if a pig's heart is transplanted into the enhanced person, not only will the enhanced person's body not be rejected, but it will be able to live happily for a long time.
However, while the genetic chain accepts more heretics, it will also be changed by these heretics.
It's like a person comes into contact with a foreign gene from a dog. Once the fusion is successful, his sense of smell is likely to be greatly improved.
This type of trait is called genetic assimilation.
The key to becoming an esper is to be exposed to foreign genes after the secondary virus strengthens the body.
There are two ways of genetic assimilation.
One is to directly contact unpurified foreign genes and allow external gene fragments to directly contaminate itself. This method is simple and crude, but the consequences are also incalculable.
A person may be bitten by a mosquito after becoming an Enhancer, and thus his or her genes may be contaminated and acquire certain mosquito attributes and abilities.
It is also possible that due to its own tolerance characteristics, it has not been assimilated by other genetic contamination.
In short, the results of genetic contamination are unpredictable and full of uncertainty.
Corresponding to genetic pollution is genetic grafting.
High-quality gene fragments are screened and purified, directly introduced into the human body through surgery, and assimilated under the action of secondary viruses.
This method is demanding and requires complex surgical conditions. Judging from the information currently available to the military, it is simply not enough to replicate the surgical conditions for gene grafting.
Therefore, the first-level ability users in the Ninth Military Region, like Ma Long and Zhang Jike, were genetically contaminated and became first-level ability users by accident.
Looking at the five first-level ability users standing in front of him, Xu Xiafeng raised his eyebrows slightly and nodded imperceptibly.
"You guys, come with me. I have something to discuss with you. The remaining enhancers will be disbanded on the spot and continue to be on guard. If a mutated zombie appears, kill it on the spot."
Xu Xiafeng, who has always called himself Lao Tzu, actually changed his catchphrase and used a relatively polite tone when facing a first-level ability user.
However, although the tone was polite, it was not humble. After all, Xu Xiafeng himself was an enhancer who had survived the infection period. However, due to his own tolerance, he was not genetically contaminated and became a first-level ability user.
With five first-level ability users, Xu Xiafeng entered the lounge next to the training ground. The place had been cleaned up. Except for the blood stains of zombies still remaining on the walls, everything else was the same as before the disaster.
"Sit down, comrades."
After saying this, Xu Xiafeng took the lead and sat on the nearby small stool. His slightly bloated body coordinated with his falling movements, making the surrounding soldiers sweat in their hearts for the small stool.
I was afraid that the military commander would accidentally collapse the stool.
"Captain Xu, did you have anything important to say when you called us here?"
The first person to speak was a young man with a round face and a neat buzz cut. He looked like he was only in his early twenties.
The young man’s name is Chen Xiao. I don’t know what to say about him.
Good or bad luck, after surviving the initial infection period, these idiots hurriedly joined the cleanup team, thinking of clearing out the zombies in the military area as quickly as possible.
As a result, during the cleaning process, a mutated military dog infected by the virus sprang out from the corner and pounced on Chen Xiao.
Chen Xiao, on the other hand, had not yet adapted to his enhanced body, causing his dodge movements to be sluggish for a moment.
Although there was no humiliating death in the end, his forearm was still bitten by the ferocious military dog. By coincidence, Chen Xiao's body did not seem to reject the foreign genes of creatures such as military dogs at all. Day and night, After falling into a coma, this young man with a round face and short hair inexplicably became a first-level ability user.
"Ahem, sit down first. I'm afraid you won't be able to accept it for a while and sit down on the ground."
Waving his thick palms casually, Xu Xiafeng's words contained a hint of black humor.
Hearing what the military commander said, the remaining people became more and more confused, so they had to find a seat nearby and wait for the next chapter.
Seeing that all five people were seated, Xu Xiafeng cleared his throat and spoke.
"New instructions have come from above. The entire military region has entered a state of war. The original military rank system is invalidated. Everyone will start equally and accept the evaluation of the new military rank."
"What?!"
The five of them were fully prepared mentally. When they heard Xu Xiafeng tell the news, they all stood up from their chairs in surprise and looked at each other in disbelief.
"The original military rank system is invalidated? This..."
Chen Xiao, a young man with a round face, was the first to speak. He has a cheerful personality. If he has any questions, he will ask them immediately and will not keep them in his heart.
"Isn't this a good thing? Disrupt the original organization and rearrange it according to strength. You guys may be my immediate bosses in the future."
Xu Xiafeng picked his nose nonchalantly and put his thick calves on the table opposite.
"But if the original organization is disrupted, isn't the capital afraid of chaos within our military region?"
The person asking the question was a dark-skinned young man. His height of 1.8 meters should make him look very oppressive, but his thin figure weakened this oppressive force. Coupled with his slightly honest face, it was easy for people to think that he was He is a hard-working farmer in a rural area.
But if you really treat him as a simple and honest young man, you will suffer a lot.
The name of the dark and thin young man is Xu Kai. Under his inconspicuous appearance, he hides a logical and rigorous heart.
Especially after becoming an esper, the young man's behavior became more cautious. On several occasions, he discovered threats lurking in the dark in advance and rescued unsuspecting teammates in time.
"Breaking it into pieces, maybe the capital wants to give up the previous set of things and start over."
Without answering Xu Kai's question directly, Xu Xiafeng took his fingers out of his nostrils, found a relatively clean spot on his clothes, and wiped them without scruples.
"Well……"
Seeing Xu Xiafeng's indifferent expression, Xu Kai opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Boys, the world today is different from before. Although the job of us soldiers is to fight, the situation this time is different from the previous conventional wars."
"I am your commander before, so I have the guts to say a few words."
"You are all first-level ability users. As the forerunners of the Ninth Military Region, I have no right to ask you to do something for the military region. However, you are all brought by me to serve as soldiers. No matter how the situation changes in the future, I hope that your original intention will not change. Change!"
Having said this, Xu Xiafeng stood up from the stool and glanced at the five first-level ability users present.
"The original intention has changed. No matter how strong the strong man is, he is worthless garbage!"
