FT DR Chapter 147: The Battle of the Matron and the Reapers

Chapter 147: The Battle of the Matron and the Reapers

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Wu Chenghe “gazed” at the beam of light in the consciousness world.  A beam of light unlike anything seen before. In the bleak world of gray-black lines, the beam of light was as intense and dazzling as the sun, completely different from anything he had observed in the human world before. Even the brightest sentinel or guide in the consciousness cloud couldn’t compare to its brightness. 

It was an indescribably powerful spirit body, not belonging to the human spirit body. Wu Chenghe could sense that it had no carrier like a human body in the low-dimensional world; it was ethereal yet existed in reality, in the high-dimensional space inaccessible to ordinary humans. 

It was extremely sensitive, and it detected the presence of the small team only through subtle consciousness fluctuations, drifting towards them with long shadows. Wu Chenghe caught a familiar strange scent, sweet and pungent with a hint of rust, sticky and heavy. Perhaps this was the only mapping of such high-dimensional beings in the three-dimensional world that ordinary humans could perceive.

A powerful oppression instantly struck, causing severe tremors in the consciousness clouds of the entire team of guides. Without a word, everyone quickly erected a sturdy barrier, enveloping themselves and the sentinel’s consciousness clouds heavily.

The Reapers approached them in the high-dimensional space, and the intense light instantly engulfed the mental fortresses constructed by the guides. In the moment when they were overwhelmed by the strong light, Wu Chenghe felt his consciousness cloud churn violently like seawater struck by molten lava, steaming up countless tiny vapors. At the same time, his brain felt like it was pierced by a hot iron rod, emitting a burning sharp pain.

His consciousness was the strongest among the six guides, yet he was affected like this. The suffering of the others must be even worse, especially the Bamboo Worm guide with relatively weaker consciousness. Shortly after being submerged by the strong light, the barrier it constructed began to melt and disintegrate like an ice wall exposed to sunlight.

The quantum beasts also felt the strength of the enemy, especially the sentinel quantum beasts, trembling beside their masters. Except for Icarus Butterfly, whose mental energy was the strongest, fluttering restlessly around Wu Chenghe, sensing its master’s pain through mental empathy, occasionally stopping on the ears of the Barbary Lion to flap its wings.

The Reapers gradually devoured the barriers constructed by the guides. Wu Chenghe’s brain endured wave after wave of impact, gradually becoming unbearable. He felt that the name “Reaper” was extremely appropriate. At this moment, his consciousness cloud was like wheat in a field, being slowly cut out of his body by sharp sickles.

No, they couldn’t continue like this. Simply defending would only lead to death! Wu Chenghe struggled to think in the gap of defense. They were completely exposed to the sight of the Reapers now. Although they could temporarily resist the enemy’s attacks, it was doomed not to last long. The three-dimensional body had its limits, and their consciousness depended on the body’s existence. When physical exhaustion reached its limit, consciousness clouds would also be depleted.

The Reapers were purely high-dimensional beings, free from the constraints of the body, and their mental energy flowed endlessly like the vast sea. If they continued to consume like this, their fate would only be complete consumption, being “harvested.”

They had to take the initiative!

Wu Chenghe decided to take a risk. He suddenly extended a pair of mental tendrils, piercing through the mental barrier he built, towards the beam of light enveloping them! After observing for a while, he found that the beam of light was not uniform chaos, but like the consciousness clouds of the sentinel, it had its unique structure and plate distribution. Some areas were bright, some were dark, and some flickered like stars incessantly.

At such times, they could only rely on luck. Wu Chenghe didn’t hesitate and swung his tendrils towards those flickering spots! He guessed that those points were likely unstable parts of the Reapers’ consciousness, and instability meant vulnerabilities!

Sure enough, under his fierce attack, the glow of the Reapers dimmed suddenly, and the speed of devouring the mental barrier slowed down. The originally faintly flickering points became even brighter, as clear as stars on a clear night.

Guessed it right! Wu Chenghe felt joy in his heart, withdrawing a small part of his consciousness used for the mental barrier, and adding two more mental tendrils towards those flickering stars. This time, the reaction of the Reapers was even more obvious. A faint black mist emerged from the center of its light cluster, and the force pressing on the mental barrier lessened slightly. At the same time, Wu Chenghe smelled a stronger sweet and bloody scent, as if someone had spilled a large cup of blood at his feet. It seemed that this scent not only was a reflection of the Reapers’ mapping in the three-dimensional world but also reflected its state after being attacked!

“Watch out for those stars!” Wu Chenghe’s eyes turned into thin vertical pupils as he whispered to the others, “Those stars seem to be its weak points. After I attacked it just now, the pressure on our consciousness significantly decreased. Maybe we can attack it together…”

“I-I can’t do it anymore!” The Bamboo Worm guide’s face turned pale as he leaned back in his seat, body trembling slightly. “I don’t have the strength to attack anymore. My head… it feels like it’s going to split open!”

“I can’t do it either,” another guide hoarsely said. “I’m about to collapse. Its power is too strong, and my barrier is about to be consumed!”

“We can’t go on like this,” a slightly older guide gritted his teeth. “Continuing like this will only lead to our eventual demise. Captain Wu is right, we must counterattack.”

“But I…” the young guide sitting at the back of the shuttle could hardly speak, and it was his sentinel who understood his thoughts through mental empathy, speaking for him, “He can’t either. He doesn’t have the extra strength to counterattack.”

“I’ll do it,” Wu Chenghe said in a deep voice. “I’ll take care of the attack. You guys guard the mental barrier and protect my sentinel.”

“Roar!” In the high-dimensional space, Jin Xuan’s Barbary lion immediately stood up, anxiously looking at the Icarus butterfly fluttering in front of it. The butterfly landed lightly on its nose, soothing its restlessness with mental energy. Gradually, the lion calmed down, although it was still unwilling, it obediently lay down, only swaying its long tail from side to side, showing its inner unrest.

Jin Xuan sat silently in the pilot’s seat, not saying a word. Since he had promised to bring Wu Chenghe out, he had to treat him like a soldier and not mix too many personal feelings. Although he was also worried about Wu Chenghe’s condition, at this time, he had to consider the entire team, the entire federation.

So he didn’t stop him, only communicated through mental empathy, [Be careful!]

[Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,] Wu Chenghe replied simply, then asked the other five guides, “Are you ready?”

“Ready!” The five guides said in unison. Although they couldn’t spare energy to attack, it was barely possible for five of them to share the defense of one person. Moreover, every time Wu Chenghe attacked, the pressure on them would decrease slightly, which was a complementary process.

Each of the five guides allocated some of their strength to take over Wu Chenghe’s position, while Wu Chenghe gathered all his consciousness, turning it into dozens of powerful mental tendrils. Taking a deep breath, he swung towards the stars in the Reaper’s light cluster! The pungent smell of blood spread rapidly, and the Reaper’s light cluster began to shrink violently. The pressure on the group of guides suddenly lightened, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The elder guide even freed up some energy and extended a pair of mental tendrils to help Wu Chenghe.

Wu Chenghe’s tendrils deeply penetrated into the Reaper’s consciousness cloud, and a fine electric current passed back to his brain like a reaction force through the connecting points. He couldn’t help but tremble slightly, vaguely feeling a bright light flashing in his mind, accompanied by a subtle sense of comfort.

What was that? Wu Chenghe became wary, blocking the elder guide’s attempt to help him, signaling him not to act rashly, and then manipulating his mental tendrils to probe deeper into the Reaper’s consciousness cloud.

Like rain falling into the sea, after the unbearable electric shock sensation passed, Wu Chenghe felt a relaxation and comfort he had never experienced before. It was an indescribable warmth and comfort, like a mother’s womb, a father’s embrace, filling him with a childlike innocence and security from the depths of instinct.

The mental tendrils seemed to melt into the vast consciousness cloud of the Reaper. Wu Chenghe felt lazy, and the previous tension and fighting spirit slowly disappeared, replaced by a return and peace rising from the depths of instinct. He “saw” countless sentinel souls, their consciousness clouds, and quantum beasts, floating quietly in the Reaper’s light cluster. The light cluster seemed to have become infinite, accommodating tens of thousands of sentinel souls without appearing crowded at all.

[Seed.] A strange voice echoed in Wu Chenghe’s mind, not belonging to Jin Xuan, but clearer than Jin Xuan’s mental empathy—[Powerful seed.]

[Who are you?] Wu Chenghe asked in confusion, [What seed?]

[Reaper.] The voice answered him, intermittently, with a very strange tone and tone, as if not very proficient in human language—[I, we, Reaper. Your name for us is very good, very appropriate.]

Reaper… Although Wu Chenghe’s heart was calm, when this name rang in his mind, his consciousness cloud couldn’t help but surge. He suddenly remembered the Beta Front, remembered those living dead lying on the dock—[Why do you kill them? Why take away their consciousness clouds?]

[Kill?] The Reaper seemed puzzled, paused for a moment, and then said [Not kill, just reap… Seeds ripe, seeds very good.]

[What exactly is the seed?] Wu Chenghe asked.

[You, all of you, are seeds,] the Reaper said, [You, seed, powerful seed… Butterfly seed, oh, so beautiful.]

Wu Chenghe’s Icarus butterfly, integrated with his consciousness cloud, also appeared in the Reaper’s light cluster. It flew around vigilantly, showing no sign of comfort, its wings beating rapidly, apparently much more awake than its owner.

【Why do you call us seeds?】 Wu Chenghe asked. 【And what exactly is the Reaper? Where do you come from?】

【Mother universe, there are special channels leading to all universes,】 the Reaper attempted to explain to him using human language, but it was clear that its vocabulary was still insufficient. 【We sow, roam, harvest seeds, and take you back to the mother universe.】

Wu Chenghe couldn’t understand what it was saying at all. The Reaper seemed to sense his confusion and let out a lifelike sigh, saying, 【Ah, follow me.】

The mental landscape suddenly changed. The light cluster, sentinel souls, the voice of the Reaper… everything disappeared in an instant, replaced by a mass of pitch-black chaos. Wu Chenghe’s consciousness cloud floated in absolute darkness, gradually “seeing” a bright light erupting from the center of the darkness. Then, the light rapidly expanded, exploded, forming more and more points of light, and then countless stars.

Even though he only had a half-understanding of cosmology, Wu Chenghe understood what was happening before him—the Reaper was using mental illusions to describe the formation of the universe to him.

【Mother universe】 the Reaper’s voice appeared again 【Parallel universes, you and me, our mother universe.】

Wu Chenghe realized that they came from another parallel universe, their mother universe. But why did it say “we”?

The mental illusion continued. The primordial universe rapidly changed and matured, and more and more stars began to appear as intelligent life forms. They were a type of life completely different from humans, without the physical bodies of the three-dimensional world, only the “souls” of the higher-dimensional world.

【Reaper】 the hollow voice began to explain again 【In the early stages, vital, the Reapers.】

What did it mean? Wu Chenghe tried to extract some useful information from its words, but the vocabulary was too poor, and he couldn’t understand the deeper meanings behind its sentences. The Reaper seemed to realize this too and accelerated the pace of the illusion—the primitive universe was full of changes, and as it continued to “evolve,” their structures began to change, forming different “races,” each “race” forming different “beliefs.”

Just like in the human world, they began to delineate their respective spheres of influence, defend against each other, attack each other, and attempt to eliminate races different from themselves, using a unified “bloodline” to make the entire mother universe more standard and harmonious.

Then, one race succeeded.

The entire mother universe was unified by them, and to prevent new divisions, they created a method to completely remove the parts of themselves that could cause changes—let’s call it “evolutionary genes” for now.

All light clusters accepted this removal, but the ideal harmony and peace did not last long. Soon, they found that the reproduction of the entire race had problems. Because they lost their “evolutionary genes,” their bodies (the light clusters in higher-dimensional space) became very passive, unwilling to give birth to new offspring. Even if they were born, they lacked “evolutionary genes” like them, so they were even more unwilling to reproduce after maturity.

This was a terrible vicious cycle, but they were powerless against it, because it was the instinct of their bodies—losing the ability to evolve, their bodies assumed they couldn’t evolve and should be eliminated, and shouldn’t continue to exist.

By the time they realized this, it was too late. “Removal” was irreversible, and their bodies could not regrow evolutionary genes. Fortunately, their lives were very long, and before the entire race became extinct, they had several hundred thousand years to find a way out for themselves. So, a certain leader of a race formulated the “sowing plan,” sending out almost half of the tribe through some special “channels” to shuttle through various parallel universes, spreading their “seeds”—which could be understood as a kind of gene fragment that could be embedded across dimensions and races—into other universes through some special means.

Unfortunately, the universe where humans currently reside was the “experimental field” they visited tens of thousands of years ago, and the alien scorpions who once lived on the planet Eida were their “seeding” objects. Later, the alien scorpions, in order to overthrow humans, embedded their gene fragments into the human gene chain, creating “mutant” spies to infiltrate the human world. Later, humans and mutants joined forces to defeat the alien scorpions, leading to a great fusion of races and the emergence of sentinels and guides.

Through countless miraculous coincidences, through the clever genetic fusion of humans, a miracle occurred—the “evolutionary genes” that the Reapers had been castrated for hundreds of thousands of years, actually appeared in the sentinels and guides, in their consciousness clouds. And because humans used a large number of animal genes in genetic fusion, these “evolutionary genes” were very diverse, and their vitality far exceeded that of the Reapers themselves, which was simply astonishing!

【Roamers, Reapers, us】 the mental illusion continued to evolve, and the voice of the Reaper appeared in Wu Chenghe’s mind again 【Seeds, you】 pausing for a moment, it added 【Will evolve, like us.】

Wu Chenghe’s inner shock was beyond words. No wonder he felt a sense of return and identification when he entered the Reaper’s consciousness cloud—originally, from some tiny gene fragment perspective, he and the Reapers were actually of the same kind!

No, Sentinels and Guides were not the same kind, as the Reapers said; they were just the “seeds” that could allow them to continue evolving.

【How are the seeds used?】 Wu Chenghe asked the Reaper. 

The Reaper replied, 【Bring back to the mother universe, extract “evolutionary genes,” fuse.】

【What about the bodies of the seeds?】 

The Reaper seemed to misunderstand the term “bodies” and took a long time to answer after sensing Wu Chenghe’s memories. 【Useless, discard.】

【The body is a part of us. If it’s discarded, we will die,】 Wu Chenghe said. 

The Reaper took a long time again to understand the term “death” and said, 【No, no death, seeds don’t die. After fusion, new life, new us.】

Wu Chenghe carefully pondered its words and vaguely understood something—the Reapers were completely different from humans in terms of life form and thought patterns. They had no concept of “bodies”; as long as their spirits were alive, they were alive. They were also very indifferent to the concept of “self,” seeing themselves more as part of the race. As long as the race continued, they believed their lives continued.

The truth of everything became clear. There was no invasion, no slaughter; they were just another kind of life from another universe, here only to “harvest.” Unfortunately, what they were trying to take away was human life.

【What if I refuse to be harvested?】 Wu Chenghe asked. 【I refuse to return to the mother universe.】

The Reaper fell silent, seemingly unable to understand his strange request. It took a long time before saying, 【Cannot allow it. Race must survive, you must be harvested.】

【But I don’t want to,】 Wu Chenghe tried to make them understand what “I” and “individual will” were. 【The seed is mine, I want it to continue to exist in its original way.】

【No,】 the Reaper’s response was very quick this time. 【No “I,” only race.】

Wu Chenghe thought for a moment, trying to compromise to gain concessions from the other side. 【You have already harvested so many seeds, it’s enough. Can you let us continue to exist in our original way for the remaining seeds?】

【No,】 the Reaper said firmly. 【Need many, many more.】 After a pause, it added, 【You, very beautiful, very miraculous, each one is different, they—】 A large group of sentinels appeared in the mental illusion, followed by a batch of guides, and finally it said to Wu Chenghe, 【You, the best, the strongest, the butterfly is very beautiful.】

At this point in the communication, Wu Chenghe had already determined that both sides could not reach any compromise. Humans could not trade all their sentinels and guides for peace, and even if they did, this peace would be temporary. As long as ordinary people still existed, they could give birth to sentinels and guides. In a few years, the Reapers would inevitably come back and harvest again, until there was nothing left to harvest.

And the Reapers could not give up harvesting. Through this communication, Wu Chenghe had understood their “personality.” They would not lie, would not compromise, had no individual will, only the interests of the race.

They would absolutely not give up harvesting.

【I’m sorry, I do not agree to be harvested by you,】 Wu Chenghe said firmly. 【I am not your kind; I am “human.” My body and my consciousness, my quantum beast, are all parts of me as a “human,” so I refuse to be harvested.】

With that, he vigorously waved his mental tendrils and stabbed towards the depths of the Reaper’s consciousness. The mental illusion disappeared in an instant, and he found himself back in the light cluster, surrounded by countless sentinel souls. Unstable stars flickered in the light cluster, and his Icarus butterfly bravely flapped its wings, fearless.

Wu Chenghe quickly swung his mental tendrils to attack the stars of the Reaper. The space around him twisted, and the light cluster gradually became chaotic, surging like mist tainted with ink. Suddenly, a bright lightning bolt shot out of the mist, Wu Chenghe’s brain stung, and he almost lost consciousness in an instant. Two mental tendrils seemed to be cut off like a sharp sword, falling into the dense fog, disappearing without a trace.

Wu Chenghe’s consciousness cloud surged more violently. He knew he was injured, but he couldn’t give up because he had fallen into the Reaper’s consciousness cloud. If he surrendered, he would only be harvested. So, he concentrated all his consciousness and merged all his tendrils together, stabbing towards the brightest starlight of the Reaper. His Icarus butterfly was also not afraid, following the tendrils and rushing into the starlight.

The dense fog violently contracted, as if it had suffered a major blow. Wu Chenghe was about to take advantage of the situation to pursue, but suddenly, a huge, dazzling lightning bolt shot out from the depths of the fog, slashing towards his mental tendrils!

Wu Chenghe’s heart turned cold. The Reaper was too powerful; he had no chance of winning against it…

At the critical moment, a gentle white light suddenly emerged from his clouded consciousness. The reaper’s lightning barely touched his mental tendrils, abruptly halting and then vanishing without a trace.

“The New Seed,” the reaper’s voice, wounded and trembling, yet filled with joy, said, “Unprecedented… very beautiful.”

Wu Chenghe, still in shock, couldn’t comprehend. 

The reaper continued, “The unborn, within your ‘body,’ must be protected.”

Unborn? Within my body? Wu Chenghe suddenly remembered the little pea in his belly. Could it be what the reaper was referring to?

 

 

 

 

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