In the apocalypse, I hoarded goods and handed over my storage space to the government.

The door closed.

Several veterans turned and left, their steps heavy.

Watching the group leave, Su Ran rubbed her temples and let out a long sigh.

Communicating with these veterans who are used to factional warfare in peacetime is sometimes more exhausting than personally going to the front lines to kill a Tier 3 mutated beast.

The Great Xia needed this kind of mature and cautious approach, and he didn't dislike it.

After all, a massive state apparatus can't be made up entirely of crazy people who step on the gas pedal all the time; someone has to step on the brakes.

But in the current situation, there is simply no time to slowly work things out.

The successful containment of the Jiangcheng Mother Nest is only the first step in the Great Xia's counterattack plan.

Su Ran didn't stay in the office for long. He stood up, grabbed the black tactical jacket draped over the back of his chair, and pushed open the door to leave.

Following the heavily guarded internal corridor, Su Ran went straight to the central strategic command hall of the Kunlun base.

The heavy alloy doors slid open silently to both sides.

Inside the hall, glaring red alarm lights flashed on several edge screens, where countless staff officers and communications personnel, wearing headsets, were issuing dispatch instructions at breakneck speed.

"Europa Theater Line 03 requests large-scale fire support!"

"North American Freedom Beacon's application to exchange for 3,000 Tier 2 Crystal Core Rifles has been approved!"

……

A huge holographic projection sand table floated in the center, miniaturizing the entire war situation of the Great Xia and even the world within a small space.

Li Guodong was standing in front of the sand table when he saw Su Ran walking over, and he forced a bitter smile on his tired face.

"Did you just get rid of Chen Shan's group?"

Li Guodong picked up the thermos on the table, took a sip of strong tea, and sighed.

"They are also considering the bigger picture. It's been a habit for decades. Their methods are a bit conservative, but don't take it too seriously."

The higher-ups trust you completely; no one will carry out your orders.

"Old Li, I don't have time to argue with them. The future of Daxia is something we fight for, not something we defend."

Su Ran walked to the holographic sand table, placed her hands on the edge, and focused her sharp gaze directly on the subject.

He didn't want to waste any more time on those old-timers.

"The matter in Jiangcheng has come to a temporary end."

Last time, I commissioned the military to use space-based satellites and global monitoring centers to conduct a deep scan of the energy spectrum worldwide in order to find other alien mother nests like Jiangcheng.

So, what's the result now?

As soon as he finished speaking, Su Ran keenly noticed that Li Guodong's hand holding the thermos cup suddenly stiffened.

The atmosphere instantly became eerily oppressive.

Su Ran's eyes darkened slightly, and a hint of nervousness crept into her heart. She continued to ask,

"Old Li, how much have you found out?"

A full five seconds passed.

Li Guodong slowly put down his thermos and turned to look at Su Ran.

"Xiao Su... the situation may be completely different from what you imagine."

His voice was hoarse as he rapidly typed a password with the highest level of access onto the control panel.

"Smack."

The images on the holographic sand table instantly switched, and a huge energy spectrum scan map covering the entire blue planet floated in front of the two.

Apart from the red dot representing fourth-order energy shining in the location of Daxia Jiangcheng, the rest of the Earth was a deathly, eerie blue!

Li Guodong stared intently at the image, his voice heavy.

"The space-based satellite has completed the most in-depth spectral scan of the globe. After ruling out isolated anomalies..."

Li Guodong took a deep breath and uttered a number that shouldn't have appeared.

"The number of maternal follicles detected globally is 0."

"0?"

Su Ran's pupils contracted slightly, her hands pressed against the edge of the holographic sand table, her eyes fixed on the pale blue projection of Earth.

"Old Li, are you sure you're not joking with me?"

"How could I joke about something like this?"

Li Guodong rubbed his temples, looking utterly exhausted.

Su Ran straightened up, her brows furrowed into a deep frown.

In his previous life, he was just a lowly survivor struggling in the mud, unable to access core secrets.

But even from hearsay, I've heard more than once about monster hordes that are gregarious and have a unified consciousness.

He took a deep breath, his tone extremely firm.

"Old Li, have the comrades at the global monitoring center investigate again!"

"The mother nest in Jiangcheng is rare, but on a global land scale of 150 million square kilometers, how could it be the only one?"

It doesn't make sense from a probabilistic standpoint.

Li Guodong did not refute.

The screen switched again.

A dense array of radar scan spectral maps cascaded down like a waterfall, each map marked with detailed latitude, longitude, and timestamps.

"Xiao Su, you don't need to remind me. The strategic command is even more anxious than you are about finding the mother nest."

Jiangcheng's success has inspired everyone to want to build several more biological weapons factories.

To be honest, when I first received this report, I didn't believe it either.

Li Guodong pointed at the screen, his tone urgent.

"In order to find this special ethnic group with a highly unified collective mindset."

The global surveillance center specially selected twenty top intelligence analysts and radar experts to form a special task force codenamed "Hive Hunt."

"They extracted all the energy frequency, biomagnetic field, and even the microscopic changes in the surrounding environment of the Jiangcheng mother nest and built an extremely complex digital model."

"Then, they used space-based satellites and even deployed near-Earth probes around the world to search every inch of the Earth."

"And the result?"

No. Nothing at all.

Li Guodong spread his hands, his tone revealing a hint of helplessness.

"Apart from the Jiangcheng area, there is no other energy source in the world that matches this digital model."

Su Ran muttered to herself.

"Could it really be that this sole heir has happened to fall within the territory of the Great Xia?"

He certainly wouldn't doubt the professional competence of the experts at the global monitoring center.

Once the state apparatus of the Great Xia is in operation, its rigor is beyond question.

But he just felt that something was wrong.

Could it be that my experiences in my past life were all based on hearsay and misinformation?

"Has the Academy of Sciences gotten involved? What did they say?" Su Ran asked, looking up.

Li Guodong picked up the cup of strong tea, which had long since gone cold, again and took a sip.

"The research team contacted the Chinese Academy of Sciences immediately. The professors organized a seminar overnight and offered a hypothesis."

"What speculation?"

"Differences in form"

Li Guodong uttered four words, then pulled up a 3D perspective view of the Jiangcheng Mother Nest.

"They believe that our current understanding of the 'mother nest' is completely limited to the Jiangcheng manifestation."

That is, the growth of flesh and blood, the hatching of an embryo, and a pyramid structure similar to a bee colony or ant colony.

"But the evolutionary path of mutated creatures is chaotic and uncontrollable."

Li Guodong pointed to one of the perspective drawings and said,

"Perhaps there are indeed multiple nesting colonies hidden in other secret corners of the world."

However, their manifestations may be vastly different from those of the Jiangcheng mother nest.

A sudden flash of inspiration struck Su Ran.

"Does this mean the other mother nests might be a completely different form?"

"That's right."

Li Guodong nodded emphatically.

"It could be a vast network of fungi buried deep underground, or it could be a plant community that parasitizes a primeval forest."

It could even be a group of seemingly unrelated birds that rely on specific infrasound waves to navigate across continents.

He pulled up a chair, sat down, and sighed.

"The differences between them may be even greater than the differences between humans and elephants."

We have never seen any other types of mother nests; our radar only recognizes the spectrum of the Jiangcheng mother nest.

Taking a rabbit-finding detector to the ocean to find fish will only yield zero results.

Su Ran pursed her lips and remained silent.

The conjecture given by the Chinese Academy of Sciences is indeed logically a complete closed loop.

The blind men and the elephant.

Da Xia has just touched one of the elephant's legs and assumed that the whole elephant looks like that. This is the most fatal misconception based on experience.

"Understood."

Su Ran nodded, her doubts replaced by decisiveness.

He's not one to dwell on trivial matters.

Since we can't find it, let's leave it for now.

"Regardless of what the overseas mother nest looks like, at least for now, Great Xia has a biological weapons factory that we can absolutely control."

Su Ran also pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Heaven has fed this piece of meat to Da Xia, so we just need to eat it."

As for potential future troubles, let's deal with them when they arise.

That makes sense.

Seeing that Su Ran was no longer troubled, Li Guodong secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"At this stage, Da Xia can only analyze Jiangcheng's fourth-order mother body to figure out the basic biological network logic while waiting for other forms of mother nests to reveal themselves."

"Alright, have the Academy of Sciences and the monitoring center continue to keep an eye on this matter, expand the scope of spectral detection, and report any abnormalities."

Su Ran leaned forward, crossed her hands and rested them on her chin, her gaze returning to the holographic sand table.

"Old Li, it's been a long time since I've participated in a frontline progress meeting."

What is the current global situation like?