Chapter 334 - Clash of Civilizations (1/2)

Meng Chao sucked in a deep breath.

Even if he had memories from his past life, he still felt that his views of the world, his self, and morals had been strongly challenged.

But when he calmed down and thought about it with a clear head, Ye Xiaoxing’s started sounding plausible.

If they were on Earth, in just half a century, it was not enough time for human civilization, including individual humans, to change in terms of their nature.

But they were in the Other World where materials and spirits were incredibly unstable. Everything was growing at high speed and evolving even faster. They had to get rid of what was weak and retain what was strong in the brutal competition of survival.

Dragon City had managed to gather a lot of advanced technology, unlock the secrets of runic symbols and spirit energy, and produce superhumans who could soar freely in the skies in a short fifty years.

He wondered whether any of the satellite cities that were scattered all around the Monster Mountain Range were as lucky as they were.

Ye Xiaoxing continued, “Meng Chao, you’re a harvester. You should be able to tell that many of the monsters shouldn’t exist from a biological standpoint, right? For example, the Seven-star Wolf Spider is a fusion of a canine-type monster and arachnid. Is it possible for anything to evolve naturally into that state in the wild?

“All signs point to the fact that many of the monsters didn’t evolve naturally. They should have been biological weapons created by a civilization of the Other World that existed long ago.

“Of course, that prehistoric civilization collapsed a long time ago. Based on the results from the ancient ruins research center we built under the Supernatural Tower, this is something that happened more than a million years ago. Most of the current monsters are still controlled by their beast instincts. They don’t have a lot of intelligence nor the intention to completely destroy us.

“But no matter what, they have brains. They are not like those of mammals, but are complicated neural networks like those of the Ultimate Sandworm. This passes the requirements for them to possess intelligence.

“In other words, some of the high-grade monsters can possess intelligence based on their ‘hardware’. However, aside from the support of their ‘hardware’, they also need a software to possess intelligence, and that is teamwork.

“They need a division of work in society and continuous merging of ideologies and culture for tens of thousands of years. It’s only then that they would be able to gain true intelligence.

“We’ve taken down a lot of Apocalyptic Beasts and found that even though their minds are clearly very well-developed and possess ganglions and sulci that far surpasses those of humans, they have not awakened to intelligence. The reason is that they lack software.

“The problem is, we can’t be certain just how much of Dragon City’s territory transmigrated. Was it only the main city area and a few of the new city areas in the suburbs or did all of the satellite cities come with us? Did the dozens of towns and hundreds of villages under Dragon City also transmigrate?

“You must understand, even our smallest village had hundreds of people, which could form a relatively complete human societal system. It might be small, but it would have all the functions.

“If that one small village after transmigration ended up in the hands of a monster with mind control powers and that monster had a brain developed enough for it to possess intelligence, which, for some reason, didn’t eat all the villagers like a brute but instead… investigated their brains, read their memories, learned their language, customs, culture, societal structure, ruling methods, war tactics, and in the end, mastered all the advantages and weaknesses of humanity, just how terrifying would this monster be?

“Or perhaps no monster evolved to the point that it possessed intelligence and a sense of self. Instead, to survive after the transmigration, the villagers did a lot of things that went past morals, such as eating the corpses of their own kind, and were twisted into something inhuman by the brutal environment. Once they discovered Dragon City’s existence, wouldn’t they use monsters’ strength to fight against Dragon City?”

Meng Chao thought about it. “No matter what, all of us are comrades who transmigrated together half a century ago. Are you sure that the members of these satellite cities will definitely be hostile toward us? Didn’t you just say that the members of Dragon King Town aren’t really aggressive and just love anime?”

“Dragon King Town is a unique case because the town members there formed a symbiotic relationship with the Divine Tree. They’re life forms who are similar to plants. The town members have been eating the juice of the tree for a long period of time, which has diminished their aggressive nature,” Ye Xiaoxing said calmly.

“Based on the predictions of the sociologists in the abnormal beast research department, if there are truly other satellite cities that have transmigrated into the depths of the fog and survived for fifty years in the wild, it’s highly likely that they will be hostile and highly aggressive toward us.”

“Why?”

“It’s simple. Think of the sci-fi story of the spaceships that escaped from Earth. If you were a captain of one of those spaceships and killed thousands of your comrades by attacking other spaceships to snatch their resources, you’d be walking down an incredibly dark path.

“But right then, imagine if you discovered another spaceship. It appeared to be larger than your spaceship and with greater firepower. The people in that spaceship also still retained the moral views and laws from Earth. Now, ask yourself, would you have any other choice aside from attacking first to gain an advantage?”

Meng Chao fell silent.

He had to admit that Ye Xiaoxing was right.