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.
Once a person crossed certain boundaries, there was no coming back.
“Dragon City can’t leave all satellite cities alone and let them end up as hellish dens that will leave people without any humanity,” Ye Xiaoxing said.
“We can tolerate Dragon King Town’s existence because they’re harmless for the time being. It’s as you said, killing one another and executing the witches happened in the previous generation, and it has nothing to do with the new generation born from the Divine Tree, and for the time being, we haven’t discovered the new generation doing anything bad that crosses our limits, aside from loving anime too much.
“Then, out of love for our comrades and respect for this brand new custom, there is no need for us to carry out any forceful measures against Dragon King Town. We’ll let them remain immersed in the world of anime and live in pure happiness and peace.
“But what if a satellite city formed a symbiotic relationship with a carnivorous monster or ended up with the culture of cannibalism, burying people alive, or sacrificing humans to monsters because of a monster’s influence? Should we sit by and do nothing even then?
“Don’t say that it’s impossible. It’s now the 56th year of the New Era. In the long course of history, half a century is a short moment, but if you calculate things based on a human’s childbearing age, even if you start bearing children at the age of eighteen, you can create three generations in fifty six years.
“There’s this thing called a generation gap on Earth, right? And they say a generation gap happens once every ten years. The evolution speed in the Other World is at least ten times faster than on Earth. The time required to produce three generations of people is enough to create a civilization that we cannot understand nor accept.
“Let’s think of this from the point of benefits. Don’t they always say that no one can tolerate others encroaching on their territory? If we consider things from Dragon City’s existence standpoint and the beliefs of our civilization, it’s impossible for us to tolerate a den of demons that wishes to trample on our great civilization.
“The problem is, we haven’t discovered such a monstrous place yet.
“But if such a place exists, it’ll have an easy time discovering us. After all, Dragon City is huge. Since the time of the Great Expedition Era, we’ve left many clues of our existence in Monster Mountain Range.
“As long as they remember some of the tactics from human civilization, they’ll know that attacking us first will be their only chance for survival.”
Meng Chao broke out into cold sweat as he listened. “Captain Ye, are you saying… that these twisted and mutated humans may use the monsters’ strength to completely destroy us?”
“If they won’t wish to completely destroy us, they’ll want to turn us into their image,” Ye Xiaoxing said. “If there is one person among one hundred who has a tail, that person is a monster, but if ninety-nine people out of the one hundred have tails, the person who doesn’t have a tail is the monster.
“Those people can’t go back to how they were. Once they realize that Dragon City is too big and they can’t destroy us directly, the best course of action for them will be to cause chaos in the city. They will think of ways to drag us into the mud with them and break our humanity. They’ll attempt to make us all the same.”
Meng Chao shut his eyes and gently rubbed the bridge of his nose. He did not want to believe this.
But he had the memories from his previous life and knew better than anyone else that Ye Xiaoxing’s vicious conclusion was infinitesimally close to the truth.
“Meng Chao, please don’t blame me for painting our past comrades in such a bad light. When it comes to the problem of clashing civilizations, kindness and evil are no longer important. Even if the other party is not evil but full of kind will, treats us as kindred, and even wants to save us, we might still end up with incredibly intense fights,” Ye Xiaoxing said.
“Let’s use Dragon King Town as an example. Let’s say that by sheer luck, Dragon King Town produced a peerless fighter, and this fighter discovered Dragon City’s existence. This man is full of kind will and wants to save us. So, what do you think he will do?”
After a moment’s pause to give Meng Chao time to think, Ye Xiaoxing asked, “Won’t he sneak into Dragon City and kill all the beautiful female celebrities?”
Meng Chao was stunned. “What?”
“Let’s look at this from the viewpoint of the powerful fighter from Dragon King Town. All women are demons, and the more beautiful a woman is, the more dangerous she is. When women appear in public, they make men kill each other, which can destroy the entire civilization.
“This isn’t some bigoted, crazy thought. The history of Dragon King Town has carved this into its people’s genes. The heroic man’s forefathers have also taught him this since young. It’s a firm belief that cannot be destroyed,” Ye Xiaoxing said.
“So if this kind Dragon King Town fighter really wants to save us, he will go to burn all the witches so that the Divine Tree can bear its fruit in Dragon City and all the men can throw themselves into the holy embrace of anime girls. He will do that for sure, don’t you think so?
“No matter how we explain it to him, he won’t understand what is a normal relationship between a man and a woman. He will just think that we are bewitched, and his determination to burn all witches will become even stronger. Perhaps he will even expand his attack range and burn all heterosexual couples as well! After all, in the eyes of Dragon King Town’s civilization, all heterosexual couples are witches and their loyal dogs!
“This example might not be appropriate, but as long as it can make you understand my meaning, it’s enough. Each civilization has its own internal logic that will allow them to justify their actions. They also have the need to spread it outwards and influence other civilizations.
“That’s why we can’t avoid clashing ideologies with the satellite cities that we lost contact with for many years. The clash may have even already happened and we just don’t know it yet.”
