Traveler of the River of Time and Space

Chapter 637 11: The Legacy of the Soviet Union

Thirty kilometers away in a straight line.

A camp had been built in the previously desolate wilderness at an unknown time, and guarding it outside were some burly giants clad in heavy armor, towering at three to four meters tall. Their exposed skin was covered in folds, and some had even sprouted hideous tumors, resembling zombie tyrants.

These monstrous beings with explosive muscles were a group of super mutants.

They were part of the pre-catastrophe United States' Super Soldier Program, a group of soldiers infected with the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). The FEV virus is a man-made synthetic virus, not naturally occurring, developed by American virus laboratories during the Cold War, primarily aimed at enhancing human adaptability and resilience, even against the nuclear radiation from weapon explosions.

However, the side effects of this virus were also obvious, transforming humans into frenzied, brainless monsters, completely losing reproductive capabilities.

The FEV virus eliminated most diseases from the human genome, significantly enhanced human regeneration ability and muscle power, so these super mutants were generally over three meters tall, weighing over 400 kilograms, mostly consisting of reinforced bones and super muscles. Hence, super mutants didn't even need exoskeleton armor; equipped with even simple thick steel plates, they were terrifying killing machines on the battlefield.

And the super mutants stationed here at the moment were quite unusual, as each was clad in heavy exoskeleton armor.

This indicated one thing: they weren't wild creatures infected with the FEV virus in the wasteland but human-bred war machines nurtured in laboratories.

Currently, only one force on the wasteland could achieve this.

That would be the Academy.

Strictly speaking, part of the Academy, once the Genetics Faction, now known as the Southern rebels' splinter faction.

About three years ago, the Academy's Genetics Faction, due to a devastating strike from a powerful entity, had nearly abandoned most of its North American hold. They shrank back southward for a bit, and upon sensing the terrifying entity's sudden disappearance, these underground rats began reaching out again, secretly capturing humans from settlements for genetic modification experiments.

Many sudden disappearances of populations across multiple settlements in the North American region have undeniable ties to the Genetics Faction.

The Mechanical Faction only required material resources, but the Genetics Faction was in dire need of population resources.

Therefore, after the Academy split, especially after a full-scale war with the Mechanical Faction, the Genetics Faction researchers discarded past moral concerns, even cooperating with plunderers, directly venturing into human trafficking.

The entire slave trade on the American continent has suddenly thrived over the past two years.

Another serious indictment against them is the mechanical worm virus seems to have leaked from the Genetics Faction's research lab, reportedly developed specifically as a virus effective against androids, targeting the Mechanical Faction.

The super mutant warriors stationed inside the camp were also brainless monsters, but they did have one advantage: loyalty and unwavering execution of orders.

However.

The situation at this camp was currently somewhat peculiar.

Because the stationed super mutants were strangely in a listening posture, displaying sinister smiles almost never seen on their faces, these smiles possessed an inexplicable sense of eerie calm.

The minds of super mutants were affected by frenzy; they only felt pleasure during murderous releases.

Outside a hastily erected tent.

A group of Esoteric Cultists in bizarre black robes were respectfully standing guard outside, some of them wearing expressions of slight fear in their gaze towards the nearby super mutants, but mostly reverence towards a presence inside the tent.

Inside the tent.

An old man, seemingly around fifty years old, was standing rigidly, his face still looking somewhat youthful, yet with numerous black spots on his arms, suggesting his age far exceeded his appearance.

Behind him, a man with his face completely covered by tendrils stood, a slender tendril extending from his mouth, its sharp tip piercing into the old man's brain like a fine needle. Subsequently, the old man's eyes shivered, and eventually, his entire body convulsed violently.

"Let these super mutants launch an immediate attack."

The voice apparatus of the Cultist Chosen One had completely transformed; having gradually taken control of the old man's brain, he directly commanded, "Let these beasts reclaim the Gospel Book at all costs!"

The old man's expression gradually calmed, soon issuing the command.

However, the super mutants outside did not immediately act until an order was delivered to the Esoteric Cultists outside.

"Deactivate the Gospel."

"Let these beasts awaken."

Soon, the Esoteric Cultists outside hastily deactivated a sound device emitting not human-audible sounds but more akin to infrasonic waves.

With the 'Gospel' deactivated, the super mutants outside came to abrupt awareness.

They roared, grabbing various heavy weapons, and soon the entire camp turned chaotic with rolling thunderous noises everywhere.

Super mutants, each driving vehicles, surged out, these artificially modified beasts now focused solely on reclaiming the Gospel Book. Anyone attempting to impede them would be ruthlessly torn apart. Here lies almost all of the Genetics Faction's research results across the North American region; their initial aim was to inflict chaos and substantial damage on the Mechanical Faction or seize the Gospel Book, yet they never imagined these Esoteric Cultists possessed such an eerily peculiar Gospel Technology.

As the Gospel blared, regular soldiers outside the camp immediately began shooting at one another, dying off entirely within merely a minute or two, whereas the super mutants fell into an eerie silence under the Gospel's influence.

In contrast, the Esoteric Cultists exhibited no abnormal reactions to the Gospel, perhaps because they had never been normal to begin with.

"Proceed."

After stepping out of the tent, the Chosen One's figure gently floated up and landed on an armored vehicle in a flying posture. He calmly gave the order: "Have the Church send over the Gospel reinforcement device."

"Gather the other combat personnel."

"Our target this time is not just to reclaim the Gospel Book."

"Beidou's LN ship is also a huge threat, and we must destroy it."

When he was promoted to Chosen One, he also heard a new gospel. In the distant Far East Region, remnants of the red giant had astonishingly survived. They used pre-disaster cloning technology to massively create some abnormal humans, these clones could temporarily ignore the Gospel of the Divine Spirit.

Although these clones were incomplete creations with rather short lifespans, the situation became completely different after they gradually got in touch with Beidou and gifted some intelligence and technology to them.

It's known that the black technology mastered by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was no less than that of the United States, including, but not limited to, the Apocalypse Heavy Armor Squad, cloning technology, walking mecha, mind technology, cold nuclear fusion technology, etc. Although the deceased red giant had lost most of its technological blueprints, the key reason for their revival was that they still retained complete miniature cold nuclear fusion technology. In other words, deep underground in the Far East Region, some survivors still had the ability to manufacture miniature nuclear fusion batteries.

When combined with Beidou's rebuilt complete industrial system, the potential for explosion was quite astonishing.

As a former Antarctic researcher, the Chosen One was well aware of how rapid human development would be once they regained control over cold nuclear fusion technology and possessed infinite energy.

This was absolutely unfavorable for the dissemination of the divine Gospel.

What's more, they had mastered the technology of cloning, which was already encroaching on the authority of the Divine Spirit, an absolutely unacceptable blasphemy.

The convoy was racing through the wasteland.

Now, only two vehicles were left in the convoy. All the warriors who stayed behind had lost communication. Mao Tu's expression became increasingly solemn, with a hint of determination. She repeatedly called the LN ship, but it seemed they had entered a signal interference zone, temporarily unable to contact Beidou's fleet.

"Something seems off."

Midway, Mao Tu suddenly stopped the car and said to the blonde woman in the back seat, "Are you a bionic woman?"

"You're driving next."

With that, she gestured for the woman to sit in the driver's seat, while she quickly opened the trunk, retrieving a strange silver-gray exoskeleton power armor and putting it on. This exoskeleton power armor was very heavy, and wearing it, Mao Tu's height reached nearly two and a half meters. On her lower back were two dark cannon barrels, yet there was no visible ammunition.

"What is this?" Su Ying curiously looked at the armor, which seemed even more advanced than her Silver Wings.

Mao Tu moved slightly, jumped directly onto the back seat of the armored vehicle, and said slowly, "Scythe Heavy Armor."

"Equipped with an electromagnetic cannon."

"But the energy consumption is huge, it can only sustain short-term combat."

The blonde woman glanced quickly while driving and suddenly said, "Soviet technology? The prototype is the Scythe Walking Mecha? You've managed to contact them, haven't you?"

"I didn't expect there were still survivors."

"The Academy's upper echelon always believed that even though the Great Catastrophe had erupted, we had still utterly won!"

During the outbreak of the Great Catastrophe, the Soviet Union suffered a far more severe nuclear strike than America.

At that time, both America and Europe simultaneously conducted nuclear bombings on the Soviet Union region, in addition to the Soviet's own numerous giant nuclear power stations, leading to nuclear leaks that turned almost all core areas into disaster zones.

The extreme climate of nuclear winter made the Soviet region much harder to endure.

"There are no victors in nuclear war." Mao Tu glanced at the blonde woman, activated the charger on her chest.

She calmly said, "They too once stood on the brink of annihilation."

"But in the end, they still held on."

There were actually some things she hadn't said.

In the depths of the Far East Region, within a shelter representing the last heritage of the Soviet Union, once there was only one person left alive. They could never imagine the shock when seeing faces almost identical to twins, marked with barcode codes on the back of their heads, when Beidou made contact with the last embers of the Soviet Union.

The old man lying in the hibernation pod, at the last moment before closing his eyes, slowly said, "Comrade."

"We are merely lingering remnants, while you are the future of humanity."

"Accept our final gift."

Beidou had not only contacted the Far East Region but had fully accepted the Soviet legacy, including those clones created for revenge.

Or rather, the once red giant was left only with these clones.

The last steadfast communist warrior of the Soviet Union now lay in eternal rest beneath Beidou's great monument.

.........