Autophagy

"Come. Take a look," Aston said.

Raising one of his brows, Song Lei walked to Aston's side skeptically and looked into the cut that Aston had made on the trainee's nape.

"What the fuck..?" Song Lei muttered while looking into the cut. It wasn't that deep, at most half a centimeter... However, there was a small black dot in the cut, seemingly bound to the trainee's spine.

After seeing the black dot, Song Lei got a bit closer to inspect it more carefully. After bringing his face close enough to be able to smell the faint blood smell, Song Lei was able to identify what the black dot was.

"It's a spider..?" He muttered.

In answer, Aston nodded and said, "Indeed. It's definitely a spider. One that controls the body."

"Is it like soul worms?" Song Lei said. He was about to touch the spider, however, he decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to do so. He stopped his hand and kept looking at it from far away.

"It has approximately the same effect on humans, however, its working principles are much more different," Aston explained. "For example, it doesn't attach to people's souls, instead, it finds its way through the body and attaches itself onto the spine of its host."

"How does it control them though?" Song Lei asked while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"I haven't figured it out yet. Maybe it uses some neurotoxins to do so? Anyways... I'll be here inspecting these people by myself. You can do whatever you want, however, try to make it so that you are not infected. We may have resistance to the soul worms, however, there isn't a resistance against these things."

"Indeed..." Song Lei muttered. After all, they couldn't resist their neural systems being taken over.

"Most importantly, they don't get affected by the sun as soul worms do. At least not as much." Aston said. "They seem to be able to put the host into a frenzied state too. They're truly advanced in the aspect of pure strength."

As they were talking about the neural spider, loud noises and shouting started coming from the base. Song Lei parted with Aston and quickly headed towards the main tent. The base was already in a chaotic state before. Now, however, it was much more chaotic compared to that.

Seeing this, Song Lei entered the main tent and was met with Clark and his friends sitting around the table with grim expressions.

"What is going on?" He asked. Clark scratched his cheek.

"We are being attacked," he said. Song Lei raised one of his brows.

"Then why are you guys sitting here?" Song Lei asked. All the trainees looked at each other nervously.

"If we go out now, we'll be giving away where we are," Clark said. "We don't want the enemy to know where our elite forces are. If they do, they'll attack our weak encampments."

"So they don't know where you are currently..." Song Lei muttered.

"No, they don't," Zac said. "We have a few large bases like this one to cloak our whereabouts."

"That's a good idea," Song Lei said. Neural spiders were much more dangerous compared to soul worms. Preferably, he didn't want soul worms to lose. He thought for a second and said, "I'll help."

When Clark heard Song Lei's words, he raised one of his brows.

"Really?" He said. He didn't think that Song Lei would help on his own accord after all the things that happened between them. Song Lei nodded and left without saying anything. It was easy to spot where the confrontation was happening by following the noises.

As he reached an opening in front of the base, Song Lei saw fifty section A trainees trying to go against thirty section C trainees. Although they had the numbers advantage, their strength was slowly dwindling against the effects of the neural spiders. All the enemy trainees were able to take on at least two opponents all by themselves.

As Song Lei appeared on the battlefield, the diminishing morale of the trainees was raised back temporarily. However, he knew that the effects wouldn't last as long as they didn't get an obvious advantage against the enemy.

Fortunately, because of his fame, Song Lei would be able to command them as he wanted. As the first thing he would do, he looked into the eyes of section C trainees. As expected, they had already gone into a frenzied state. This would help Song Lei order his men as the enemy wouldn't be able to understand what he was saying.

"Don't let the enemies engage on two of you at a time! I need twenty people to help me. The remaining should try their best to stall out!" Song Lei shouted. As his orders resounded on the battlefield, a slight disorder happened between section A trainees.

Fortunately, there were no people that would go against his orders. Just like he said, twenty trainees disengaged from the fight and gathered around him. The remaining stood their ground and went on defensive to stall out the enemies.

"Follow me!" Song Lei shouted. He stepped forward and made sure that the twenty people were following him accordingly. After seeing that everyone heeded his orders, Song Lei ran up to a corner of the battle. The whole combat force followed him as they engaged in a fight with five section C trainees.

No matter how strong they were, they wouldn't be able to fight in a 5-to-1 situation. The small task force Song Lei had formed quickly overran the five enemies and went to another side of the battlefield. Wherever the defense line was about to break down, this task force would appear and take over the battle.

By using this tactic, Song Lei was able to win the fight quickly. None of the enemies tried to run as they were in a frenzied state. They now had thirty captives in their hands. All tied up and knocked out.

Song Lei sighed deeply and went back to the main tent. Clark's expression lightened up as soon as he saw Song Lei turn back.

"How did it go?" He asked.

"It was pretty easy," Song Lei said. "We managed to win without anyone getting heavily injured. We captured the enemy forces and tied them up."

"Thanks, dude..." Zac muttered. He was truly grateful for Song Lei's help.

"No problem," Song Lei said. "What are you even going to do with these captives?" He asked.

"We'll keep them here for a week and send them back to section C when traveling between sections is prohibited again," Clark said. They had a lot of extra food in section A that they could give to their captives, so such a thing wasn't a problem.

"I see..." Song Lei muttered. He sat on one of the boxes again as he had nothing to do. "What are you guys going to do now?"

"Now that you've destroyed a good amount of their forces, they'll not attack us for some time," Clark said. "We will wait till tomorrow and gather our strength. Our scouts have already made a map of section C bases. When we're ready, we'll launch simultaneous strikes on a few of their critical bases."

"Seems good to me. Still, make sure that you don't spread your forces too much. You'll lose if you do so," Song Lei reminded them.

The sun was about to set. He would have to spend the night here as it would be pretty hard and dangerous to try to go back to section A by now. He could get caught by the enemy if he were to.

"Do you guys have anywhere you could spare me?" Song Lei asked before leaving the tent.

"Yeah. No worries. We have a tent to the southeast of here prepared for you and Aston to stay in. If you manage to find him, don't forget to tell him," Zac said. By now, Song Lei's relationship with Clark had turned from a parasitic one to a symbiotic one. They would both help each other do what they wanted. Song Lei nodded and left to meet with Aston. By now, their relationship with Clark had turned from a parasitic one to a symbiotic one. They would both help each other do what they wanted.

Just as he expected, Aston was still experimenting with the neural spiders. From what Song Lei could tell, his test subjects had increased to three. Song Lei could imagine him beating these people to use as test subjects.

"Hey. We can stay here tonight. They prepared a tent for us to stay," Song Lei said.

"Oh really? That's great then," Aston said without paying much attention. Whenever he was researching something that picked his interest, he would go into trance mode. "Here, take a look at this."

Song Lei sighed and went to Aston's side. The unconscious trainee's nape was cut open just like before.

As Song Lei came closer, Aston raised his hand. Before Song Lei could react, he brought it down and crushed the spider on the trainee's spine. Immediately, the unconscious trainee started flailing around as if he was drowning. Song Lei looked at him nervously.

After flailing around for more than five minutes, the trainee calmed down.

"Why did you do that?" Song Lei asked. Aston didn't answer and gestured Song Lei to look again.

The spider's crushed corpse suddenly inflated and healed up as if it was never crushed in the first place.

"Huh...."