Chapter 580: Chapter 379: The Centipede Dies but Never Stiffens_1

Even though the Compound-Eyed Observers have all perished, the bustle on the battlefield has never ceased.

Engineering ships and medical ships shuttle about, cleaning up the battlefield, with tasks including rescuing the wounded, collecting the dead, and repairing equipment.

Many professional soldiers carefully pilot small warplanes and ships close to the wreckage of the Sphere Ship, using barrage cannons to neutralize and eliminate the physical toxins that drift out of the prismatic area.

The scene appears both peaceful and busy.

With the war finally over, the majority of people wear smiles that won’t go away, but every time they find shattered bodies of comrades amid the twisted metal, they can’t help but feel deeply saddened.

A large medical ship docks beside the command ship, and in its medical room, Harrison Clark and Nora Camp lie side by side in two multifunctional treatment cabins.

Harrison’s skin is cracked all over, and the blood oozing out tinges the nutrient solution inside the treatment cabin pink.

He had not completed his treatment earlier, and the pressure of controlling Summit Colossus on his body was immense, especially when he had to rush to the front of the spherical battleship to execute a series of highly risky manoeuvers.

Just twice his Neutron Giant Shield and battle armor managed to withstand the impact of the spherical battleship, the repercussion alone was enough to overwhelm him.

He left his back armor behind when he escaped, using the pseudo-curved membrane layer of the Summit Colossus’s feet to cause a violent expansion, while touching the surface of the Sphere Ship, causing a terrifying shock. Anyone else would have fallen apart, but his high level of awakening, coupled with the Resurrection Factor, allowed him to endure.

The Colossal Armor is damaged quite a bit.

At this moment, his Summit Colossus and Galaxy Battle Armor are being rapidly repaired inside and out by several large engineering ships docked next to the medical ship.

Harrison has also suffered from no small amount of shock.

Previously, it was just his inner stubbornness that kept him going, as long as he was not dead and could still move, he didn’t care.

Now, as the war comes to a close and his tension relaxes, his blood-soaked body quickly returns for treatment.

Nora Camp is not much better than him.

However, the nature of their injuries are slightly different – Harrison’s are visible on his body, while Nora’s are in her brain.

In this half-hour large-scale battle, her brain had to operate at maximum intensity every moment, taking charge of the overall situation while also attending to regional battlefields and even individual special forces units.

To minimize casualties, she repeatedly used subtle radiation to stimulate her brain, improving her battlefield intuition and signal transmission efficiency. By now, she has accumulated serious injuries, her face ashen and barely alive.

However, it’s not the physical torture that causes Nora the most pain, but the guilt that welled up and grew uncontrollable in her heart the moment the war ended.

If her heart were to be likened to a real heart, the guilt would then be black vines entwining it, taking root and growing rapidly as one report after another of battle losses and casualties is delivered to her. Thorns tearing through her flesh, they burrow deeper inside her.

Every time the tendrils of the vine probe deeper, they bring waves of tearing pain, which is why her voice differs so much from Harrison’s when they say “It’s over”.

For a moment, she wanted to end her life with a gunshot, but she wanted to see Harrison again, and she was holding on for the sake of their unborn daughter.

Now, when Harrison lies down in the treatment cabin beside her, the heart-wrenching torment slightly eases for an insignificant moment.

At first, Harrison was unaware of her mental changes, as her willpower might have been even stronger than his own in their previous timeline.

Harrison started chatting with her casually, relaying the intel he discovered in the bedroom array of the Compound-Eyed Observers before summarizing: “Before, we knew nothing about the Compound Eye Civilization; even a simple curvature maneuver by their warships in the air could make me feel terrified to the point of nausea.”

“We were also manipulated by the Song of the Wilderness. Soldiers would die unknowingly under the influence of Quantum Entanglement Damage even before getting close to their target. It felt like watching a horrific supernatural film. Especially when the Compound-Eyed Observers remotely deployed the Particle-interference Bomb, I can’t even describe the feeling. The scene was both magnificent and terrifying, with my hands and feet trembling numb.”

“But now, I understand. Humans actually have great capacity for coping with unknown threats. When our brains instinctively react to unknown objects with fear, there is another mental process that takes place: the desire for knowledge. The true essence of fear is not to render us timid like dead mice, but to ignite our curiosity.”

“The greater our fear, the stronger our curiosity, and the more we want to explore the truth hidden behind it, just like the magician’s audience. Even when knowing that magic will lose its charm once the secret is revealed, the heart still craves to know the reason.”

“Once we understand the reason, both curiosity and fear eventually become bland, leaving us feeling like it’s nothing. That’s how I see the Compound-Eyed Observers now, no different from the animals infected by Z Bacteria during the Great Extinction Catastrophe in the 26th century.”

“Maybe the Compound-Eyed Observers are just like a giant wasp from an Earth-like planet that got infected and reproduced by the Z Bacteria? The only difference is that they just appeared earlier, and the cosmos has given them enough time.”