The Martial Unity

The Tide of Samsara found itself in a pickle for the first time ever. It had been surprised that there was a branch of the virus that could resist it, especially after all the experience it had with infected worlds. The protocols it had developed were airtight, allowing it to deal with the usual tactics of the alien virus very easily.

But this time, the alien virus could directly tamper with the very fabric of reality in a combat-effective manner.

The Anicca Current that the Tide of Samsara used to erase the order of life, reducing all life to death, was reduced in potency immediately. The Tide of Samsara sensed that the alien virus was manipulating the information dimension into tampering with the efficacy of the chaos and entropy in the poison that it used to destroy life.

The moment the virus had committed to editing the information dimension to manifest outcomes that it wanted to see in the real world, the Tide of Samsara knew that it was only a matter of time before this particular branch of the virus would cease to exist as a price paid.

But that wasn’t good enough.

The Tide of Samsara knew that it needed to destroy the virus before it could cease to exist; otherwise, it would simply return and send an SOS signal to the rest of the galaxy when it returned. That was not good, of course. It would blow the cover that they were relying on. The broader cosmic virus wasn’t aware that they were being hunted to this extent by powers that were extremely capable of hunting down the virus.

But if there was even a single survivor whatsoever, then that would undoubtedly be spread to the rest of the virus across the Milky Way or even the universe. That would increase the difficulty of getting rid of the virus severalfold.

It needed to destroy the virus this time around.

For the first time in a long time, it felt the need to genuinely adaptively evolve.

The efficacy of the rate at which it inflicted death upon the single-celled bacteria of the deep biosphere had fallen considerably due to the information dimension tampering of the cosmic virus. That meant that if it was going to win, it would have to rely on more than just the Anicca Current. Of course, the Anicca Current itself wasn’t merely the chaotic esoteric matter, either.

The Gu poison was merely one component of the Anicca Current that the virus wasn’t able to solve for easily. Yet, what the virus was able to do was reduce the efficaciousness of the entropic esoteric matter component, while resisting the tremendous power of the Gu poison in a head-on conflict.

Thankfully, Tide of Samsara had more than just the Anicca Current at its disposal.

It immediately changed strategy.

First, it established a stronghold in the parts of the manifold it had managed to conquer before the virus could push back. It divided and multiplied at a very rapid pace, completely infesting entire enclaves, monopolizing them as its own bases.

At the same time, the cells of the Antithesis Hive, which were nothing more than the stem cells of Rui’s Anthean half, began changing their DNA to take on a handful of different DNA templates.

The first was actually that of the blueprint of a commercial model of biotechnology that was designed to mine esoteric matter on infected worlds. It was used by the therianthropes, the elves, and even the tekvores sometimes as a cost-effective way to extract esoteric matter from soil. The DNA editing mechanisms of the cell allowed it to develop specialized cells that could dig up esoteric matter ores.

Then it generated another group of Antithesis cells that were able to refine and purify the esoteric ore into purified esoteric matter. Then, it fed the esoteric matter into a pool of Antithesis cells reproducing after absorbing esoteric matter from its environment.

If one kind of esoteric matter was losing effectiveness because of a cheat solution, then the Antithesis Hive simply needed to generate more kinds of esoterically-boosted poisons. It very rapidly began producing a whole new league of esoteric matter that was much more capable than the previous generation and could wield the power of esoteric matter similar to how the Esoterist would.

In comparison, the deep biosphere of the virus wielded esoteric matter more clumsily at the cellular level. After all, the virus’s intelligence and consciousness were spread across a vast distance and area, predisposing itself not being able to deal with problems on a minute scale very easily.

After all, that was the point of having things like guardians and thralls that it could directly manipulate; it was to handle the smaller matters better than it could.

But the Tide of Samsara was different. Its cells were as small as normal cells were; unlike the macrobes of Planet Pinky, it could mine, refine, and utilize esoteric matter much more effectively than its opponent.

That was the major advantage that it had over the virus.

RUMBLE!!!!!

The world shook violently as the Tide of Samsara began to weaponize every ounce of esoteric matter it could get its hands on. It stuck to high-grade esoteric matter to ensure that even small quantities could make visible impacts on the battlefield in every little time, relatively speaking.

This led to a resurgence in the power of the Tide of Samsara, allowing it to fight back with more efficacious solutions.

It caused the intensity of the struggles to heighten to a whole other level. If the world was shaking violently before, then it was utterly catastrophic this time. The two systems of cells on both sides wanted to destroy the other, but only one could emerge a winner.

The Tide of Samsara’s advantage was that it was derived from the power of one of the single most powerful pathwalkers of human civilization. The virus’s advantage was that it benefited from an unusually powerful combination of native biophysics and virus physiology to create an extraordinary outcome.

The two sides waged war beneath the surface.