The Record of Unusual Creatures

Brain death.

Hao Ren knew it. The brain loses its function, but sometimes the autonomic nervous system can survive for a while, and the limbs can experience some residual conditioned reflex ability. But simple conditioned reflex cannot maintain a complex life system, so brain-dead humans need a lot of tubes and air pumps to survive. All in all, it’s a very sad state.

But he did not know that the First Born would experience brain death and its tentacles were still responsive.

“Are you sure?” Hao Ren asked again, just to make sure, but Nolan was strongly dissatisfied with his questioning. “Boss, you have to trust my deduction and calculation skills. I think about this with a shipboard mainframe that can deduce the evolution of stars. And I have a huge database. I make my judgments based on huge amounts of data and real-time updates, not on a blind guess.”

Then she added, “But I’m also not so sure. After all, we haven’t seen with our own eyes what’s going on in the First Born’s brain.”

Hao Ren rubbed the middle of his eyebrows and thought carefully about what a brain-dead First Born meant.

The strength of the First Born was unimaginable. His body could withstand almost any damage inflicted by a planetary civilization, and even small wounds could heal in a very short time. And these were just the basics. His vitality was reflected in the fact that this powerful creature of the goddess had no definite weakness. He was a giant organism made up of an indescribable mass of tissue and countless tentacles, veins, and cavities. All of his organs (if functional tissue groups can be called organs) had multiple copies, and none of them were non-renewable. A mature First Born had at least several brain nuclei and a much larger number of secondary thinking units. Each brain nucleus could do the task of storing memories and thinking independently, and losing some of them would only temporarily reduce his ability to control his body — it would not take long for the nucleus to grow back from those secondary ganglion nodes.

And it would not have helped to destroy the entire brain. The First Born lost the ability to think and act for a short time, but soon the emergency procedures in his body would be activated. This process of self-rescue stimulated a portion of the ganglia, which took over the function of thinking and mutated a new set of brain nuclei in a short time. This process of course caused some loss, like memory loss, but brain death? That’s impossible.

With a little tissue cell survival and a little breathing time, the First Born could recover in a 100% healthy state.

These were the first-hand information Hao Ren got from Zorm, and he believed it.

“Indeed, from the information we have on the First Born, ‘brain death’ is unlikely. But there are exceptions, and the First Born is not invincible.” Nolan said, and her hologram hopped onto the bar and sat on the edge of Hao Ren’s glass. “The brain of Yggdrasil is split into two consciousness by infection, and the competition between the two consciousness leads to the fossilization and decline of the body of Yggdrasil. Ultra-high doses of neurotoxin and a powerful lullaby program can cause the First Born on Holletta to fall asleep, reducing neural activity to a near standstill. A direct command from the goddess of creation would neatly take over the mental functions of the Firstborn, which would appear brain-dead if they went wrong. There are many factors that can affect the First Born, so let’s make a bold assumption.”

“It’s ok to make bold assumptions, but I thought of something else,” Hao Ren said, glancing at Nolan. “Even if brain death is real, why is this the First Born of this planet?”

Nolan blinked, not quite getting it.

“You’ve seen the attack echelons that the rebels sent to the surface of the planet. With their technical prowess, they could still deal with the tentacles of the First Born, but it’s a bit of a stretch to blow up a mature First Born to the extent that it could not take care of himself.”

“You mean… something else caused the First Born to lose his mind, and the rebels took advantage of it?” asked Vivian.

“That’s one possibility. In any case, the half-dead state of the First Born of this planet can’t be explained so easily.”

“And, we all know the restorative powers of the First Born. So even if some really powerful guy cut out the First Born’s brain on this planet, it should have recovered after all these years. After all, nobody played a lullaby on this planet before we came here, and its activities were not inhibited,” said Nangong Sanba.

“So there must be something that prevents the brain nucleus of the First Born from restoring its function,” Vivian said, pinching her chin, a gesture that Hao Ren usually did, but had become her habit now. “We probably have to go to the earth’s core to see what’s going on…”

Nangong Wuyue covered her face and slowly coiled up the tail. “I think we’re looking for death…”

Hao Ren rolled his eyes and said, “We’re not going now.”

“I don’t want to go either now or in the future…”

However, according to their current situation, Hao Ren really did not intend to go to the earth’s core to do any brain examination. If it did not work out well, it would really be looking for death.

Everything must be done step by step.

Hao Ren decided to establish contact with the rebels, or at least find some useful information from their information network before considering dealing with the First Born in the depths of the earth.

Nolan turned a newly repaired antenna to the sky, listening for the occasional communications signal spreading from the giant space station and the moon. Most of these signals were encrypted, but this kind of encryption was nothing to Nolan.

But Nolan did not get too many clues from this short-term surveillance.

From the signals collected by the antennas, Nolan compiled a trove of operational reports and inventory transfers, about half of which were related to operations on the planet, the rest mostly to industrial production. Daily reports on the departure and recovery of aircraft, damage and replenishment requests for bombing missions, production at the plant, the progress of production at the lunar base, and incidents that needed to be addressed account for 80 percent of the information. There were also, of course, some less official signals of contact, presumably the communication of personal opinions within the rebels. But this part of the information was woefully small.

The signal strength and transmission priority of personal communication are definitely the lowest. They were inundated with signals from the giant space station and lunar base, and Nolan’s antennas did not work very well, so it was almost impossible to piece together a complete picture of what was captured.

But Hao Ren was able to draw two preliminary conclusions from these communications:

First, there was a busy survivor society on the giant space station and the lunar base. Although they were driven out of their planets, they still developed a powerful presence in space and on the natural satellite. Perhaps not as powerful as the First Born, but the plight of these rebels was hardly desperate.

Second, there was a high degree of logic in the actions of the survivors’ resistance, with no obvious tendency towards crazy violence or mindless destruction. They should be accessible.

The next evening, Nolan again observed the formation of bombers from the rebels in the sky.

It was a larger bombing raid than the last one. Twelve fighter jets flew in from the southeast, striking the tentacles on the edge of the forest even harder. As before, the bombing was efficient, precise and fearless, and this time the damage was much greater. Perhaps the damage from the previous bombing had not healed yet, and the First Born’s tentacles were too weak to fight back. Only half of the twelve planes were damaged, and the remaining six were pulled out of the field in bruises.

Compared with the last two-thirds loss rate, the result of this battle was really ideal.

The tentacle on the edge of the forest was attacked a second time before it fully recovered. It was finally hit hard. Nolan detected that the physiological activity of the tentacle continued to decline after the bombing and that a number of underground nerve structures were disconnected from it: The tentacle had been destroyed.

But new tentacle grew quickly, from the roots of the destroyed tentacle. Fed on the blasted wreckage, it would grow particularly quickly.

“This is a meaningless war.” Looking at the surviving six aircraft disappeared on the monitor screen, Vivian couldn’t help but sigh. “The First Born on this planet is brain dead. The rebels are neither threatened by the First Born nor can they really destroy it. They’re just filling in waves of lives and resources… Is it really that important to take back the planet?”

Hao Ren could only shake his head. “Maybe it’s important to them.”