by <unknown>
"There's more than that."
Chen Chen shook his head and added. "I suspect that there's a greater secret to these psionic powers... I've discovered a certain pattern."
"What pattern?"
Little X asked curiously.
"Haven't you noticed?"
Chen Chen smirked. "In the movie Chronicle, Field originated from an alien plant. Meanwhile, in the real world, psionic powers were brought to our planet from a meteorite. Despite the glaring differences between these two powers, there's a distinct similarity between the two which is that they both came from outer space..."
With that, Chen Chen craned his neck and looked at the boundless sky. "The universe is full of wonders. First, there are alien plants, then the Consciousness Stealer appears. I've expected no less from the boundless stretch of space full of looming dangers and countless opportunities. This was why the predecessor of the USB drive stated that mankind's understanding had been false all along, that the 'safety' on Earth was merely an illusion. The slightest disturbance in the scope of the universe can easily wash over Earth and destroy the measly civilization that we've taken pride in shaping..."
Having said that, Chen Chen suddenly got up and asked, "Is the USB drive fully charged yet?"
"Based on estimation, it should be nearing full charge very soon."
Little X nodded. "In the past, it took us three years to bring it to full charge. These days, with the expansion of the nuclear fusion reactor, its output is greatly improved and it would only take a year to achieve complete charge."
"Ah..."
Little X suddenly gasped, cutting herself off. "I've received a message from my cloned copy that the USB drive just reached maximum charge moments ago. How did you know, Sir Godfather?"
"I have no idea."
Chen Chen frowned. "It just suddenly struck me like an idea out of nowhere. It feels like the USB drive somehow spoke to me."
"Considering how the USB drive mysteriously found its way back to you so many times, it has recognized you as its owner."
Little X noted excitedly, "Doesn't this mean that you'll never have to worry about it getting lost ever again?"
"I wouldn't know about that. Anyway, it's time to try something new."
With that, Chen Chen stepped out of the room. "I plan to create a new Rosen bridge, one that leads to the DOOM dimension."
"Huh?"
Little X followed Chen Chen out of the room. "Is this why you secretly injected the God chip into several researchers and left my cloned copy in that dimension the last time?"
"There's a fully developed human civilization in that dimension."
Chen Chen stated, "Which means that it's a viable subject for our L compound plans as well. It has greater potential than the future dimension the other half of myself is currently stuck in."
Chen Chen came to a newly built teleportation room and teleported to the Spire instantly.
"But before creating a permanent Rosen bridge gateway, I'll have to send someone in there to investigate. After all, it's been a year and there's no telling what changes may have occurred during this period."
"True."
Little X agreed. "Chances are nothing major has happened in such a short time, but it's better to be safe than sorry."
"Exactly."
Chen Chen collected the USB drive from the charging room, then he went to the great hall.
Chapter 571: Needle |
The scene showed a dark red sky.
The red hue did not come from a setting sun but a bunch of red clouds as if they were a never-ending river of blood drifting through the sky, surging wherever they pleased.
Chen Chen had never seen red clouds like these before. In a glance, the words "viscous", "vast", and "weird" occurred to him.
Seeing this scene, Chen Chen could not help but narrow his eyes.
The location he chose to access was the top of the mountain above the Ark base in the Doom movie. Less than a few kilometers away, there was a cliff, and below the cliff was the Papoose City of Northern America.
At this time, looking at the picture of Papoose City sent by the Black Knight, it had been reduced to a ruin. Under the endless blood clouds in the sky, the entire ruins exuded an ominous portent.
"It looks like it's been this way for quite some time."
Chen Chen was looking at the scene of the Black Knight exploring the ruins. Still, it was strange that there were signs of corrosion on every building. Many buildings seemed to be corroded by sulfuric acid, with pits and holes in their surface. In the Black Knight's investigation, one building even collapsed on its own as if it could not bear its own weight.
There was not one living thing in the entire city, but not one corpse either. Everyone seemed to have evaporated into thin air, completely disappearing without a trace.
The Black Knight only probed a little bit of the area. They did not go deep into the ruins before they returned.
"Click."
At the end of the video, the projector on the Black Knight's head automatically shut down.
"Were there no humans?"
Chen Chen looked at the black portal in front of him suspiciously, wearing a puzzled look. "We didn't even find any corpses, so where did the people in this city go?
"Could it be some kind of biochemical disaster?"
Little X asked, "So, all the people in the city have moved out?"
Chen Chen shook his head and did not speak but kept thinking about something.
About ten minutes later, Chen Chen seemed to have finally made up his mind. He opened his mouth and said, "Send the Black Knight troops and drones to examine and make a thorough analysis. I want to know what happened in the Doom dimension."
Following Chen Chen's order, within a few minutes, hundreds of Black Knights arrived in the teleportation hall. These Black Knights were fully equipped not only with GS Combat Suits and PK Armors but also with various armored vehicles and surveillance drones with a wingspan of more than ten meters. This was the standard configuration of an ultra-modern army.
As this small unit headed into the dimension, more large units were also teleported here by the Gantz sphere and stationed in front of the passage.
If there was an enemy on the other side and the Black Knight army entering now could not hold them off, this army would enter the opposite world as an additional force. If they still could not defend against the opponent, Chen Chen would decisively pull out the USB drive.
In addition, Chen Chen was keeping watch here, so he was not worried that the other party would break into reality that easily.
One hour, two hours, three hours…
Every hour, an update of the scouting was sent from the opposite side of the channel and Chen Chen's expression was turning more and more serious.
Sure enough, the changes in the opposite world went beyond Papoose City. Within a few hours, the Black Knight's reconnaissance drones had swept the entire state of Nevada in Northern America, but both towns and villages were in the same ruined state. Not only could no one be found, but not even a single animal had been spotted in all of Nevada, and even the plants were all in the stage of withering and dying.
It was as if all the life force of the entire human civilization had been extracted, leaving only a cold and dead world.
Samples from the soil, air, and water were collected, but they found that the soil was polluted by acidic substances, and those acidic substances came from the blood clouds in the sky.
The blood clouds were corrosive to a certain extent. It was obvious that the blood clouds would condense into raindrops, which corroded the human city.
Other than that, nothing was found.
Seeing this, Chen Chen could not help frowning. "Since nothing has been found in the entire state of Nevada, expand the search scope and start searching the entire Northern American Continent."
Faced with Chen Chen's orders, the Black Knights and Little X naturally executed them unconditionally, so more Black Knights and d
rones were dispatched, with more than a thousand people in total.
Sending a thousand people and hundreds of large drones consumed a lot of power from the USB flash drive, but now was not the time to care about this. Chen Chen did not understand — how could a perfectly good civilization vanish just like that?
Chen Chen still remembered that when he went in a year ago, the storyline of the movie had not even begun in the dimension of Doom. He also created a special event, threatening the entire human federation and taking away the Ark teleporter from that dimension. After that, he deliberately left a group of researchers, implanted with God chips, to pave the way for the future.
However, now a year or so had passed, and when he accessed the dimension again, he only saw such a scene.
Was it because it was a different dimension?
Alternatively, was it that the dimension still could not escape catastrophe after he had left?
Chen Chen frowned. The curse that stated any dimension opened by the USB flash drive would be a dimension of death was broken at first, but now it had U-turned again.
Therefore, Chen Chen might as well use up the USB flash drive's energy. While studying the time machine from the Terminator dimension, he guarded the teleportation hall while waiting for news from the other side. In a flash, half a month had passed.
Over half a month, the Black Knights Chen Chen sent out performed what could only be described as an inch-by-inch search, not letting any clues slip by them. Sure enough, they managed to find many clues for Chen Chen.
In New York and Washington, although the cities were destroyed, Chen Chen found traces of war.
There were dents caused by a large number of shells and missiles as well as bullet holes in the walls of the city from street fighting. At the same time, in some plains, the wreckage of tanks and aircraft were found.
In other words, the humans in the Doom dimension had been at war with some kind of existence…
This was the only thing Chen Chen had surmised today.
The reason he judged the opponent as "some kind of existence" rather than other human beings was that the Black Knights did not find any aircraft and tank wreckage except those from the Northern American Army, not even shrapnel. Even in all the bombing pits, the shrapnel was owned by Northern America.
Were human beings fighting some kind of existence that could not be killed?
Chen Chen looked mystified and the entire incident had become even stranger now.
That was all until a month later when finally, the Black Knights brought back an unexpected report.
On this day, Chen Chen had just woken up from the bed, when a Black Knight stepped forward and handed a report to Chen Chen.
After seeing the report in his hand, Chen Chen's pupils suddenly contracted.
"X?"
Chen Chen took a deep breath and asked, "What is said here is true? Did you find this information in the Pentagon?"
"It definitely can't be wrong."
Little X's voice came from the speaker in the lounge. "According to the information I found after connecting and cracking several undamaged servers, this world is indeed the world you had visited. Its flow of time is the same as the real world."
Chen Chen took a breath of air when he heard these words. He thought that this place must have been another Doom world, but he did not expect that this dimension was the one he had visited. Not only that, but also the flow of time was similar.
In other words, the human civilization in this world had been reduced to this in just one year…
"It turns out that after you took the three Arks, the humans in this world made an unexpected discovery. They found a door under the Ark teleporter on Mars."
Little X said in a low voice, "This is a metal door that is flat on the ground and covered with unknown patterns, like the entrance to a cellar."
At this, Chen Chen glanced at the patterns contained in the report but found that the patterns were weird and complicated, just like a blooming red spider lily or a hot glowing sun.
This door was gray-white. It looked like it had experienced wind and frost for an unknown number of years and the surface was no longer shiny, but according to the information, this door was extremely strong. Even a diamond could not make a scratch and it had a melting point of more than ten thousand degrees. Even when blasting it continuously with a laser of several million degrees, it was difficult to cut it open.
This was a metal that was extremely inert even in heat conduction…
Seeing these properties, Chen Chen immediately understood something. He quickly flipped the pages and sure enough, based on the analysis of the metal, the door was made of high-offset armor!
"High-offset armor!"
Chen Chen's eyes lit up. "In other words, the extinct civilization on Mars already had the technology to make high-offset armor."
"Yes, the manufacturing technology of high-offset armor isn't complicated. It just requires a large particle accelerator. The only thing that limits its use is the issue of production."
Little X said, "With our output, we can manufacture at most one cryogenic chamber in a year but this door is ten meters in diameter and its thickness is unfathomable."
Chen Chen shook his head, feeling even more astounded. This door was so huge, so why did it exist? This metal, which was known as the toughest material in the solar system, could not be easily broken even by the Tsar Bomba.
The report stated that, after humans discovered the door, they had already begun to use various meticulous efforts to break down the door, and some people tried to enter from the side, but then they had to give up this naive idea.
This was because on the side, there was also high-offset metal. It was just like a round well made of metal, which was over a thousand meters long.
Thus, humankind began to find a way to break through this door and the entire project to break the door lasted for more than half a month.
Thinking of this, Chen Chen continued to turn the page but found that all the follow-up content was gone. The entire report contained only the Northern American government's speculation about the door.
"What's behind it? What is in that door and how did humans disappear?"
Chen Chen raised his head and asked.
"There's nothing else."
Little X walked in from outside and shook her head. "This was the only useful thing I found in the dilapidated Pentagon and there was nothing left."
"Continue the search!"
Chen Chen put down the information in his hand and ordered, "I don't believe that I can't even find a clue about the enemy in the entire human civilization."
Next, Chen Chen continued to wait but within a few days, there was another update from the Black Knights —
"What is this?"
Chen Chen looked at the screen suspiciously, only to see the drone's high-altitude angle of view. In a wasteland, a bottomless pit was shown on the ground. The pit was only about ten meters in diameter.
The deep pit had a regular round shape, with black depths and no bottom to be seen.
After discovering this clue, the Black Knights automatically launched a response, sending an inspection team, setting up various instruments, and exploring the depths of the pit.
After some exploration, at the end, when the Black Knights had dived nearly five kilometers, they finally reached the bottom of the pit.
However, these Black Knights discovered that the bottom of the deep pit was none other than the gate full of sun patterns, like a deep well!
"That Martian door appeared on the earth?"
Chen Chen was shocked.
"Not only that."
Little X emphasized. "We tested the soil properties in the deep pit and found that the soil at the vault was only exposed to air six months to a year ago. In other words, the entire deep pit had only appeared within the year! "
With that, Little X presented a cross-sectional image. "The side of this door also has the same high-offset armor layer, which
is the same as the one on Mars, but it can be seen…"
Little X hesitated for a while before continuing. "This door is very new, much newer than the door on Mars, just like a newly manufactured one."
"No, your judgment is wrong."
Chen Chen wore a solemn expression. He shook his head. "There's still high-offset armor blocking the sides like a well with a lid… It turns out that human civilization has judged wrongly and the one on Mars wasn't a door at all."
"Isn't it?"
Little X tilted her head and asked in confusion, "But it's obvious that there's a shallow crack in the center of the door as if it can be opened?"
Chen Chen laughed at that. "The side of the door is also made of high-offset metal, that is to say, it is cylindrical as a whole, with a length of more than one kilometer, and you have found out that it's in a deep pit. Moreover, the pit has only recently appeared, so I can already arrive at the real answer…
"That isn't a door but a needle, a needle inserted into the earth!"
Little X suddenly got it. "Sir Godfather, what you said is very reasonable. We called it a door just because humans only saw the top of it at the beginning. If you analyze it in terms of its shape, it's a steel needle with a diameter of ten meters and a length of a kilometer."
"That's it."
Chen Chen nodded and a dark glint appeared in his eyes. "I just don't know what this needle has to do with the disappearance of human civilization…"
Chapter 572: Blood Cloud |
After discovering the needle-like device, all clues were halted.
No one knew what happened in that world. Why did humans disappear, who were they fighting with before disappearing, how did those blood clouds form, and why did the needle that was originally on Mars appear on the earth?
No one knew.
The rain from the blood clouds in the sky corroded most of the traces and even the Internet that humankind was so proud of was eroded. The Black Knights could barely find some fragmentary information, all of which was common knowledge. There was nothing left about what happened in the past year.
Therefore, Chen Chen decided to check it out in person to see if he could find anything by his own ability.