Eternal Night

Chapter 506 World-Destroying Combat Power

Wu Pifu carried the three pendants and the golden tree toward the wooden boat.

On the way, he told Beelzebub the information he had learned during his battle with the golden skeleton.

"Huh!? I'm that awesome!? The great sage Beelzebub... prophecy! The great sage! Wu Pifu, did you hear that!?" The giant fly rubbed its hands together and excitedly flew to Wu Pifu's face, shouting almost right next to his ear.

Wu Pifu flicked his hand, and the large fly flew up. He didn't know what kind of force it was, but it was bounced back to Wu Pifu's waist.

Beelzebub felt dizzy and then flew into a rage, roaring, "Once I regain my true strength, I'll use you as a marble to bounce around every day!!"

Wu Pifu said nonchalantly, "Fine, fine."

Beelzebub gritted her teeth for a long time, only to find herself humiliated. She then said with dissatisfaction, "Anyway, you'll suffer sooner or later for being too quiet and having such a rough personality... Let's get down to business. This isn't the whole story of the Lost Contaminated Body!"

"Ok, I know."

Wu Pifu was recalling the voice that the mainframe had just emitted: "Defeated the Lost Contaminant (Fragment), in the process of determining the outcome... Determination complete, 860,000 points gained..."

Wu Pifu originally thought that the one million points given by the main brain was all that was needed for the high-risk mission, but who knew that after defeating the golden skeleton, he would directly receive 860,000 points.

This also confirms one of his guesses: that points are not like fiat currency, which can be generated by simply having enough permissions. Instead, they are a real form of equivalent exchange. Even the mainframe does not have unlimited points. That is why a high-risk mission only gives one million points, but the BOSS-level being encountered in this mission can give hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of points after being defeated.

This is not over yet.

"High-risk exploration mission one completed, important clues obtained (incomplete)."

"Citizen Wu Pifu, please continue exploring this world to find the remaining parts of the lost contaminant in order to complete the second high-risk exploration mission."

There are no other rewards, but the progress of the mission can be considered a reward in itself, since Wu Pifu is really not good at exploration missions.

He prayed repeatedly in his heart that the next mainframe update would ideally allow it to complete all explorations and then tell him where the monsters were and where to retrieve their heads. It would be even better if it were combined with a minimap or one-click teleportation...

Back on the wooden boat from the shattered island, Wu Pifu continued to propel the boat forward to quickly return to the mainland. Instead of immediately setting off to search for the resistance camp, he looked at the sky and at the exhausted and disheveled artificial humans, and decided to set up a camp on the beach and stay there temporarily.

What puzzled Wu Pifu was that these androids were actually robot-like beings, hybrid variants of bio-engineered humans and robots. If it were just that they looked like humans, even as handsome men and beautiful women as possible, that would be one thing, but their behavior was also infinitely close to that of humans. For example, even though their behavior was simulated by programs and chips, they could express sadness, grief, thought, and even various other emotions... This made Wu Pifu suspect many times that they had already acquired life and intelligence.

After setting up the temporary camp, Wu Pifu was still discussing the next steps with Beelzebub.

We did gain a lot of useful information from the battle with the golden skeleton.

First, the person who rode the dragon across the realm is the target of Wu Pifu's exploration mission, namely, a real individual from the previous era who is falling from grace.

The true civilization that was falling in the previous era was in very bad shape. This civilization was suspected of being eroded by the phenomenon of loss, and only a few dozen individuals remained of the entire civilization, while only one extraordinary being remained.

From the battle with the golden skeleton, Wu Pifu obtained several extremely important pieces of information. First, in real civilizations, all extraordinary individuals possess the characteristic of contamination. A sufficient number of non-extraordinary individuals are required to stabilize the existence of the entire civilization. Once the number of non-extraordinary individuals becomes too small, the Lost Contamination will occur. This perfectly explains why the Alchemy Civilization perished so quickly, because the extraordinary individuals in its civilization sacrificed all the non-extraordinary individuals, which directly led to the sudden death of the Alchemy Civilization.

Second, when the Lost Contamination descends, the first to be lost will definitely be extraordinary individuals. The more powerful the extraordinary individual, the more severe the Lost Contamination attack will be, while non-extraordinary individuals will only be affected.

"...Third, it is still unknown whether the true civilization of the previous era still exists. From a time perspective, the only superhuman in their race died seven thousand years ago. Even with the issues of different dream world levels and different time flows, it is still an extremely difficult task for us to find the true civilization of the previous era by following the causal line."

Beelzebub analyzed the information he had obtained from the golden skeleton for Wu Pifu.

Wu Pifu listened silently, and only after Beelzebub finished speaking did he ask, "That golden skeleton has titles, and five titles at that. Apart from the title 'Lost,' the other four titles all possess special abilities... What exactly are these titles?"

Beelzebub was also puzzled. She pondered for a long time before saying, "I don't know either. At least I don't recall any information about titles. This thing feels unfamiliar to me. I don't know what titles are. From the feeling, it seems like a fantasy, but it also has some characteristics of origin, that is, an infinite self-cycle, a perfect sense of self-closure... It's very strange. In short, titles must be hiding some great secret."

Wu Pifu nodded; he thought so too. He had initially learned from Chu Minghao that the mainframe could issue titles, but he hadn't realized its significance then. Later, he established several Level 5 shelters, and so far he had three usable titles and one unusable one. These three usable titles alone had almost qualitatively changed his combat power. In the past, when he was weaker, he had repeatedly turned the tide of battle thanks to the almost rule-like power of those titles.

Now, the more he comes into contact with the dream world and the more extraordinary beings from other civilizations he encounters, the more he understands the heaven-defying functions of the title.

This thing... it's practically cheating! Such powerful functions, such minor side effects, it's like it's exploiting a bug.

This battle with the golden skeleton was the first time I'd seen a title outside of the mainframe, which must be hiding a huge secret.

At this moment, Beelzebub suddenly laughed and said, "Speaking of which, you can now be considered a world-destroying force."

"Huh?" Wu Pifu asked curiously.

Beelzebub continued, “You Gaia humans’ strength classification system… you don’t know? Because the second update of the mainframe has been delayed, especially regarding the lack of specific classifications for extraordinary power, monster levels, and digital strength assessments in the dream world. Currently, Gaia humans only know four major levels: mortal, extraordinary, ascended, and origin. This vague strength classification is very dangerous for those fighting in the dream world, so they have developed a general assessment and classification system internally.”

"The strongest level among mortals, the king of soldiers on the battlefield, the single-person army-breaking level, the city-destroying level, the world-destroying level, and the star-shattering level—these are the strength classifications they give. According to this assessment, you should now belong to the world-destroying level."

Wu Pifu paused for two seconds before bursting into laughter. He shook his head and said, "What kind of superhuman level is this from old novels and comics? And how am I considered to be at the world-destroying level?"

Beelzebub replied seriously, “How can it not count? Your previous outburst alone altered the environment with the phenomena it caused. A mere movement could trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. If you were to unleash your full power in battle, an island like Easter Island could collapse within seconds. In modern civilization, you would be a walking natural disaster… No, do you think that a so-called world-destroying event requires the destruction of an entire planet? No, it only requires erasing the civilization of the world you inhabit. And that's not difficult for you right now. In fact, you should be more careful in your future battles, otherwise, one careless move could trigger the destruction of a civilization.”

Wu Pifu pondered for a few seconds before nodding solemnly. He said thoughtfully, "Hmm, if we calculate it that way, then I do indeed possess the power to destroy the world now... Chu Minghao is at the Shattered Star level, Liang Min is somewhere between World Destroyer and Shattered Star... The sublimated beings in the Dream World are also basically at the World Destroyer level. So what about the Root? Beelzebub, compared to Chu Minghao's current strength, who is stronger?"

Beelzebub pondered for a long time before shaking her head and saying, "I don't know. I haven't recalled any memories or combat performance of the Root yet. However... the Root is special. Although I don't know what makes it special, there is one memory that remains: the Root can effectively resist the Lost Contamination. No matter how strong the Star Shattering Star's combat power is, it still cannot resist the Lost Contamination once it arrives."

Wu Pifu fell silent. Loss and corruption... If Chu Minghao was also corrupted by loss, then the Gaia humans would almost certainly be doomed, right?

While Wu Pifu and Beelzebub were talking, A1, who was sitting not far away, seemed to be hesitating about something. After a long time, when it was completely dark and it was almost 9 p.m., she finally couldn't help but come to Wu Pifu's side.

Wu Pifu looked at her. A1 seemed very awkward. She crossed her arms and kept pinching and tugging at her fingers, looking like a young girl. Combined with her stunning beauty and perfect figure, she had a very alluring charm. However, Wu Pifu's current image was that of a dead fish-eyed little boy, which made her look particularly out of place sitting next to A1.

"Get to the point," Wu Pifu said directly.

A1 hesitated for several seconds before saying, "Sir, I...I, and many others, our central processing unit may be damaged."

Wu Pifu was taken aback for a moment, then immediately asked seriously, "Can it be repaired? What's wrong?"

For androids, the central processing unit is their brain; if it is damaged, it means their death.

A1 shook her head slightly and said, "It's still perfectly fine normally, with no other problems, but..."

"When darkness falls, we can vaguely see many terrifying images, but upon closer inspection, we can't see anything at all. This clearly indicates a problem with the central processing unit..."

Upon hearing this, Wu Pifu immediately stood up from his seat. He looked out into the darkness outside the camp, but after only a few seconds, his face darkened.

In the darkness outside the camp, an unnatural darkness gathered, unnatural human figures twisted, and an unnatural sense of fear permeated the air.

Lost pollution...

It didn't disappear with the disappearance of the golden skeleton. No, to be more precise...

The lost pollution has been fully activated!

(End of this chapter)