Eternal Night

Chapter 513 Departure from Earth
There are many things about Wu Pifu that leave the three little animals speechless, but what could be called the "most" is probably his attitude towards humans and non-humans.

Wu Pifu is very patient with people and will not bully others. He is willing to treat any "person" as an equal and communicate peacefully, because this is the privilege of being human. He believes that people understand joy, anger, sorrow and happiness. People understand happiness and naturally understand pain. He himself is also a human, a pure-blooded human as determined by the main brain, so he must be a human.

The non-human aspect is quite simple. Almost all monsters are non-human. At the same time, some things that look like humans and behave like humans are actually non-human. Non-humans do not understand joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, nor do they understand pain. Therefore, Wu Pifu can kill them at will without any psychological burden.

This is Wu Pifu's simple and straightforward worldview: a world composed of humans and non-humans, where people will behave very differently towards humans and non-humans.

Therefore, in his worldview, praising someone as having humanity and being human is the highest praise he can give.

Those beings who could speak and leave messages in the Lost Pollution, and even provide useful information, were definitely not human. They were either some kind of superpower or something indescribable. In short, these beings were beyond his imagination. But overall, they were good people... no, good monsters!

As the saying goes, humans are born of their mothers, and monsters are born of monsters' mothers... In short, Wu Pifu felt that these monsters must possess humanity, and he was willing to regard them as human beings. If given the opportunity, he even suspected that he might befriend them.

After hearing Wu Pifu's story, the three little animals were all stunned. Even Beelzebub exclaimed, "No, they really responded?!"

Wu Pifu looked at Beelzebub with a face full of questions and said, "No, why do you say no? Wasn't this your suggestion?"

Beelzebub stared blankly for a long time before saying, "The strangeness within that lost realm is far more terrifying and profound than I imagined... To be honest, I was just trying to find a way out of desperation, and I never expected to be of any help to you, but actually... is it a coincidence? Or is there really something...?"

Wu Pifu shook his head and said, "I don't know either, but I did receive their help. I should repay the kindness I have received. Even if they are monsters, they are human, they understand happiness and pain, they understand compassion and help. So they are human, or at most monsters. If I have the opportunity in the future, I will definitely repay them."

Wu Pifu was terribly stubborn in this regard, and Beelzebub naturally didn't intend to try to persuade her. She was still shocked that she could actually get an answer.

As dawn broke and morning arrived, Wu Pifu felt the loss and pollution gradually subside. All that was left was to wait until nine o'clock, when all the androids would restart, and then the spaceship could be launched to go into outer space.

During this time, Beelzebub temporarily set aside her speculations about the source of the strange voices. She said, "Based on the current understanding of the Lost Contamination, leaving aside its manifestations for now, at least a few points can be confirmed. First, the result of the Lost Contamination is the complete disappearance of its existence, from the physical body to the consciousness and soul—everything vanishes. Second, reality can be used to counteract the Lost, something you have already confirmed. Third, and most importantly..."

"Lost pollution can change depending on the observer's perception!"

Wu Pifu knew the first two points, which he had tested and experienced firsthand, but he didn't understand the third point, so he immediately asked, "What do you mean? Please explain in detail."

Beelzebub asked, "Why does the pollution subside during the day?"

Wu Pifu was stunned. He opened his mouth, then frowned and remained silent.

Beelzebub said, "What difference is there between day and night for Lost Pollution? Let alone day and night, what difference is there between Earth and outer space? Its essence is a terrifying thing that can completely destroy the world, civilization, and its very origins. It is a phenomenon caused by the source of pollution. So why does Lost Pollution subside during the day and intensify at night?"

Wu Pifu shook his head, and Beelzebub continued, "Besides this, there are many other details that prove this point. For example, why the effects of the Lost Contamination on them diminish when you are watching them. When you are not around, a dozen or so androids are contaminated by the Lost Contamination at once, but when you return, not only does the frequency of the Lost Contamination decrease significantly, but it also occurs at most once or twice. And there's more..."

“Those vehicles outside, each convoy represents a group of androids. Why are they almost all lost, leaving only vehicles driving themselves? And there are still nearly a hundred of the androids following you? Why are they special? No, they are not special, but rather, or perhaps we should also include the three of us, and oh right, this golden tree.”

Wu Pifu thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. He said, "Then how should we determine the status of 'bystanders'? Aren't they bystanders to each other?"

"reality!"

Beelzebub said decisively, "This is the effect of reality. The people and the Golden Tree who came out of the Lost Lands were actually in a semi-lost state. However, they barely maintained their existence by relying on the Lost Lands, which were jointly built by countless roots. But once they leave the Lost Lands, they will be in a lost state unless they are infused with reality. The higher the level of reality, the more reality is required. If they go to the Zero Dream World of absolute reality, the amount of reality required is even exaggerated. So they were able to be preserved as figurines only because of the authority of the main brain!"

“Therefore, what determines the identity of an observer is reality. The higher the level of the real world one is in, the more reality one possesses, and the greater the weight of the observer's identity. Similar to you, one can even protect them from Lost Contamination. This is the third characteristic of Lost Contamination: Lost Contamination changes based on the observer's perception!” Wu Pifu thought for a moment and suddenly said, “Main Brain, determine my current score.”

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. Citizen Wu Pifu has 856,000 points."

Sure enough, pulling the red-haired mature woman out of her despair had cost him around four thousand points... which wasn't a small amount.

At this point, Beelzebub continued, "And there's another characteristic you should also pay attention to: since the Lost Contamination changes depending on the observer's perception, the more familiar you are with the Homunculi, such as A1 and B8, the less likely they are to be corrupted by the Lost Contamination. On the contrary, those Homunculi you are not familiar with are the most susceptible to being corrupted by the Lost Contamination."

Wu Pifu nodded silently. He said, "Because I instinctively feel that the night is dangerous, so the Lost Pollution will erode at night, while during the day there is sunlight, which is bright and open, so the Lost Pollution will recede. At the same time, I instinctively feel that the Earth is occupied by the Lost Pollution, so the Earth is dangerous, while outer space is far away from the Earth, so outer space is safe. Is that what you mean?"

Beelzebub affirmed, "Yes, that's right. This is all important information about the Lost Contamination. After we take back the Land of Redemption, we can also file records about the Lost Contamination. I have a feeling that to solve the dramatic changes at the source of the contamination, you will likely have to continuously explore the Lost Civilization, the Lost World, and the Lost Roots in the future."

Even without Beelzebub saying it, Wu Pifu himself had this intuition, and it was very strong. In addition to intuition, the main brain had also subtly pointed out this bias. For example, the missions issued by the main brain had very few points rewards in the ordinary dream world, even the Redemption mission was like that. But once it involved Lost, the mission rewards were incredibly generous. For example, the mission to capture the Lost Root XXX Ring directly rewarded a custom title, and the points rewards for the Lost were also extremely high.

The mastermind is reminding the Gaia humans in its own way that the Lost is of paramount importance!

As time passed, at nine o'clock, the androids that had been shut down were turned on and woke up. After waking up, they looked at each other and saw that the people they knew were still there, and they all smiled.

But they didn't know that more than a dozen familiar people had disappeared that night. The saddest thing was that they didn't even have the memory of these people disappearing, as if those androids had never existed.

After the androids were powered on, they all greeted Wu Pifu. Then the red-haired mature woman came to ask Wu Pifu if any new teams had arrived. When Wu Pifu shook his head, the hearts of many androids sank. They then quickly discovered a large number of vehicles parked around the spaceship...

The spaceship was completely deserted. Apart from them, there were no other androids on board. Hundreds of vehicles were parked around the spaceship, motionless and silent. The sight sent chills down the spines of all the androids.

At this point, the retreat time was about to expire. After discussing the matter, the seven androids of the Ruoye unit consulted Wu Pifu's opinion and then, without waiting any longer, launched their spaceship and headed into outer space.

All seven members of Ruoye's unit went to start the spaceship. The red-haired mature woman invited the androids under her management to sit down, but she came to Wu Pifu's side instead.

As the spaceship ascended, all the androids were pressed into chairs. At that moment, the red-haired mature woman said to Wu Pifu in a very soft voice, "...Sir, humans can dream, right?"

Wu Pifu looked at the red-haired mature woman with surprise, and he nodded.

The red-haired woman hesitated for a few seconds before whispering, "After we shut down, there's no response. We usually mimic the standby state of humans sleeping, and there's no dreaming process. But... but, sir, yesterday after I shut down, I seemed to have a dream..."

"I dreamt that I became a human, with genuine emotions, not just programmed feelings of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. I got into university, and I was so happy. But then a huge disaster struck. I watched as my loved ones turned into monsters, into white pillars of salt. Finally, the monsters pounced on me, and I was about to be dragged into darkness and nothingness. At that moment, at that moment..."

“I saw a golden figure. He pulled me and spread golden light to me, freeing me from the darkness. I remember it clearly, I remember it clearly, that golden figure... was you.”

"Am I...dreaming? Can androids dream?"

Wu Pifu stared out the window.

He was silent for a long time.

(End of this chapter)