Eternal Night

Chapter 98 Catastrophe
Both Wu Xianxiao and Ashikilan felt that things were beyond their imagination.

It’s not about the fake people, lizard people, or some more terrifying truth, but the government’s response.

From the very beginning, the two men anticipated that their biggest enemy would actually be the government.

Ashkiran is a person in this scene, so he is naturally in awe of the government.

Wu Xianxiao confirmed the government threat based on its strength.

This world is a modern, high-tech world, and it has military mechas. The technological level is even more advanced than that of the 21st century when he first fell asleep.

If he were to be hostile to the government with his current strength in a world like this, he would be taught a lesson in minutes.

Not to mention anything else, he couldn't even defeat the mecha that descended along with the helicopter.

This is a fact. We must admit that this mecha is about eight meters tall. I don't know how powerful it is, but it can fly. Both arms have been modified with modern thermal weapons, probably machine guns or even powerful weapons like Vulcan cannons. The whole body is made of alloy steel. If it has some sci-fi laser swords and laser guns, will he hit with his head? Or will he hit with his head?
Disassembling a mecha by hand sounds very manly and awesome, but it requires real strength!

Therefore, Wu Xianxiao and Ashikilan both believed that the biggest threat came from the government, and the live broadcast room or asking everyone to write down the records were actually just to force the government not to kill them directly.

But things suddenly went beyond their expectations.

"…We confirmed that something existed eleven years ago."

The old man said with a heavy face: "At that time, we were still using the second-generation Skynet. And for some reason, the second-generation Skynet's national big data analysis was delayed and had loopholes..."

The old man looked a little embarrassed, and the officer next to him sneered.

Ashkilan sighed heavily at this time, and Wu Xianxiao asked curiously: "What do you mean? The second generation of Skynet is not as good as the first generation of Skynet?"

The old man, the officer, and Ashikilan all looked embarrassed.

Ashkilan was better. He immediately explained: "No, in terms of algorithms and computing power, the second generation of Skynet is much better than the first generation of Skynet. However, at that time, it should be said that there were some problems with our system about 20 years or even longer."

Wu Xianxiao nodded and said, "Civil war? Or something else?"

The officer suppressed his embarrassment and said in a deep voice, "No, it's too 'free'. There are more than a thousand men and women, and the old generation of certain authoritarianism, the new generation of certain authoritarianism, and the super new generation of certain authoritarianism are all rampant. Then, the government's selected political parties have all gone crazy. The originally well-implemented monitoring big data screening has been almost abandoned."

Wu Xianxiao was stunned for several seconds, then he nodded silently with an expression that showed he understood.

The old man then continued, "So we didn't discover these things right away during the second generation of Skynet. It lasted for about ten years, or even longer, until eleven years ago, when the chaos improved a little. The new president issued deportation orders, ban orders, and so on. We were ordered to improve the computing model of the second generation of Skynet and re-incorporate big data supervision into it. At that time, we confirmed that something existed."

Ashkiran immediately asked, “Is it a fake person!?”

"More than just a fake person."

The old man said with a sad face: "This thing has a very important characteristic, that is, once it is 'killed', the entire world will erase all traces of its existence. We can only confirm its existence through the process of elimination, including records written by others, interactions with others, etc."

"We have used big data to determine that approximately 1.5 million people have disappeared worldwide. Based on the composition of these missing people, we have determined that these people can be divided into roughly three levels."

"The lowest level is the pseudo-human, the next level up is the lizardman, and the highest level is the illuminator. Their intelligence and functions go up in sequence. At the lizardman level, they are already no different from ordinary people. They have infiltrated among us and even assumed important government functions!"

Wu Xianxiao didn't say anything, just listened quietly, and Ashinjilan immediately shouted: "In other words, you knew about the existence of the fake man eleven years ago? Then why didn't you announce it? Why didn't you take action?"

The old man sighed and said nothing, while the officer said seriously, "Because we can't kill them."

Ashkiran looked at the officer in astonishment, and the officer explained with a straight face: "Since the third generation of Skynet was launched, we have indeed confirmed their existence through the method of elimination. At the same time, through big data analysis, we have also found traces of their existence, and found that some of them are most likely pseudo-humans, lizard-man disguised monsters, but we have tried."

"There is no way to kill them, no matter what method you use, physical, electrical, kinetic, explosive, nuclear, chemical, viral... They are truly and absolutely immortal, because we can't even break a little bit of their skin, and they can ignore all attacks."

The old man took over the topic and said, "In order to test their abilities and find out how to kill them, we have sacrificed at least tens of thousands of people. We lured them into traps, lured them into the desert, and directly launched nuclear weapons... No, none of them worked. It's as if they didn't exist!"

Wu Xianxiao thought of the feeling of being dragged when he killed the fake man and the lizard man. If he didn't use blood and energy, he would not be able to attack or touch them. Instead, he would be dragged into their bodies because of touching them. It would be hard to say what would happen then.

It turns out that this dragging is not just about the body. According to them, it seems that all scientific methods are ineffective?

That would be scary.

The old man continued, "In our research on pseudo-human monsters, we confirmed that eight large cities with a population of over 500,000 people have disappeared. Then we found that our world has shrunk by about 3%..."

"What do you mean?"

Wu Xianxiao and Ashikilan asked at the same time.

The missing population is understandable, and the number of pseudo-cities beyond imagination is also understandable, after all, it is a government-scale statistics and inspection, but the world has shrunk by about 3%... It is completely incomprehensible.

The old man gestured with his hands and said, "Earth, our planet, this is our world. Please forgive my inaccurate wording. It is naturally a tiny bit of space in the universe, but for our planet, the space has shrunk by 3%, and this space happens to be the total area of ​​the eight large cities that disappeared."

Ashkilan couldn't believe it at all. He shouted loudly: "The city disappeared. Does that mean its land has also disappeared?!" "It's not the land, it's the space!"

The old man said with a heavy face, "If it was land, then the disappeared city would leave behind an infinitely deep pit that goes straight to the mantle or even the core of the earth. But it didn't. Instead, the space in that place disappeared. This is the result of the joint calculations of more than a hundred scientists, mathematicians, astronomers, and the third-generation Skynet system. Other things may deceive us, but mathematics will not!"

"Our world is being slowly devoured by something that we cannot imagine, and the Pseudo-Humans, Lizardmen, and Illuminating Men are merely the front tentacles of this terrifying existence!"

Just then, the helicopter landed at its destination. Wu Xianxiao and the other two got off the helicopter and found that it was a heavily guarded military base. There were not only soldiers patrolling, but also mecha patrols.

Ashkiran immediately said, "We have only flown for such a short time, are we still in the city?"

The old man kept walking forward without saying anything. The officer followed the other two and said, "Yes, we are still in the city. We used full-image simulation for camouflage, so all we can see from the outside are buildings."

As Ashkiran walked over, he asked, "Why? Building a military base in a city doesn't make much sense."

The officer replied: "It is indeed meaningless from a conventional point of view, but if we want to study the existence of the pseudo-city, we have to be here."

The old man said without turning his head, "Mr. Wu, the main purpose of establishing this military research base is to study the disappeared city, that is, the fake city. This time, we are telling you the truth, and we also hope to use your ability to confirm the existence of the fake city, its expansion range, and all other data."

The three followed the old man and the officer into the military base.

It was also heavily guarded inside, with at least a dozen types of monitoring equipment and scanners passing through it.

The old man said as he walked, "These methods can only detect abnormalities in pseudo-humans, but they still cannot kill them. They have killed no less than five researchers or five soldiers in this base. We are powerless against lizardmen and higher-level illuminators."

Everyone quickly went down to the interior of the military base. The old man seemed very busy along the way. People kept coming to him for signatures. At the same time, he received three phone calls. He talked a lot with the people on the other end of the phone.

When they got to the elevator, the old man wiped the sweat from his head and said, "You guys have caused a big mess this time. The Presidential Palace is in chaos. The Emergency Coordination Committee is clamoring to shoot you..."

Ashkilan said weakly: "They won't... shoot us, right?"

The old man laughed and said, "How is that possible? Let them have their balls, a bunch of idiots. If it weren't for them..."

What followed was a moment of crazy catharsis for the old man.

Not long after, the elevator stopped. When everyone got out of the elevator again, they saw that there were people outside who had already prepared biochemical suits, weapons, searchlight equipment, etc.

The old man and the officer put on their biochemical suits with the help of others, and Ashikilan also put them on. Only Wu Xianxiao refused the biochemical suit, and then Jiujiu also refused it when he saw it.

The officer said seriously: "Wu, you don't know what's down there! We have lost at least 5,000 exploration team members, you..."

Wu Xianxiao waved his hand and said, "No need. I can't kill the fake people wearing this."

The old man and the officer looked at each other and nodded slightly. Then, with the two of them still leading the way and a few more researchers accompanying them, they led Wu Xianxiao and the other two to continue going deeper underground.

After walking no more than fifty meters along the passage, the view in front of me suddenly became huge and empty.

A huge bottomless pit appeared in front of them, and when they got there, the surrounding walls were all natural rock walls without any construction.

This is not the most exaggerated thing. The most exaggerated thing is that in this bottomless pit, there is a crackling plasma covering layer that completely covers the entire pit.

"We have discovered more than 60 similar pits around the world, all of which are beneath the ground of megacities. We have no idea what is underneath, because we don't even know if we have sent people to explore."

The old man said with a serious face: "It's not just about personnel exploration. To be honest, who built this military base, when was it built, how many people did we send to station there, how many people did we send to explore, how long has the plasma protection network lasted, we don't know all of these, and I... have only been here for less than two months."

Ashkiran looked at everything in front of him with shock.

Wu Xianxiao's expression was equally unpleasant because the scene he saw was different from that of others.

The rock walls here were covered with flesh and blood tentacles extending upward from the deep pit. The plasma kept burning these tentacles, but a small part of them still came above the plasma, almost covering the rock walls here. At the same time, some flesh and blood tentacles had extended into the base. From time to time, the tentacles bulged, and a human-sized piece of flesh and blood fell into the deep pit along the tentacles.

Wu Xianxiao was just about to describe what he saw when suddenly, the crackling plasma layer went out.

Everyone was stunned for a moment.

After at least two or three seconds, the old man yelled, "Oh no! Something's wrong with Skynet!"

Then the whole ground began to shake, and an earthquake seemed to come suddenly.

And in Wu Xianxiao's eyes, a large number of flesh and blood tentacles surged out from the deep pit.

They are about to be devoured by these tentacles!

(End of this chapter)