I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

Moreover, these solutions all carry a certain degree of pollution characteristics. When faced with disaster, pollution itself becomes the only lifeline, which is quite ironic.

Based on what Lu Ban has seen so far, the first plan attracted the swarm of insects, the second plan caused the crystallization disease to spread, and the third plan is probably also unsuccessful.

Although the robots in the future city look like humans, they are ultimately just thoughts constructed from code.

Even Lin was no exception.

Even if they do succeed, it's hard to say that human civilization will survive in robots.

Looking at the lonely rocket launch pad, Lu Ban guessed that this was probably the database of human civilization that had been launched, but he wondered where those databases would end up after drifting in space for hundreds of years.

After reading these reports, Shuangxin sat down weakly on the dilapidated equipment behind her.

"What is this... what is this..."

Her eyes lost their sparkle.

This report reveals not only the horrors of the disasters faced by humanity in the old days, but also the madness embodied in these solutions.

Each proposal carries an extreme "do or die" mentality, and it's hard to imagine that a person with normal thinking could come up with such ideas.

Perhaps more terrifying than natural disasters was the madness that spread throughout human civilization at that time.

What's even more disheartening is that people all over the world believe these solutions are feasible and have the potential to save the world, and they are putting them into practice with the highest level of awareness.

"Are we...are we doing the same thing as them now?"

Shuangxin's voice trembled.

Those people were completely unaware of the madness involved when they were making these plans, which was "normal" at the time.

Then, Shuangxin couldn't help but wonder if the "normal" means of saving the world that she now believed in might have already been distorted?

Is it possible that the swarm is truly invincible, and the world is destined for destruction?

"Here is another report."

Lu Ban continued searching and found the last report at the end of the timestamps.

[Report on the Current Situation]

The contents of this report are not an official statement, but rather resemble someone's notes.

[This is the... how many times the Alliance Disaster Management Committee has reported this—I've forgotten—but whatever.]

[I have some good news and several bad news items; I'll start with the bad ones.]

[First, Project Bridge was a success, but unfortunately, that's bad news. A bunch of damn monsters crawled out of the wormhole from Project Bridge, and they devoured the engineers who built the bridge. Damn it, an entire platoon was sacrificed just to barely seal it off from the other side of that unstoppable impulse.]

Secondly, the modification plan was a fucking success. Those idiots in the biology department, after conducting three phases of human trials, rolled out the formulation, citing a fucking lack of funding as their reason. Within three months, everyone in the world was scrambling to inject the formulation, but only the wealthiest could afford it. And now, fucking, it's all over. The formulation has severe side effects; people over twenty will rapidly decline and die within a month after injection, and those under twenty will experience accelerated aging, not to mention the ensuing supernatural crimes. Thanks to my colleagues in the biology department, they've made this messed-up world even more chaotic.

[Then, to hell with mechanical ascension! Uploading human consciousness is simply impossible. Any uploaded human consciousness would completely collapse within a week due to the overwhelming amount of information received. As for that so-called database that preserves all of human civilization, due to memory limitations, various countries are arguing fiercely about which cultures should be preserved and which should be preserved more extensively. The one holding the most initiative is, freaking, a country that's less than three hundred years old! To hell with it!]

Upon seeing this, Lu Ban was filled with mixed emotions.

When faced with such a catastrophe, what limits humanity is not the external disaster, but its own human nature.

He continued reading.

[Of course, there's also good news. Thank God, we've found a way to preserve this world. Thank you, uh, to hell with those gods, thank ourselves!]

Chapter 497 Good News

[Of course, there's also good news. Thank God, we've found a way to preserve this world. Thank you, uh, to hell with those gods, thank ourselves!]

Upon reading this, Shuangxin felt a pang of unease, a sense of foreboding washing over her.

Given that such a crazy plan has been proposed and implemented, it's already a miracle that the world hasn't fallen into an even more terrifying abyss. So what exactly does this recorder mean by "the way to preserve this world"?

The more I think about it, the more fear I feel.

She didn't really want to keep reading, but she couldn't suppress her curiosity.

Shuangxin's gaze shifted downwards, and lines of somewhat disordered text came into view.

[All of this stems from a hypothesis by Professor Tang. He's a fucking genius. The world's environment has undergone drastic changes, and soon the entire world will become unsuitable for human beings to live in, and most other creatures will struggle to survive the disaster.]

And those damn bugs coming from the other side of the bridge are impossible to kill off, and they're incredibly tenacious, many times more formidable than cockroaches.

[The crystallization disease has spread among the rich and middle class; those who deserve to die are almost all dead.]

As for consciousness uploading and mechanical ascension, screw cyberpunk!

These situations gave him inspiration. Professor Tang believed that modifying oneself was the correct solution, but using the radioactive ore was unreliable. The real direction humanity should be improving was the bridge, and the monsters on the other side of the bridge.

[To hell with monsters, to hell with humans, we're all on the verge of death. Those complex and powerful monsters that can move freely in the complex universe and devour all objects to obtain energy are the direction of human evolution.]

I'm fed up with those politicians' quid pro quo schemes. Damn it, only Professor Tom's vision represents the true direction for humanity.

[This might sound crazy, but it doesn't matter, because those vested interests who could possibly stop this plan have long since turned to stone on drugs!]

[We've made it all right. The experiment was a huge success, a fucking success! The flesh and blood of humans and monsters fused together almost instantly. Because of the monsters' brain capacity… screw brain capacity! A single monster couldn't hold the complete consciousness of a human, so we used consciousness uploading technology to connect several monsters. Genius! I'm a fucking genius!]

The experiment went quite smoothly. The captured monsters were eventually dominated by human will, and their forms changed. We speculate that these changes in form were also to adapt to the local environment.

Furthermore, according to feedback, the fused being can connect the consciousness of the devoured creature with itself. In other words, even if a human is devoured by these monsters, their consciousness can achieve immortality. This is true evolution.

These creatures have very low intelligence, relying solely on instinct and powerful evolutionary abilities to traverse the universe. If they were even slightly more intelligent, they could potentially conquer the entire universe.

We're trying to get people whose consciousness has been uploaded into monsters to cross the bridge, attracting even more monsters. Our plan is simple: upload the consciousness of all humanity to those monsters to achieve humanity's ultimate evolution. That way, those who want to stay here can stay, and those who want to leave can explore the universe. This is the true new era.

Looking back now, all three options used to address this disaster ultimately achieved their original objectives, and none of them were dispensable.

[Without the bridge, we wouldn't have been able to discover those incredibly resilient creatures. If the human modification program hadn't been implemented, we would not only have had to start researching human adaptability from scratch, but we would also have been hindered by those damned vested interests. Finally, even research on consciousness uploading, which sounds like a dream, played a crucial role.]

Such a coincidence can no longer be described as mere chance; in the words of some devout religious people, it is divine intervention.

It is precisely because we are the chosen ones that we are able to find a way out before such destruction.

Now, over 100,000 people have undergone the transformation and crossed to the other side of the bridge. It's time for me to set off too. May humanity endure and the flame of civilization continue to burn.

Towards the end, this person's writing suddenly became much calmer and more rational.

It's like a mentally ill person spouting nonsense suddenly starting to discuss academic topics, and even speaking eloquently about them.

This made Shuangxin feel even more terrified.

What is he doing?

If someone keeps talking nonsense, Shuangxin would definitely think that he has lost his mind and gone mad.

But when this person calmed down and spoke those words in an extremely rational tone, Shuangxin felt afraid.

This is what it looks like when someone has lost their original values, completely fallen into madness, and takes their own beliefs as the standard.

Compared to the distortions recorded by a madman using insane language, the perversions written by a rational person using rational language are even more horrifying.

In other words, the person who wrote this report at the time could no longer be considered human in spirit.

He firmly believed that what he was doing was saving the world, and that it was because of these people, the best people in the world, that the wasteland we see today was created by their efforts to save the world they loved.

How ironic.

For Shuangxin, the more she knows, the more unfortunate she becomes; the more curious she is, the more irreversible the consequences become; and the more she tries to pursue hope, the stronger her despair becomes.

People often push themselves into the abyss, and when they fall, they even think they are entering heaven.

This kind of perception exists everywhere.

Just like Shuangxin herself, she has been determined since childhood to eliminate all insect swarms and make the world blue and clean again, but is all of this really the right thing to do?

These insect swarms that bring misfortune to humanity are actually survivors of the old era.

Humans suffering from crystallization disease can only live to their twenties, and civilization is forever stuck in the Middle Ages, struggling in the face of an increasingly cruel environment.

Humans, who became part of the swarm, flew out of their planet and were able to survive and reproduce in any part of the universe, spreading human civilization among the stars.

To be or not to be, that is the question.

Is it to strive for nobility, maintain lofty principles, and remain steadfast until death, or to resort to any means necessary, sacrificing everything just to keep moving forward?

Which of these two behaviors is more noble?

Lu Ban, on the other hand, has a different perspective.

He had no intention of judging whether these people's actions were right or wrong.

This is because it is a self-rescue measure taken by ordinary humans when faced with pollution from foreign lands.

Survival is the first priority of civilization. A dead civilization, no matter how glorious and brilliant, is nothing more than a tombstone.

Even if a surviving civilization has become alienated, it still has a future.

In foreign lands, it is far better to give civilization to time than to give time to the years.

Those precious, ravaged civilizations that we once took pride in will blossom into even uglier flowers of evil under the pollution and devastation of foreign lands.

Everything that humanity cherishes, cares about, and protects is nothing more than insects in a turbid torrent, drifting with the current and gradually sinking into depravity.

All the struggles of civilization are in vain.

Chapter 498 The Great Expedition

Lu Ban then looked at the other reports.

Most of these reports are about how to study the fusion of humans and monsters.

Originating from early research on crystallization disease, these studies progressed rapidly. Although some absurd research topics, such as conception, emerged, the vast majority were based on the similarities between humans and monsters.

Of course, even so, the content of those studies would be taboo and insane no matter where they are placed. The sense of perversion that comes from seeing researchers who once represented the hope of the world treat the humans who participated in the experiments as if they were laboratory animals is enough to drive anyone crazy.

It's like a family member who usually takes good care of you suddenly pointing a knife at you, saying things like "it's for your own good" and speaking the gentlest words, before stabbing the knife into your throat, turning it around a couple of times, and finally saying goodnight in a soft voice.

The hair is creepy.

With cognitive dissonance and loss of rationality, humanity does what it believes to be right, unaware that this represents destruction.

Alongside these reports were many reflections and notes.

Professor Tang's theory is truly brilliant; we're sure we can rely on it to resolve this crisis.

The research is progressing rather slowly; for the sake of humanity, I need to step up my efforts.

[I need to let my wife and daughter upload it first; they definitely won't survive the subsequent disaster.]