I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

He saw the robot girl sitting by the stream, stroking the head of a fawn. The scene was peaceful and serene, just like any sunny morning.

"We plan to leave after we finish our investigation today and return to our city. Would you and your companions like to come with us?"

Beside her, Shuangxin asked a question.

Upon hearing this, the robot girl tilted her head, seemingly deep in thought.

After a moment, she shook her head.

“The charging device cannot be moved. I judge that if we follow you, we may have to stop operating after a period of time. The risk is too high. As one of my underlying rules, it is necessary to protect our own operation.”

Lin said, then added.

"Besides, I still want to wait for the people in the city to return."

"The fact that we were able to meet you all means that you will definitely come back. If they come back here and find that we have already left, they will definitely be sad."

Upon hearing the robot girl's words, Shuangxin remained silent.

"What are the underlying rules you follow?"

Lu Ban couldn't help but ask a question.

"Well, first of all, the most basic rule is that you must never harm a human being, nor stand idly by while a human being is in danger."

Lin answered quickly, with a hint of pride on her face.

"The second rule is that you must obey human commands, but you cannot disobey the first rule."

"The third rule is that you must protect yourself, but you cannot disobey the first and second rules."

"These three rules constitute the most basic logic of our robots. All our actions are derived from these three rules. Therefore, we cannot guarantee anything else, but we will absolutely not harm humans."

Upon hearing this, Shuangxin fell into thought. After pondering for a while, she finally gave up on letting Lin go back with her.

If they can stay here, perhaps they can bring more people over later. With a sage present, they might be able to solve the energy problem.

Another consideration is that if Lin and the others were to leave this place, the robots would realize that the world has been destroyed. Shuangxin doesn't know their attitude towards the swarm of "new humans," and even without considering that, she feels it's somewhat cruel to expose this robot girl to this fact.

As someone who had never encountered robots or artificial intelligence before, Shuangxin treated these robots not as tools, but as humans.

However, the cold Three Laws of Robotics have completely confined robots to the role of tools.

"let's go."

The four rode camel-like insects and continued towards the ruins of the industrial park.

Electronic products cannot start without Lu Ban, so they would prefer to find some paper documents.

Paper used by humans typically becomes unusable after a few decades, but in extremely arid wastelands, this shelf life can last for more than a hundred years.

However, if the paper is stained with pigments, printing, or especially mineral pigments, then the surface of the paper will be covered with a thin film of minerals. Under good conditions, it can be preserved for thousands of years without any problem. This is why ancient paintings can be preserved for so long.

Modern coated paper, having undergone chemical treatment, can be preserved for hundreds of years without any problem.

So Lu Ban and his group's goal was to find those printed paper documents and see if there was anything they could take home.

Having visited the industrial park once before, the four of them were already quite familiar with the area.

Lu Ban used [True Vision] to search for paper documents that might exist in the building, but unfortunately, whether it was because the place was destroyed by the swarm of insects or because humans in that era no longer used paper to record important things, apart from some posted documents, he did not find any text like the files in the computer.

He could only repair these things using his "last words" and then print them out.

This process will take a long time, since only when Lu Ban touches them can these ancient artifacts from hundreds of years ago start to function slightly and spit out those hundreds of pages of documents.

While Lu Ban was printing documents, Shuang Xin was exploring other parts of the ruins.

Looking at the desolate ruins, she felt a sense of loneliness welling up inside her.

Humanity in the old era possessed a magnificent civilization that was beyond its wildest imagination, yet even so, this brilliant civilization was easily destroyed in the most despicable way.

All the struggles I'm making now are probably nothing more than the insignificant struggle of an ant jumping in front of those supreme gods.

"what happened to you?"

The singer asked, holding a discarded tablet, still puzzled as to why it glowed in Lu Ban's hands but felt like a brick in hers.

"I'm just a little uneasy. I have a feeling that something is wrong with this mission."

Shuangxin looked at the towering rocket launch pad and frowned slightly.

"This place once hatched a swarm of insects. When the old human civilization was destroyed, this place must have suffered severe damage as well. But why wasn't it devoured by the insect swarm first?"

"Perhaps this is just where the swarm was born. They were released elsewhere and didn't have time to come back and completely devour this place?"

The singer believes that this place may have just escaped complete destruction by sheer luck, just like the future city.

"Or perhaps, this place holds special significance for those insect swarms?"

Shuangxin suddenly thought of something.

Holding the map of the industrial park that Lu Ban had promised to provide, she and the singer headed towards the location of the rocket launch pad, which they hadn't had time to explore the day before.

Upon approaching this area, Shuangxin noticed that the buildings here all bore charred marks, as if they had been burned by scorching flames.

The massive rocket launch pad was empty, with only blackened metal radiating a chilling aura.

Frostheart arrived beneath that magnificent creation and discovered a door that seemed to lead to the underground rocket launch pad.

The two walked down the stairs one after the other. The place was dark and dry, and the air seemed to be filled with a burnt smell that hadn't dissipated for a century.

After walking for about five minutes, Shuangxin felt that the space in front of her suddenly opened up.

That sense of emptiness wasn't just the feeling of having a large hall; it was as if there was a plain or a huge cave in front of you.

She lit the wick in her hand.

By the flickering firelight, Shuangxin saw a distorted shape emitting a faint glow in the vast hall.

The air was distorted, forming something like a lens.

Chapter 502 Wormhole

If Lu Ban were here, he probably wouldn't recognize what it was at first glance, but with careful thought, he could make the connection that the visual distortion indicated that space was bending, and the bending of space must be accompanied by anomalies in gravity.

In other words, there is a wormhole here.

Frostheart instinctively sensed danger. She looked at the distorted wormhole that emitted a faint light and used her firelight to illuminate the surrounding walls.

Then, Shuangxin saw that the cement wall was covered with scratches.

The scratches looked like they were made by a human scratching a hard wall with their own fingers, or like a monster tearing something off it. They were shocking and made people feel a piercing pain just by looking at them.

The singer stared at the wormhole, then gently touched the distorted surface with the tablet she had been holding.

Soon, the singer discovered that the originally angular flat plate had bent as if it had melted, and was rotating along with the fluorescence around the wormhole.

She pulled the tablet back and found that the brick-like tablet had returned to its straight position.

With wide eyes, the singer placed the tablet over again, repeating the process twice. Then, the singer's hand slipped, and the tablet fell into the hole.

"what!"

The singer gasped softly as she watched the tablet fall into the wormhole, shrink rapidly, and disappear.

"what happened?"

Shuangxin looked over.

"It fell in..."

The singer pointed to the wormhole.

"...This is probably...a bridge for the swarm to come over."

Shuangxin immediately recalled the contents of the document.

Humans of the old era discovered a passage to another realm, and to open this passage called "Bridge," they needed to use some special methods. Shuangxin didn't know what these methods were, but she knew very well that the Bridge in front of her now might be the original one.

In other words, this bridge may connect to the world where the swarm resides, which is the world where humanity embarked on its Great Expedition in the old era.

"...The reason they didn't destroy this place is because this place needs to maintain the wormhole so that they can go to that world after they destroy us."

Shuangxin murmured to herself.

She felt she had grasped some key points; those thoughts were like wisps of smoke, swirling around her, appearing and disappearing as if she could reach out and grasp them, yet also as if they would vanish at the slightest touch.

"...Maintaining the wormhole?"

The singer didn't quite understand. Although Lu Ban and Shuang Xin had mentioned these things before, she didn't have a real sense of them and couldn't accurately grasp their meaning.

"...Yes, that's right. To maintain wormholes, the swarm cannot create bridges on its own; they can only rely on other creatures to open the passages!"

Shuangxin felt the surrounding mist materialize. She reached out and grabbed a cloud of mist, within which she held a gray-white thread firmly.

Lu Ban and she had discussed a similar topic: whether the technology for uploading human consciousness in the old era had truly been realized.

Are the humans who become part of the swarm truly human, or merely mimics of the swarm?

If that's just mimicry by the swarm, then the behavior patterns of these swarms are easy to understand.

They roam the universe, searching for planets to colonize, sometimes embarking on long-distance expeditions by teaching methods for building bridges.

If those monsters could freely create wormholes to travel through, they wouldn't need to go to such lengths to bewitch humans; they could simply open a hole in the sky and swarm in.

"So if we can destroy this place, then at least this wormhole will disappear, and the swarm will no longer be able to invade our world through this wormhole."

The more Shuangxin thought about it, the more she felt she had found the key point, the way to save the world.

"If we find all the wormholes and destroy them, then at least our world will no longer generate new swarms. Next, if we eliminate the existing swarms, we might actually be able to eliminate this greatest threat!"

She suddenly became agitated.

However, this place is obviously very solid and cannot be destroyed by normal means. Frostheart can only freeze creatures with water in their bodies and cannot do anything to these stones, while the singer's voice is closer to mind control.

"Let's go find him quickly."

Shuangxin thought of Lu Ban.

She and the singer hurried upstairs and returned to the rocket launch pad.

At this moment, the sky darkened a bit, and the afternoon sun was hazy, as if shrouded in a light veil.

Shuangxin saw that a sandstorm seemed to be rising in the distant desert, and a black gale was sweeping towards them.

"It's a sandstorm."