Chapter 11: Nightmare Catastrophe and Eating

The middle-aged man's name was Amadai, a name that sounded quite feminine, yet it belonged to a man who was a hardened, iron-blooded warrior through and through.

He was born during the mid-period of the Third World War.

Contrary to what people in the 21st century had envisioned, the Third World War did not end quickly; instead, it lasted for a full one hundred and twenty years.

In the year 2317, the remnants of the Western forces launched a surprise attack on the Eastern capital and various important cities and military regions. For the first time, portable phase-matrix nuclear mines were applied to the battlefield. These nuclear weapons broke through the lower limit of critical mass, with the smallest portable phase-matrix nuclear mine weighing only sixty grams!

As the East was caught off guard, the remaining Western nations and the neutral Third World countries declared war on the East one after another. Thus, the Third World War erupted.

Because of the existence of super-electromagnetic sky-curtain force fields, conventional high-yield nuclear missiles were declared ineffective. Therefore, a mushroom-cloud apocalypse did not arrive; what did arrive was a Third World War characterized by miniaturization, popularization, nanotechnology, and biological warfare. All 11 billion people on Earth were drawn into it; no place was safe, and no one could remain aloof.

During the one hundred and twenty years of world war, the East collapsed, the West was completely finished, and almost every country in the world lost its unified government. Humanity was divided into small teams fighting alone, and the world turned into isolated islands cut off from one another. The reason for this was the biological runaway that evolved during the mid-to-late stages of the Third World War.

That was not a biological crisis, but a more terrifying bio-mechanical nano-lifeform that replicated and evolved globally, attacking any living thing, killing them, and using their bodies as material to continue replicating.

In terms of the worldview known to Su Xing, the mid-to-late stages of the Third World War were roughly equivalent to the *Metal Max* worldview he had once played. Any animal could suddenly extend machine guns, cannons, or laser guns from its mouth in the next second, tearing humans who approached into pieces.

Because of this catastrophe, civilization was almost annihilated. The races and nations of humanity were shattered, with various skin colors living together, various languages spoken simultaneously, and various races evolving into one another.

Amadai was born and raised on such a battlefield. He did not know who his parents were—or rather, the older members of his team were his family. The oldest among them was only in their forties, also humans born and raised during the Third World War. They hadn't spent a single day in school, only knowing of the prosperous world before the war through fragmented words.

At the same time, because civilization, nations, and ethnicities were thoroughly mixed, regardless of your skin color, names were all strange, gender-neutral, and origin-indistinguishable.

Amadai was a battlefield veteran. His greatest stroke of luck was encountering the Salvation Organization.

When humanity was at its most desperate during the Third World War, an organization named "Azure" emerged.

This organization possessed pre-war human technology, a highly organized political structure, and a grand ambition to save humanity and the Earth. Countless humans joined this organization, and Amadai was one of them. Although he was a battlefield veteran, he was at the very bottom of this organization, the kind of grunt whose name might not even have been recorded.

He was severely wounded in a battle against a giant biological weapon. That kind of injury would have been a death sentence in the 21st century. Although emergency battlefield treatment saved his life, it couldn't keep him alive for long. Ultimately, in recognition of his sacrifices and the merits he had accumulated on the battlefield, he was frozen and placed into a state of suspended animation, becoming a "Future-dweller" just like Su Xing.

Because of terminal illnesses, injuries, and various other reasons, those who froze themselves to wake up in the future centuries later were collectively referred to as Future-dwellers.

Then, at the moment the Gaia mothership was completed in 2877, Amadai was revived and saved by the Unified Earth Government, just like Su Xing. However, he also incurred a sky-high medical bill, and ultimately had to sign a maintenance worker contract, becoming a glorious maintenance worker.

Compared to Amadai, the name of the voluptuous woman was much more normal. Her name was Xu Shilan.

She was not a Future-dweller, but a criminal from the Unified Earth Government—a former citizen, now a maintenance worker.

Fraud, theft, murder, arms trafficking to the People's Revolutionary Alliance, war crimes, genocide—an eight-hundred-year sentence!

Of course, this information wasn't something Xu Shilan said herself, but rather what the Mainframe had tagged so that everyone could see it. This was also to distinguish Future-dwellers from criminals. Although the Unified Earth Government treated them all as maintenance workers, Future-dwellers were at least the type who could barely become citizens after earning merits, while criminals... the Unified Earth Government actually wished they would all just die, especially heavy offenders like Xu Shilan.

Regarding the crimes tagged by the Mainframe, Xu Shilan did not refute them in the slightest. She just kept looking at Su Xing with great interest, which made him feel quite awkward.

Xu Shilan was truly a very sexy woman. It wasn't that her attire was revealing; on the contrary, she wore the standard maintenance worker uniform, showing nothing but her head.

But her posture, expressions, and movements all exuded charm. Even a single glance made one feel that she... was very seductive!

Su Xing was currently answering various questions from Amadai, and only Amadai was asking; Xu Shilan was just quietly displaying her charm there.

"You said... these aren't biological beasts?" Amadai asked, frowning.

Su Xing said very affirmatively, "Yes, neither of them are. One is a distortion, the other is a contamination. Neither of them are the biological beasts you speak of."

Amadai was full of confusion. He looked at Xu Shilan.

Xu Shilan finally spoke at this moment. She spread her hands and said, "Sorry, I don't know what a distortion or a contamination is either. Although I am a citizen of the Unified Earth Government—er, a former citizen—I know about the Thirteen Singularities Technology Company, I know about the People's Revolutionary Alliance, and I know about black technology, but I still don't know what distortions and contaminations are."

Both of them looked at Su Xing again. Su Xing recalled, thought, and said, "So-called distortions are monsters that undergo physical and conscious changes because they cannot withstand the... gaze. They belong to material entities and do not possess infectivity, contaminative properties, erosive properties, or parasitic properties. They are considered the easiest type of horror to deal with among all monsters. Of course, don't underestimate distortions; although they lack the special traits mentioned above, their strength can reach exaggerated levels. Also..."

"Wait a second?" Amadai rubbed his temples and forehead. "Although I understand what you said, I don't understand what you are actually talking about. Also, cannot withstand what? You didn't say anything."

Su Xing spread his hands. "I can't say it; I can't even describe it. Mainframe, how much time is left until the 'weekend'?"

A countdown projection appeared before the three of them.

"Six days, eight hours, forty-two minutes, and fifty-one seconds."

Both of them stared blankly at the countdown. Amadai pointed at the total number behind the countdown and asked, "Why is it sixty-six days, six hours, six minutes, and six seconds? Does this have any significance?"

Su Xing nodded. "Yes, the duration of a 'week'—sixty-six days, six hours, six minutes, and six seconds. I don't know the specific significance, but it has been like this ever since I woke up."

Xu Shilan asked in a coquettish voice, "What will happen after the countdown ends?"

Su Xing spread his hands. "The truth... the truth you want to know will be revealed."

Amadai also asked immediately, "Have you experienced a weekend?"

Su Xing darkened his face and nodded. "Yes, I have experienced it twice... It has only been one hundred and fifty-six days since I woke up. Don't think I've been awake for decades or centuries."

Amadai and Xu Shilan looked at each other. Amadai said seriously, "Then, can you tell us from the beginning what exactly happened?"

"I can."

Su Xing recalled the day he woke up. At that time, there were still several seniors in the 6123 sector, and then as time passed, he was the only one left.

"At first, I woke up from a state of suspended animation just like you. That time, I didn't encounter any distortions, and the other two people also recovered normally."

"I was told by my seniors that the entire Gaia had become a terrifying prison filled with monsters. The Mainframe sealed almost all passages, isolation rooms, and various convenient buildings and functional buildings because these places were filled with monsters, horrors, ghosts, or things that only existed in fantasies."

"The reason is because of... the gaze. The Dream Network suffered a catastrophe, and all citizens fell into the Dream Network. Only maintenance workers who were not connected to the Dream Network could wake up normally."

"This catastrophe cannot be explained or understood, because the dreams that should have been illusory, like virtual reality, have turned into Dream Worlds that can be entered physically and from which physical objects can be brought out."

"These Dream Worlds have been information-graded by the Mainframe, evaluated based on the 'Baseline Reality.' Baseline Reality One is the real world, with no horrors, no supernatural powers, and no changes in history or culture. Starting from Baseline Reality 0.9, some subtle changes will appear. For example, my strength—you must be curious about what this strength is, right? This is 'National Arts,' a cultivation method for tempering the body. This is something that cannot exist in the real world, but I obtained it in a Baseline Reality 0.9 world. And the lower you go, the greater the deviation. There will even appear ghosts, spirits, curses, legendary creatures, and even... gods and demons!"

"Of course, the supernatural beings in the Dream Worlds don't all have malicious intent. Some might be friendly, some neutral, some dangerous. They are roughly the same as us humans, only they possess supernatural powers, so they are all very dangerous to humans. The truly fatal threat comes from 'Nightmares,' a terrifying existence born in the Dream Worlds, specifically targeting us maintenance workers who enter the Dream Worlds!"

"And we must go and face these terrifying existences..."

Just as he said this, Amadai suddenly interrupted him. "Wait a second. If it's really as you say, and the Dream Network has undergone such an incredible change, can't we just not go in?"

"Eating," Su Xing said helplessly.

"What do you mean?" Amadai and Xu Shilan asked simultaneously.

Su Xing spread his hands. "The Mainframe has sealed all the passages. Our current activity area is only the sleeping quarters and this maintenance base. We can't go anywhere else, so apart from fresh water, we have no food—not a single bit."

"If you don't go into the Dream Worlds to eat, are you planning to cultivate immortality in this enclosed space?"

(End of chapter)