Chapter 605: Sightseeing

Organizing his thoughts.

Lin An explained the various mysteries of this Secret Realm to Xiong Hanzi while walking toward the door leading underground.

"According to information provided by the artificial intelligence."

"This place is fundamentally not an independent world."

"But rather, it is like an artificial petri dish shaped like an egg."

"Or perhaps a technological civilization inadvertently discovered a ready-made small world."

"That is why we cannot see the stars and the sun here."

"The light source here lies outside the world."

"The technological civilization that originally created this place intended to raise 'wild ancient humans' and observe historical development."

"They even turned it into a sightseeing tourism project."

"Every day, large numbers of people from the main world enter here and then watch the wild humans as if they were monkeys."

"Without any special intervention, they simply wished to observe the 'wild ancient humans' as a reference for their own civilization's progress."

"Just like a simulation experiment."

"But due to unknown reasons, the main world of that technological civilization also suffered the Apocalypse disaster."

"And as an attached Secret Realm, it too was 'infected' by the Apocalypse disaster."

"If you're going to do it, go all the way."

"This technological civilization simply spread the zombie virus completely, in order to seek observation."

"Their civilization could hardly withstand the catastrophe crisis, so what were the ancient people without technological means supposed to do?"

"They hoped to find some inspiration from it."

"This is the origin of the slight zombie crisis in the Secret Realm world."

Zhang Tie's footsteps stalled after hearing that.

The information Lin An revealed carried too much meaning behind it.

"Captain Lin! Are you saying there is another world's human civilization! And their technology is so awesome they treat this as a zoo?!"

He was shocked in his heart.

Lin An looked somewhat unexpectedly at Zhang Tie:

"Is that strange?"

"Didn't you encounter someone claiming to be a wizard civilization in the Amoeba Worm?"

"Their main world could even use third- and fourth-rank beings as test subjects, unlike struggling desperately in the Apocalypse catastrophe, which left that researcher alone living in the Amoeba Worm instance."

He had long suspected as much.

It is certain that there is more than just human civilization in the universe.

It is not strange for other civilizations to encounter the Apocalypse disaster.

The only thing that unsettles Lin An is that every civilization he has encountered so far seems to be suffering a catastrophe.

Did the Apocalypse catastrophes erupt simultaneously in time...

Capable of letting so many civilizations, even those technologically powerful and with strength far surpassing Earth, be unable to resist.

How powerful must the hidden hand behind controlling the Apocalypse be?

No, according to the timeline.

Earth should be the one among the two civilizations we have encountered so far that experienced the Apocalypse latest.

The Amoeba Worm at least dates back 76 years, while the Secret Realm goes back a thousand years...

Zhang Tie gaped, not knowing what to say.

He knew this, but in the Amoeba Worm instance he mostly treated the other party as an NPC.

He had never considered what the other party represented.

But here it's different; here they are all humans who look just like us...

In that instant, he couldn't help but think of something.

Did the human civilization capable of using a Secret Realm as an experiment perish, or did they withdraw?

What about the real world?

Do they really have any hope?

Even if the technological civilization here did not create the Secret Realm but merely exploited it.

Their technological level is still far higher than Earth's.

Seeing Xiong Hanzi's worry, Lin An merely gave a few light reassurances:

"Don't think so much."

"Don't worry about these grand events."

"What we need to do is simple: just keep living."

Having said that, he continued to add:

"The technological civilization that created this Secret Realm, or rather used it for observation, seems to have encountered a devastating disaster."

"At the final point in time, they actively withdrew from this Secret Realm."

"However, when withdrawing, they set the Secret Realm's time to a looping state."

"When the wild humans go extinct, the world automatically begins to replay."

"And it is precisely this that caused a disaster to befall the entire Secret Realm."

Speaking while walking.

Upon reaching the alloy door of the underground complex, Lin An unhesitatingly placed his palm on the password lock.

Detected experimental body authorization, initiating protection.

A slight tremor.

All that meets the eye is pitch black, yet the ears pick up a continuous mechanical hum.

Ding

Lights flick on in succession.

A faint rustle, and a huge empty factory resembling a valley appears before Lin An's eyes.

Dense production lines are swiftly manufacturing bat-shaped airships.

Hundreds of moving conveyor belts orderly convey the airships to another site.

It appears this is the production site for the airships that carry blood corpses.

But a line of white text appears atop the production line.

With the system's aid, Lin An readily grasped the text's meaning.

【Sightseeing airship, production line, capacity: 5 persons】

Zhang Tie, seeing his account cut off, instinctively leaned in from behind to gaze at the sight before him.

His eyes widened.

Lin Dui, this damn thing is a sightseeing airship!!

I thought it was a war weapon carrying blood corpses!

After a while.

Lin An's face also grew a bit odd.

With his extraordinary mental acuity, he immediately understood the meaning.

No wonder the airship would auto‑return; no wonder the blood corpses would hitch rides on transports to assault humanity, yet those transports bore no weaponry.

He let out a wry laugh.

These sightseeing airships likely regard the blood corpses as tourists...

Together with his blood corpse disguise, the local AI treats him as an authorized 【Disaster Entity】 able to seize control.

That's easy to imagine.

To the AI, blood corpses likely possess the 'tourist' attribute...

Thus it daily ships batches of 'tourists' on sightseeing trips...

And the Great Xia Dynasty, thinking it had mastered the blood corpses' attack rhythm, thus deployed troops to garrison...

Actually, that's not right.

Blood corpses usually remain inert; only when transported on the sightseeing airships' fixed routes do they venture into the Great Xia realm to sightsee...

Xiong Hanzi gaped, realizing the corpse surge had indeed been looming nearby.

But lately, even during our stay, the blood corpses' attack frequency has spiked!

What the hell kind of aircraft is this!!

Lin An heard him but didn't respond, just offering a wry look toward a few smaller production lines nearby.

I suppose...

The engineering equipment here recently built several more production lines for sightseeing airships...

The heightened transport volume has thus triggered the crisis unsettling the whole Great Xia Dynasty...

The 'tourists' have grown in number.

The mystery suddenly unraveled.

Lin An had earlier pondered why the First Ascetic Practitioner sought to save the world, yet fabricated blood corpses and armed them with sci‑tech weapons.

Though, as a long‑term threat, it is indeed smaller than the mutants.

But if he could produce blood corpses, why not just lock them away in one spot?

In any case, Lin An will traverse the whole world.

Upon noticing the blood corpses' irregularity, one can still discern the hints and foreshadowing he planted.

Wouldn't it be better to let humanity rest and recover?

Now it appears...

It's all the work of the artificial imbecile....