Chapter 882: Double Meme

Fourth round... 」

The illusion vanished.

Standing in a quiet broadcast room, Chu An, his face somewhat pale, lightly lifted his glasses frame.

His expression remained calm; even the illusion of the final stage caused him no disturbance.

But, I must say, that final-stage image was enough to completely shatter any Awakened One unable to maintain absolute reason into madness.

Piecing together information.

"The broadcast station had problems from the very beginning.."

After muttering to himself softly, he pressed the recorder without hesitation.

The tape turned, and the final segment of the recording played slowly.

"Zi-zi"

"It's all fake..."

"I killed them... I killed them with my own hands.."

"Hahahaha..!! It's all fake!!"

A chilling laugh, mixed with a crazy whispering loop.

A few seconds later, the sound of a heavy object crashing and soldiers' angry shouts rose:

"Stop him!"

"What are you doing?!"

"Bang!"

Gunfire.

The recording stopped.

Unlike the first round of recording, in the final round, aside from a few whispers full of despair and hatred, no other content appeared.

His brows slightly furrowed, Chu An stood silently in place, as if pondering something.

"Chu An has been inside for half an hour!"

Large numbers of Awakened Ones on guard around the perimeter looked anxiously at the white mist.

The mist kept spreading, forcing them to retreat backward during this period.

It had been 37 minutes since Chu An entered the white mist.

This time had already reached the limit of the Second Level peak.

Even if he came out, he would likely be a madman, committing suicide within a few hours.

Clenching his fists, An Jing Tian's face was filled with regret.

He regretted not stopping Colonel Chu, regretted letting him go in alone.

The difficulty of the white mist incident was too great, and the meme difficulty therein clearly surpassed the dolls he and Lin An had encountered before.

A meme covering the entire Military Region—how could it possibly be solved so easily?

Not a single Awakened One sent out came back alive.

Just thinking about the consequences if Chu An came to harm made An Jing Tian's scalp go numb.

Chu An is far too important to Long An.

The construction of the entire base, as well as other Military Regions barely merging into Long An's forces, relied entirely on Chu An's coordination and management.

Including weapons and equipment research, spiritual equipment matters, and so on—all done by Chu An.

He was anxious as if on fire.

Just as An Jing Tian was about to forcibly send someone in, a figure slowly emerged from the white mist.

In the white mist, the fourteenth round of the broadcast sounded again, ignoring the broadcast's interference; Chu An lifted his head, looked at the anxious crowd, and gave an easy smile.

"I know... how to solve it..."

On the armored vehicle, the high-ranking members of the team, including An Jing Tian, stared in shock at the unharmed Chu An, as if seeing a ghost.

"You're not hurt?!"

"Not affected by the meme?!"

You should know that even if one could emerge from the white mist, those Second-Level Awakened Ones merely ran out with crazy expressions, then committed suicide right before their eyes.

"Just don't believe it."

After casually explaining, Chu An gave a light laugh, his body somewhat stiff as he unfolded a white sheet of paper.

"Don't believe it?"

Everyone stared at each other, unable to grasp what Chu An meant by 'don't believe it,' so they suppressed their doubts and hurriedly asked again:

"Chu An, you said you found a solution—what do you mean?!"

"What exactly is this meme?"

The white mist's spread grew ever faster; they could only hope that Chu An truly had found the problem's source as he claimed.

Chu An gave a slight nod, then without further ado began to explain:

"Let's talk about the meme first."

"The white mist meme is not, as we originally thought, something that spontaneously arose for unknown reasons."

"It is actually a double meme—or rather, the first meme's effect gave rise to a second meme."

"Huh?!"

An Jing Tian froze upon hearing this, obviously shocked and at a loss.

He didn't quite understand.

Seeing everyone's confusion, Chu An revealed a mechanical smile:

Simply put.

The White Mist Meme has two effects.

First, it continuously plays a broadcast within its range, hypnotizing humans who enter and creating death illusions.

These illusion attacks are highly suggestive; if you believe them, you die.

Moreover, in a team, if just one person believes it, the others, even if they don't believe, will have their sanity shaken upon seeing that believer truly die.

Thus, they fall into a vicious cycle. That's why, no matter how many Awakened Ones enter, they cannot find any useful information about the White Mist Meme.

Under repeated real-death shocks, even the most steadfast sanity is like being swept up by routed troops, unable to stay clear-headed.

Half-understanding, everyone listened to Chu An's words and barely grasped some of it.

Illusion attack: believe and die.

I don't believe, my conviction is firm.

But if a teammate believes, you'll see them die, and thus you'll also be shaken.

After giving a few seconds to understand, Chu An continued speaking calmly:

In theory, this meme is easy to solve, but it has now changed.

The broadcast's mind-affecting attack ability should come from a certain broadcast station within the White Mist area that has been altered by the meme.

If my reasoning is correct, this broadcast station belongs to the first type of meme carrier; it is like the doll of a meme doll.

And the meme's main body should be a certain human who died inside the broadcast station.

It continuously plays the scenes he saw before his death, such as zombie attacks, artillery bombardments, and...

Repeating the safety warning over and over (Don't go out!).

This is an obsession.

Don't go out?!

An Jing Tian and several Awakened Ones exchanged glances; in their data, the Awakened Ones who entered had not mentioned this phrase before going mad.

Most people died in the earlier rounds of illusion attacks.

Seeing An Jing Tian's doubt, Chu An lifted his glasses frame, took out a piece of chocolate, and said while eating:

Not hearing it is normal.

This phrase does not appear in the illusion attacks; it appears after prolonged illusion attacks fail.

It comes from the second meme effect.

Despair, fear, deception...

For the meme, once it detects that entering humans ignore the illusion attack, it triggers this effect.

Just as when we find it hard to kill mutants with a knife, we naturally turn to a more powerful weapon.

Two meme attack methods?

So perverted?

Having understood Chu An's meaning, an Awakened One couldn't suppress the shock in his heart and blurted out.

But how can two memes stack together?

One is already unsolvable!

According to Chu An, if the White Mist Meme were just the kind he first described, they would probably only need to destroy all broadcast stations in the White Mist, or find the 'meme entity' trapped in that broadcast station; without the looping broadcast, there would naturally be no illusion attacks.

But hearing Chu An's meaning, it's now impossible to solve it that way.

Meme, has it changed?

After swallowing a bite of chocolate, Chu An paused briefly and explained in detail:

Actually, the second meme likely came into being by coincidence...

It comes from a family of three killed by the first meme...

Or rather, the man who swallowed a gun and committed suicide.