Chapter 549: Backup

In the virtual space, the battle continues.

The phase-shifting demon, like a rotten potato, continuously sucked in bubbles representing networked devices through the holes in its head; Li Cheng's brow conjured the phantom of a white dragon, the insect-like faceplate slid aside, revealing dark red lips devoid of skin.

"Roar———"

The frost breath exhaled by the demon dragon froze the spinning turbine blades of a wind generator into ice blocks, then smashed through their connection with a single punch, clasped the heavy blades in both arms, and swung them like a Green Dragon Crescent Blade to knock away another charging truck.

"Humans, at least ordinary ones, are extremely fragile."

Dr. Noah spoke at breakneck speed: "Even without considering the divine aberrations and anomalies that escaped from the Killing Field, a single virus pandemic, a single memetic contamination, or one undeniable anomaly is enough to shatter the current normal."

What is normal? The ordinary state that conforms to physical laws, linguistic logic, and human experience of survival and life—that is normal.

The chasm between transcendent beings (whether human players or Killing Field anomalies) and ordinary people is too vast; GOC, the Special Affairs Bureau, the Clock Tower, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Anomalous Incidents Division, and other official agencies must enforce authoritarian rule and strict law enforcement to barely maintain this fragile balance.

What if a player suddenly decides to disguise the Sadako video tape as an unreleased anime season, a high-definition photo collection, the latest season of Paw Patrol, or the in-game voice chat of the S8 RNG vs G2 final match, and uploads it online?

Can the Global Supernatural Alliance handle it all?

What if a Lv37 or Lv38 player decides to pull off a big move, fly to the moon, and leave a clear pattern on its surface that ordinary people can see clearly with their phones?

Destroy all images, erase all witnesses' brain memories?

And further—who defines normalcy? Who determines what normal is?

Remember, the Killing Field holds infinite possibilities; technology evolves daily. Theoretically, Prometheus's mechanical cybernetic tech has already achieved preliminary mechanical ascension, allowing Paralympic athletic records to be effortlessly shattered.

GS Biotech's ability-activation serum, one injection, can make a newborn infant instantly possess transcendent powers—flying, tunneling, spewing fire, exhaling ice.

The Node's network data marks key points, tracking Earth's dynamic changes like an artificial neural network.

"Understood."

Li Cheng rasped, no wonder so many kinds of bubbles floated in the cyberspace.

The Realm Earth satellite is not an AI like Skynet from The Terminator, nor is it a storage hub for all network data.

It is more like a dynamic, ever-changing neural network, recording in real time global ecological resources, population,

industrial, agricultural, and service production and consumption, even unquantifiable human thoughts and moods.

Imagine wildly: if a divine aberration escaped the Killing Field and clashed with Earth's top transcendent beings, accidentally erasing all of Bingdao (103,000 square kilometers, roughly 1.7 times Tongliao), the Level 40s could reconstruct Bingdao 70–80% using Realm Earth's data backups, then drop in some clones and later claim it was a sudden volcanic eruption with massive casualties.

As for panic…

Bingdao has only about three hundred thousand people; the Sudanese civil war, erupting since the 1950s, has claimed two million dead—and still no major public outcry.

"Therefore, you must utterly exterminate the phase-shifting demon,"

Dr. Noah said solemnly: "And it must be complete annihilation—do not let the phase-shifting demon split into fragments and flee into the other eleven thousand satellites' networks. 【Realm Earth】 connects all global network nodes; even if the phase-shifting demon dies, its hidden backers can exploit the spiritual energy ripples lingering in Earth's network to establish an anchor link with Earth from the other world."

Before Li Cheng could answer, Gray Rain, listening through the Bluetooth earpiece to the Ten Thousand Eyes communication channel, couldn't help shouting: "Oh my god, this phase-shifting demon is so evil!"

Gray Rain's brain, upgraded by 【Silver Wing Path】, wasn't stupid—he understood: if Li Cheng failed to kill the phase-shifting demon, or even just let its post-death fragments escape into other networks, GOC would take over, even at the cost of global network shutdown, replacing countless network devices to ensure the phase-shifting demon could never return.

Global chaos, regression in development—whatever. The key point was Gray Rain wouldn't be able to freely access the internet for months. Could he tolerate that?!

"Lao Pi, use that move!"

Gray Rain roared, charged forward, and pierced the approaching tugboat with a 【Destructive Death Beam】, then leapt and twisted until he landed atop the phase-shifting demon.

The phase-shifting demon itself is highly corrosive—any material approaching it is rapidly assimilated—so Gray Rain did not swing his hammer directly down, but…

Shhh—

Li Cheng twisted his body like a discus thrower and hurled a massive bronze disc.

The disc was nearly two meters in diameter, convex on both sides, extremely heavy, and emitted a continuous rustling sound inside, as if filled with granular matter.

The phase-shifting demon instinctively sensed danger and maximized its head holes, sucking in one hydroelectric generator rotor after another.

In some literary works, due to authors' laziness or complete ignorance, absurd scenes are often written.

For example, a warrior who shatters dimensions turns out, upon inspection, to be weaker than a road roller.

A god's final, life-consuming strike, when calculated, proves less destructive than the ten-thousand-ton explosion at Lion Mountain.

Each hydroelectric generator rotor summoned by the phase-shifting demon weighs over a thousand tons; if a hundred-ton king can crush Haki Mi, then these rotors can crush a hundred-ton king the same way.

Li Cheng drew a NFC card with his free hand, swiped it across the Heat Death Corridor, and summoned the Six-Armed Snake Demon.

The demon's serpentine hair writhed wildly, flickering at high frequency—its first flash wrapped around the bronze disc, then it darted nimbly between the thousand-ton rotors, finally landing before Gray Rain.

The fully charged Skull-Shattering Power Hammer slammed down, transforming the conical bronze disc into a Monroe-effect armor-piercing round, blasting a liquid-metal jet exceeding 10,000 m/s entirely into the phase-shifting demon's skull.

The hidden 【Simulated Star Corridor】 controlled by the Special Affairs Bureau truly contains infinite energy—it can be tapped to produce dozens or even hundreds of billions of tons of grain annually, permanently solving Earth's food shortage.

But dare they?

If the general public widely learned of transcendent power and the existence of the Killing Field, it would trigger unprecedented social upheaval.

Either panic would spread, leaving people in constant dread of being harmed by anomalies or replaced by conspiracy theorists' clones through a cage-switching scheme;

Or the lower classes would turn to murder, hoping to gain the Killing Field's favor and be selected as players;

Or the internet would erupt in noise, inciting public opinion to demand official distribution of transcendent powers and divine pills;

Most players still consider themselves human, and humans are the sum of all social relations. Once the basic social order collapses, the moral compass of the transcendent community will inevitably plummet like a runaway train into the abyss.

Even becoming a social Darwinist dark forest would be better—in black society cultivation or cyberpunk, at least ordinary people still have some value.

But under the Killing Field system, the four axes—artificial wombs, clone cultivation chambers, gene editing, knowledge infusion devices—completely deconstruct the very concept of "human."

"The reason Earth still maintains social order and this fragile balance is based on strategic bargaining and interest balancing between top transcendent beings and national governments."

"None of the parties wish to see social order collapse—that's why the 【Realm Earth】 project exists."

In the Ten Thousand Eyes earpiece, Dr. Noah quickly said: "Using eleven thousand satellites, widely collect key