ryethenovel Chapter 18 [The Ultimate Key to Victory]
Chapter 18 [The Ultimate Key to Victory]
End of the Anthill era, 1680.
With the successful deployment of the first batch of Apoptotic Judges, the desolate plagues that had once baffled the entire civilization were now easily and effortlessly resolved.
This was nothing short of a miracle for the Katz civilization, which had struggled for nearly two centuries.
However, the enemy is a plague, a cancer cell, which evolves according to needs.
As the frontline advances into several core areas, even after clearing all visually visible signs of the plague, the area is still marked as heavily contaminated by instruments.
In any case, no trace of the plague could be found.
"Perhaps it's the lingering echo of energy left behind by the judge."
"Dispatch out regular sensory teams to conduct a thorough scan and physical confirmation."
This is the most reasonable judgment made by Wise King Kaz based on the available data.
However, this order plunged an elite squad into an abyss of no return.
The team entered the safe zone.
everything is normal.
"No abnormalities found..." the captain reported to the rear.
Just as it was preparing to lead the team deeper into the next area... the ground came to life.
The ground transformed into a gigantic maw covered in sharp teeth, which suddenly slammed shut upwards.
The captain was swallowed up before he could even sound an alarm.
Next, there are the walls, and then the ceiling.
They perfectly mimic the normal environment, just like a chameleon blending into the background.
They are latent variants of the plague.
The ambush ended in seconds, with no survivors.
Inside the Temple of the Hive, in the collective consciousness network of Wise King Kaz, reports of defeats piled up like snowflakes.
It quickly came to a conclusion.
The plague has evolved the ability to deceive.
It learned to disguise itself and to set ambushes, becoming a more skillful hunter.
"We must find a completely new detection method that can see through this disguise."
Katz diverted all of civilization's computing power from the production line of the Apoptotic Judges and focused it on a new, seemingly impossible task.
Resolve.
As time went by, countless researchers sifted through and compared data from a vast sea of information, but to no avail.
Until that young perceiver Zero discovered a glimmer of light again.
Instead, it took the opposite approach and began analyzing the background of the ambush areas. After analyzing trillions of data points, Zero discovered a faint anomaly.
Whenever the disguised plague assimilates the surrounding matter, it cannot conceal a ripple that cannot be detected by normal perception.
It calls it entropy, which in turn represents disorder.
In a closed system, entropy always tends to increase.
The assimilation of matter by the plague is a process of entropy reduction.
This process will inevitably release a unique and undeniable fluctuation to the outside world.
Just like even the most skilled criminal will always leave invisible fingerprints at the scene.
"We... have found you." Zero's discovery pointed the way for the entire civilization.
But a new challenge arises: how to manufacture a sensor that can capture such subtle fluctuations?
Existing builders, tools designed for macro-level construction, are simply incapable of handling such delicate work.
"Then create new tools." The will of the wise king Kaz made the decision on behalf of Zero.
It ordered the reorganization of the most elite group of builders and allocated massive resources to support research along this route.
The year 1725 of the Anthill era.
The first batch of Perceptors V2.0, codenamed "Ghost Assassin," were born.
Their shapes are more slender and streamlined than their predecessors.
Its head is a complex array that is dark and without light when silent.
But once they start working, they emit a faint light that tracks that unique ripple.
In the year 1750 of the Anthill era, there was a death tunnel that had wiped out an elite squad.
A small team of five ghost assassins stealthily infiltrated the area.
The entire area has become a giant trap.
But the ghost assassins didn't care. They hovered in mid-air, their head sensor arrays lighting up simultaneously, emitting a faint, eerie glow.
In their eyes, the world presents a completely different picture.
Normal metal, stable, with a cold blue color.
While those disguised plagues blended seamlessly into the environment on every other level, they emitted a chaotic, dark red aura in the eyes of the plague demons.
The squad members spread out, passing by each identified imposter.
Wherever it passes, it releases unique beacon creations from its body to mark targets.
The beacon was like a lantern lit in the darkness.
Ten minutes later, the team completed the marking and withdrew.
Then, the most powerful army of the Judges of Death was sent to this place.
If conditions permit, we will forge ahead without hesitation!
"Activate target locking mode."
"Execute a saturation attack."
The Anthill era, from 1750 to 1780.
These were the thirty years in which the Kaz civilization was most triumphant.
The combination of the Ghost Assassin and the Deathly Judge swept away the shadow of war that had lasted for nearly three hundred years.
Soon, the battle lines were advancing rapidly.
The ghost assassins move with impunity, ignoring camouflage and striking beacons on every lurking enemy.
Subsequently, the well-organized legion of Apoptotic Judges will arrive.
The "waves of death" they release will engulf the battlefield.
War seems to have returned to its simplest and purest form.
Discover the enemy, then eliminate the enemy.
"The king is right; the path guided by the oracle will surely lead to victory."
"The plague will soon be eradicated, and Anthill will usher in true peace."
Some of their subjects even began planning post-war reconstruction, intending to transform the entire city of Anthill into a city even more magnificent than the Nest City.
Beautiful dreams are always fragile.
In the year 1781 of the Anthill era, at the border of the core area of the plague.
An elite legion consisting of one hundred ghost assassins and thirty death trial judges is carrying out a mission to purify a critical contaminated area.
As is customary, these defeated opponents were dealt with as usual.
But a thin shield appeared on the surface of those plague-infested bodies.
When an attack hits the shield, its power is reduced by more than 90%.
The plague also began to retaliate, catching the legion off guard and leaving them no time to defend themselves.
"The shield cannot be penetrated! Repeat, the shield is resistant!" The commander's roar became the last echo of this elite legion.
The enemy has evolved once again.
If inducing apoptosis is like persuading the enemy to commit suicide, then at this moment, the enemy loudly tells them: "I won't."
Wise King Kaz suppressed the internal panic, thinking, "How do you know something won't work if you don't try?"
Therefore, it mobilized all available troops and launched several all-out offensives.
They attempted to use their numerical advantage to forcefully break through that shield.
The result? They were utterly powerless.
Each attack requires pushing the power to the limit just to barely break through the shield and purify a small area of enemies.
This led to the depletion of the Kaz civilization's energy reserves.
To support the frontline supplies, non-essential facilities within the hive were shut down one by one.
The whole world is tightening its belt for the war on the front lines.
Anthill Year 1790, Nest City Temple.
The wise king Kaz has been pondering this for ten years.
The path of civilization has once again led to a dead end.
The only hope lies in the second, unsolvable, shattered apocalypse.
"A chain snapped because a single link was struck..."
Katz's consciousness was completely immersed in the simulation, exhausting all means to use the "knocking" technique available in the Anthill universe.
No external force, in any form, can replicate that miracle in a simulation.
Katz was exhausted after yet another failure.
Will God really send down an unsolvable problem?
Perhaps... I was wrong?
Did I misunderstand the meaning of "knocking" from the very beginning?
In a sudden flash of inspiration, Kars made a setting in the next simulation.
The hammer that "strikes" the chain is no longer a force from the outside.
Rather, it originates from within the chains.
When this setting was applied, the chain in the simulated world shattered.
The true meaning of God is not for me to "attack" the chains.
Kaz excitedly issued an order through the racial consciousness network: "Pass on my command! From this moment forward, at all costs, analyze the lightsaber that is the core of the Plague!"
A new path opened up before me.
Everyone understood that to find that "connection point," they had to perform a close-up live dissection of the most active plague mother organism.
This is a mission with a slim chance of survival.
"I am willing to be the cornerstone of civilization."
"I am willing to go."
However, the resilience and brilliance of civilization emerge from countless trials, with countless ghost assassins and the most elite decomposers volunteering for the mission.
They are willing to risk their lives to obtain a live sample of data from the core of the mother nest.
The year 1795 of the Anthill era.
The suicide squad of only one hundred men charged into the deepest part of the plague's nest, into a chaotic land that even the waves of death could not shake.
The ghost assassins formed lines of defense with their bodies, buying every second for the decomposers behind them.
"Scanning has begun! Estimated time: 30 seconds!"
"The first line of defense has collapsed!"
"Hold on! For Kars!"
"The second line of defense is about to fall! Scan progress is 50%!"
"ah--!"
But just before the suicide squad was completely devoured, a complete structural diagram of the core protein chain of the plague was successfully transmitted back to the hive.
They found them.
The highest laboratory of the Nest City in the year 1800 of the Anthill Era.
The structural diagram, obtained at the cost of lives, was magnified to its maximum size and presented to all the researchers.
Now, only the final step remains.
To create the ultimate weapon capable of severing that long chain.
This requires a completely new technology.
"To achieve the ultimate convergence and specialization of the decomposition force field of the 'Decomposer'."
"Modify it so that it only reacts to the resonant frequency of the 'chain of decomposition'."
"This light will be the final judgment."
Under the personal command of the wise King Kaz, a brand new type of soldier was born.
Its form retains the basic outline of the decomposer, but its body is thicker and heavier, with only a tiny, almost invisible firing port at the front.
They were given a brand new title—the Arbitrators.
In the center of the laboratory, a sample of the desolate plague, just sent back from the front lines and wrapped in layers of energy shields, was writhing wildly.
An adjudicator stepped forward and fired an invisible beam of light from the front of the sample through the emission port.
That beam of light struck the sample of the plague.
The terrifying monster that once plunged the entire civilization into despair has turned into a pool of organic matter.
[Antheraea Era 1800: The weapon of god-slaying was forged, and the fate of civilization was reversed at this moment.]