novelslam Chapter 16 [Shattering the Apocalypse: God-Slaying Weapons, Civilization Mobilized]
Chapter 16 [Shattering the Apocalypse: God-Slaying Weapons, Civilization Mobilized]
The year 1510 of the Anthill era.
The nest city was transformed into a war fortress.
The creator of the real world, perhaps, suffers even more than his creations.
The sensory connection brought by the primordial spores was nothing short of torture, forcing consciousness to split in two.
Half of him coldly watched as his "children" were defeated time and again in the face of a bloody hell.
The other half is firmly locked inside its own body, which is being gnawed by illness, clearly feeling the pain brought by cancer cells.
And, the massacre he personally orchestrated.
The physical dismantling of the Kaz civilization's tactics and survival strategy proved to be a dead end.
Not only was it ineffective, it also became a springboard for the other party to infect itself.
"No...we can't go on like this..."
"Cough...cough cough!" Xu also covered his mouth, and the sweet and foul-smelling blood foam seeped out from between his fingers.
Leaning against the wall, he shakily pulled the bottle of "Mental Frost Spores" and a syringe from his pocket.
The cool liquid was injected into my body, and the familiar coolness temporarily suppressed the pain.
I really don't have much time left.
A completely new revelation must be brought forth.
Direct intervention would only stifle the possibility of the Kaz civilization evolving on its own and giving birth to true intelligence.
He needs to be given direction.
"My... apostles..." Xu Ye leaned against the cold wall, panting, "Forgive my ruthlessness, but please understand my... expectations."
Xu also recalled the core concepts of modern medicine in fighting cancer and tried to transform the most crucial words into the most easily understood images.
"Inducing apoptosis..." He thought of that word.
How can this concept be conveyed?
After a moment's thought, Xu began to construct the first image:
A towering structure made of countless intricately designed, interlocking blocks, majestic, stable, and perfectly integrated.
However, when an invisible hand swiftly removed one of the seemingly insignificant but crucial core building blocks from inside the tower...
The entire tower disintegrated on its own.
Each block is separated, returning to its original state, and finally laid out on the ground as if it had never been put back together.
"And...breaking chemical bonds...targeted attacks..."
This represents precision, a fatal blow to the enemy's weakness.
A second image formed in his mind:
A chain made up of countless thick metal rings was stretched taut in the void.
No amount of force, whether pulling or hammering, can budge it in the slightest.
A small hammer appeared out of thin air.
It aimed at a specific connection point on one of the rings and tapped it gently.
"Ding." The entire incredibly sturdy chain snapped in an instant.
At the same moment, all the interlocking links lost their binding force, transforming into countless independent rings that tinkled and clattered as they plunged into the endless abyss.
"Go..."
The year 1510 of the Anthill era.
Everything is as usual, but we can only put up a little resistance.
The sky cracked open once again.
Two broken, chaotic, and contradictory beams of light descended.
The first beam of light and shadow unfolds.
A magnificent, incomprehensible tower of blocks, peacefully disintegrated on its own after one of its core pieces was removed.
A second flash of light appeared.
An indestructible chain snapped instantly when struck at one of its most insignificant joints.
"The oracle cannot be deciphered!"
"The divine oracle is completely at odds with the fundamental principles of 'disintegration'!"
"What does this mean? The collapse of peace? Precise shattering? Is God playing a trick on us?"
"Towers and chains... are both symbols of strength, yet their methods of destruction contradict all forms of power we know!"
The entire Kaz civilization was plunged into controversy and chaos.
One group of consciousnesses believes this is a test of their wisdom by God, hinting at a power they have not yet comprehended.
Another group believes that this is yet another incomprehensible mockery, or even... proof of divine power depletion.
The gods were powerless to unleash any greater power and could only resort to these inexplicable illusions to appease them.
Inside the Temple of the Nest City, the Wise King Kaz forcefully suppressed all irrational fluctuations in the collective consciousness.
It fully connected its core logic as the king of its race with these two shattered apocalypses.
I didn't participate in pointless arguments.
It did only one thing: it cross-analyzed the new apocalyptic images with all the data recorded during the first encounter with the "wild plague" and its disastrous defeat.
[Comparison Item 1: The physical decomposition of the 'Decomposer' legion was completely absorbed by the 'Wilderness Plague'.]
[Divine revelation: Strong chains cannot be destroyed by brute force.]
[Comparison Item 2: The 'Wilderness Plague' is a unified whole that cannot be divided by conventional forces.]
[Oracle Revelation: The tower is a unified whole, but it can collapse as a whole due to the failure of a single point within it.]
[Comparison Item 3: The "wilderness plague" possesses its own will and structure.]
[Oracle revelation: Both towers and chains possess specific "structures" and "connecting points."]
Kaz suddenly understood.
It finally understood.
The power of the plague lies precisely in its internal, highly efficient, but perhaps extremely fragile, connections and structures!
The true meaning of the oracle is not "greater power," but "more precise destruction"!
To combat the plague, we must... we must start from the root of its life structure!
Kars transformed his epiphany into a supreme command and conveyed it to every one of his subjects.
"The entire civilization has entered its highest research state, with a single objective: to analyze the life structure of the 'Wilderness Plague' and find its 'core building blocks' and 'tiny connecting points'!"
"Our race will thus embark on a completely new path of evolution!"
The arrival of the light did not immediately bring order.
"Objection! Destruction and precision are antonyms in our fundamental principles; greater power leads to more thorough disintegration—this is an unshakeable axiom!"
"The oracle may have been corrupted by the plague! It aims to lure our people into abandoning our most effective strength and heading towards self-destruction!"
"I second that. The king's deduction lacks crucial data to support it. We cannot gamble the future of civilization on a vague, symbolic picture. Perhaps God... is already powerless."
Katz silently endured it, understanding the confusion of its people.
That stems from over a thousand years of ingrained thinking and path dependence.
Simply issuing commands cannot eradicate the problem.
To unify thinking, we must use the power of thinking itself.
"Then... witness my logic."
[Initial conditions: 'Wilderness Plague' ignores pure energy and physical decomposition.]
[Enter Oracle A: The 'Tower' disintegrated due to the removal of its core building block.]
[Enter Oracle B: The 'chain' has broken as a whole due to a single broken link.]
[Deduction begins...]
From the oracle to the conclusion, Katz shared his complete deduction process with every one of his subjects without reservation.
The plague is not an impenetrable wall; though it may appear strong, it will disintegrate on its own once the key is found.
All the arguments came to an abrupt end.
All doubts vanished.
"We are... dull-witted."
"The wisdom of the king surpasses the limits of our comprehension; the new path... is the only correct way out."
Under the radiant light of the wise king's absolutely rational will, the thoughts of the entire civilization were highly unified.
The path has been shown.
Next, we must dedicate everything in our civilization to completing this journey.
However, there is an even more pressing issue at hand: the existing social division of labor was created for macro-level development.
The giant hammers in their hands cannot open the door to the microscopic world.
The tools and structures of civilization as a whole appear so clumsy and powerless in the face of new goals.
"In that case..." Kaz's will resounded once more throughout the hive city, "The old order shall be broken, and a new era shall begin."
"I, the Wise King Kaz, hereby issue the supreme decree: All civilizations shall enter a state of war!"
"From this moment forward, the sole and paramount objective is to analyze and destroy the plague. All resources and computing power must be reallocated!"
A massive machine of civilization has begun to transform itself.
Outside the city, the builders of those magnificent cities stopped what they were doing.
They turned and flew to the designated area within the nest city to construct a completely new type of miniature architecture...
Ultra-precision laboratory.
These laboratories are made of the purest crystal, and their interior space is divided into countless sterile observation rooms.
The decomposers who were mining rare elements in the underground veins abandoned the mineral deposits they were about to acquire.
They formed suicide squads, equipped with tools that had just been designed to cut through the plague.
They were going to bring back the first research sample for the laboratory behind them.
End of the Anthill era, 1510.
A massive project with the sole objective of developing a "weapon against the gods" was officially launched under the personal name of the wise king Kars.
Project codename: [Soldier of Godslayer]