A month later.

A group of three consisting of two men and a woman were gathered in a laboratory in the Spire Experimental Base.

Chen Chen took a USB drive from Brando's hands.

The sh.e.l.l of the USB drive was a transparent almost crystal-like material. The intricate golden gears structure of the device could be seen through the sh.e.l.l. Some of the gears were turning continuously like mechanical watches.

Something as delicately crafted as this could very easily be mistaken as some sort of artifact or art piece instead of a USB drive.

“This thing nearly cost my life, Mr. Chen Chen.”

Brando cracked a smile, one of his eyes was wrapped with thick layers of bandages with tiny traces of blood still seeping out of them. He was in horrible shape.

“Head to the logistics department of the Spire Laboratory, they'll patch you up.”

Chen Chen nodded and addressed him blankly. “It's up to you whether you want a bionic eye or a cloned eye. Just note that our current organ cloning technology hasn't reached the desired level yet. If you want to go with that option, you might need to wait another half a year, also for your clone to fully mature. You can replace your eye after that.”

“I'll take the bionic eye.”

Brando nodded firmly. “I've heard that the bionic eye developed from the Xingtian Project is superior to the average organic eye. It's also nearly impossible to tell that it's bionic.”

“The only problem is you might have trouble getting past security.”

Chen Chen cracked a joke, something that he rarely did. He tapped Brando on the shoulder before approaching a computer with the USB drive.

With that, Brando returned with a subtle bow before leaving the laboratory.

Chen Chen inserted the quantum USB drive into the computer. After that, Little X took over the computer and started establis.h.i.+ng a connection with the quantum computer located far away in Northern America.

“Connection established.”

Little X shut her eyes and informed, “I'm going through the files on the computer. So far what I've gathered is that the majority of these files were created in 1993, which is also the year that the Earth Federation was established.”

Chen Chen responded, “As expected, this quantum computer was created in the same year as the Federation, what else?”

“Searching… Most of their contents are the code sequence of the quantum computer, there's very little valuable information…”

Little X suddenly snapped her eyes wide open as she said this, “Sir G.o.dfather, I found an encrypted file created in 2003. It's… In video format?”

“Is it the only one?”

Chen Chen had a good feeling about this.

“I'll keep looking…”

Within half a minute, Little X opened her eyes again. “There's no mistaking it. The coding of the quantum computer had never been altered, not even once. This means that the Earth Federation had never decoded the programming sequence of the quantum computer since day one. The only valuable information I found in the quantum computer is this video.”

“Excellent.”

Chen Chen ordered, “Bring me a Deltlevel research staff.”

Within five minutes after issuing the order, two Black Knights stepped inside, dragging a black research member dressed in striped clothing behind them. They put him into the designated isolation room built into the laboratory.

“Hey, where are you taking me? D*mn, let go!”

The black man spat profanity with a heavy accent while he continued to struggle. He kept this up for the entire duration while the Black Knights locked him into the isolation room.

“You cursed b*stards, I'll kill you… Ahh!!”

Before he was done cursing, he suddenly jerked violently before collapsing onto the floor and began to scream in agony.

This was the work of Little X manually triggering the tungsten collar strapped around his neck to release a voltage of three thousand volts to teach this unruly Deltlevel research staff a lesson.

The collar continued emitting voltage for close to ten seconds before finally stopping. The black man whimpered on the floor, still refusing to get back up.

Chen Chen approached the observation window and selected a b.u.t.ton. The basic information of this research staff was immediately displayed on the control panel of the isolation room.

Code: D008624.

Name: Evan Glen, Male, 35 years old, Owanbo.

On 20 June 2022, sentenced to life imprisonment for robbery and first-degree murder. On 21 April 2023, admitted to the Spire Experimental Base designated as a Deltlevel research staff to maintain the operations of the base.

Health metric: Healthy.

Total experiments partic.i.p.ated: 0.

After noting this information, Chen Chen addressed the man using the speaker system installed in the isolation room, “Mr. Evan Glen.”

“Who, who's that?”

Evan Glen who was initially pretending to be out cold on the floor suddenly shot up and looked around him when he heard the unfamiliar voice of another man echoing in his ears.

“You can call me Professor Chen.”

Chen Chen said, “I'm sure you understand your current circ.u.mstances. Do you still remember the terms of the agreement? In clause 5 of article 3 of the terms signed between you and Blackwatch, you're obligated to cooperate with all experiments conducted by the company. If you provide cooperation to a certain threshold, you may receive a deducted sentence.”

“To h.e.l.l with your cooperation, just tell me what you want with me?”

Evan Glen spat and pulled himself back up. After this, he noticed there was a large panel of gla.s.s in front of him. “Hey, I know you're out there brat. You better watch out!”

Evan Glen barked as he glared at the gla.s.s viciously.

Chen Chen darted a glance at Little X, to which Little X responded with a quick pout, implying that she just picked the first person she found on the list and that she had no way of knowing whether this person would turn out to be such a head case.

Chen Chen decided this argument was not worth having. He looked for a certain b.u.t.ton on the control b.u.t.ton and upon pressing it, the observation window immediately became tinted. When he pressed another b.u.t.ton next to the previous b.u.t.ton, Even Glen's stream of curses became muted as well.

“Play it for him now.”

Chen Chen gave a lazy signal before lying back on the couch and got some shut-eye.

“Alright.”

Little X got to work immediately after receiving Chen Chen's orders. She found the video from the quantum computer and cast it into the isolation room.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes…

Five minutes later, Little X informed, “Sir G.o.dfather, the video has ended. I scanned the video frame by frame and didn't detect signs of any suspicious memetic content or anomalies within it. Evan Glen didn't display any notable symptoms upon watching it. His physical and mental state are completely unaltered.”

“Excellent.”

Chen Chen got back up and approached the control panel again where he reactivated the observation window and unmuted the isolation room.

“Buddy, what the h.e.l.l were you saying?'

The man inside the isolation room was having trouble making sense of what he just saw as he exclaimed, “What successor, USB drive, what the h.e.l.l was that video all about?”

Unfortunately, n.o.body was going to answer his questions. The previous two Black Knights stepped inside again and dragged him outside.

Chen Chen waited until the Deltlevel research staff was escorted out of the laboratory before approaching the computer and playing the video for himself.

“Click click click…”

The display became filled with white noise in the starting portion of the video. Judging by how blurry the video was, its resolution was probably 360p. It was something filmed from a long time ago.

There was a sudden blink following the white noise. The image of a man who looked to be in his thirties appeared on the screen. He was good-looking and had fierce, piercing eyes.

The man was dressed in a black suit. Only his upper torso was visible in the video. Although there was no reliable way to determine how tall he was, it was evident that he was well-built.

Most notably, this person was a Chinese man!

“If you're watching this message, I'll take it that you've either reached my present stage or at least drawing close already.”

The man filmed the video inside a laboratory in which walls were built with metal. He revealed a fine row of white teeth and smiled like a madman. “Fascinating, isn't it? I'm sure you've guessed it by now. That's right, the magical USB drive you have there was left behind by me.

“My name is Zhao Shanhe, the second person to hold the dimension key… Well, I only found clues of one previous owner of the dimension key, so I'm going to a.s.sume I'm the second. I also founded the Earth Federation. It was I who united humanity on the same front for the very first time!”

When the phrase “united humanity” was brought up, the man in the video smiled with great pride., “Hahaha, to think that someone like me, little Zhao Shanhe could accomplish a feat as great as this, maybe this life was worth living after all!”

The man quickly switched his candid complexion with a solemn one within a second. “Unfortunately, I'm afraid the Earth Federation wouldn't have much time left after I leave here and head to the Event Horizon dimension. Without my supervision, it's only a matter of time before the united organization of mankind falls apart.”

Chen Chen squinted his eyes in thought. Could this mean that the antimeme that he ran into was this person as well?

Chen Chen juggled the theory in his mind and figured he should continue watching.

“I'm filming this video to inform you that humanity is in a potentially dangerous situation…”

Zhao Shanhe expressed solemnly, “I'm sure you've heard of the civilization theory called The Great Filter. If we treat a habitable planet as a singular collective similar to a regular human with an independent soul, then the unit of life for our planet Earth would be known as 'Gaia'.

“What most people don't know is that the emergence of civilization on 'Gaia' is more than mere coincidence. The formation of civilizations can have comparisons drawn to the development of cancer cells. The development of civilization inevitably goes hand in hand with the destruction of the ecosystem around them. This is what's known as the second law of thermodynamics. There's no other way around this principle of entropy. The only way for civilization to continuously develop is to inevitably enter a cycle of destruction, slowly draining Gaia of its life force…

“Therefore, there's an established ecosystem or cycle for each civilization where they must be able to survive this filter to extend their life cycle. This filtration process is an inherent part of Mother Gaia and is inevitable. As long as civilization remains standing, there'll always be this opposing nature that has to be considered.

“This was how I came to discover a certain truth…”

A wipe of horror appeared in Zhao Shanhe's eyes as he said this, “Would you believe it? Human's understanding has been wrong all this time. There hasn't been any further large-scale disaster ever since we, as a collective, survived the last two World Wars. This creates a false illusion that the world we reside in is supposed to be a safe place. However, history will tell you that this 'safety' is just a mere circ.u.mstance. The foundation of human civilization has been cemented in constant man-made disasters ever since its dawn!

“What I'm saying here is that this world is far more vicious than we ever expected. In the vast universe, the Earth is like a lone island in the vast ocean while human civilization is a feeble sandcastle built by a child. It's as delicate as it's fragile. This civilization that we humans put so much pride in can easily be washed away faster than you can blink when the tide rises…

“So, do you understand now?”

Zhao Shanhe took a deep breath. “This world is only growing more treacherous!

“I can't precisely explain what these dangers will be or when they will come… But what I can tell you is that it is acc.u.mulative. By now, you should've figured out that the reason I united humans to establish the Earth Federation is to combat these dangers. 'Adam' is specifically designed to address these concerns as it continuously predicts whatever danger Earth may face and issues warnings to the Federation accordingly. This way, the Earth Federation at least has a window to react.”

Zhao Shanhe fell silent for a moment upon arriving at this point. He seemed to have steeled his heart when he said this, “And now, I'll be entering the movie Event Horizon to exact a plan of mine. If this plan works out… Then I suppose you won't be watching this video in the first place and everything should've worked out. But if you're watching this video now, that means my plan has failed…

“Heh! Don't even bother trying to figure out what my plan was or to dive into my ident.i.ty or proof of my existence. There's no longer any evidence of my existence in this world. It's like I never existed because I was afflicted with some weird thing known as antimeme… There's a chance you've dealt with this ent.i.ty as well or maybe you haven't. If you haven't run into it, I'll have to advise you to be careful. I'm afraid I can't give you much advice since I can barely keep myself safe from harm!”

Zhao Shanhe expressed almost frustratingly, “I'm not afraid of death, I'm just afraid of being forgotten. I suppose that the more you fear something, the more important it is that you confront it head-on!”

After that, silence again.

Chen Chen looked at the video length, he was now approaching the end of the video.

“There's also something else incredibly harsh that I need to tell you.”

Zhao Shanhe suddenly chuckled, revealing his row of pearly white teeth. “When you keep using the power of the dimension key, the dangers that follow will continue to stalk you, this is entirely unavoidable. You can figure out the rest of the details yourselves. It doesn't come immediately, it's like a b.u.t.terfly effect.”