Chapter 411: Round Two
“I’m not joking with you!”
The husky’s voice coming through the earpiece sounded serious and nervous in Chen Yu’s ears.
“Come home as soon as possible and show me the recording of the livestream.”
“Now?”
“Yes! Now! The sooner, the better.”
“OK. I’ll head back once I set aside the equipment.” Nodding, Chen Yu hung up the phone and set the Natural Destruction Generator into the study’s secret room. He then hurriedly activated the Interstellar Portal and returned to his home in Jinzhou City.
Chen Yu placed immense trust in the husky’s wisdom. Although the dog was still slightly inferior to himself, with its racial talents, the husky was incredibly sensitive to danger!
Bang.
Shutting the door behind him, Chen Yu looked at the husky and went straight into the topic. “What happened?”
“I’ll explain it to you in a moment. Let me look at the livestream recording first.”
“Sure.” Grabbing the floating camera beside him and passing it to the dazed Little Peach, Chen Yu said, “Pull the video from this thing and show it to the dog.”
“It’s for me!” the husky said, frowning.
“That’s right; show it to the dog.”
“…”
Tilting her head, Little Peach asked, “Who is it for?”
“Grr…” The husky couldn’t help but bare its fangs at Chen Yu. It then bellowed, “Hurry up and transfer the video files! We don’t have much time left!”
“Oh…”
Taking the camera, Little Peach sat in front of her computer and skillfully inserted a USB3.1 cable into the floating camera. She then transferred the video files to her laptop.
“Huh?”
Half a minute later, Little Peach looked at Chen Yu and said in confusion, “Mr. Chen, the laptop doesn’t have enough space.”
“Isn’t this a laptop from the future? How can it run out of space?”
“That’s right. This never happened before.”
Scratching its ear, the husky asked, “Can you access the camera’s system hard drive?”
“Yes, that’s possible.” Typing away at the keyboard, Little Peach quickly established a connection with the camera’s system hard drive and opened it up for viewing.
Squeak—
The laptop’s cooling system suddenly began generating loud noises as several video files appeared on its screen.
Out of the video files present on the hard drive, one of them immediately caught everyone’s attention.
This was because the size of the file was absolutely massive…
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…” Chen Yu couldn’t help but be dazzled by the string of numbers displayed on the screen. “How many gigabytes are there?!”
“That’s probably the black hole documentary,” the husky said as it pulled out a cigarette from its fur. Lighting the cigarette, the husky continued, “You might’ve felt as if time had passed by quickly inside the black hole, but time is still flowing normally outside the black hole. In other words, the camera might’ve been capturing you for hundreds of billions of years, or possibly even longer.”
“Isn’t this thing amazing, then?!” Chen Yu couldn’t help but be stunned. Simultaneously, he also thought of the benefits he could reap from the video recording. “This basically means we have complete video data on the evolution of the universe! This is a jackpot!”
“For a civilization that is incapable of manipulating time at will and has yet to enter a higher dimension, this information is indeed valuable,” the husky said, nodding. “However, everything is meaningless if we can’t resolve our present problem.”
“What exactly happened?”
“…Something very terrible.”
After saying so, the husky squeezed Little Peach out of her seat. It then manipulated the mouse with its paw and began browsing through the video file. “Boss Chen, you’re certain you’ve activated the Natural Disaster Generator five times, right?”
“Yes, just five times.” Stretching out five fingers, Chen Yu said, “I started with the Artificial Intelligence Crisis, followed by the Asteroid Impact, Mutated Virus Outbreak, Black Hole Devouring, and Destructive Invasion By Alien Civilization.”
“Among them, the asteroid, black hole, and alien invasion caused devastating damage to Earth…” Circling two video files with the mouse pointer, the husky said, “Only the Artificial Intelligence Crisis and Mutated Virus Outbreak can ensure HAL’s survival.”
“HAL? She’s the trouble you were talking about?”
“That’s right. You seem to have forgotten about the Natural Disaster Generator’s operating mechanism. So long as an individual doesn’t suffer death in the simulation, they will continue living in that simulated world. For a Strong AI like HAL, there is no limit to its lifespan in theory. It can achieve immortality by constantly copying and transferring itself to new hardware.”
“You mean to say…” Chen Yu suddenly felt a chill spread all over his body.
“Yes,” the husky said, nodding. While opening the video files for the Artificial Intelligence Crisis and Mutated Virus Outbreak, the husky spoke solemnly, “Whether one experiences one second or one trillion years in the disaster scenario, only an instant would’ve passed in the real world. HAL has likely continued developing in these two disaster worlds until the universe collapses.”
“What the?! Doesn’t that make HAL a god now?!”
“That’s very much possible.”
“What are we still standing here for?!” Opening the Interstellar Portal immediately, Chen Yu said, “We need to hurry up and destroy it!”
“Wait one minute! Just one minute!” Fast-forwarding the video clips, the husky said, “HAL’s central command is to protect humans. Without humans to protect, its existence would be meaningless. It might have even suffered a collapse in logic and stop ascending the tree of science and technology altogether. So, we should still have time to implement the original plan.”
Hearing the husky’s words, Little Peach asked in confusion, “I don’t understand.’
“Simply put, I’m trying to see whether humanity in the disaster worlds has faced extinction or not. If humanity went extinct, then HAL would have nothing to protect. In turn, its central command would lose effect, and its intelligence architecture would collapse.”
After saying so, the husky pressed the pause button and pointed at the screen. “…Unfortunately, my worst fears have come true. Humanity did not go extinct…”
“This is…” Looking at the screen intently, Chen Yu couldn’t help but break out in cold sweat. “T-The medical department’s Professor Sun…”
“It’s him!” Standing up, the husky said, “He protected himself before the virus outbreak simulation began, so he didn’t get infected during the virus outbreak! So long as he survives, HAL will continue the development of technology. HAL might’ve even collected Professor Sun’s uncontaminated genes to recreate another human civilization in outer space.”
“…”
Hearing this, Chen Yu fell into a daze for a moment. He then dashed through the portal, arrived back in the Super Floating Castle, and shouted, “Hermione!”
“I’m here.” Instantly materializing before Chen Yu, Hermione asked, “Do you need me for something”?
“Where is Professor Sun? Professor Sun of the medical department.”
“He left the Academy by helicopter five minutes ago.”
Following Chen Yu, the husky said, “It’s evident that HAL has captured and brainwashed Professor Sun in the virus world. There’s no time to ask him what happened. You need to act now before HAL develops some frightening technology…”
“I know…”
“Everything will be too late if we go by our original plan, so you have to increase the damages.”
“To what extent?”
“To the extent where technology devolves back by 100 years.”
“…”
Chen Yu’s face paled faintly. Fortunately, his decisive nature prevented him from hesitating. Immediately, he activated the E·I Force Field, broke through the roof, and flew toward the Type-R Spacecraft.
…
Simultaneously, all over the world, under HAL’s command, many armed drones carrying anesthetic firearms appeared out of nowhere. These drones then began capturing people on the street with their steel claws.
As soon as the drones captured a person, they would bring their captives back to the various temporary bases to undergo HAL’s “civilization evolution” project.
As for anyone who tried to resist the drones, they would be anesthetized immediately.
However, surprisingly…
Most citizens did not shout, run, scream, or retaliate when they saw the drones trying to capture them. On the contrary, they even waved excitedly at the drones, with some even lining up to be captured.
Even the police officers patrolling the streets had joined in on the fun.
“Is it another Artificial Intelligence Crisis? It seems Transdimensional’s UP is starting a second round!” one police officer said.
“That’s right. The first one was really fun. It seems this is going to be a great Sunday…” another officer said.