Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Before the unknown instruments flashing with multicolored lights, Xiao Lu and his team were busy adjusting the equipment parameters. The repetitive calculations had left them all with heavy dark circles under their eyes.

They probably never imagined that a century later, their team would appear in some anime-style mobile games as Heroic Spirits. Everything they did at this moment would become a legendary tale, a Noble Phantasm in the hands of these Heroic Spirits—the Miracle Manifestation Rings, a pair of jet-black circular Noble Phantasms. Normally hidden as tattoos on their faces, disguised as ordinary dark circles under their eyes, these rings, in actual combat, become top-tier Noble Phantasms that bring fantasy to life. Legend has it that Xiao Lu's team worked day and night, to the point that their dark circles became an integral part of their bodies, beyond the reach of even top-tier medical technology. Later, as the story spread, they became known as Noble Phantasms.

In later generations, Xiao Lu is probably the only one who can be considered such an abstract heroic spirit. After all, he lived a long life and was relatively enlightened. He engaged in strange and wonderful secondary creations with many later generations. Other underground bases that made great sacrifices when they appeared were heroes of the entire civilization, and their reputations cannot be arbitrarily infringed upon by law.

They have no idea what will happen a hundred years from now. The dark circles under their eyes are a testament to their dedication to the survival of the underground base. The pressure from the Yeti Legion is immense; the major legions can't possibly allocate all their forces to them, especially since the Golden Family is no easy opponent. The Golden Family is now learning from the Yeti Legion how to develop their ultimate war strategies.

Once they learn this mode of warfare, the advantages accumulated by the underground bases will likely be gradually eroded. A new technological lead must be established.

Director Ding assigned Xiao Lu and his team the task of developing a way to communicate with celestial bodies and then invoke their power. Their main mission was to establish this communication, but various unexpected events always occurred during the research process. These unexpected events resulted in the developed product differing significantly from the theoretical design.

For example, sildenafil, which was originally developed to treat heart disease, was eventually proven to be a highly effective drug for treating and nourishing the stomach, with immediate results.

Xiao Lu and his team seem to be quite adept at developing products that are completely different from the original design purpose by accident. For example, this time they stayed up all night and collected a lot of useless data. Among many discarded cases, they finally found a seemingly reliable solution.

According to their original plan, they were to use the power of this Gu worm to communicate with distant stars, and then summon the star's heat to break the snowman army's icy and snowy world.

The idea was good, but the biggest problem was how to transmit the heat over such a long distance, even penetrating the five-domain boundary, and bringing it back. While the Immortal Gu could solve most problems, even leaving just one remaining challenge was an enormous undertaking. So, after working for so long, they still hadn't found a way to transmit the heat back. Instead, after much research, they received some puzzling information from beyond the heavens.

The device didn't receive heat; instead, it received extremely complex electromagnetic signals. And it wasn't just the device that received these signals. The researchers present also received them entirely through their own senses; large chunks of information inexplicably appeared in their minds.

Two researchers with weaker wills, who had been working too long into the night, immediately fainted. Those who were still awake all vomited from nausea. The extra stuff was less like comprehensible information and more like a jumble of gibberish or indescribable concepts.

The feeling is like forcing your brain to understand a structure that doesn't exist in a three-dimensional world, such as trying to understand a cube that exists in a four-dimensional world. Even just trying to understand its projection is almost as uncomfortable as having your brain tied in knots.

Xiao Lu was arguably the unluckiest one. He was standing closest to the experimental site, so he received the most information, even though his mental strength was considered relatively strong among the researchers. However, because he received the most information, he was also the one who remained unconscious the longest. When he woke up, he was completely dazed, as if he had become mentally impaired. It took him a long time to regain his senses.

"Don't ask me what I saw anymore. That thing can't respond at all; just trying to recall it gives me a terrible headache. I can barely draw some of what I saw. The traces that remain in my memory are so vivid that just trying to recall them makes my head feel like it's going to split open."

Although no one knew what the stars were responding to, there was no doubt that the stars visible in this world were actually connected to something indescribable.

Because the Lanno clones in the underground base didn't carry complete memories, most of them didn't remember how they came to be. If they did remember, the fact that the stars in the sky corresponded to indescribable information would be much easier to understand.

After all, the stars they faced were actually a gap connecting to another world, which was the dream plane of the Anomalous Creature Chronicles, the place where the Goddess of Creation sealed the Lord of Madness. The strength of the Lord of Madness was... roughly the same order of magnitude as the Goddess of Creation, who was almost omniscient and omnipotent in this universe, or even stronger.

The mental pollution caused by even a tiny bit of madness leaked from something like this is immeasurable. If the barrier between the two worlds weren't so tight, the amount of mental pollution that could leak out would be negligible, and the whole world would have already become indescribable.

The Venerable Ones of the Gu Realm are worlds apart from those who are true creators of a universe. If this thing were to leak in on a large scale, the damage it would cause would be incalculable.

However, the small amount of information leaked from communicating with the stars is not enough to cause the catastrophe of the episode's destruction.

Xiao Lu fainted several times during the process, finally managing to sketch a few abstract diagrams—patterns composed of dots, lines, and colors that defied description. It was extremely difficult to decipher any meaningful information from them, but these diagrams weren't entirely useless. Ordinary people wouldn't react to these patterns, only perceiving them as chaotic and without any discernible pattern. However, those who had received the stellar information experienced severe adverse reactions upon seeing them. Some felt only irritability, while others suffered nausea and vomiting. Those who received the most information simply fainted on the spot.

These patterns seem to trigger memories of the information they've received. The mere passive recall of this information plunges them into a state akin to mental pollution. It's speculated that if the amount of information received were greater, reason might be unable to withstand the distortions it brings, leading to a different state of lucidity—only then, they would be completely corrupted and transformed, existing in this world according to a completely different set of logic. Like the followers of evil gods in the Cthulhu Mythos, they would have completely severed ties with their past.

These are all just speculations at the moment, but this indescribable effect, after verification, seems to be weaponizable. To put it simply, after communicating with the stars, Xiao Lu's research team discovered that there was excrement on the stars. After careful research, they believed that they could throw the excrement out as a weapon and smear it on people's faces.

While the idea of ​​weaponizing mental pollution is abstract and highly unethical, it appears to be more effective than simply drawing down the high temperatures from the stars.

Xiao Lu, a researcher who had already experienced some mental pollution, volunteered to participate in the test and compare herself with other people who had been polluted. She used a barely quantifiable level to quantitatively analyze the total amount of pollution suffered by each person and the impact of this pollution on the individual.

After comparative analysis, they reached a strange conclusion: the impact of mental pollution on an individual does not seem to be directly linked to the strength of their soul. Neither soul strength nor individual cultivation level has a significant impact on resistance to mental pollution; rather, the strength of willpower has a greater influence on mental pollution.

This is a type of data that is difficult to quantify. Fortunately, the people in the underground base have genetic locks as a benchmark, which can measure an individual's willpower to a considerable extent. That's why they were able to reach this conclusion with some difficulty.

This means that if an individual's will is not firm, no matter how high their cultivation level is, their resistance to weaponized mental pollution will be extremely weak.

However, this world is a dog-eat-dog world, where those who become strong, even with an element of luck, are generally not lacking in character. Those who achieve immortality are truly exceptional individuals. This cruel selection system ironically leads to these people possessing remarkably high mental fortitude, often matching their cultivation level. Although they haven't unlocked their genetic potential, their extensive worldly experiences and rich life lessons have endowed them with mental resilience that rivals, or even surpasses, those who have unlocked their genetic potential.

On the contrary, the Yeti's resistance might be a bit problematic. Their living environment is far superior to that of humans outside. They need to consider the hardships required to improve their cultivation, since domesticated livestock gain weight more easily than wild animals. Their improved cultivation in their environment means increased value, allowing them to be sold for more money. Naturally, they don't need to endure many hardships to achieve a significant increase in strength.

This is why the combined number of peak fifth-tier experts from the entire Golden Family of the grasslands is less than a fraction of the number from their single legion. It's not that the elite of an era are inferior to a group of snowmen casually cultivated by the Immortal Aperture; rather, the difference in their circumstances and treatment is enormous.

However, this has not yet been verified. The effects of psychological pollution will only be apparent when it is actually deployed on the battlefield.

Based on the results of current biological experiments, even if the intensity of mental pollution is increased to the highest level, raising the level of communication they can establish to its maximum, the final effect is only coma, not fatal. Only through repeated, high-intensity communication leading to coma can the personality be completely destroyed by mental pollution, transforming them into an indescribable being.

This means that such strategic strikes can only be used as a control skill on the battlefield. There won't be opportunities to repeatedly stun the enemy on the battlefield. If there were, why not take advantage of the enemy's unconscious state and slit their throat?
The warning signs before this move are quite obvious. After the enemy suffers a loss once, they will definitely try to avoid it the second time. Forcibly interrupting this communication is not out of the question. Therefore, this move can only show its greatest effect on the first contact.

If that were all, this move could only be used as a one-time trump card. However, another characteristic of mental pollution that Xiao Lu revealed during her previous test was that recalling the source of the mental pollution would cause another mental shock. Although it would not deepen the pollution, it would cause immense pain and lead to unconsciousness.

Those who have already experienced psychological pollution can record its characteristics through various methods, such as hand-drawn images and audio recordings. Playing these audio or visual recordings can unconsciously evoke memories of the source of the psychological pollution, thus achieving a secondary control effect.

"Constructing this kind of mental weapon isn't very difficult; we can even launch it in a wide-area attack. All we need to do is maximize the timing of its execution, ensuring as many people as possible are affected simultaneously. A second attack like this is unlikely to be effective. Only those who are affected the first time can become our targets for subsequent mental interference."

Therefore, your next task is to lure out as many enemies as possible and gather them together. This will facilitate a wide-area attack. However, this also means we will suffer damage of the same degree. The connection with the stars undoubtedly carries unknown risks. We must have a legion as bait, placed within the enemy's attack range, and this bait must be substantial enough to lure the enemy into this trap. Gentlemen, we must now devise a strategic plan.”

[To be continued]

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