Abyssal Wanderer.

Jim's reasoning was simple: since Duanmu Youxue was able to suppress her abnormal impulses to some extent by being infected with the Dionysus virus after being infected with the Apollo virus, it wouldn't be surprising if being infected with the Dionysus virus after being infected with the Apollo virus would cause the zombie to awaken its self-awareness.

After all, in terms of basic principles, the combined effect of these two should be the same.

According to Hanel's description, after Jim regained his self-awareness, he continued to work in the research zombie department—which indicates that his intelligence level remained above that of ordinary people at that time.

"That is to say..."

"Hanell murmured."

Jim nodded.

"Back then, I might have been among the first, or even the first, to be infected with the 'superhuman virus'."

He shared his guess.

If he possesses such special qualities, it would explain why Duanmu Youxue risked everything to find him, and why Apollo Creatures wanted to reclaim him.

Of course, if that were the case, it would be strange that the Apollo creatures would release him so easily back then.

After Jim raised this question, Hanel pondered for a moment and said:

"Regarding this, after you embarked on the Orpheus path, your intelligence level began to decline steadily and at an increasingly rapid pace. Just like the mentally challenged protagonist in 'Flowers for Algernon'... In the end, you couldn't even understand the research project you were working on yesterday, and you left the Research Zombie Institute on the eve of your eighteenth birthday."

It was probably around that time that he chose to hand over all his memories from before he turned eighteen and start a new life.

"Of course, it's said to have been declining all the way down, but in the end it only fell to the level of a normal person... Well, considering that you've been able to make a living as a detective all these years, let's say you're at the above-average level of a normal person."

At least it hasn't fallen to the point of being mentally retarded.

Hanel said with a hint of sarcasm.

However, Jim was not in the mood to respond at the moment.

"In other words, the adjustment and modification of the Orpheus path can bring the 'new humans' back to a normal level of intelligence."

He muttered to himself, then looked at Hanel and said:
"If that's the case, then this might be a way to resolve the current Type II crisis!"

Infection with either Dionysus or Apollo viruses can disrupt the balance between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system in the brain; if left unchecked, it could lead to a widespread disaster.

The Dionysian virus itself is terrifying in its indoctrination, not to mention that the resonance of collective madness can trigger the Dionysian phenomenon, creating memetic entities in the network that invade the underlying reality.

The Apollo virus, on the other hand, mass-produces highly intelligent zombies. Although they are slow to move, they can easily be used as weapons by Theseus Path Adjusters or some other entity.

Ironically, the combination of these two viruses makes infected individuals appear somewhat more "normal."

The obsession brought about by Dionysian madness will be restrained by Apollonian restraint; while Apollonian bewilderment of pure reason will be driven by Dionysian desires.

The forces of emotion and reason re-emerge in balance at a higher level, enabling humanity to achieve an evolutionary leap in intelligence.

Such a new kind of human, or rather a superhuman, is completely capable of intellectually superior to the old kind of human.

It's like how old humans looked down on chimpanzees.

This is also what Nyx promised: to bring extraordinary wisdom to mankind.

The problem now is that if this gift cannot be given to every living human being, then it will inevitably turn into a war between two primate species—a war for the right to define the word "human".

To be honest, although Jiang Zhou believed that the new humans had the advantage, he did not think that they could win.

The reason is simple: the power of the Olympian Order is too great—it completely surpasses the power of natural selection. They can use the legacy technology from the Dark Web to define the direction of natural selection in reality according to their own will.

Specifically, right now, it's like a massive, fully charged thunderstorm over the Nord resettlement area.

No matter what god, god, or superman you are, one shot and they'll all be quiet.

Although somewhat interested in the topic, Jiang Zhou had no intention of arguing about the superiority or inferiority of the two species, at least for the time being.

Now he only cares about one thing—how to stop the Nord settlement from turning into a city of ashes.

If there were a god in this world who would allow him to be even more greedy, he wouldn't even want those innocent people who have already been infected to be eliminated as a threat to humanity.

After all, among those people were Liao Qi's partners, Jim Ritter's friends, and people Jiang Zhou thought should have lived a happy life—the vast majority of them hadn't done anything wrong, yet they were dragged into this crisis as if they had been in a car accident.

Jiang Zhou originally thought that saving as many people as possible was just an unrealistic fantasy, but now it seems that it is possible.

"Since there is an example like me."

Jim said:
"So, if we can find out which part of the Orpheus pathway adjustment and modification played a role, we might be able to completely eliminate the threat of those infected."

At that time, those infected with the Dionysus virus will be injected with the Apollo virus, and then the Dionysus virus will be played on them. After that, they will be "de-harmed" to reduce their IQ to the level of normal people. In this way, the entire Nord resettlement area will not need to carry out a large-scale massacre.

As for whether or not to ultimately inherit Nyx's legacy and bring about a significant intellectual boost to all of humanity, that can be discussed in the future.

However, at least in Jiang Zhou's opinion, since Janus was unwilling to see Nyx's last wish fulfilled, there must be something about His plan that he could not accept.

However, from another perspective, Janus's adoption of Nyx's ideas to create the iris and pegasus bioprotein chips also shows that Nox's approach has some merit.

It's even possible that... the adjustment and modification of the Orpheus path will restore the intelligence of those infected with the Superhuman virus to normal, which was Janus's design.

Of course, he couldn't say this to Hanel and the others.

"The pharmacist can use the biochemical factory in his body to continuously produce the raw material of the Apollo virus."

After listening to Jim's analysis, Hanel calmly said:
"And you should have also obtained the mimicry data of the Dionysus virus from Uejin Goro, right?"

Jim nodded.

"Then theoretically, all that's left is to figure out the principle behind Orpheus's path suppressing the superhuman virus... But to be honest, I might not be able to find the reason in the end, or that element might not be able to be replicated properly at all."

"If it is absolutely necessary to adjust and modify the Orpheus path, then neither the Olympian Order nor the Committee could possibly come up with tens or hundreds of thousands of sets of modified equipment to save the residents of the resettlement area."

Hanel poured cold water on the situation.

Jim nodded again.

He was well aware of how slim the chances of this plan were.

he asked:
"Would you like to come with me?"

Hanel smiled.

"Of course!"

Just as they were high-fiving each other for their perfect understanding, their communication devices both rang at the same time.

They received the same message.

That was a letter from the emcee. [The firewall of the ten-layer resettlement area is about to be breached. If the mind control of the Dionysus virus infected is not implemented soon, the Nord resettlement area will fall before the arrival of the high-level Orpheus Path Adjuster.]

…………

I'm heading to the tenth-floor data center, where I'll be providing network support.

Jiang Zhou, who was struggling to climb up the fire lane, sent a message to the emcee.

【receive】

Without any lengthy speech or task assignments, the emcee replied.

It seems he's really busy...

Jiang Zhou thought to himself.

The public elevator has broken down on the eighth floor. I am going up via the fire escape. I may encounter constructs controlled by memetic entities along the way. Requesting escort support.

After he finished speaking, he encrypted his itinerary and sent it privately to the emcee.

While the combat capabilities of the Theseus path in Depth 2 are arguably stronger than those of the Orpheus path, the difference is still limited.

If you were to encounter a dozen structures in a fire escape, you might find it difficult to withstand.

Just to be on the safe side, let's call in more people...

With that thought in mind, Jiang Zhou continued climbing the stairs.

Support is on its way; attach the low-light feature recognition marker to your back.

The emcee immediately responded.

Jiang Zhou breathed a sigh of relief upon receiving this reply.

He took the identification sticker out of his pocket and casually slapped it behind his back—this thing could emit a faint light that required the prosthetic eye to be tuned to a special frequency to receive, and was usually used for identification of friend or foe in urban warfare.

To say that the current situation is not optimistic would be an overstatement.

Not long ago, the public elevator he was riding broke down on the way from the seventh to the eighth floor—although judging from the explosion sounded above, this was not the result of the city management system being taken over, it still shows that the meme entity's influence on the underlying reality is growing.

Sure enough, shortly after he pried open the elevator door, several constructs with sex dolls as their main framework, enhanced power and balance systems, and equipped with microwave weapons and neurotoxin anesthesia devices came up to him.

Unlike the sex dolls controlled by "shikigami" that Jim encountered in the abandoned factory, the behavior patterns loaded onto them are not some modified "sexual pleasure modules," but rather genuine "killing modules."

It can be deployed to the level of ordinary soldiers in mercenary wars.

The martial arts and assassination skills of these sex puppet constructs made Jiang Zhou's scalp tingle, and their marksmanship was also incredibly accurate—it even had a hint of predictive algorithms.

Fortunately, the Edge Enhancement System enhanced by Theseus' Path was powerful enough, coupled with the support of the shikigami he had previously obtained from Ji Mu, and the drones whose micro-management precision was no less than that of the Animal Path, regardless of the overall situation... Jiang Zhou did not spend too much time dealing with those modified and randomly appearing construct assassins.

"I don't understand those doll sellers. Is it really a good idea to design such high horsepower for them? If Jim were to encounter one of these things in a narrow area, he'd be half-dead..."

Looking at the advertisement projected from the remains of the sex doll, telling him to find a psychiatrist to treat sexual violence, Jiang Zhou muttered something, then stomped on the projection device and smashed it.

Later, while climbing the fire escape, he encountered several more structures.

The earlier waves were mostly modified civilian equipment, equipped with any lethal or non-lethal weapons they could find. In terms of performance, they were actually just so-so; their strength lay mainly in their behavioral algorithms—each form of construct was designed with the goal of maximizing its killing capabilities, and unique behavioral modules were specifically designed for it.

In other words, although the hardware is outdated, the optimization is extremely powerful.

Even though Jiang Zhou relied on the Theseus Path's ability to multitask to command the advanced military-grade drones produced by Pluto Deep Dive, and with the sixth sense assistance from the edge enhancement system, he still inevitably suffered some injuries after defeating those waves of constructs—a few rivets fired from the nail gun were embedded in the bone of his left arm.

Furthermore, one of the anti-gravity drones he was commanding was destroyed.

As for the last wave of constructs Jiang Zhou encountered, some of them started to appear outrageous...

After confirming that the faint light feature identification markers had been affixed, Jiang Zhou couldn't help but turn back and take another look at the large hole in the stairwell that had been blown open, its edges still molten.

The sandstorm outside the resettlement area, along with the roar of the massive machinery deployed by the Vulcan Heavy Industries, was now pouring in from outside that large hole.

The culprit behind this huge hole was a mechanical dog that had been heavily modified.

To be precise, it came from a rudimentary-looking contraption attached to its back.

The wiring is exposed, the structure is ugly, the parts are covered with crooked solder joints, and it makes a frighteningly loud noise when it runs.

However, this thing is still a medium-powered plasma weapon, a heavy weapon capable of vaporizing a small infantry fighting vehicle.

After taking down the mechanical dog with the anti-gravity drone, Jiang Zhou went over to examine it briefly. He discovered that the thing appeared to be a power unit salvaged from a flying car engine, along with some 3D-printed parts and a transformer core used to convert ultra-high voltage in a fusion reactor.

Logically speaking, given how rudimentary this thing is, it should have blown itself up before it even fired.

But in reality, if Jiang Zhou hadn't been able to control the drone fast enough, the enemy would have already charged up enough energy to launch a second shot before the heat dissipation was even complete.

"What kind of orc technology is this...?"

Jiang Zhou cursed inwardly.

Of course, despite complaining like that, he probably already guessed how this thing worked.

Generally, stably confining plasma requires an extremely sophisticated control system, which is clearly lacking in this cobbled-together contraption. This structure likely achieves stable operation by using cloud-based algorithms and massive computing power to forcibly compensate for hardware deficiencies with software.

In other words, if I were to foolishly disassemble this plasma cannon and use it as a heavy weapon, without cloud computing support, I might blow myself up during the energy storage phase.

That's terrifying, malicious program intrusion...

Upon seeing this outrageous structure with his own eyes, Jiang Zhou couldn't help but sigh.

They were able to produce weapons of this caliber in a short period of time simply by using readily available materials in human society and piecing them together.

Furthermore, relying on algorithm optimization is merely a stopgap measure; they are not incapable of building their own production chains.

It's just that there's not enough time right now.

Fortunately, there probably aren't too many of these things right now...

Thinking this, Jiang Zhou continued climbing the stairs.

Then he heard a series of rumbling sounds that didn't sound very good.

He looked up and saw six mechanical dogs equipped with plasma weapons lined up on the upper platform. They had previously been covered with optical camouflage, but the camouflage had now failed due to the intense heat fluctuations.

The plasma weapons aimed at him on their backs were almost fully charged—the pale blue light was gradually turning into dazzling incandescence.

"Damn." (End of Chapter)