I'm trapped in a block

Chapter 1191 The Vanished Past

The conference room's large screen lit up, and Director Wang stood on the demonstration platform. He seemed quite adept at handling these situations, but he still couldn't help glancing at the middle-aged men in suits.

They seem to be of high status, otherwise they wouldn't be receiving such attention. The soldiers outside are probably there to protect them.

Director Wang had his assistant bring over his electronic screen, gently placed it on the presentation table, and then, after thinking for a moment, opened a folder.

The folder was filled with images, each labeled with a date. Mo Ling examined them closely and discovered that the time span was enormous, covering everything from the beginning of the Abyss invasion until…

"A hundred years? A hundred years have passed since the Abyss invasion?"

Mo Ling was stunned when she saw the dates on those pictures.

Although Lu Qi had told him that time would pass quickly outside the abyss, he was still very surprised when the passage of time was truly presented before his eyes.

Everything familiar remained upstream in the river of time, while he arrived alone in the distant future, as if from another world.

Director Wang seemed to be considering where to begin. He hadn't prepared for this "speech" in advance, and with several important figures arriving, a few more beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

After thinking for a while, he seemed to be determined to get straight to the point.

He clicked on a picture, an aerial view of the abyss, seemingly taken from above the entrance of the abyss using some kind of aerial photography equipment.

Mo Ling was very familiar with this perspective because he had often seen the entrance to the abyss from this angle when he was at Base 921.

The photo is dated seventy years after the invasion of the Abyss. The pitch-black hole is no different from when the invasion first began, except that all sorts of human facilities have been built around the hole, the cracks caused by the collapse have been reinforced, and tall buildings have been erected in the distance from the crater...

Director Wang projected the photo onto the large screen and then drew a red circle in an area on the side of the pit.

"Seventy-two years after the invasion of the Abyss, monitoring personnel near the entrance discovered an area covered with metal at the edge of the Abyss and immediately reported it to the entrance defense department, which is the place I circled in red."

As Director Wang spoke, he clicked on another picture.

That appears to be a photo of the area covered by metal. It wasn't clear in the overhead view, but this photo shows it very clearly:
In one corner of the pit, small metal cubes appeared, spreading like crystals, one after another, covering part of the entrance.

Judging from the pictures shown by Director Wang later, as time went on, these blocks began to increase in number. Originally, they could only cover a small part of the entrance, but they quickly spread along the edge of the abyss entrance.

The metal blocks will appear next to the existing metal blocks, overlapping and connecting tightly, as if they were attracted together by a magnet. They can be suspended above the entrance without any support. They will pile up like building blocks, not only spreading to other places at the edge, but also gradually becoming "thicker".

"After discovering these metal cubes, the entrance defense department immediately organized personnel to monitor them and even attempted to extract some metal samples, but these sample extraction attempts all failed."

Director Wang switched to a photo of staff members using tools in a metal area. Everyone in the photo looked worried and exhausted. "These metal cubes were later proven to be 'indestructible,' whether by tools or artifacts."

"This 'indestructible' property is absolute. Not only can it not be destroyed, but its properties cannot be changed either. It cannot be penetrated by conventional physical methods. However, these metals retain the properties of normal metals in a certain sense. Sound waves and vibrations can still be transmitted through these metals."

"Later, researchers at the entrance defense department discovered that this transmission was also selective. At times, the vibrations would be completely absorbed by the metal, such as when trying to damage the metal with vibrations. However, if only sound was transmitted, the metal would not 'receive' it."

"After the Ministry of Defense reported this phenomenon to the research institute, we concluded that this metal may have some kind of 'autonomy' and be able to selectively control its own physical properties. It will react differently to different 'intentions'."

"At the time, neither the Ministry of Defense nor the research institute knew the purpose of these metal cubes; they could only maintain surveillance and study the metal..."

Director Wang switched between the images while explaining each one.

Although the explanation was not prepared in advance, Director Wang still spoke very clearly. As a witness to this incident, he also had a deep understanding of each picture. As he spoke, the tension on his face disappeared, and he seemed to be immersed in the explanation.

As the date of the photographs progressed, the metallic area at the entrance to the abyss also continued to expand, from initially occupying only a corner to covering one-tenth of the entire entrance, and then growing larger and larger until it "sealed" half of the entire entrance.

Five years have passed. From the top-down view, a silvery-white area can be seen covering half of the entrance to the abyss, like a spider web hanging on a vent. The half that is not yet covered is pitch black, while the half that is covered is a vast expanse of white.

Above that silvery-white area, some research facilities appeared, presumably built to monitor these metals. Some suspended monitoring devices also appeared in the air. Clearly, at this point, these ever-spreading metals had attracted absolute attention.

"In the fifth year since the metal appeared, it has covered half of the total area of ​​the abyss entrance, with an average thickness of fifty meters. We tested the soil at the edge of the entrance and found that the metal had also entered the soil. The traces of this metal can be found in any area where the abyss entrance is located."

"The spread of the metal has not slowed down and is still progressing at a very steady pace. It is expected that in another five years, the metal will completely occupy the entrance to the abyss."

“Over the past five years, we have confirmed that this metal has a certain ‘autonomy’. It will deliberately bypass the experimental stakes we use to block them, and choose to cover the unblocked areas first. Only when there is no other way will it choose to squeeze and destroy the experimental stakes.”

"These metals can determine our intentions and distinguish whether our actions are for research or for deliberate sabotage. Based on this property, we also obtained our first research sample."

"Although we obtained the samples, we have reason to suspect that the metals 'voluntarily' gave them to us in order to dispel our doubts."

A photo appeared on the screen showing a metal cube, only about ten centimeters long, wide, and high, being placed in a sample box prepared by the researchers.

"After receiving the samples, we conducted a study immediately."

"The properties exhibited by the sample are exactly the same as those of the metal region. It is indestructible and has a simple autonomous consciousness. After testing, this metal does not belong to any existing metal. It is a completely new substance that humans have never discovered before. It cannot even be simply called a 'metal'. It just exhibits metal-like properties."

(End of this chapter)