The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

However, before the man could finish writing his warning, his body collapsed to the ground, turning into a pool of black, viscous flesh and blood, which was swallowed by the surrounding darkness.

Shen Ge's face was ashen. He finally understood the true purpose of the New God Cult. Their goal from the beginning was not simply to awaken the "Heart of Winter".

This "contamination" is like a key, or a virus.

They are trying to crack the "Heart of Winter," steal the most fundamental secrets of the Forerunner civilization, or... completely tamper with it.

The distress signal from the "Cradle," the "contamination" caused by the ritual of the "Purifiers"... all of this was to cover up their true intentions, to draw everyone's attention to dealing with the chaos, and thus to buy enough time for the "virus" to complete its deep erosion of the Heart of Winter.

but!

The New God Cult miscalculated. This "Heart of Winter" is not an information box at all, but a "box"—a box containing fragments of a dream!

When Shen Ge entered this area, he had a very obvious feeling, a feeling similar to the strange feeling he had when he tried to seize fragments of a dream as the fragmented world collapsed.

In the past, when things collapsed around him, he would see scenes related to himself, but now he was seeing scenes of a world collapsing.

In other words, the New Gods' actions failed to "contaminate" the Heart of Winter; instead, they contaminated the Dream Fragments, causing them to descend into chaos.

Without further hesitation, Shen Ge's figure instantly "transformed into mist" and sped toward the central control tower that pierced the sky, the building with the most energy and the largest flow of information in this city of memories.

He had to find and remove the core of the "virus" before the entire "database" was completely contaminated or tampered with.

He had a strong premonition that the information hidden in this fragment of the dream was crucial to him, to the "Iron Heart," and even to whether he could find his way back.

Shen Ge accelerated to the limit, his figure leaving an almost invisible afterimage in the still gray city. The "traceless" fog effect allowed him to avoid a lot of physical contact.

He observed along the way that the degree of "data pollution" in the city was rapidly increasing. What were originally just individual, disordered remnants of consciousness were beginning to show signs of "cluster infection."

The afterimages of the entire street would stop at the same time, turn their heads in unison, and stare blankly in the direction he had sped past.

Inside a building, the afterimages of all the researchers would simultaneously put down their work and mechanically repeat the action of slamming their heads against the table, staging a chilling collective self-harm in a silent world.

Soon, the city's central control tower came into view.

This building, piercing the gray sky like a sword, is the energy and information hub of the entire dream fragment. The closer one gets, the stronger the aura of sorrow and despair in the air becomes, almost tangible.

Just as Shen Ge was less than a kilometer away from the main control tower and was preparing to rush into it in one go, the entire city suddenly began to "tremble" violently.

This is not a physical tremor, but a violent upheaval in the "collective memory" that constitutes this world.

In an instant, all the residual consciousnesses in the entire city, whether or not they were contaminated, stopped their repetitive actions.

They all looked up at the same time, their frozen expressions transforming into extreme grief and despair.

Immediately afterwards, their bodies, like melting wax figures, transformed into streams of gray data that shot into the sky from all directions of the city.

It was the grief of a mother losing her child, the fear of a soldier dying on the battlefield, and the despair of a scientist facing the destruction of civilization...

All the negative emotions of the pioneer civilization at the last moment were completely activated and harvested by the "virus" and gathered in front of the main control tower!

Thousands of gray torrents intertwined and merged in mid-air, coalescing into an indescribable behemoth that blocked Shen Ge's path.

It stands a hundred meters tall and resembles a human figure with its head bowed, but its structure is incredibly terrifying.

Its body is entirely composed of countless gray faces that are twisted in pain, crying and wailing, each face representing the heaviest despair of a departed pioneer.

It has no physical form; its shape constantly shifts between reality and illusion.

Physical attacks are ineffective against it because it is a pure collection of bizarre energy.

Energy attacks are equally ineffective against it; any energy that comes into contact with it will be assimilated and dissolved by the immense negative and malevolent energy it contains.

The monster slowly raised its head. No sound came from the huge "mouth" formed by countless mouths opening at the same time, but the powerful monster energy locked onto Shen Ge.

"boom--!"

Shen Ge's mind felt as if a mental bomb had been detonated.

The despair accumulated by tens of thousands of pioneers over thousands of years of endless cycles, enough to crush any reason, poured into his consciousness in that instant!
Shen Ge felt as if he had personally experienced the destruction of countless civilizations.

He saw the deep-sea base being torn apart, with icy seawater mixed with a hideous, eerie rushing in. Before being swallowed up, a young researcher gave his wife and daughter a final smile on the other side of the screen.

He watched as the last fleet disintegrated in the eerie storm, and a captain calmly initiated the self-destruct sequence in the cockpit, perishing along with the pursuing unspeakable creature.

He saw a father tightly embracing his child, and as the shelter's doors were breached, he ended the child's life with his own hands to prevent the child from falling into the clutches of the monster and suffering even deeper torment...

Despair, helplessness, regret, grief... these emotions were like the most potent poison, frantically eroding Shen Ge's will and attempting to drag him into an abyss of madness from which there was no return.

Even his rock-solid will wavered for a moment in the face of this shock that encapsulated the tragedy of the entire civilization.

This was the first time he had faced a truly arduous battle since advancing to the eighth rank.

The barrier of the eerie realm can block energy, but it cannot block emotions that strike at the very soul. Any resistance appears pale and powerless in the face of such pure spiritual crushing.

Shen Ge's consciousness was adrift in the raging waves, and could be completely submerged at any moment.

However, just as his self-awareness was about to be torn apart, the source deep within his soul, from "Strange Sequence 1," was completely activated by this extreme pressure.

A primal thought surfaced in his mind.

“Emotions…are also a form of ‘information’.”

"Information... is also a kind of 'energy'."

"Anything that is energy can be... 'devoured'."

So what if it's all "negative"? Just swallow it all!
Shen Ge abruptly stopped his futile resistance. He gave up using willpower to fight against the endless despair and instead made a crazy decision—

He intends to consume these poisons as "nourishment"!

"Since it's irresistible, then... give it all to me!" At this moment, all the joys and sorrows belonging to the human "Shen Ge" vanished, replaced by an absolute "emptiness" that transcended all forms of life. His thoughts, his emotions, his memories were all replaced by an absolute will.

Devour!

Devour everything!
His domain of mystery has undergone a subtle change; it is no longer a simple domain of power, but has transformed into a conceptual "black hole."

Faced with the overwhelming emotional torrent of the "strange monster" sweeping in once again, Shen Ge no longer resisted, but instead opened his invisible "giant maw".

The despair that would have driven any seventh-tier Ghost King mad was instantly broken down and crushed by the pure devouring instinct as it surged into Shen Ge's Ghost Domain, transforming into the most primal ghost energy, which was greedily absorbed by the progenitor cells.

Shen Ge's eerie domain suddenly expanded, completely enveloping the enormous body of the "eerie monster".

The countless pained faces that made up its body began to wither and dissipate at a visible speed. The sorrow that had accumulated over thousands of years was being slowly devoured!
It became Shen Ge's "meal".

This unusual battle was less of a fight and more of a feeding frenzy.

Minutes later, as the last gray face turned to nothingness in resentment, the massive body of the "Strange Power Monster" completely collapsed and dissipated.

Shen Ge stood still, slowly opening his eyes. His gaze returned to clarity, but it was even more profound and cold than before.

He exhaled a breath of turbid air, which transformed into a wisp of faint gray smoke in the air, containing the eerie energy remaining after being devoured.

This battle not only cleared the final obstacle on his way to the main control tower, but also gave him a completely new understanding of his power as the "King of Devils".

If the target is pure supernatural energy, then his own supernatural domain can absorb it and transform it into his own supernatural energy.

Although the process is relatively slow, it is a good option when faced with a situation where it is impossible to win quickly through force.

However, absorbing a large amount of negative emotional energy made Shen Ge feel something was wrong with his body. It was a very strange feeling, and he didn't know for a while what changes had happened to his body.

However, now is not the time to dwell on these things. We should obtain the dream fragments as soon as possible and regain control of the dream power, then all problems can be solved.

Shen Ge took a step forward, and his figure appeared at the top of the main control tower.

This is the core of the entire dream fragment, a huge circular space that seems to be made of pure light and data.

Countless streams of silver information cascaded down from the void like waterfalls, converging on the spherical source beneath their feet that emitted a soft white light—the condensation point of the entire Precursor civilization's memory.

On that pure white, flawless core of origin, a highly discordant "foreign object" was perched atop it.

It wasn't some kind of strange entity, nor was it a living being. It was a pure black, constantly spinning vortex of data.

It was like a black hole in the information realm, from which countless twisted, insane, and malicious codes emanated, like the tentacles of a virus, constantly eroding the pure white dream essence below and staining it with ominous spots.

Soon, these "mosaics" transformed into disgusting, fleshy tentacles, flowing down into the world below, flooding streets and houses.

Soon, the black data vortex stopped eroding the essence of the dream and instead focused all its erosion on Shen Ge.

Without warning, the surrounding scenery changed. The magnificent space composed of data vanished instantly, replaced by a scene that Shen Ge was extremely familiar with.

High-rise buildings stand tall, traffic flows smoothly, the sunlight is warm but not glaring, and the air is filled with the familiar scent of dust and smoke.

He was standing in his former home, on the streets of Rongshi before the apocalypse.

The people on the street were chatting and laughing, and everything was so real that it was impeccable. Even the accents of the street vendors were exactly the same as I remembered.

Immediately afterwards, a clear and familiar voice rang in his ears.

"Master, we have detected abnormal fluctuations in your emotions. Do you need me to provide you with psychological counseling?" Xiao Qi asked.

He slowly turned around and saw the LiXiang III battle armor, in its crimson mist form, hovering quietly behind him.

The armor's faceplate slowly opened, revealing a face formed from a stream of data.

"..."

No, if a direct attack doesn't work, are you switching to playing the emotional card?
Sure enough, the next second, familiar faces appeared behind Xiaoqi: Cheng Shengnan, Deng Yuqi, Fang Mingyue, Yoona...

"Thanks for your hard work."

"You can go home now."

"All suffering is over. You no longer need to fight, no longer need to devour, no longer need to struggle in endless despair."

It began to paint an incredibly enticing blueprint.

“I am not a virus, but a ‘key,’ a ‘authority’ to transcend this broken world. I can read your memories and understand your desires. Once you merge with me, we will share the power to alter reality. Going home will be as simple as rewriting a line of code for us.”

"You can resurrect all the dead, erase all pain and sorrow, and create a perfect home... without any eeriness or conflict."

“Come on,” the countless figures it conjured simultaneously reached out to Shen Ge, their eyes filled with anticipation, “Embrace me, and together we will… become ‘gods’.”

This is the ultimate test of Shen Ge's deepest weakness: going home is the only obsession that has sustained him through countless life-and-death situations and devoured endless fear. And now, it has transformed this obsession into a tangible reality, placing it right before him.

Shen Ge looked at the crowd in front of him quietly. After a long while, he slowly raised his hand.

Just as it thought it was about to succeed, Shen Ge's hand did not reach out to grasp it, but instead snapped its fingers lightly in mid-air.

"Snapped."

With a soft sound, the incredibly realistic illusion of Rong City around us rippled violently, like water with a stone thrown in, and finally turned into countless fragmented data streams, disappearing without a trace.

"A very impressive performance." Shen Ge's eyes even carried a hint of sarcasm.

"Unfortunately, there is a fatal logical flaw."

The black vortex of data surged violently, clearly not expecting its ultimate temptation to be so easily exposed.

"If you truly possess the divine power to alter reality and create worlds," Shen Ge said calmly, "why go to such lengths to bewitch me into merging with you? Wouldn't it be simpler to just erase me or turn me into your puppet?" (End of Chapter)