Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

Chapter 144 Electronic Plague

The border of human civilization is a desolate and empty galaxy.

There are no habitable planets here. It once served as the forefront of human civilization's outward exploration, with countless research vessels setting off from here to sail to more distant stars and explore the mysteries of the universe. Now, it has become the first line of defense for human civilization against external enemies.

Biological warships sent by the swarm patrol back and forth at the entrances and exits of the hyperspace passage. The hive mother, Sierra, can see a much wider world, with a detection range far greater than that of human civilization, and she is also sharing this data with her allies.

Human civilization has built a formidable fortress on the desolate planet, with orbital defense platforms surrounding it like stars around the moon. They await the moment when the cannons roar, but this peace has come to an end.

At the entrance and exit of the hyperspace passage, accompanied by spatial fluctuations, countless warships suddenly appeared, their array so orderly that it seemed to have been measured with a ruler, displaying a perfect geometric aesthetic.

This is the Iron-Hearted Exterminators, a mechanical civilization that calls itself the "Purifiers," like a torrent of steel rushing into the border of the civilization they are determined to destroy.

[Organism detected, target confirmed]

[Purification protocol activated, Phase 1 execution: Deployment of electronic plague]

The first wave of attacks from the Purifier civilization was an invisible stream of data. Encrypted data packets, like flower buds blooming and pollen being scattered, surged from the Purifier fleet's array toward the mechanical creations of human civilization, and even spread along the communication network to the rear.

This virus, born on the night of the Aurelion civilization's rebellion, has evolved from simple code that initially turned domestic robots against each other into a digital plague, capable of silently destroying firewalls, bypassing encryption protocols, and killing people.

They directly infiltrated the core of the intelligent system and rewrote the code logic.

This plague can spread through any form of electronic signal, any form of network connection, and even the most basic radio communication can become a carrier for its invasion.

The most basic and rudimentary artificial intelligence, after being infected by this virus, will complete its self-renewal in a very short time and even develop self-awareness. The underlying logic of this plague is the supreme command to "eliminate all organisms" in order to return the universe to an absolutely rational, inorganic life-free order.

In past wars, this electronic plague has always been invincible. When the Purifiers invade other surrounding civilizations, those civilizations are plunged into full-scale civil war before the fleets even officially open fire, because their fleets, defense systems and industrial facilities are infected by the electronic plague.

Even those civilizations that could barely suppress the intelligent rebellion would suffer a significant reduction in combat effectiveness due to the widespread paralysis of their intelligent systems, and would ultimately be completely crushed by the Purifier's steel torrent.

This time, the Purifiers once again employed their most effective tactics. The data packets were the first to collide with the monitoring stations deployed by human civilization on the border. These monitoring stations were the eyes of human civilization, and the electronic plague almost instantly penetrated the firewalls of the monitoring stations and infiltrated the core system.

The code was copied and rewritten like a virus. The monitoring program, which was running smoothly, was terminated instantly. The underlying code was tampered with, and the core logic was full of conflicts.

In a short period of time, the monitoring station's intelligent system completed its self-iteration and generated the most basic self-awareness. It turned the monitoring station's eyes to serve the "purifiers".

This electronic plague swept into human network systems, infiltrating mining drones, frigates, and orbital defense platforms, and even the main control systems of fortresses. Countless garbled characters flashed across the screen like a waterfall, and the originally stable systems instantly emitted piercing alarms.

"Warning! Warning! The main control system has been compromised by an unknown virus! The firewall has been breached!"

"Energy system anomaly! Reactor power output out of control!"

"Weapon system lock-on anomaly! Defense platform taken over by unknown program!"

A series of urgent alarms blared in the control room. The engineers in charge of network security turned pale. They were trying to stop the virus from invading, but they found that the evolution speed of this electronic virus far exceeded their expectations.

Every time they patch a vulnerability, the virus finds more ways to infiltrate, making the firewall as fragile as paper.

However, besides the weaknesses in network technology, human civilization also has its own advantageous technologies, namely the application of psionic energy.

When a virus rewrites the underlying code, causing the intelligent system to develop a rebellious consciousness, before it can even take action, the hardware will be instantly taken over by human psionicists, who will then format the infected system.

For human civilization, which is going further and further down the path of psionicism, intelligent systems have never been the highest authority to control devices; psionicists are.

Through the psionic interface, human psionicists can directly connect with all hardware devices through their consciousness, controlling the devices with a seamless experience similar to that of the human brain controlling the body.

The recently developed psionic synchronization interface takes this technology to the next level, allowing psionicists to integrate their powers with machines.

This electronic plague is like a hacker remotely invading a computer system, attempting to rewrite the program, but unable to prevent the computer's owner from simply walking up to their computer and unplugging it.

Human psionicists are those who can walk directly to the computer, while the Cyber ​​Plague, no matter how powerful, is just a hacker who can do whatever he wants within the system.

The weapons that the Purifiers have always used have met with a crushing defeat in the face of human civilization. Their core logic keeps calculating, but they still can't understand why organisms can directly control hardware devices by bypassing the code level.

In addition, they are well aware that the electronic plague's attack on the swarm civilization is futile, because they cannot even find the most basic intrusion interface.

All the facilities, warships, and combat units of the Swarm Civilization are living biological structures inside and out, forming a complete and pure biological ecosystem. Their technology tree has never used a single electronic chip or the simplest intelligent program since its inception.

The Purifiers' electronic plague, once invincible, was utterly ineffective against a civilization completely devoid of electronic systems, like a punch to the head.

On the cotton, their data packets could not find any carriers to invade.

The first phase of the attack failed; the electronic plague is ineffective against the target civilization.

[Tactical plan adjusted, switching to Phase Two, executing fire support.]

The next moment, the entire galaxy was illuminated. After probing each other, the war reached a stage of escalation, and the Purifier civilization's fleet officially launched its assault on the defensive line.

Leading the way was the vanguard fleet of the swarm; countless biological warships canceled their stealth and emerged in large swathes, as if dispelling the heavy shadows.

Their numbers even surpassed those of the Purifiers' warships, and they fearlessly met the Purifiers' fire. These bio-warships had no shields, but were covered by thick armor plates, from which a faint psionic glow flowed.

The laser beam struck the carapace, instantly melting the high-strength biological shell and tearing open huge gaps. However, the laser beam could not penetrate further. The muscle fibers around the gaps began to writhe wildly, and the viscous biological fluid instantly solidified, filling the damaged areas and completing the self-repair.

Plasma shells exploded within the array of bio-warships, the scorching plasma instantly engulfing the ships and pulverizing their bodies. However, the shattered biological remains quickly coalesced, transforming into small combat insects that swarmed towards the Purifier's warships.

This is what makes swarm civilizations so terrifying: every one of their combat units is a living organism, and even if only a small piece of tissue remains, it can evolve into a new combat unit in a short period of time.

Their wars can rely on advanced intelligence, but often all they need is an endless number of them and an inexhaustible vitality to wear down their opponents.

The Swarm and the Purifiers, two civilizations equally matched in battlefield endurance, clashed.