There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

"Almost there. Once we break through the dark clouds ahead, we'll reach the finish line."

Mr. Rhodes's description remained nonchalant, and it would have been even more convincing if one ignored the bruises on his face.

Looking at the dark clouds in front of me made my teeth ache.

That wasn't just dark clouds; it was clearly a massive, black wall of clouds. This wall of clouds was like a sponge soaked in ink, or a white fan smeared with black ink, forming a huge barrier that covered the sky and blocked all traffic.

The dazzling lightning bolts appeared and disappeared in the clouds high above, like a venomous dragon lurking below, brandishing its claws and fangs, watching us two intruders with ill intent.

"Mr. Rhodes, something's even worse here! Those dark clouds... seem to be getting closer to us!"

I observed the scene for a long time through my blurry vision and finally determined that the dark cloud was slowly approaching us, engulfing the distant rugged rocks in darkness until they were no longer visible.

Mr. Rhodes said coldly, "Prepare to hold your breath... These are nightmares spread by 'Deepsea Cataclysm.' If you get through them, you'll reach the summit. If you get lost in them, you'll probably become one of the walking dead..."

"This isn't what we agreed on! Why are we going to our deaths willingly?!"

I glared at the middle man beside me, but he remained unmoved and grabbed my shoulder to prevent me from backing away.

"Further words are useless. This is a test you must accept... Hold your breath, it's coming!"

No sooner had I finished speaking than profound darkness descended upon me.

…………

"Those who sleep eternally are not the dead."

In the mysterious eternity

Even death itself will eventually vanish.

Unfamiliar languages ​​and strange songs echoed in my ears, and before me lay a radiant void in the abyss, within which I saw some outlines. I could not see them in the dim light, but the light of the abyss revealed these shapes.

The raging wind beside my ears was as fierce as a demon, as malevolent as an evil spirit; and its sound, combined with the eternal desolation and claustrophobia, was chilling.

I felt the memetic imprints on my body scorching hot once more. The strange patterns were filled with unimaginable energy, as if a gigantic star had exploded inside me. Then, the core, expanding, reached the Chandrasekhar limit, collapsing and releasing a massive amount of energy-laden neutrinos that traveled to the star's outer layers. After exceeding the limit of visibility, it finally became a celestial robber, a cage of photons. It was insatiable, relentlessly devouring everything around it—evolving into a distorted black hole!

In that instant, I began to have a feeling—a feeling of the mind rather than the body—and then, suddenly, I felt my thoughts slip out of control, being blown away and sucked away in a chaotic and turbulent manner.

I don't know how much time I spent recalling and pondering the perplexing thoughts in my mind. Because my state was so unreal that size and measurement lost their meaning. This state seemed eternal; yet, when a sudden disturbance arrived, it might not have taken long. What happened was just as bizarre and inexplicable as the darkness before.

Memories flooded his mind in a chaotic and unrelated stream. Everything he knew—his background, habits, experiences, knowledge, dreams, thoughts, and inspirations—suddenly surged forth at once, so fast it was dizzying, so overwhelming it was dazzling. This torrent quickly made it impossible for him to pay attention to any individual thought.

Everything in my mind transformed into a procession, then into an avalanche, a waterfall, a whirlpool. The experience was as terrifying and dizzying as being dragged along by a crystal cube, hypnotically flying through space. Finally, this strange phenomenon exhausted his consciousness, plunging me into a new coma.

Another immeasurable void—and then, slowly, I began to feel something again. This time, it originated from my body, not my mind. Sky-blue light, and a distant, deep rumbling sound. I regained touch—I was aware that I was lying upright on solid ground, and familiar human senses, through slightly unfamiliar senses, resumed their transmission, giving me a truly tangible experience.

I tried to stand up to see where I was, but then I noticed something strange about my body…

I found that my vision had stood up, but I couldn't feel any touch, no breathing, no heartbeat, and not even any physical sluggishness—I was enveloped by strange, irregular crystals, and everything in my vision was illusory and ethereal.

The same thing happened to Mr. Rhodes, who was standing nearby.

This thing is now like an image preserved in crystal, casting colorful, irregular shapes in the air, shimmering in the crystalline state, complementing the azure horizon.

"Mr. Rhodes, we escaped? Am I dead or alive?"

I examined myself repeatedly, but I was unable to interfere with the entities around me; all touches were neutralized by space.

Don't look at me! And don't think about anything related to me!

Mr. Rhodes' voice was very loud, but his body fluctuated drastically within seconds of me seeing him, and cracks even appeared on his crystalline shell. He only gradually stabilized after I shifted my attention as instructed.

"The enormous energy released just now has transformed us both into quantum states. If a quantized being possesses a strong consciousness, they can maintain their quantum state through self-observation, meaning they won't collapse, thus maintaining contact with the macroscopic world. Therefore, we must continue self-observation, otherwise we will burst into the air like a bubble..."

I nodded, frowning, and said, "Mr. Rhodes, I understand every single word you say, but why can't I understand anything when they're put together? Is there a simpler explanation?"

Mr. Rhodes slowly said amidst the irregular crystals, "A simple explanation? Yes, we're dead, now we're two ghosts. Do you think that's simple enough?"

Chapter 412 The War of the Worlds (Part 1)

"Ah, this..."

I looked embarrassed and stammered, "Mr. Rhodes, didn't you say that we would be saved once we reached the top of Mount Mads?"

Rod's voice was puzzled as he said, "Aren't we saved now?"

I retorted, "But we're dead..."

Mr. Rhodes asked with even greater confusion, "Death is death, and salvation is salvation. Don't confuse the two. We died but we were saved. Is there a conflict between the two?"

"Oh...are you sure there won't be any problems?" I asked hesitantly.

“Of course, no problem!” Mr. Rhodes said decisively.

That's good...

...What a load of rubbish!

If I were to die, I could easily and happily die in town without even lifting a finger. Dozens of Deep Ones would deliver a supreme, disemboweling, full-body spa treatment, along with the ten classic manual techniques. There's nothing they can't do, only things I can't imagine.

Isn't it delicious?

Can anyone tell me, what was the point of all that effort I put into climbing this mountain and dying in this inexplicable place? Was it just because this cemetery is surrounded by high mountains and clear skies, with beautiful scenery, believed to be a place where the wind can gather energy and protect future generations?

But I haven't even left any descendants, so what's the point of thinking about these things!

"No way, officer!"

I screamed in terror, "Mr. Rhodes, are we really going to die like this? What about the rest of the plot? What about this novel? People in the group were blaming me for changing the map randomly, and now I'm even changing the main character?! Something's definitely not right here!"

Meeting Mr. Rhodes's puzzled gaze, I suddenly remembered what he had said before we went up the mountain, and quickly asked, "By the way! What about the reinforcements you mentioned? Didn't you say you had a backup plan?"

From Mr. Rhodes's side came the sound of tapping on glass, followed by a muffled voice: "My backup plan is this Phosphorescent Star Crystal. This crystal core, stripped from an interstellar creature, can block most external observations, preventing us from collapsing into a quantum cloud state due to the slightest breeze or the gaze of insects."

"That's it? That's it?" I started repeating myself in a broken voice, asking in despair, "But the town is beyond saving, we've become ghosts, and what's worse, I didn't save at the save point..."

Standing atop Mount Madras, looking down at the terrifying thunderstorm with its clusters of clouds and the strange lightning bolts churning within, I finally understood the magnitude of this unprecedented disaster.

To the west, the entire sea was swallowed by a dark and surging black tide, like a torrent of vomit churning up from the deep sea, violently sweeping over the island, the sea, and even the world.

The land beneath our feet has been swiftly swallowed by the black tide. Black mist rises from the sea, carrying wisps of nauseating, dark green gas. The churning poisonous clouds, like Nighoggi's apocalyptic venom, invade this world like tentacles. In my vision, the world's coordinates begin to malfunction, tilting and inverting. A dark figure flaps its membranous wings, silently flying towards the sky, which sometimes shrinks and sometimes swells, relentlessly expanding its territory to the ends of the earth!

This filthy and ominous darkness surged upwards, yet seemed to be held back by an invisible barrier, unable to engulf the land beneath our feet. At this moment, the summit of Mount Mades beneath our feet was like an isolated island at sea, being battered and shaken by the raging waves. Furthermore, due to the continuous landslides, there was a constant tremor, making us feel as if we were walking on a narrow log bridge.

Thus, Mount Madras, as the only surviving point within sight, is indeed preventing the "Deepsea catastrophe" from surging out of the abyss. But how long can this struggle last without other help? If the mountain were to physically collapse, how could the disaster be contained?

At this moment, the sun, which was at noon in the distance, seemed to have been bitten by an invisible creature, and it appeared to be slowly disappearing along the direction it rose, about to be swallowed by the invisible creature's mouth.

This blatant solar eclipse was utterly awe-inspiring! I forced myself to observe it against the sunlight and discovered that the shadow swallowing the sun was slowly expanding, displaying its power from bottom to top, yet emitting a strange buzzing sound...

"Mr. Rhodes, something is approaching over there..."

I stared in disbelief at the strange sight in the distance, only to find that Mr. Rhodes was completely unresponsive, squinting as he also gazed into the distance without saying a word.

But after a few breaths, the dark shadow that blotted out the sky quickly expanded into a visible scene, and obvious spatial disturbance ripples appeared in my eyes, as if it was flying towards me at an extremely high speed.

These creatures, flying with their backs to the light, finally revealed themselves. They were a group of pink things, each about five feet long. Their crustacean-like bodies were covered with several pairs of huge organs that looked like dorsal fins or membranous wings, as well as arrays of segmented limbs.

They fly using these membranous bat wings. However, during flight, these wings flap rapidly at a strange rhythm, like a person's legs moving quickly but in place, appearing somewhat malfunctioning. Instead, they rely on the propulsion of the spatial ripples behind them, as if gliding on the surface of water.

Where their heads should have been, they had a complex ellipsoid covered with numerous short tentacles and swirling oval nodules, seemingly communicating with their companions through the changing colors of the nodules, forming a formidable formation.

These strange creatures flew in from the horizon, stirring up a gale that didn't belong to this world. Ripples swept across the sky without dispersing a single cloud, as if they were a group of shadows from the void.

But the reality eventually dispelled the fog between me and them, and the closer I got, the clearer their shapes became apparent.

These creatures floated in the air, suspended in mid-air by matter not in sight, forming ranks before the eerie waves that the "Deepsea Cataclysm" shunned. Their forms were utterly irrational, their individual shapes completely irregular, resembling giant fungi encased in insect shells. Their distorted, chaotic appearance wasn't terrifying; it was their rapid and precise communication that sent chills down my spine.

"It's finally here..."

Mr. Rod's mutterings reached my ears, and I quickly asked him a question.

"What's coming? Mr. Rhodes, what are these monsters doing here? Are we being attacked from both sides?"

But Mr. Rhodes' voice carried a sense of relief, "No, now that these Migos have found this place, the reinforcements I've been waiting for are not far away!"

I couldn't believe my ears: "Reinforcements?! Didn't you say no one would come to rescue us?!"

Mr. Rhodes said with absolute certainty, "Of course no one will come to our rescue. The reinforcements I'm talking about aren't coming to save the two of us..."

He pointed to another spot in the sky, his tone filled with a sense of reverence, and proudly introduced it to me: "The reinforcements I'm talking about are here to save the world!"

Chapter 413 The War of the Worlds (Part Two)

Just as the strange insect-shaped fungi hovered in mid-air, gathering together to construct something unknown, an ancient biplane flew in from the horizon, skimming close to the turbid, black, rolling sea of ​​clouds.

Several waves—about ten meters high—rushed up rapidly from the Kuroshio Current toward the propeller plane with malice.

The driver displayed astonishing operational awareness at this moment, rapidly climbing before plunging down and, taking advantage of the swirling, viscous clouds before they descended, piercing through a hole in the cloud formations and swiftly escaping the chaotic area.

After a brief hovering, the propeller plane landed precariously on the top of Mount Mads, a stop fraught with danger, just one step away from plunging into the abyss.

A brown-haired man stepped off the plane, showing no emotion whatsoever about his feat. Instead, he immediately went to Mr. Rhodes, tapped the peculiar crystal with his finger, and spoke to the person inside.

“Rhodes, the Academy already knows the message you sent. Professor Henry Armitage has observed recent celestial anomalies and has requested the school's board of directors to send all its resources to support this place, and has predicted that this will be an unprecedented crisis.”

The stranger's face, with its deep nasolabial folds, remained completely expressionless, as if everything around him was just a trivial breeze, and his soul had long since solidified into an unbreakable shell, unmoved by any fluctuation.

This lukewarm conversation was probably torture for Mr. Rhodes as well. He began, "Professor Albert Wilmas, did you call all these Migos? What was the price you paid this time?"

The middle-aged man, known as Albert Wilmas, shrugged and calmly said, "I found these sneaky races at the Migo outpost. The red-headed leader didn't even wait for me to finish explaining before they all came out, so I didn't ask any more questions. At worst, they'll take my brain too, and I can continue my research into the next century."

"Migo is coming this way too? It's astonishing that these interstellar invaders would actually interfere in Earth's affairs..."

Mr. Rod sighed, only to find his figure undulating, almost turning into ripples on the broken water surface.

"Stop observing me! Professor! Please stop immediately!" Mr. Rhodes said angrily.

Professor Albert Wilmas immediately looked away, saying in the same tone, "Your method is truly amazing; it's incredible no matter how many times I see it. If I had your skills, I would definitely join the investigation team to continue the research."

At such a tense moment, I couldn't bear their rambling any longer, so I quickly reminded them, "Gentlemen, I don't mean to interrupt your reminiscing, but please consider the occasion. That strange creature over there seems to have assembled a bizarre device..."

The unidentified insect-fungus monster, using astonishing manipulation techniques, somehow produced complex components and created a gigantic cube with sides measuring twenty feet. Each face of the cube was covered with irregularly shaped convex windows made of a blurry, opaque, glass-like substance.

The three-headed monster gripped the machine tightly and slowly flew above the chaotic, dark tidal zone, dodging the rising clouds as it moved forward. As time passed, the shape of these foul clouds increasingly resembled soft, claw-like objects.

Finally, the flying monsters arrived at the designated area, climbed to a sufficient altitude once more, and then plummeted downwards at an extraordinary speed, like a stock market investor who had lost money and fell to the ground without any resistance.

At that moment, Professor Albert Wilmas, his eyes fixed on the enormous cube-shaped machine and watching the red light gradually emanating from it, suddenly asked a question.

"Rhodes, do you think that's the thing I'm thinking about?"

Mr. Rhodes said irritably, "Damn it, I wish I hadn't guessed what you were thinking, but there's no doubt that it's what you're talking about!"