Chapter 300 - Basilisk Serpent

“The lethal image first appeared on websites all over the world. It was the work of a notorious hacker organization. Thousands on websites with enormous traffic were hacked overnight and the image was stamped on the front page of these websites…”

Fujiwara Aoki took a deep breath and suddenly chuckled. “On that day, caught completely off guard, death toll exceeding the billions was tallied all across the globe.”

“How did each government react?”

Chen Chen asked, “Also, what did the picture turn out to be, was it deciphered later on?”

“With it being such a major event and all, of course, the officials weren’t going to standby idly.”

Fujiwara Aoki nodded, his expression growing gloomier as he went on. “The hacker organization was wiped out in just three days. No one knows where the pattern came from. The government probably does, but they won’t tell us anything.

“As for the reason the pattern could kill people, the experts gave a detailed summary – this was a specially structured pattern. In essence, they were a string of geometric paradoxes that cannot be processed by the human brain. This creates a paradoxical chain in the human brain akin to a computer, which induces a physiological phenomenon known as ‘Gödel’s shock’. Upon experiencing this phenomenon, the human brain will proceed to shut down.”

“Gödel’s shock.”

Chen Chen repeated it to himself. Gödel was the greatest mathematician and logician of the 20th century and his most famous work was the renowned Gödel’s incompleteness theorems.

“Yes, many people began circulating the message that this pattern seemed to be closely related to Gödel’s discoveries in the field of mathematics and physiology. And so, the effect triggered by the pattern was hence named ‘Gödel’s shock’.”

Fujiwara Aoki explained, “When the brain shuts down, the heart stops functioning as well, which completely kills the person. This was also the reason why the pattern which claimed billions of lives was later named Basilisk. It was formed from the fresh blood of Medusa upon her death and it possesses the same ability to petrify humans.”

Chen Chen nodded. The Basilisk was a mythical beast whose original form was the cobra. In ancient Greek legends, it was heralded as the deadliest poison in the world. It was a rather fitting title for the pattern which killed people on sight.

“In that case, how were you able to survive it?”

Chen Chen suddenly asked when he thought of this, “Is there some sort of predetermined pattern or was it all luck?”

“The officials claimed that it has to do with being young…”

Fujiwara Aoki dug his head. “When it happened, I was barely twenty-years-old. I was in the peak of brain development and managed to brace the effect and avoid having my brain shut down.

“The final statistics convey the same idea as well. Out of all age demographics, the fifteen-year-old to twenty-five-year-old demographic displayed the highest survival rate, up to ten percent.”

“The highest is just ten percent?”

Chen Chen frowned. This image pattern was truly terrifying.

“That’s right, the chances of survival from being exposed to Basilisk is inversely proportional to one’s age. Above sixty years old, the survival rate barely reaches 0.1%.”

Fujiwara Aoki could not help but recall the events. “Even now, I still remember the events of that day. It was early in the morning and I had just woken up. When I checked online, the first thing I saw was that image. I blacked out immediately after that and only came back to my senses after half an hour. I had no idea what happened during that period.

“After that, I received a barrage of messages on my phone. The government began telling everyone to stay off the Internet and avoid social media apps by using text message announcements. The picture even turned into a virus. When a device becomes infected, the image will appear on the screen…

“Three days later, incurring the combined wrath of all the governments of the world, the hacker organization was no match at all. All of the members across the world were exposed. Not a single one missing.”

Upon mentioning this, a touch of sarcasm appeared on Fujiwara Aoki’s face in the form of a smirk. “At the time, we naively thought that that was the end of it. Little did we know, it was only the beginning.”

The luster in Fujiwara Aoki’s eyes slowly faded as he said this, “The Internet has already been deeply integrated into the everyday lives of people all across the world. Nobody could live without it. The Basilisk picture continued circulating on the Internet, occasionally claiming new victims. Despite strict criminal laws enacted by all local governments to prohibit further spreading of the picture, they were unable to completely curb the phenomenon.

“At first, it was no big deal. Despite Basilisk continuing to spread online, with the combined efforts of each country, it was going to fade out eventually. Only we never expected that just a few months later, a new version of Basilisk emerged…”

Chen Chen became immediately curious. “You’re saying that a new image emerged online that has the same effect as Basilisk?”

“Yes.”

Fujiwara Aoki sighed. “Although we were unable to remember the intricate details of the original Basilisk pattern, we could still describe its general appearance. For example, we remembered that it consisted of hundreds of blocks of colors, all in black and white. Some of these blocks faintly depicted the outline of an eye, which was one of the reasons it was called the Basilisk. When the second image emerged, Basilisk became the formal term for these images…

“The second picture was known as the ‘Reaper’. And why was it called the Reaper? Because according to the people who have seen it, the patterns faintly outlined the shape of the grim reaper holding the scythe, all the people who have seen it died after…”

“Died after?”

Chen Chen frowned. “You mean the people who have seen it didn’t die instantly?”

“Yes.”

Fujiwara Aoki nodded. “The ‘Reaper’ is different from the ‘Eye’. It doesn’t immediately shut down the brain. You won’t have any notable reaction upon seeing it. It’s only when someone mentions the picture to you when Gödel’s shock is triggered, killing you instantly.”

Hearing this, Chen Chen squinted his eyes suspiciously and asked, “What is the underlying principle?”

“I have no idea about that.”

Fujiwara Aoki smiled bitterly. “The ‘Reaper’ is just the second Basilisk picture. What followed after that was the third one, then the fourth one… Nobody knows who was responsible for creating these new patterns, but by that point, the Internet was already abandoned by mankind. There was a shift in social order in which people died every day. The smartphones we used were replaced with the electronic display mobile phones we used back in the day.

“However, Basilisk was still continuously morphing…”