Chapter 596 - Retreating to Reality

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Instead of being plunged into eternal darkness the moment he opened his eyes, Chen Chen instead opened his “eyes” that allowed him to see what the naked eyes could not observe!

With this newly acquired sight, he invoked a subspace tidal stream that allowed him to easily kill Zhao Shanhe on the spot!

After executing Zhao Shanhe, he noticed a cloud of bloody mist appearing from where he was killed. Amid the bloody mist, there were Zhao Shanhe’s eyes wrapped inside it and his voice drowned with death rattle coming from within the depths of the clouds of mist.

“Impossible, you must’ve played some tricks, why aren’t you dead yet!”

Chen Chen snickered upon witnessing this scene. He lifted his hand and prepared for another attack, but the cloud of mist was suddenly sucked into the opening leading to reality, and departed from the subspace.

Chen Chen did not pursue his rival. He only looked ruminatively into the remnants of the mist with two empty sockets painted with fresh blood.

“I killed Zhao Shanhe…”

Chen Chen muttered to himself. By now, he had pieced everything together.

It seemed like Zhao Shanhe had devised a plan all along in case things went awry for him. After he was afflicted with the antimeme left behind by Wang Xi, he managed to temporarily subdue its effects using the Civilization Monolith. The mysterious power of the black slate managed to suppress the effects of the “I See You” antimeme successfully, but Zhao Shanhe was hounded with gut-wrenching pain every day from thereon.

Therefore, his final resort to purging the cursed antimeme was to head to the Event Horizon dimension in search of whatever clues that may help him. Before embarking on his journey, he intentionally left behind four horror movies in the dimension key:

Ju-on, Final Destination, One Missed Call, and Ring.

These were the collection of movies Zhao Shanhe discovered that carried the most lethal memetic entities. He left them behind to sabotage the next person to acquire the dimension key.

There was another reason he had injected these movies into the dimension key. It served as a fallback in case things went wrong for him. If he encountered some kind of fatal accident in the Event Horizon and died in the dimension, the power of the Civilization Monolith would allow him to fuse with the antimeme and return him to the real world where he would be bound to the dimension key!

The next owner of the USB drive would eventually open the four movies at one point or another, and would be killed by the memetic entities lurking within!

By then, the dimension would be free for Zhao Shanhe to claim again…

However, stumbling into Chen Chen in the Event Horizon dimension was completely out of his calculations. It was only after discovering the identity of Chen Chen when he realized the severe stakes involved, that he may very well lose his life in the process!

On the other hand, Chen Chen recognized Zhao Shanhe immediately. To loosen Zhao Shanhe’s guard, he claimed that he was afflicted by the antimeme as well. Chen Chen’s ploy was superbly effective since Zhao Shanhe saw it as a chance for him to turn the situation around in his favor.

Zhao Shanhe realized that the antimeme bound to Chen Chen may very well be the antimeme he had left behind intentionally to plague the next owner of the dimension key so he could leverage on this golden opportunity!

Upon recognizing the cards laid out on the table, Zhao Shanhe immediately improvised on his already existing plan. He decided that he was going to kill Chen Chen while they were in the subspace and from there on, alter the course of history!

Zhao Shanhe’s plan was put into effect when he betrayed Chen Chen earlier.

After Zhao Shanhe’s body was destroyed, he retreated to the real world using the antimeme, and after his retreat, he had become incredibly weakened. He bound himself to the dimension key and fell into an extended slumber.

After eighteen years when Chen Chen acquired the USB drive, Zhao Shanhe was awakened during one of Chen Chen’s instantiations…

From there on, the story played itself out in time.

As for Chen Chen’s action of removing his eyeballs, this was not the first time he had done something like this.

The first time Chen Chen had done this was when he was trapped in an elusive dreamscape. After all, removing one’s eyeballs was one of the major clues depicted in Event Horizon. In the movie, Dr. Will who turned into a demon proclaimed after gouging out his eyeballs:

“Where I will be heading to, I will not need eyes…”

This can be interpreted as that eyes were not needed in the subspace. It was only by removing one’s eyes could one see the true form of the subspace dimension!

The problem was that Zhao Shanhe possessed the body of a mere mortal and could not ever fathom mutilating himself. Meanwhile, Chen Chen had nothing to fear. His body was the body of the Consciousness Stealer. Why should he ever fear gouging his eyes out? Even Zhao Shanhe slicing his chest open with the lightsaber did not inflict any damage on him. The only result of it was that a small portion of his flesh was scalded by the heat of the lightsaber.

Zhao Shanhe, after losing his body, could only silently bear his losses and escape in the form of an antimeme.

“Decades ago in the timeline, I terminated your conscience myself. More than a decade later in the real-time universe, I’d have to kill you again. The workings of the multiverse are truly wondrous…”

Chen Chen shook his head. The way he understood it was that Zhao Shanhe retreated with the idea that he may come back from this defeat in the distant future. Little did he know, their next encounter would lead to his ultimate death, where even his conscience could not be preserved!

The pain in Chen Chen’s eyes slowly subsided. He surveyed the world around him with his empty sockets, taking his time to explore this unknown world.

The world stretched out before him was an endless stretch of gray that went as far as the eye could see. Countless strange and indescribable particles flickered in the air. They did not seem like stars.

This was not the solar system nor was it the Milky Way. It was a place that did not subscribe to the conventions of the universe. There was no light or air and space and time themselves were distorted in this dimension.

The entire space was eternally bound to darkness and chaos as countless chaotic distortions bubbled in every corner of this space. From time to time, a gray bubble would suspend itself mid-air and then burst instantly. It would cause a ripple effect of countless strange observations without explanations that could not be described in mere words.

This space was full of never-seen-before electric wave signals and abrupt radiation. These chaotic fluctuations ate away at his consciousness. His very sanity was slowly corroding away when basked in this endless gray mist.

This was the cost of entering the subspace and seeing the webs of reality. Upon noting this, Chen Chen understood the reasoning for the crew members of the Event Horizon losing their minds and massacring each other senselessly.

After surveying his surroundings for a short period, Chen Chen directed his gaze to the location where Zhao Shanhe was last seen. Shattered fragments of the black slate could be seen levitating in the air. It constantly repelled the gray mist of the subspace that threatened to surround it.

Chen Chen made a swift motion and summoned the fragments.

The workings of this black slate were entirely profound. Even after its destruction, it could resist the effects of the subspace and repel it on its own.

Upon touching the black slate, an abstract picture formed in Chen Chen’s mind.

It was a planet in its earlier, primitive form. There was a group of apes leading their lives in a tribal ecosystem. This collection of animals was still in their earliest, emergent form. They fed on whatever live animals they could find. These organisms had yet to place themselves on the top of the food chain.

On a fateful day spelled by destiny, a black slate emerged from the ground and levitated over the territory of the apes.

The tribe of apes looked upon it like they were witnessing a divine miracle. They gathered around it and began to instinctively worship it.

Moments after, the black slate released an invisible shockwave. The tides of its ripple spooked the apes and made them flee from its source in a fit of panic. What these primitive animals did not know was that the seeds of civilization were planted in the deepest corners of their mind from that day forward.

It did not take long after that occurrence for the apes to learn skills such as crafting tools, making fire, then on to systemized farming…

With the passing of each day, the apes soon learned to walk on two limbs instead of four. Their arms were now primed for better purposes such as operating tools instead of for walking. The seeds of civilization sprouted with a delightful radiance…

These montages came to Chen Chen’s mind. He watched the rise of civilization play out in his mind. He saw the apes gradually evolving into a hybrid form that began to resemble men, then soon evolved into the human race as he knew it. They propagated the planet like a viral virus.

The advancement of civilization only sped up from there on and in time, mankind had traveled into space. At that point, the pictures in Chen Chen’s mind stopped playing, representing the completion of the first phase of human civilization.

“So, this is the Civilization Monolith…”

When the montage concluded, Chen Chen pensively put away the fragments of the black slate and then he took one final look at the endless subspace.

There were still many profound questions that demanded an answer, such as the appearance of Professor Wang Xi, the robot in human skin, and what was lurking beneath the depths of the subspace…

There were still countless secrets hidden beneath the subspace, secrets in which Chen Chen at this phase was not qualified enough to unearth yet.

It was not a task to be carried out by Chen Chen as an individual, but by mankind as a whole. After all, the evolution of civilization was not an individual effort but a collective effort.

At this point, Chen Chen could feel the corrosion of the subspace slowly growing in severity. Without wasting another moment, he quickly entered the passage…

Again, he was basked in a lucid dream state and by the time he regained his senses, he had departed the subspace and returned to the upstream that intersected the subspace and reality. Even here, Chen Chen could feel the tidal wave of subspace eating away at his conscience. He quickly moved toward the outside world.

Just as he was about to exit the edges of the subspace countercurrent, he suddenly heard a deep, foreign hum coming from somewhere behind him.

Chen Chen frowned and turned around just in time to see the Air Force One falling apart, kicking a cloud of dusty mist. The passage leading to the subspace was expanding rapidly!

While the gap in-between space was being torn apart, an undefinable entity without a determined shape and form broke through space and hurdled through everything in its path and made its way toward Chen Chen!

“Hum! Hum! Hum!”

It bellowed a drumming hum that sent tremors down the depths of Chen Chen’s soul. He immediately sensed an apprehending sense of doom looming over him!

Chen Chen could sense the presence of this unknown entity that greatly surpassed that of the Consciousness Stealer which he was previously acquainted with. It was several tens of thousand times stronger!

Without wasting a moment, Chen Chen took off at full speed. He broke through the subspace countercurrent in an instant and the moment he emerged from it, the light in the world was shut off again. Everything descended into darkness.

Chen Chen quickly prodded forward cautiously with his psionic power and saw that the reality anchor that anchored the black fog in place began to tremble violently. What seemed like dark, demonic figures circling it was trying to break free!

“Escape!”

This was the only thing on Chen Chen’s mind. He bolted to the reality anchor at full speed and grabbed the device swiftly. Then, he went to where he had stashed X-112’s drive and immediately retrieved it and bound for Miami. The thought of taking the Black Knights with him hardly crossed his mind!

“Sir Commander?”

X-112 sounded puzzled by this sudden urgency. “Didn’t you enter with Zhao Shanhe? Why are you alone? Where are we going?”

“Home.”

This was Chen Chen’s short reply, followed by, “I can’t see anything now and am relying on Field for flight. Make sure to inform me when we get to Miami…”

“Your eyes…”

X-112 only just realized that Chen Chen had lost his eyes. She had a faint idea of what had happened amid the black fog but knew this was not the time for constant questions so she guided Chen Chen faithfully.

Chen Chen burned through all the Field concentration he had without any reserve and arrived in Miami in only half an hour. Not a single moment was wasted before he delved into the passage created by the USB drive and finally returned to reality.

Upon emerging from the passage, he quickly unplugged the USB drive from the computer and severed the connection between both worlds.

“Phew!”

Two Black Knights mechanically carted a stretcher to Chen Chen for him to lay on top and immediately operated on his injuries after that.

Chen Chen’s chest injury was almost healed up by this point. This was especially astounding considering how a major portion of his chest was carved out by the lightsaber and the extreme temperature of the lightsaber had burned through all of the surrounding muscles. Any ordinary mortal that suffered such injuries would be dead on the spot. Chen Chen’s survival was completely attributed to the inhumane body he resided in.

Two plump, white eyeballs began to grow from his eye sockets as well. Chen Chen had been suppressing the regeneration of his eyeballs while he was in the subspace, otherwise, it would have fully regenerated by now.

The mass of injury Chen Chen sustained had weakened his body greatly. In time, he should be fully recovered with the careful monitoring of the crew of Black Knights.

“Keep these fragments in a safe place.”

Chen Chen suddenly produced a handful of black slate fragments and handed it to a Black Knight while instructing, “Remember, this is very important. Make sure you stash even the smallest trace of powder.”

“Understood.”

X-112 noted. “But there are two reality anchors left behind in the Event Horizon dimension. Are we going to leave them there and let them go to waste?

“Do you want to retrieve them?”

Chen Chen shook his head. “It’s too late for that. It’s over for that dimension and even the mysterious civilization from DOOM cannot save it by this point… It’s over.”

X-112 left the subject upon hearing this remark.

“The subspace is far more terrifying than I ever expected…”

Chen Chen drew a silent sigh and reflected on what he encountered before leaving. Everything was fine when he entered the subspace, even during the exchange with Zhao Shanhe. It was only moments before he exited the world when a catastrophic entity made its entry. The timing was too uncanny to be a mere coincidence.

Could it be…

Professor Wang Xi’s face flashed across Chen Chen’s mind. What he experienced had the professor’s handwriting written all over it. Why would he do something like that?

Chen Chen craved an answer.