Star Empire

".Start recording."

"Time: Star Empire Expedition Chronicle 1 ■96 318 963 124 years."

"Location: No. 746831 Joint Office, Seventh Experimental Zone, Lower Area, Black Gate Fortress."

"Test participants: Tester 7-47-47977, Tester 7-47-78913, Tester 7-47-63289, Tester 7-47-96319, Tester 7-47-14739, Tester 7-47 —28973, Supervisor 7-27-741346, Supervisor 7-27-974137, Supervisor 7-13-134417.”

"Test sample: Star Empire Standard Meme Classification Type 707 mother parent, subtype No. 74313741963, ADES-r subspecies."

"The subspecies number ADES-r shows that the test sample has the characteristics of high infectivity, strong penetrability and extremely high self-sustainability."

"The total test serial number: 981 687 744 763 application confirmation, the seventh experimental area has been approved."

"The supervisor confirmed: The test environment is stable and this test can start."

"The 981 687 744 763rd memetic interaction experiment begins."

After hearing the instruction to start the experiment, the testers surrounding the giant hexagonal prism took a step forward almost at the same time. Now, they have the ability to access the core part of the memetic research equipment.

As individuals who directly study memes, the testers also wear the work clothes issued by the fortress, but in addition to the work clothes, they also wear a full set of safety armor, which makes them look like alloy cans. After entering the range where they could manipulate the Memetic Constraint Core, they stopped and did a final check:

There are no mirrors around, and none of the bulkheads cast shadows, so don't worry about seeing strange shadows.

The number of identification lines on the work clothes on the body is normal. No one has more than four and less than six identification lines on the work clothes.

All the staff working in this joint office have a normal number of identification patterns on their work clothes. If all the identification patterns are added up, the final total also meets the requirements. This total is 37 - It is not divisible by seven or a number two smaller than seven.

There are only humanoid creatures in the lower area, and the appearance characteristics of humanoid creatures are that they have only one head, one pair of arms, and one pair of legs. The head is the shortest, the arms are the second, and the legs are the longest. They look different. They cannot and should not At no time should the head, arms, and legs look like a long, thin, crooked finger.

The surrounding environment is normal, and there is no slime or pink light flowing from the cracks or gaps.

The surrounding bulkheads look very solid, and the operating equipment displayed in front of you looks dry, light, and beautiful.

The environment is normal and the test can continue.

At this time, a transparent crystal fragment appeared in the hands of the six people. They carefully placed the crystal fragment into the groove next to the operating table. After receiving these fragments, the groove was covered by a cover plate, and the crystal fragments that entered it were transferred along the guide rails to the observation port of the memetic confinement room.

There, six crystal fragments were carefully pieced together. When all the crystal fragments were completely integrated with each other, the cracks began to heal quickly, and the fragments were united to form a circular transparent filter. Through this filter, the gazes of the six testers were gathered into one gaze. This combined gaze passed through the observation port and looked into the interior of the memetic restraint device.

"Start the operation."

Six people simultaneously grasped the control handle in front of them, and they would carefully release the experimental sample into a relatively free environment. In almost simultaneous movements, six chips were removed. After that, these seemingly alive messages will multiply and multiply in the guts of the memetic restraint device.

Six chips as the last restraint were removed, but only five people's actions successfully released ADES-r, and what the sixth person released was the ordinary meme No. 74313741963. Compared with the fierce mutant , the prototype No. 74313741963 can even be said to be weak.

"Tester 7-47-28973, operation error, one warning. Please note that you have been warned 7643.89 times."

There was a warning "voice" coming from above, and the "voice" came from above the room. That's where the control room is located. The transparent control room is like a round light tube hung on the roof. Only three people are needed to have a panoramic view of everything in the entire room.

The tester made an operational error and was warned by the supervisor, but both parties ended up pretending that nothing had happened. This was not because the two parties were irresponsible, but because of the "tacit understanding" established by both parties over a long period of time.

Without the help of these "tacit understandings" that cannot be recorded in writing, it would be completely impossible to survive and complete one's work in the Black Gate Fortress.

In name, the Black Gate Fortress is a memetic research station, a high-risk memetic research center, and a national laboratory specializing in information preservation and information interaction, but this is only a "nominal" thing.

Before coming here, His Majesty Wheeler did not clearly explain what everyone needed to fight or study when they came here.

However, the words used by His Majesty Wheeler when recruiting crew members were very strong. It seemed that even the death squads could not face the dangers of the Black Gate. Before leaving, the emperors of several major regions who had established the Black Gate Fortress were also present. And again and again, it was explained that the environment was dangerous, and there would be no problem even if we quit now, and

Various signs indicate that here, everyone needs to face a dangerous enemy, an invisible, unmentionable, and extremely dangerous enemy. This enemy may be more dangerous than the fault zone, and it is unprecedentedly dangerous.

that's the truth.

The safe living regulations of Black Gate Fortress have become a thick book. Over hundreds of billions of years, countless strange accidents have been written into safety regulations with ink made of blood and tears. These visible precautions and invisible precautions, that is, the "tacit understanding" and "hidden rules" that are passed down orally, provide the most comprehensive safety possible for all personnel working in the Black Gate Fortress. Assure.

Under the deliberate "misoperation" of Experimenter 7-47-28973, the released prototype meme No. 74313741963 was quickly destroyed by those fierce mutants.

"Information fragments were observed and have been determined to be the remains of the meme prototype No. 74313741963."

"Get ready to start recording the test."

When there were no more than four and no less than six ADES-r mutants left in the inner tank of the memetic restraint device, a violent abnormality occurred.

The output results of the sensing equipment began to become restless, and the originally relatively stable indicator curves began to oscillate wildly. Countless groups, operators, and matrices began to bite each other, like a group of fighting snakes.

"Start recording activity traces of ADES-r subtype."

Through filters, testers standing on different sides of the hexagonal prism can see the real-time situation in the inner tank of the memetic restraint device: when there are no more than four and no less than six ADES-r in the inner tank After mutating, they seemed to have been pressed on the pause button for a moment, and then they began to twitch and tremble crazily. They stopped attacking each other and started running around inside their guts, as if fleeing from some dangerous predator.

The experimenters waited quietly. They did not expect a miracle, and the miracle did not come.

ADES-r, which has high contagiousness, strong penetration and extremely high self-sustainability, cannot face the invisible enemy. No, not only is it impossible to face it, ADES-r can be said to be helpless in the face of the invisible enemy. They fall into passivity the moment after their number is just enough to cause the enemy to attack. They cannot proliferate. Nor can it stabilize itself. After a few seconds, all traces of ADES-r were lost.

"The test is over and the results are recorded: ADES-r is invalid and the observation data has been backed up and archived."

"Confirm, the test is over, collect the broken filter."

"Start to retract the broken filter and start the hammer - the hammer fails to start and cannot restore the filter to its broken state!"

"Alert! There is an abnormality in the control valve. The highly contaminated information in the inner tank will break through the inner tank constraints and cause uncontrollable backflow in twenty-seven seconds!"

"Attention everyone, evacuate this joint office according to the predetermined plan!" After confirming the sudden abnormality of the test equipment, the ring control room located at the top of the six-sided room immediately sounded the alarm. The nine people began to move towards the location of the ejection room of the large area rescue cabin. As these heavily armed figures left, several layers of thick armored doors closed in response, temporarily locking the sudden abnormality within the cabin.

According to the previous plan determined by the regional headquarters, personnel evacuating from the joint office where an unexpected situation occurs must leave in an escape capsule. After being ejected, the escape capsule will follow the predetermined flight route and leave the dead tide area. At this time, the escape capsule After confirming that the situation is normal, people can return to the lower area through the central shaft of the middle area.

"The situation is not normal." The voice of tester 7-47-47977 stopped everyone: "According to the map, we should have arrived at the escape cabin ejection room by now, but we still have not left the test area."

"It's really not correct to check the positioning system. Is it normal? Check the positioning system again. Your location cannot get the imperial network service?!"

"What?!" When the words "Unable to obtain empire network service" popped up, these nine people all felt like they had been hit hard deep in their hearts - had they fallen into another dimension?

"Calibrate the positioning again. Wait, you see, there is an escape cabin ejection room to our left!" 7-47-63289 suddenly said, everyone followed the sound and looked in the direction he pointed, and there was indeed a passage there!

"However, in my impression, such a passage does not meet the specifications of the Black Gate Fortress. There should not be such a passage there!"

".Indeed, we-wait, that passage!"

"What's wrong?"

"One, two, three, four and an edge."

"I get it! Oops!"

"Test 7-47-28973, Supervisor 7-27-741346, Supervisor 7-27-974137, you must leave here and inform this situation!"

As if he could understand people's words, after he noticed something was wrong, the passage with a regular pentagonal cross-section first melted into a ball of pink light, and then, countless tentacles emerged from the pink light. The middle suddenly stretched out!

"——Let's go!!" After the situation became clear, the three people who were ordered immediately fled from here without looking back. Faced with those tentacles that looked malicious and poisonous, the six people left behind began to gather countless shadows. These shadows were both drawn from the past and from the future. Pulled - With the first and second enhancement modes fully activated, people who are ready to sacrifice increase their present power at the expense of all their past and all their future.

The dull sound of soft objects slapping against hard objects was mixed with the sizzling sound of slime, the crisp crackling sound of expanding space cracks, and the sharp whistling sound. Since the armored partition door blocked the place, the sound of the battle did not affect it. What a vast scope.

"Black Gate Fortress-Black Gate Fortress Lower Area Command jointly announced: All people living and working in the Black Gate Fortress lower area please pay attention that no one should hold a whole broken filter alone at any time. You All waste you generate should be discharged into the dead tide realm. No waste should be retained for longer than one day, regardless of the reason for its creation."

"The lower area headquarters of Black Gate Fortress announced: This area is equipped with an escape cabin ejection room and an escape cabin passage directly leading to this area. However, the escape cabins are not located in the room on your left. They are clustered and are managed by the area. They will only appear in a few fixed locations within the area. These locations have been registered in the latest safe living regulations. At any time, you should not trust the escape pod or escape pod ejection chamber that appears on your left. At the same time, , please be careful not to enter any passage whose positive cross-sectional shape does not meet the requirements of safety regulations."

"The lower area headquarters of Black Gate Fortress announced: There are only humanoid creatures in this area, and there are no other-looking creatures in this area. If you see other-looking creatures, please use all means at your disposal to make them unable to To be seen again.”

"The Lower Area Command of Black Gate Fortress announced: Please do not try to repair or enter the malfunctioning rooms or floors. Black Gate Fortress has been standing in the death tide area for a long time and lacks logistical support. There are rooms or floors that cannot be repaired inside the fortress. This is normal. Remember, please do not attempt to enter a room or floor that has been blocked due to a malfunction, no matter what your reason."

".Commander 79463 of the lower-level area, please report on the current overall situation of the lower-level area."

"All floors and rooms related to abnormalities in His Majesty Marion Wheeler's lower area have been stopped from use. At present, the ability of the lower area to undertake research functions has dropped to 29.8879% of the design value. Death Wave No. ■ and No. 6 The contaminated guidance turret is no longer usable. Among the remaining turrets that can be used, the No. 1 guidance turret with the worst preservation condition has been deactivated... We only have four turrets for our main weapons."

"Okay, I know."

"Your Majesty, you may need to choose a new lower-level regional commander as soon as possible. I don't know how to describe my current situation, but I think I only have one arm and one leg. My head seems to have... My arms or legs used to look the same and were the same length. They seemed to be similar to the fingers on my hand, but they were much longer and looked quite uncomfortable. I couldn't tell the difference between my mouth and my mouth. Where is it, but there is a hole in my stomach, and pink mucus has been leaking out. I don’t know why there is so much stuff in my body. By the way, Your Majesty, my vision is pink now. I feel the surrounding Everything is covered with a layer of pink. Your Majesty, please take care."

"Okay, I understand." Wheeler cut off the communication.

Accompanied by an imperceptible sigh.