The Collapse Begins

Lu Yuanming gained a lot of information from Tang Zhean, the most important of which was understanding the basic structure of the Dark Matter World and why those Unnamable Monsters were so terrifying.

The Dark Matter World is an idealist world where thought, consciousness, and information determine everything.

When a civilization descends from the material world into the Dark Matter World, only the sentient life and the civilization itself can be preserved. The sentient life reconstructs their bodies with the fundamental particles of dark matter, while the civilization itself partially transforms into urban territories similar to New York City, and another part shatters and becomes invisible during the descent, turning into Order Fragments.

The so-called Order is, in fact, order.

Compared to the physical laws of the material world, the idealist structure of the Dark Matter World is unstable.

Thought, consciousness, and information are all things that are easily changed and chaotic. This is the origin of those monsters, and curses, ghosts, and other things in the material world. They all come from humanity itself, representing the twisted and chaotic parts of human civilization.

According to Tang Zhean, when human civilization descends into the Dark Matter World, the resulting urban areas can effectively isolate the Unnamable Entities from the outside. This is because human civilization still carries the order and laws of the material world. During the descent, these orders and laws can be acquired by life forms. Depending on the depth of the civilization, multiple Orders can appear.

For example, Xianxia from Eastern civilization, Magic from Western civilization, or Deities from lost civilizations, along with Sci-Fi from modern civilization. These are the Orders manifested by human civilization. Their effect is to allow those who acquire them to enter places similar to Small Worlds. Inside, they will either break through distorted and chaotic information (monsters), achieve something or a result that has never appeared in human civilization, or survive for a certain period of time. In short, the conditions vary, and they will ultimately obtain corresponding Orders based on their actions within.

Ascending through Orders means accumulating power from weak to strong by following the laws of a specific Order.

"This is all the information I know about Orders. After all, I haven't even acquired the most basic Order. Most of this information is my speculation. In fact, it's very simple."

Tang Zhean rephrased it in a way that Lu Yuanming could understand: "The material world has unparalleled order, but this order is in a broad sense, meaning various Cosmic Laws and Physical Laws. Humans cannot transform it into personal power. The Dark Matter World, on the other hand, is an Idealist Worldview. Humans can absorb the fundamental particles of dark matter through thought and consciousness to increase their mass, and then use this mass to gain Supernatural Power. The external manifestation is like waving a hand and summoning immense Thunder and Flame, or like in those comics and animations, appearing figures like the Uncertainty Daoist or the Atomic Energy Pope."

"But because the Dark Matter World is idealist, during this process of becoming extraordinary, information disorder will occur. As information accumulates, chaos and distortion will arise. The more powerful the information source, the more severe the chaos and distortion. Once a certain critical point is exceeded, it will transform into monsters, or even more terrifying Unnamable Entities. They are strong, but they can no longer be called life, only phenomena belonging to the category of natural disasters."

"The so-called Order is all the material world's order, sequence, or series accumulated within human civilization. By accumulating mass according to the strength of these Orders, from weak to strong, while there is still chaotic and distorted information, at least a certain degree of sanity can be maintained, and they are still considered life itself. Accumulating to the extreme and completely controlling the power of this Order is what we call a Spirit. I estimate that human civilization can at most support four to five Spirits. Spirits are basically not afraid of the Unnamable Entities outside, but they are only not afraid; confronting them is still impossible."

"But you are different!"

Tang Zhean looked at Lu Yuanming with burning eyes and said, "You can traverse both the material world and the Dark Matter World. This means you don't have to worry about the accumulated information disorder and distortion in the Dark Matter World at all. I think you must have felt it too, right? After you kill a monster, as long as you return to the main material world once, your soul will become stronger, externally manifesting as becoming taller and larger. At the same time, I think you might also feel that your reaction speed has become incredibly exaggerated. With gradual accumulation, you will also develop numerous superpowers, such as Telekinesis, Psychic Ability, or emitting light, fire, and electricity, etc. These are the changes brought about by the accumulation of your mass."

Lu Yuanming's heart trembled slightly.

This was something he hadn't told anyone: he could absorb White Light Particles after killing monsters, and his soul would grow stronger each time he returned to his Original Body. He hadn't expected Tang Zhean to have deduced this.

Tang Zhean, completely oblivious to Lu Yuanming's anomaly, continued to speak excitedly, "This is actually your unique advantage. Besides you, any other existence wanting to increase their mass in the Dark Matter World must ascend through Orders. Only by relying on the order accumulated by civilization over hundreds or thousands of years and anchoring themselves can they avoid the distortion and chaos caused by the increase in mass. But you are different. You only need to return to the material world. No matter how much distortion and chaos you accumulate, it is insignificant to the material world. Even those Unnamable Great Terrors are as insignificant as the weakest insects to the eternally unchanging Physical Laws of the material world. So, do you understand? You are walking on an Order that only you can tread, and this Order is named the Order of Matter. What you rely on is not the mere accumulation of human civilization over thousands of years, but the order of 13.7 billion years of the universe."

"This is the strongest Order, bar none!"

Because of these words, Lu Yuanming made up his mind and began a city-wide sweep, clearing out all the monsters, especially those carrying Order Fragments.

Lu Yuanming now knew that the Gray Light Cluster dropped by the Super Giant Spider after its death was an Order Fragment. Since others couldn't see the Order Fragments, they couldn't touch or move them after killing monsters. These Order Fragments would then evolve, becoming Order Spaces, and then manifest. Only when people enter the Order Space and conquer it is it the correct way to obtain an Order.

Besides the Super Giant Spider, at least one Super Giant Man-faced Dog also carried an Order Fragment, and there might be other hidden Super Giant Monsters. These were all Lu Yuanming's targets.

Lu Yuanming was not stingy this time. Apart from keeping ten Colorless Light Particles for emergencies, all other Colorless Light Particles were exchanged for ammunition. After discussing with his disciples, he took twenty selected elite Soldiers, along with Charlie and his subordinates, Peter, and Tang Zhean, who strongly insisted on following. Everyone was equipped with a Firearm and at least one hundred rounds of ammunition. With this group, they began the city-wide sweep.

At the same time, the Base began to fully consolidate its defenses. Lu Yuanming had exchanged for plenty of ammunition. The entire Base had over thirty Firearms for defense. Combined with favorable terrain and constructed defensive checkpoints, as long as the ammunition didn't run out, they wouldn't fear even a Super Giant Monster attack.

On the first day of the sweep, Lu Yuanming and his group killed over a hundred monsters. Although there were no super-giant monsters, the number of White Light Particles obtained from over a hundred monsters was still considerable.

That evening, as Lu Yuanming and Tang Zhean were discussing the sweep plan for the next day, a large number of monster roars suddenly erupted from the darkness. At the same time, thousands of meteor showers appeared above everyone's heads.

The sky in the Dark Matter World was not filled with stars, but rather a giant funnel-shaped spiral space. The very top of this spiral was the material world. At this moment, light began to fall from the material world. This light disintegrated in mid-air, finally turning into countless meteors that plummeted towards the ground.

This scene stunned everyone. They all stared blankly at the sky above.

Tang Zhean watched this scene, and after a long while, he said in a sighing tone, "It has begun..."

"The large-scale collapse of the material world, the first phase has begun!"