Nightmare Cataclysm and Eating

The middle-aged man was named Yamadai, a name that sounded distinctly feminine, yet it was the real name of this manly, iron-blooded brute.

He had been born in the middle of the Third World War.

Unlike what people of the twenty-first century had imagined, the Third World War had not ended quickly. It had lasted a full one hundred and twenty years!

In 2317, the remaining forces of West Great launched surprise attacks on the capital and major cities of East Great, as well as key military districts. Mobile Phase-Beam Matrix Nuclear Bombs were used on the battlefield for the first time. This kind of nuclear weapon broke through the lower limit of nuclear critical mass; the smallest Mobile Phase-Beam Matrix Nuclear Bomb weighed only sixty grams!

With East Great caught off guard by the first wave, the remaining nations of West Great and the neutral countries of the Third World declared war on East Great one after another. Thus, the Third World War erupted.

Because of the Super-Electromagnetic Firmament Force Field, conventional high-yield nuclear missiles had been rendered ineffective. So the mushroom-cloud apocalypse never came. What came instead was a Third World War of miniaturization, mass proliferation, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. All eleven billion people on Earth were dragged into it. Nowhere was safe, and no one could stay out of it.

Over one hundred and twenty years of world war, East Great collapsed, West Great was completely finished, and nearly every nation in the world lost its unified government. Humanity was divided into small isolated groups fighting alone. The world became a collection of severed islands, all because of the biochemical rampage that emerged in the middle and later stages of the Third World War.

It was not Resident Evil, but something even more terrifying: biochemical mechanical nanolife replicating and evolving across the globe, then attacking every living thing. After killing it, they used its body as material to continue replicating.

By the worldview Wu Pifu knew, the middle and later stages of the Third World War were roughly equivalent to the world of Metal Max he had once played. Any animal in it might suddenly extend machine guns, cannons, laser guns, and the like from its mouth the next second, tearing nearby humans to pieces.

Because of this Cataclysm, civilization had nearly been annihilated. Humanity's races and nations had been shattered. People of every skin color lived together, every language was spoken at once, and all races gradually became one another.

Yamadai had been born and raised on such a battlefield. He did not know who his parents were. Or rather, the older members of that squad had all been his family. Yet even the oldest among them had only been in their forties. They too had been humans born and raised during the Third World War, never having attended school for even a day, knowing of the prosperous prewar world only through scattered fragments of words.

And because civilization, nations, and ethnic groups had become completely mixed together, regardless of skin color, everyone had strange names that did not distinguish between male and female, East and West.

Yamadai was a battlefield veteran. His greatest stroke of luck had been encountering the salvation organization.

At humanity's most desperate point in the Third World War, an organization called Azure had emerged out of nowhere.

This organization possessed humanity's prewar technology, a highly organized political structure, and the grand ambition of saving humanity and saving Earth. Countless humans joined it, and Yamadai was one of them. Though he was a battlefield veteran, he had been at the very bottom of the organization, the sort of ordinary soldier whose name might not even have been recorded.

He suffered grave injuries in a battle against a giant beast-type biochemical weapon. By twenty-first-century standards, those injuries would have meant immediate death. Although emergency battlefield treatment during the Third World War preserved his life, it could not keep him alive indefinitely. In the end, considering his sacrifices for the organization, the merit he had accumulated on the battlefield, and so on, he was frozen and placed into hibernation, becoming a "Future One" like Wu Pifu.

People who froze themselves due to terminal illnesses, injuries, or various other reasons, waiting to awaken hundreds of years in the future, were collectively known as Future Ones.

Then, when Gaia was completed in 2877, Yamadai was revived by the Unified Human Government just like Wu Pifu. But this left him owing the Unified Human Government an astronomical medical bill. In the end, he had no choice but to sign a maintainer contract and become an honored maintenance worker.

Compared to Yamadai, the curvy woman's name was much more normal. Her name was Xu Shilan.

She was not a Future One, but a criminal of the Unified Human Government—a former citizen and now a maintenance worker.

Fraud, theft, murder, selling weapons to the Human Revolutionary Union, war crimes, Slaughter crimes. Sentence: eight hundred years!

Xu Shilan had not told them this information herself. Rather, the Main Brain had marked it so that everyone could see it. This was also meant to distinguish Future Ones from criminals. Although the Unified Human Government treated them all as maintenance workers, Future Ones were still the kind who could barely become citizens after earning enough merit and service. As for criminals... the Unified Human Government would prefer that they all died, especially serious offenders like Xu Shilan.

Xu Shilan did not offer the slightest rebuttal to the crimes marked by the Main Brain. She merely kept watching Wu Pifu with great interest, making him feel somewhat awkward instead.

Xu Shilan truly was an extremely sexy woman. It was not that she dressed revealingly. On the contrary, she wore the standard maintenance worker uniform, exposing nothing from head to toe except above her neck.

Yet her posture, expression, and movements all radiated charm. Even a single glance made people feel that she... was incredibly seductive.

Wu Pifu was currently answering Yamadai's various questions. Only Yamadai was asking; Xu Shilan merely stood quietly there, displaying her charm.

"You said... these aren't Biochemical Beasts?" Yamadai asked with a frown.

Wu Pifu answered with certainty, "That's right. Neither of them is. One is a mutagen, and one is a contaminated entity. Neither is the kind of Biochemical Beast you mean."

Yamadai was utterly bewildered. He looked toward Xu Shilan.

Xu Shilan finally spoke. Spreading her hands, she said, "Sorry, I don't know what mutagens or contaminated entities are either. Although I'm a citizen of the Unified Human Government—uh, a former citizen—I know about Thirteen Singularity Technology Corporation, I know about the Human Revolutionary Union, and I know about black technology, but I still don't know what mutagens and contaminated entities are."

The two of them looked at Wu Pifu again. Recalling and thinking as he spoke, Wu Pifu said, "A mutagen is a monster whose body and consciousness have changed because it could not withstand... a gaze. They are all material entities, and they are not infectious, contaminating, corrosive, or parasitic. They are considered the easiest type among all horrors to deal with. Of course, don't underestimate mutagens either. Some powerful mutagens may lack those special traits, but their strength can still reach an outrageous level. And also..."

"Wait a second?" Yamadai rubbed his brow and temples. "I understand every word you said, but I don't understand what you're actually saying. And what do you mean, couldn't withstand what? You didn't say anything."

Wu Pifu spread his hands. "It can't be said. It can't even be described. Main Brain, how long until Week's End?"

A countdown projection appeared before the three of them.

"Six days, eight hours, forty-two minutes, fifty-one seconds."

The two stared blankly at the countdown. Yamadai immediately pointed at the total time displayed behind it and said, "Why does it say sixty-six days, six hours, six minutes, and six seconds? Does that mean something?"

Wu Pifu nodded. "Yes. The duration of one 'week' is sixty-six days, six hours, six minutes, and six seconds. I don't know what it specifically means. It has just been that way since I woke up."

In a coy voice, Xu Shilan asked, "What will happen when the countdown ends?"

Wu Pifu spread his hands. "The truth... the truth you want to know will be revealed."

Yamadai immediately asked, "Have you experienced Week's End?"

Wu Pifu's face darkened, and he nodded. "Yes. I have. Twice... Only one hundred and fifty-six days have passed since I woke up. Don't think I've been awake for decades or centuries."

Yamadai and Xu Shilan exchanged a glance. Yamadai then said seriously, "Then can you tell us exactly what happened, from beginning to end?"

"I can."

Wu Pifu recalled the day he had awakened. At that time, there had still been several seniors in Sector 6123. As time passed, only he remained.

"At first, I woke from hibernation just like you did. There were no mutagens during that awakening. Two others and I revived normally."

"My seniors told me that all of Gaia had become a terrifying prison full of monsters. The Main Brain had sealed almost all passageways, isolation rooms, and various convenient and functional facilities, because those places were filled with monsters, horrors, ghosts, or things that should only have existed in fantasies."

"The reason was because of... a gaze. The Dream Network suffered a Cataclysm. All citizens fell into the Dream Network, and only maintenance workers who had not connected to the Dream Network could awaken normally."

"This Cataclysm could not be explained or understood. Dreams, which should have been illusory and virtual-reality-like, had somehow become Dream Worlds that people could physically enter and bring real objects out of."

"The Main Brain classified these Dream Worlds by information level, evaluating them according to Baseline Reality. Baseline Reality 1 was the real world: no horrors, no supernatural powers, no changes in history or culture. Starting from Baseline Reality 0.9, minor changes would appear. For example, my strength. You must be curious about what this strength is, right? This is National Arts, a cultivation method for training the body. It is something that could never exist in the real world, but I obtained it in a Baseline Reality 0.9 world. The further down one went, the greater the deviation. Ghosts, specters, curses, legendary creatures, even... gods and demons could appear!"

"Of course, not all supernatural beings in Dream Worlds are necessarily malicious. Some may be friendly, neutral, or dangerous, much like us humans. It is only because they possess supernatural powers that they are all dangerous to humanity. The truly fatal threat comes from Nightmares, terrifying entities born from Dream Worlds that specifically target maintenance workers like us who enter those Dream Worlds!"

"And we must face those terrifying entities..."

At this point, Yamadai suddenly interrupted him. "Wait. If it's really as you say, and the Dream Network has undergone such an unbelievable change, then can't we simply choose not to go in?"

"Eating," Wu Pifu said helplessly.

"What do you mean?" Yamadai and Xu Shilan asked at the same time.

Wu Pifu spread his hands. "The Main Brain has sealed all the passages. Our current activity area consists only of the hibernation chamber and this Maintenance Base Station. We can't go anywhere else, so aside from fresh water, we have no food here. Not even a tiny bit."

"If you don't go eat in Dream Worlds, are you planning to cultivate immortality in this sealed place?"