Chapter 12
In the end, Su Mo still decided not to stop him from returning to his original world.
Of course, all of this depended on Liu Dajun actually being able and willing to return. If he was unwilling, Su Mo would not interfere too much.
There was actually another reason for doing this: to test what loopholes remained in his Microcosm, then patch every last one of them.
He believed that after his repairs, transmigrators like Liu Dajun would no longer suddenly appear in his Microcosm.
Even if another did appear, it would have to be with his approval and permission. Otherwise, wouldn't his universe become a sieve?
Anyone who passed out on his doorstep could enter his Microcosm directly. What kind of nonsense was that!
Did they really think this was a transmigration novel, where people traveled to other worlds at the drop of a hat?
Still, all of this would have to wait until after this world destruction. There was only a little over an hour left anyway, so he could spare that much time.
Su Mo simply refused to believe that another transmigrator could pop up in his Microcosm in such a short time!
If that happened, it could hardly be called a universe anymore. A sieve would be a more fitting name.
After a series of emergency treatments and attempts to wake him, the Grade III Class A hospital still failed to bring Liu Dajun around, but they felt he might wake up at any moment.
So they planned to keep trying. If there were still no results afterward, they intended to publicly announce that Liu Dajun had become a permanent vegetative patient.
In the Microcosm, another fifty years passed in the blink of an eye. Now, fewer than twenty years remained before the thousand-year world-destroying calamity.
During those fifty years, terrifying giant mosquitoes occasionally entered Blue Star from space and attacked ordinary people.
Although these giant beasts, only three to four hundred meters long, posed no threat to the fortresses like those monsters that easily reached a kilometer, and a fortress's firepower alone could even wipe out three or four giant mosquitoes.
But if ordinary citizens of the Three-Eyed Tribe encountered such monsters outside, they would be devoured in an instant, without even their bones remaining.
Actually, Su Mo also found it rather absurd when he saw these mosquitoes eating people directly instead of sucking their blood, but he figured it out after only a moment.
Mosquitoes sucked blood in the real world because that was all they could do. But in the Microcosm, given their size, ordinary humans really were just a single mouthful to them.
Life was already difficult enough. They traveled from space to Blue Star to find something to eat, only to be beaten by Giants of Light or bombarded by fortress firepower. Finding a person outside the fortresses was harder still.
Even when they finally caught someone, it was only a single mouthful. If they spat out the bones, that little bit of blood would not even cover the energy they spent flying.
And after eating one person, they had to leave immediately, or a Giant of Light would come chasing after them. If they ran a little too slowly, they would die.
Although the mosquitoes had not developed intelligence, that did not mean they were stupid. They still had survival instincts. Besides, they had already survived in this world for eighty years. Who knew how many generations of the original mosquitoes had come and gone?
If the mosquitoes' reproductive ability had not been so astonishing, they would have gone extinct long ago, given how hard it was for them to find food and how the Ultra Empire's people piloted Giants of Light carrying massive firepower to encircle and exterminate them every few years.
Of course, there was actually another reason they had not gone extinct: Su Mo had secretly intervened once to save them.
After all, these were creatures Su Mo intended to keep in the Microcosm as wild mobs. Once one civilization was done with them, the next civilization might still have a use for them.
And now you want to solo them all yourself!
Where am I supposed to find mobs later?
You expect a dignified creator god like me to go catch mosquitoes again!
What kind of nonsense is that!
So, to ensure he would not need to catch mosquitoes again, he ultimately intervened to save them and even gave them a batch of resources so they could reproduce properly instead of starving to death.
Perhaps they had mutated in the Microcosm, or perhaps they had gone too long without blood and were too hungry. Many mosquitoes had now started eating dirt on the planets instead.
But eating dirt could not keep them alive, and eating too much of it would even hasten their deaths. Still, they had no choice. The Ultra Empire's people were too powerful. Ordinary mosquitoes had no chance of returning once they entered Blue Star.
They had actually launched large-scale attacks too, but after learning about the mosquitoes' habits and weakness to fire from Liu Dajun, the Ultra Empire repelled even those large-scale attacks.
After exterminating large numbers of mosquitoes, they even sent people into space, hoping to locate the mosquitoes' nest and wipe them out in one stroke.
It was that time when, without Su Mo's intervention, the entire mosquito army would have been annihilated.
The sight made even Su Mo shake his head. What miserable mosquitoes they truly were.
In the real world, although people could slap them to death, they could still suck a little blood now and then.
After becoming monsters in the Microcosm, they instead had to survive by eating dirt, and had nearly been exterminated several times. They truly were a disgrace to monsterkind.
Over these fifty years of development, the Ultra Empire's people also felt a sense of urgency. They worked together, and their technology underwent several consecutive explosive advances.
The current Ultra Empire had not only fully returned to its peak condition.
All eighty-one fortresses were intact, and the population lost before had been fully replenished.
At the same time, because of the mosquito monsters, they had been developing their arsenal throughout these years.
Even the Giants of Light had their blueprints made available because of the mosquitoes.
As Ultra V put it, since they already had Ultraman Tiga, and monsters had already appeared, why not increase the number of Giants of Light?
Now, each of the eighty-one fortresses had a Giant of Light, although theirs were all simplified versions with parts cut or modified.
Their size had shrunk nearly tenfold, each standing only a little over a hundred meters tall, but fighting mosquitoes and the like was still no problem.
To distinguish them, each fortress's Giant of Light was given a different name.
For example, Taro, Ace, Leo, Gaia...
Most of these names were still ones Ultra V had asked Liu Dajun to come up with.
By now, the Ultra Civilization's technology had surpassed Earth's. Each Giant of Light was equivalent to an aerial battleship. Although it could carry only one person, it was already truly capable of traveling through space.
That was something even present-day Earth could not yet accomplish.
Recently, Liu Dajun had increasingly felt that something was wrong with his mental state.
Although he had often stared blankly into space during the previous decades, when he had been sidelined at home because of that incident, he had returned to the Ultra Empire's highest stage after the mosquitoes appeared.
Yet for some reason, he frequently felt that something was wrong with his mental state, and his mind would wander from time to time.
Whatever he was doing, the slightest lapse in attention would leave him standing there in a daze for a long time.
At first, Liu Dajun thought this was happening because his current body was getting old.
But after looking at Ultra V, who was now nearly five hundred years old yet remained full of energy every day, he realized something was wrong.
His current body was only a little over three hundred years old, and he used the best genetic technology too. This sort of problem should have been impossible, so he suspected something had gone wrong with his body.
Everyone else had noticed this. Ultra V had even specifically arranged for people to examine him for a time, but the results showed nothing wrong.
In the end, they could only attribute it to Liu Dajun's psychological issues. After all, a full two hundred million people had died in that incident because of him. They believed anyone who experienced something like that would carry the psychological scars for life.
After he finished recording all the mosquitoes' habits and naming the other fortresses' Giants of Light, Ultra V assigned him to recordkeeping work again.
That was right. What he was recording was the Slate of Destiny!
The closer they came to the final moment, the more uneasy Ultra V felt, so he ultimately decided to follow the other civilizations and record the entire history of the Ultra Civilization on stone slates.
If the Ultra Civilization was also destroyed in this world-destroying crisis, future generations would still be able to see the glory of their Ultra Empire.
Although, with the Ultra Empire's current technology, they might be fine even if all of Blue Star was submerged, let alone facing a mere flood, his heart simply could not settle.
Liu Dajun stood before a machine as Ultra V's words echoed in his mind:
"Liu Dajun, it has been over a hundred and sixty years since you came to our Ultra Empire. Although our Ultra Empire has accepted you, you are ultimately still someone from another civilization.
"So I hope you can record our history in your civilization's way, because only history recorded by others is the most truthful.
"So, from this moment on, you will represent your Earth civilization in recording the history of our Ultra Civilization.
"If we survive this world-destroying crisis, this will become a historical record. If we fail, then our Ultra Civilization will still be the strongest among the seven preceding civilizations!
"Not only have we reached the very forefront of technology, but we have also made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, so..."
Liu Dajun wrote out the entire history of the Ultra Civilization in simplified Chinese characters and compiled it into a book. After multiple revisions, he finally reproduced and printed it onto enormous, hard meteorites.
Looking at the square characters before him, so familiar yet unfamiliar, Liu Dajun felt his consciousness beginning to grow hazy again.
He had been in this world for over a hundred and ninety years. Counting his age back on Earth, he had already lived for two hundred years.
Two hundred years. Previously, he would never even have dared imagine such a thing. Never mind him-even Earth's richest tycoons probably could not achieve it.
I wonder if my older brother managed the company well after I left. Luckily, I wasn't married back then. Otherwise, I'd have ruined some girl's whole life.
"Liu Dajun, you're spacing out again!"
Hearing the voice, Liu Dajun whipped around. Seeing that it was Ultra V, he hurriedly said, "King Ultra."
Looking at Liu Dajun before him, Ultra V fell silent. His face was full of conflict, as though he was hesitating over whether to tell him about this.
After a long silence, Ultra V finally spoke. "After all these years of research, we've found the reason you keep falling into a daze."
Hearing this, Liu Dajun looked delighted and hurriedly asked, "Ah, really? What exactly is wrong with me?
"It wasn't so bad before. I'd only space out for half an hour or an hour. But lately, I've felt something getting more and more wrong with me. Sometimes I even space out for an entire day.
"Unless someone comes looking for me, I don't even know to go home. If there weren't surveillance cameras, I wouldn't even know afterward what had happened."
Ultra V silently watched the excited Liu Dajun before him. He seemed happy that the condition causing his dazes was about to be treated, but...
Seeing Ultra V remain silent, Liu Dajun asked in confusion, "Your Majesty, what's wrong? Is my mental problem very serious? It's all right. Just tell me. I can accept it. I'm used to it anyway."
Ultra V suddenly smiled, then shook his head. "No, it isn't serious. In fact, it's good news for you."
"Good news? Your Majesty, stop joking. In this condition, what good news could there possibly be? Just tell me straight. I can take it."
"According to what you told us before, you came to this world after a car accident. Then, as you put it, your soul-your brain computer-accidentally transmigrated to this world, correct?"
Liu Dajun was puzzled. "Yes. Your Majesty, why are you asking about that? It happened so many years ago."
Ultra V did not answer that question, instead changing the subject. "Do you know why I asked you to compile the Ultra Empire's history and write it down using the civilization of your original world?"
Hearing this, Liu Dajun was even more bewildered. He had no idea what was going on with Ultra V, but still answered, "Didn't you say recording it as someone from Earth's civilization would make it more objective and truthful?"
Ultra V continued shaking his head. "Actually, we had already discovered the problem with you back then. That was why we assigned you this work."
"What do you mean?"
Liu Dajun now also sensed that something was wrong. His brows involuntarily drew together, and a faint unease stirred within him, as though Ultra V was about to reveal some extraordinary news.
Ultra V reached out and gently patted Liu Dajun's shoulder, seemingly in reassurance, and a kindly smile appeared on his face again.
"Don't worry. This is a good thing for you. The reason this is happening is that your original body is calling out to your consciousness. In your words, it's pulling at your soul. You're about to return to your original world."