Flowers Blooming in the Wasteland

On the big screen, Celeste saw some signalized people being swallowed up by a huge information group without any resistance, and some people with physical bodies struggling to resist, but they were still caught by the robot and locked in forcibly. Molecular transporter is installed, and after scanning, it breaks up into molecules.Then all houses, streets, entertainment facilities, public facilities, shopping malls, and cars were dismantled one by one by robots, leaving only a huge "host" and countless extensions connected to the host on the lifeless planet.All the resources are used to expand the host with an increasingly large amount of data. The only light source in the screen is the blinking indicator light on the host, and the only movement is the robot under the control of the host walking between the host and the extension. Standing, silently maintaining the only device on the planet.

He Xiao's voice continued to speak calmly: "Because the will of the planet does not have the need to maintain food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, and there are no useless worries and distractions that arise when you are a weak individual, there are no more differences, no more Internal friction, it began to fulfill the ultimate goal of a civilization - external expansion. It no longer sticks to the original life form, but directly uses molecules to synthesize various "tentacles" according to actual needs. Things that require entities to do."

Creatures with a huge brain and countless grotesque hands, or flying fleshy balls with huge eyes, appeared on the screen.

"Mass said that what came to Earth was not the body of the Devourer, but just a section of his 'tentacle'." Celeste looked at the screen intently and asked, "Is this what we are about to face? "

He Xiao looked back at the strangely shaped sarcoids on the screen, smiled and shook his head: "This is just a metaphor that Keith used the human body, as an artificial intelligence system, it is still not very good at such a difficult 'metaphor' Behavior, in fact, 'tentacle' is a concept, used to describe all 'external equipment' except the main brain of the Devourer, some tentacles have physical bodies, some do not, some are as weak as an ordinary human being, and some are equivalent to miniatures version of the Devourer itself—such as the one that came to the earth. In short, the Devourer began to continuously explore outwards, digitize everything he found, and then integrate it into his knowledge base, whether it is a flower, a The rabbit is still an entire intelligent civilization. Wherever he passes, there is no other life except himself. When it starts to devour other civilizations, there is no civilization around it that can match it, and when it finally meets some When more powerful civilizations meet, other civilizations are surprised to find that the Devourer has become invincible. Now its body has spanned several galaxies, and its tentacles have reached every corner of the universe."

A terrifying scene was presented on the screen, the entire galaxy turned into a brain, every planet whose surface was completely filled by the mainframe of the Devourer is a neuron, and the invisible signal connection between the planets is the nerve fiber , Tentacles of various shapes wander around the periphery like nerve endings, destroying all resistance, and then use all available resources to build more mainframes on every conquered planet.

In front of this super brain as big as several galaxies, all other civilizations in the universe are just like ants. Celeste saw some aliens wiped out a civilization at the cost of arduous struggle and huge casualties. The mainframe on the planet, but to the Devourer, it's just a dead cell on his body, it's not a big deal at all, he continues to expand in other directions, building his own mainframe on more planets.

"Do you probably understand?" He Xiao said lightly, "This is the most powerful 'individual' in the universe, that is, our enemy - the Devourer."

---

After a long silence, Celeste asked a question: "Who are those fighting the Devourer?"

"This is exactly what I'm going to say next." He Xiao said, "If there are devourers, there will be intelligent civilizations that are unwilling to be swallowed. In the face of powerful enemies, many intelligent civilizations form an alliance. This alliance is in every There are different names in civilizations. We can roughly call it the "Guardian Alliance". There are very powerful and advanced civilizations, and there are also weak civilizations that have just started. All races are doing their best. Fight against the expansion of the Devourer on a cosmic scale."

"So, you are a member of the Guardian Alliance?" Celeste guessed.

"That's right." He Xiao didn't deny it, "I can only tell you so much about my identity, and one day you will know everything, maybe you can remember it yourself without me telling you."

Celeste lowered his head and was silent for a moment: "How strong is the Tentacle of the Devourer on Earth?"

"Have you started thinking about how to defeat it now? Very good." He Xiao sat on the chair and crossed his fingers and said, "The good news is that it's not that strong. It doesn't even dare to show up in this world, because once If I find out, I will destroy him immediately. Although I can't do anything with the main body of the Devourer, I can still kill a part of the tentacles. The bad news is that although I know where it is, as long as it doesn't show up, I can't do anything about it."

"...why?" Celeste asked.

"Because we are all in a three-dimensional space, the Devourer has already mastered the ability to enter a higher dimension. Although it is not yet mature, it is enough to make us helpless." Following He Xiao's explanation, Case began to look at the world again. Animations are used to make annotations on the screen, "Take ants as an example. The world of ants is two-dimensional. Except for a very few individuals who can fly, their senses are only front, back, left, and right, without the concept of up and down. When it climbs When a table leg, it appears to us to be higher than the ant on the ground, but to the ant, although it is affected by some negligible gravity, its relative position is only in another ant's In front'. At this time, if there is something hanging in the air next to the table, the ants may know that it is 'existing', but there is no way to reach it."

Celeste saw a piece of suspended cake appearing next to the table. The poor ants were running around in a hurry, but no matter how they walked, they couldn't eat the suspended cake.

"I understand the concept of dimensional space." Celeste said, "But I don't understand, just like two-dimensional space is invisible in three-dimensional space, we can't touch a space that only has length and width, but no thickness at all. world, why can the Devourer hiding in the four-dimensional space do whatever he wants in the three-dimensional space?"

"Its technology has far surpassed ours, and I don't know how it does it technically." He Xiao said, "But it's a bit too much to say 'do whatever you want'. It is afraid of my power and dare not appear in the three-dimensional space. Space, many things cannot be done by ourselves. You can simply understand that it has no entity in this world, and it cannot even pick up a speck of dust. But as long as it hides in that four-dimensional space and does not show up, even if we It is powerful, and it is also a group of ants that can only crawl on the ground. There is nothing we can do about that piece of cake floating in the air. We can only watch it hide in a safe place, causing some seemingly minor but very serious problems to the world we live in. Fatal impact."

"Are you talking about affecting the signal?"

"Yes." He Xiao said, "I think you already know about the relationship between the Devourer and the True God Cult. Let's reorganize what it has done to humans by affecting signals."

An old black-and-white film began to appear on the screen in due time. He Xiao said: "Members of the Guardian Alliance came to the earth in the early days of human civilization to protect human civilization from being threatened and disturbed. But the Devourer It has also been staring at the earth for a long time. I don’t know when it stretched out its tentacles, because it didn’t want to be discovered by us. It didn’t do anything at first. It wasn’t until the Second World War that it turned into a mysterious The radio signal contacted a biology expert of the Japanese army who invaded China at that time, and gave him some technical tips, which helped him to successfully breed a modified rabies virus called 'Spring Rain', which was later Zombie virus."

"For some reason, the zombie virus did not spread immediately. Although our staff stationed on the earth had doubts, but at that time we did not know that the Devourer had mastered the technology to enter a higher dimension, so we thought everything was Humans did it by themselves, and the Devourer temporarily hibernated and continued to wait for the opportunity in order not to be discovered by us. After the end of World War II, all the research materials related to living body experiments in Japan fell into the hands of the US military, because it was too dangerous , the relevant information of the zombie virus was classified as a top-secret file and sealed up. Decades later, when we relaxed our vigilance, it found a scientist in the US military with strong anti-technology thinking, lured him through computer emails, and told him The existence of this information. It succeeded, and with its help, the scientist stole the information and began to secretly cultivate the zombie virus."

Celeste asked in confusion: "Why would that person risk his life to do such a wicked thing? It's not good for him at all."

"Wonderful? No, he doesn't think so." He Xiao smiled ironically, "That scientist did it with the noble feeling that he could save all mankind. First of all, he knew very well that the zombie virus and Like the rabies virus, it can only be transmitted through bites and scratches, even if it breaks out, it will not cause the extinction of human beings, but will only make human beings fall into panic, so as to reflect on the terrible consequences brought about by the development of science and technology."

"But this consequence is obviously caused by his extreme thinking, not the fault of technological development."

"Although I said that, if you think about it from another angle, you can also think that it is precisely because of the development of science and technology that people with extreme thinking have the opportunity to do this kind of thing." He Xiao said, "You should also know the future development Yes, after the outbreak of the zombie virus, people established countless quarantine areas, and the momentum of the infection was quickly brought under control, but the Devourer did not stop, and it hooked up with a scientist with anti-social personality, giving him Provided some information to help him cultivate the zombie virus into a second-generation virus that can be transmitted through the air. Later, that scientist became the founder of True God, and we finally found out that everything was behind the scenes Mischief, but at this time, the chaos of the world has already kicked off."