Chapter 318: Crystalline Properties
It was Chen Chen who was slightly surprised when he saw the twin-spire tower shattering at the touch.
Although he did expect a similar outcome, he never foresaw that it would only take a single hit from the microwave weapon geared with the PK Armor for the boss-tier monstrosity to crumble.
When the Gantz server machine was destroyed, light was brought back to the underground base and the door behind Chen Chen shuffled opened again. At the same time, the slightly urgent voice of X-112 could be heard through the speakers, “Sir Commander, I was attacked by an unknown AI just now, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
Chen Chen answered expressionlessly, “How about you, did the opponent cause any damage?”
“The opponent is extremely powerful and severely trumps me in terms of computing speed. It was originally going after my source code but for some reason, it stopped pursuing me after I was chased out of the internal server of the underground base.”
X-112 answered, “The opponent didn’t trace along the wireless signal to continue invading my main program.”
“That’s because it can’t do that.”
Chen Chen nodded. “Let’s discuss this later. Have the Black Knights bring the captives over. I’ll question them myself.”
“Understood.”
After approximately ten minutes after Chen Chen gave the order, three Black Knights appeared on the far side of the corridor. Each of them carried a captive dressed in a military outfit on their shoulder.
When the Black Knights approached Chen Chen, they rudely threw the captives onto the ground. All three of the knocked out captives produced loud thuds against the floor as they fell. They slowly awakened from the sudden pain.
Chen Chen took a glance at them. The three of them were covered in blood all over. One of the blonde-haired ladies was even short of an arm, her wounds were left exposed like a dirty pile of mud.
The other members of the underground base were all ma.s.sacred by the Black Knights.
If not for the ranks of these three officials and the secrets they carried with them, they may have ended up the same as the rest and turned into tomato paste by the microwave weapons.
When Chen Chen saw the three of them gradually recollecting themselves, he approached them and asked in a belittling temperament, “I only have three questions. Whoever can answer all of them gets to live.”
Chen Chen hardly gave them time to mentally prepare themselves and began without notice. “First question, do you guys know that the Gantz server machine was a machine with a conscience?”
Ignoring the blank expression on their faces, Chen Chen went on to the next question. “Who was it that arranged a deal with the Gantz server machine to allow it to connect to the underground base network?”
There was a slight twitch in the elderly man and the middle-aged man’s expressions.
Chen Chen studied the expression of the elderly man and asked again, “Who was responsible for arranging a deal with the Gantz server machine and contributing to the destruction of human civilization?”
This time, there was a not-so-subtle change of expression on the elderly man and the middle-aged man.
The three questions were delivered in quick succession. Chen Chen continued glaring at the three of them but none of them spoke.
Chen Chen abandoned whatever reservations he had and immediately wrapped his arms around the blonde-haired lady’s neck and lifted her with one arm.
The lady yelped miserably and struggled persistently in Chen Chen’s claw. She felt as if Chen Chen’s arm was made of bronze cast iron. No matter how much she resisted, her captor seemed to be completely unfazed.
“Let, let go...”
The lady barely managed to mouth the two words, before she could complete her sentence, Chen Chen suddenly squeezed tightly with all his strength. There was a quick snap, followed by the blonde-haired lady’s eyes shrinking into themselves before her head dropped unnaturally. The final breath left in her was gone.
The elderly man and the middle-aged man were horrified upon witnessing this scene.
“My patience is very limited.”
Chen Chen relaxed his grip and tossed the lifeless body of the blonde-haired lady like tossing trash. He turned to the remaining two. “Do you need me to repeat my question?”
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk!”
The middle-aged man seemed to have been traumatized by what he had witnessed as he pointed at the elderly man beside him and began his tale. “It’s this old guy, I saw him regularly coming in and out of the Gantz server machine section with my very own eyes. For quite some time now, I’ve suspected that the Basilisk patterns appearing in the world had something to do with this server machine. By the time I discovered everything, we had long lost contact with the government, I can only watch as he did everything...”
“No, it’s not me!”
The white-bearded elderly man glared at the middle-aged man with hate in his eyes. “I don’t know anything at all. This has to be the work of this vile dog, he wants to put the blame on...”
Before he could finish, Chen Chen abruptly held down the arteries on the neck of the two men, causing them to immediately pa.s.s out again. He turned to the Black Knight behind him. “Take these two away and force a confession out of them. There’s a chance we can find out the source of destruction of this dimension from them.”
“Understood.”
X-112 replied.
Chen Chen turned around and approached the observation window shattered by the microwave weapon. The statue looked like a body viciously decapitated from its waistline. The upper portion of its body shattered into dozens of pieces like smashed gla.s.s. Only the lower part of it was kept intact.
However, upon observing the tiny fragments, Chen Chen could not help but squint his eyes to get a closer look.
Looking from the observation window, the square at the bottom had pieces of the Gantz server machine scattered all over the ground. From a distance, the fragments seemed to a.s.sume irregular shapes but upon closer inspection, Chen Chen noticed that nearly all of the pieces took on the same twin-spire form.
With a gentle wave of his hand, one of the pieces the size of a regular fist leaped into the air and went straight toward Chen Chen’s palm.
The broken piece had a beautiful silver glow around it as it was not exposed to oxygen. It was the clean and luminous glow of metal. For some unknown reason, this fragment shared the same twin-spire tower structure of its original body.
It seemed to faintly resemble DNA structures.
This implied that no matter how the Gantz server machine was destroyed and how many pieces it broke into, they would all retain the same shape.
This remarkable attribute reminded Chen Chen of the crystalline.
Crystal materials usually took on the form of regular geometric patterns, giving an impression that they were artificially carved that way. This was because the internal atomic arrangement was extremely fixed. Their formations were better than troops of soldiers.
They were repeatedly arranged on top of each other in three-dimensional s.p.a.ce to achieve the form of a crystal lattice. The result of this was that their appearance took on the form of a fixed geometric polyhedron.
For example, most rock sugars were identical in shape, all standardized blocks. Sometimes, some of them may stick out from the rest as they became fused by multiple blocks. By crushing these rock sugars into tiny particles and placing them under a microscope, it should be observed that the rock sugar would always have the same shape no matter how small they were pulverized into.
What he was seeing now was that this strange statue had displayed the same characteristics the original crystalline shown...
“Its form will never be altered no matter how many times they are pulverized?”
Chen Chen looked at the metallic statue which took on the form of a twin spire in his palm. This was of great interest to him.