Chapter 315: Harvest
Yoru Kamidera was completely taken by shock upon hearing the words of X-112.
There was a good reason for his exaggerated reaction for he saw with his very own eyes how the world was ruined because of a picture. To a certain extent, the picture had even destroyed human civilization along with the hopes and dreams of countless people.
Now he was told that the doom of mankind, the Basilisk images along with the far more terrifying mysterious phenomena had all come from the previous savior of mankind, Gantz?
This revelation was a heavy punch to the gut for Yoru Kamidera. He was immediately consumed with a sense of absurdity and irony.
“Gantz server machine?”
This seemed to have drawn Chen Chen’s interest. “Exactly, what’s the Gantz server machine? Will it be dangerous to approach it directly?”
“This is the strange part.”
X-112 quickly responded, “There are all sorts of patterns on the Gantz server machine but at the end of the day, it was an artificial product. However, the people building it didn’t seem to have experienced any strange events. On top of that, after the Gantz server machine was put together, many leaders of many countries came to inspect it and nothing came out of it either. From this, we can conclude that the Gantz server machine itself is harmless.”
“It only makes me more curious when you put it this way.”
Chen Chen said, “Show me. I, for one, would like to see how this Gantz server machine looks like.”
“If you insist.”
Following Chen Chen’s orders, the hologram projected by X-112 suddenly shifted. The streams of data and text instantly vanished and were subst.i.tuted by a metallic gray structure. The structure was very peculiar. It was formed by two spiraling objects intertwining with each other as they climbed to the top to form a spiral-shaped tower with two points of the spiraling objects on its tip!
The sight of the spire was extremely peculiar to behold. It seemed to contain layers on top of layers, all of them with strange patterns that Chen Chen had never seen before, all densely packed across the surface of the spire. Upon closer inspection, they were completely identical to the Basilisk patterns!
“This is the Gantz server machine.”
X-112 informed, “This Gantz server machine is made entirely of solid high-purity germanium. With my current database, I haven’t been able to deduct why it is the core structure of Gantz.”
“Me too.”
Chen Chen nodded. “The workings of these things have exceeded the boundaries of human knowledge. What’s even more absurd is that this is the work of humans as well. It doesn’t look particularly difficult to construct either. Was high-purity germanium used because it’s a metalloid semiconductor that is somewhere between being a metal and non-metal?”
Neither X-112 nor Yoru Kamidera had an answer for Chen Chen’s question, for there was no way to find the answer.
Chen Chen was not fixated on obtaining a proper answer either, he only murmured, “Despite the evident risk, we have to get our hands on these scientific subjects never before seen by mankind. I also suspect that the three statues from Elysium share a similar principle with this Gantz server machine. Perhaps they may have identical attributes...”
“Didn’t you decide to steer clear away from the three statues from Elysium back then?”
X-112 found it perplexing. “Why did you try to avoid it back then, but now suddenly decide to research these subjects?”
“It’s simple.”
Chen Chen smiled. “Despite both of them sharing similar characteristics of being world-ending devices, Gantz isn’t like the three statues from Elysium. From our previous investigation of the three statues, we saw that there was simply no way of dissecting them. In the end, I concluded that the potential insight of that research wasn’t worth its potential risk and ultimately decided to abandon the project.
“But now, what’s presented in front of me is something that we can properly utilize. The technology of Gantz is more accessible than the three statues. Put it this way, imagine if you present two lighters to cavemen, one of them is an ordinary ‘flint and steel wheel lighter’ and the other is a ‘solar energy lighter’. Which one of these do you think is more suitable for ancient craftsmen to study?”
“The flint and steel wheel lighter, of course.”
X-112 answered, “Based on the scientific progress of ancient times, the latter lighter is more intuitive and simpler for ancient craftsmen to understand.”
“That’s right.”
Chen Chen nodded contentedly. “And now, the Gantz technology is our version of the flint and steel wheel lighter. Although we still have a very limited understanding of it, it’s at the very least more accessible than the solar energy lighter.”
With this in mind, Chen Chen got up decisively. “Which is why we have to take control of this underground military base. I also need to ensure that the Gantz server machine underground remains unharmed.”
“Don’t worry, there are less than a hundred people inside the underground base and they are only using conventional kinetic weapons. These are the people who have retreated from the surface upon realizing that the Gantz server machine has the mystical ability to keep the mysterious phenomena at bay. This is how they were able to survive in the end times.”
“I see, then it’s probably the government trying to reclaim the machine once the mysterious phenomena began to spread.”
Chen Chen nodded. “But to their surprise, they arrived here only to be greeted by an independent rebellion faction. That explains why they displayed such hostility upon our arrival.”
As they were discussing, the other two Black Knights had left the Bugatti s.p.a.ceship as well. Both of them headed for the military base at full speed.
“With your coordination, three Black Knights should be enough to take over the underground base.”
Chen Chen silently weighed the risk in his mind when he saw the Black Knights departing. As long as their opponent used only conventional weapons instead of weapons like the gravity gun or X-gun like Gantz, there should be nothing for Chen Chen to worry about.
As expected, with X-112 controlling them, the three Black Knights had silently snuck through the entrance and successfully infiltrated the sealed underground base.
With that, the three of them had entered no man’s land. X-112 carefully coordinated them and relayed the position of every person inside the base. By utilizing the invisibility technology in their kit, they had cut the population in the base by more than half within half an hour without raising any alarm.
It was around that point when someone finally found the body of a murdered soldier and sounded the alarm.
However, before the others could be alerted, X-112 cut off the power of the entire base, effectively closing the curtain of hope for them.
Like playing cat and mouse, the three Black Knights harvested one life after another in complete darkness. These people who should have died in the calamity had their five years of tranquility abruptly cut short.
Five years of complacency had dulled their senses and alertness. They lost their previous instincts and failed to condition their body accordingly, which caused them to degrade back to ordinary people.
In the end, as a safety measure in case he missed something, Chen Chen had the Black Knights keep three people alive for interrogation. The three lucky subjects were the three highest position officials in the underground base.
There was the elderly major general, the middle-aged colonel, and the woman named Joan.