Chapter 351: Obliteration Catalyst

[Memetic Effect: Flesh Carpet.]

[Origin: 1 June 2024, in the temporary observation experiment project on Gantz Island, produced by the memetic mutation of infected person No. 0130 who was infected with “Filth”. Temporarily named “Flesh Carpet”.]

[Description: “Flesh Carpet” is a special memetic with infectious disease properties. From its appearance, it looks like it is formed by laying flesh and blood on the ground. Therefore, the name “Flesh Carpet” is derived from this image. Unlike the conventional type of memetic effect, “Flesh Carpet” has a dual nature resembling “infections” and plants.]

[Symptoms: At present, all known infected persons have been assimilated as part of the “Flesh Carpet”. When someone is infected, they will mutate from their original biological form to a mass of vegetation composed of flesh and blood. It will indiscriminately attack all creatures within a certain range, including but not limited to humans.]

[Mode of transmission: The flesh carpet has extremely terrifying transmission ability. Any life form touching the carpet of flesh and blood, including but not limited to humans, will be 100% infected. At the same time, its transmission is divided into two forms —”violent predation” and “infection transmission”.]

[Violent predation: it stretches out a tentacle to ensnare and capture the target. If the target is a creature, it will be dissolved and digested within twelve hours. If the target is a plant, the carpet of flesh and blood will not attack the opponent, but will directly digest it using its body.]

[Infection transmission: The infected person has no abnormalities at the beginning, but over time, the infected person’s body surface will display a rash, which is an early symptom. At this time, the infected person is already clearly infectious and can spread the rash to any healthy life forms around. The rash will cover the infected person’s body entirely after 30 hours. At the same time, influenced by the memetic effect, the infected person will eat as much as possible and conserve energy. This is a mid-term symptom.]

[About forty to fifty hours later, the infected person will melt into a puddle of flesh and blood without warning and begin to attack all life forms around them. This is a late symptom.]

[It has not been verified whether the infected person can be cured when they are experiencing the first and second stage symptoms.]

[Weakness: Fire can kill the flesh carpet and it also cannot survive in water or an environment without oxygen and soil. Therefore, the difficulty of suppression is low.]

...

After reading the report in his hand, Chen Chen nodded and tossed the report to Yoru Kamidera behind the office desk. “You did a good job. Although it’s not perfect, in this experiment, the timing you chose to shut down X-112 was still appropriate.”

“At that time, X-112 proactively reminded me that abnormal fluctuations in memetic readings were detected. Based on my years of experience, I thought that this should be the phenomenon of memetic mutation, so I asked X-112 to temporarily shut off the Dead Space.”

Yoru Kamidera replied a little shyly, “Sure enough, once the Gantz server’s suppression of memes was lifted, ‘Filth’ immediately mutated and eventually generated a new memetic effect. All of this was recorded by X-112.”

“Very well, you may leave.”

Chen Chen waved his hand. Yoru Kamidera immediately lowered his head and slowly exited the office.

“X, send me a copy of the information recorded by X-112.”

After Yoru Kamidera had left, Chen Chen spoke at once, and suddenly, the printer by his hand started to print out various dazzling, dizzying patterns.

These patterns were all similar to Basilisk, but in fact, this was the E language used by the god-level civilization in the Gantz dimension.

However, when human beings were dealing with this ordinary language, a little improper handling could destroy human civilization more than 10,000 times...

This was the gap between civilization levels.

Thinking of this, Chen Chen flipped one hand over and a transparent NZT-48 appeared in his hand. He swallowed the drug directly and then closed his eyes.

About thirty seconds later, Chen Chen opened his eyes and looked at the intricate patterns in his hand again. This time, his eyes were fixed on the patterns as if he wanted to imprint all of them into his brain.

Nonetheless, within a dozen minutes, faint blood veins appeared in Chen Chen’s eyes as if his brain power was overused.

As Chen Chen gritted his teeth, a trace of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, which looked sinister.

Just like this, half an hour had passed. When Chen Chen closed his eyes again, his expression finally regained its tranquility.

“I still can’t do it...”

Chen Chen murmured. He sensed that his brain could clearly engrave every detail of the patterns, but within a few seconds, these details were forgotten again as if the hippocampus of the human brain could not store this at all. All the information had merely passed in and out of his mind...

“Sir Godfather, you’ve failed again?”

Little X’s voice came. “Could it be a physiological reason? After all, we can’t determine the life form of another civilization at all. Both sides are likely to have extremely high civilization barriers. Perhaps only their life form can master the knowledge of memes?”

“Impossible.”

However, Chen Chen insisted. “Science isn’t impenetrable. Things that cannot be detected can only mean that they don’t exist. Moreover, I don’t think that the concept of ‘memes’ was created by an alien civilization. Just like the concept of ‘science’, can you say that science didn’t exist before humans discovered ‘science’? Stop kidding me!”

Chen Chen smiled coldly. “In my opinion, the so-called E language is more like a kind of civilized technology, just like the physics formula that we’ve summarized. These Basilisk patterns are using visible text to encapsulate the intangible memes, which means that the Basilisk pattern is the manifestation of the meme. You can say that the Basilisk pattern is a memetic effect, but a memetic effect is by no means a Basilisk pattern.”

“What you said makes sense.”

Little X said thoughtfully, “But doesn’t this conflict with your current state? You’ve already taken NZT-48, but you still can’t memorize this E language. Why is that?”

“The answer is simple.”

Chen Chen thought for a while and said, “When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth — that civilization has set a password for its language.”

“Password?”

“It’s a simple principle. If you want to launch a nuclear bomb, you have to enter a string of keys. If you store your wealth in the safe, you’ll also set a password to prevent others from stealing it. Then this E language that can control memes, would it not have a password too?”

Chen Chen asked, “If you think of it this way, everything can be explained. The memetic effect itself is a new system beyond common sense and existing scientific frameworks. If that is the case, won’t the E language itself also have a memetic effect that prevents other civilizations from learning the E language?”

Little X suddenly saw the light. “I understand. For that god-level civilization, E language is like a weapon. Although they can control this weapon perfectly, they are also afraid that lower civilizations will obtain this weapon and use it as a shortcut to reach the same level as them. Therefore, they added a lock to their weapons. In this way, even if a lower civilization gets this weapon, it cannot be used because it cannot be unlocked!”

“That’s exactly it.”

Chen Chen snapped his fingers. “Thus, X-112 is a very important entry point. The god-level civilization may not have thought that our lower civilization would invent something like artificial intelligence.

“Based on the fact that their black spheres need to borrow human brains to perform calculations, that civilization probably didn’t open the artificial intelligence branch of the technology tree, so X-112 can take advantage of the loophole and come into contact with the E language...”

“In other words, this is a godsend!”

Thinking of this, Chen Chen had a flash of inspiration.

“Since the E language can set a lock to prevent other civilizations from learning it, can we also encrypt our data with memes to prevent leakage?”

After thinking about it, Chen Chen asked, “X, communicate with X-112 and find out — based on its current understanding of the E language, can it set a special pattern so that ordinary people will die immediately when they see this pattern, but people in our God’s Forbidden Zone can be immune?”

“It can be done.”

Little X’s voice paused for a moment and then replied, “Although X-112 has a very simple understanding of E language, it has zoomed in on the regularity of several patterns by observing the Filth mutation process in its entirety. With this regularity, X-112 can perform subtle programming to the Basilisk pattern ‘Eye’. After this programming, ‘Eye’ can still be effective on ordinary people, causing brain death in them, but if there is a ‘vaccine’, they can be easily immune.”

“Vaccine?”

Chen Chen asked.

“The so-called ‘vaccine’ is a Basilisk pattern, but its nature is not to kill people, but to prevent people from observing the ‘Eye’ and experiencing brain shutdown. It’s just like getting a vaccine in advance.”

X replied, “Moreover, X-112 can also shut down the mutation characteristic of the E language, so that the mutation probability of these Basilisk patterns will be minimized.”

Chen Chen’s eyes lit up upon hearing the words. “We can try this!”

After he had spoken, the printer beside him squeaked again and soon, a complex and abstract pattern started to emerge on the surface of the paper.

It was different from the Basilisk pattern that Chen Chen had seen before. It was a colorful pattern as if beams of light were flickering in front of one’s eyes, but when one looked carefully, these patterns had no meaning.

As the pattern became more and more complete, suddenly, a special kind of throbbing gripped Chen Chen’s mind. He seemed to experience an illusion, an illusion of being watched...

Chen Chen breathed a sigh of relief only when the entire picture was printed out. He picked up the picture. “Is this picture the so-called ‘vaccine’?”

“Yes, based on the ‘cognitohazard’ and ‘infohazard’ produced by the memetic effect, this ‘vaccine’ can generate a special ‘cognitive exemption’. You only need to see this pattern to avoid any cognitive harm caused by memetic attacks.”

Hearing these words, Chen Chen carefully observed the pattern again, only to see that there was a faint eye buried among a scribble of meaningless pen and ink. Even so, upon closer look, it seemed that there was nothing.

Yes, it was just a set of abstract images that did not make any sense. Maybe some performance artists could talk enough bull and sell it for one or two hundred yuan.

“Well, after seeing this picture, you have been implanted with the vaccine in advance. Next, please take a look at another pattern.”

Following Little X’s words, another pattern was printed out by the printer again. Chen Chen looked at it and found that the second picture was dozens of times more complicated than the first. Chen Chen just took a look and could not help frowning.

This pattern also depicted an eye, but this eye was formed by the overlapping of countless eyes. Some of them were laughing, some were crying, and some showed a touch of tenderness, just like a lover’s smile. Some were full of fear as if gazing into an infinite abyss...

Countless eyes layered on top of each other and finally formed such a peculiar pattern.

“This is ‘Eye’?”

Chen Chen could not refrain from gasping. He was sure that it was not the first time he saw this pattern. Once in the Gantz dimension, he saw this pattern out of carelessness. At that time, he had spent dozens of minutes just to get used to it.

Still, he never expected to see it again in reality this time.

Even so, it was different from before. At this time, although Chen Chen was still a little dizzy after seeing this pattern, this was completely unlike how he used to react, when he almost passed out.

Currently, he just felt an unusual nausea and this feeling was getting weaker and weaker as his brain continued to adapt.

“This is the ‘Eye’ that was modified by X-112.”

Little X replied, “But please rest assured. You’ve seen the vaccine in advance, so this new ‘Eye’ will not cause any damage to you.”

With that, the entire picture was completely discharged from the printer, but Chen Chen was no longer feeling any discomfort.

“So, that’s it.”

Chen Chen wore a look of realization. “Is this modified ‘Eye’ different from the previous one in other respects?”

“Apart from eliminating its variability, there’s not much difference, but it can be ‘mitigated’ by another pattern.”

Little X replied, “We only need to use this ‘Eye’ as a watermark for our confidential documents so that we can indiscriminately target all spies who have no authority, who still try to read confidential documents.”

“Very well. Then my question is this.”

Chen Chen snapped his fingers. “How long is the effect of this vaccine? After all, you have to understand that the human brain can forget. Will the implantation of this vaccine from too long ago cause the brain to forget it and result in the vaccine failing?”

“Please be rest assured, the effective period of the vaccine is permanent.”

Little X replied, “After all, it’s the language system of a god-level civilization. These concerns of yours will not arise at all.”

“Is that so?”

Chen Chen could not help but look pensive. After a while, he said again, “In that case, we’ll give this new confidentiality mechanism a name. After all, the label of ‘Basilisk pattern’ isn’t conducive to classification and generalization. We’ll call this kind of pattern ‘memetic obliteration catalyst’...”

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