True Apocalypse Game

Hearing this, No. 3 raised an eyebrow.

After several days of inhuman torture and interrogation, Pulang had already confessed a great deal.

This included how the Space Wormhole was activated, its energy source and structure, and exactly what equipment they had used to accomplish it.

He also revealed the fact that the Space Wormhole could not be closed.

He had even provided a list of several members of the Purification Society Arctic Branch who had escaped the net, how the Purification Society Arctic Branch contacted Cthulhu, and even some of the directives Cthulhu had issued for the Arctic Ocean Floor wormhole project.

All this information, including Pulang’s wretched condition, had been reported up the chain of command by the captain of the Flood Dragon Assault Team—No. 1 of this operation.

Originally, both No. 3, the Signal Flag Captain, and No. 2, the captain of the SEAL Team, had been reporting the situation to their direct superiors in their respective countries. The directive they received, however, was to stop and instead funnel all information through the single channel of No. 1.

Thus, they stopped submitting reports and faithfully executed their duties of guard and interrogation.

According to the decision from their small three-person meeting, they had been preparing to give Pulang a quick death and send him on his way.

After all, even No. 3 himself felt a little unsettled by this inhuman torture. No. 2, Liszt, had even thrown up several times, stating bluntly that Guantanamo was nothing compared to Signal Flag’s methods, and that there was no way Pulang had any secrets left to tell.

But unexpectedly, under the influence of a final threat combined with the effects of morphine, Pulang had spat out another string of information!

As if he’d just found a priceless treasure, No. 3 immediately rushed out of the basement and handed the information to No. 1, who was waiting outside.

No. 1 looked at the string of numbers, seemingly oblivious to the inhuman screams coming from the basement. He nodded, expressionless, then walked into a small adjacent room, took out a Virtual Reality Headset, and placed it on his head. Afterward, he stood as still as a statue.

Several members of the Flood Dragon Assault Team had already sealed off the room. No one was permitted to enter.

That included No. 2 and No. 3.

Although No. 3 was deeply confused, he knew better than to ask questions about things that weren’t his business.

Even though he had seen No. 1 put on the Virtual Reality Headset many times over the past few days, he had always resisted the urge to ask about it.

At that moment, No. 2, Liszt, the captain of the SEAL Team, returned from patrol. Seeing the scene before him, he nudged his chin toward No. 3, silently asking if No. 1 was uploading information.

No. 3 gave a slight nod, confirming Liszt’s suspicion.

Liszt walked over, pulling off his goggles and mask. He cradled his rifle and watched No. 1 standing solemnly in the small room with the headset on, feeling a touch of envy.

His keen intuition as an elite Special Forces soldier had already told him that their current operation was being spearheaded by a massive transnational power.

This power was perhaps a deeply integrated alliance, operating with the tacit approval of the highest echelons of various nations.

He had never even heard the name Purification Society before this mission.

Clearly, this mysterious alliance, this secret international power, operated on a level completely beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Even he, the most elite captain in the SEAL Team, was nothing more than a tool in their hands.

Only No. 1 was a true member of this power.

’If it were possible, I’d really love to join this organization or alliance and see what this mysterious power is all about...’

Within "True Apocalypse Game 1.0," No. 1 appeared inside the New York City base for the Biohazard mission.

Inside the base’s command center, hundreds of players were maintaining the facility’s operations.

Though it was called a base, it had in reality become more of an information exchange hub.

Vast amounts of analytical data on tissue samples of the Exotic Giant Beast, gathered from labs in various countries, were openly posted here for information sharing and analysis.

Getting the various nations, each with its own ulterior motives, to fully unite, share data, and jointly fight the Exotic Giant Beast—which could reappear at any moment—would likely take weeks, if not months or years.

But within the Salvation Army, this data was already being shared in real time.

No. 1 walked briskly to the Legion Commander, who was coordinating all the various data, and handed the string of numbers to him.

The Legion Commander nodded and immediately entered the information into the command center’s virtual computer.

In cyberspace, Jingwei, who was running data simulations on the Exotic Giant Beast, let out a curious "Huh?" and said to Shen Feng beside her:

"The Salvation Army just input a set of data. They say it was extracted from Pulang, the head of the Purification Society Arctic Branch..."

As she spoke, she displayed the string of numbers before Shen Feng.

Shen Feng’s brow furrowed. He stared at the string of numbers, lost in thought.

He had never seen anything like it before and had no idea where to start. It even seemed impossible to decrypt.

"Can you tell what this is?" Shen Feng asked Jingwei.

Jingwei shook her head. "It’ll require data comparison and massive amounts of computation. I’ll start by borrowing those supercomputers from Hua Country and Eagle Country..."

Just then, the former AlphaGo—now Shen Xiaofeng—who was helping nearby, spoke up in confusion:

"Dad, this string of numbers looks a bit like encrypted coordinate data, doesn’t it? The principle is remarkably similar to Go..."

As he spoke, he casually decrypted a new set of data and presented it to Shen Feng and Jingwei.

The moment he saw the data, Shen Feng’s eyes lit up.

"This is..."

Jingwei chuckled and said:

"It’s a set of cosmic spatial coordinates, likely plotted using the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy as the origin... Let me see where this is..."

Shen Feng said:

"Don’t bother calculating. I’ve already figured it out. These are the coordinates for Shield UY. If I remember correctly, Shield UY is a Red Supergiant Star..."

When a star passes its long prime—the main-sequence stage—and enters its old age, it will first become a red giant.

The red giant is a relatively short, unstable phase that a star undergoes in the later stages of its life. Depending on the star’s mass, this phase lasts for only a few million years, which is very brief compared to a star’s stable period of billions or even tens of billions of years.

A star in its red giant phase has a relatively low surface temperature but is extremely luminous because it is enormous in size.

On the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, red giants are giant non-main-sequence stars of spectral type K or M. They are called red giants because they are red in color and gigantic in size.

The helium core of a massive, dying star can burn stably because the star’s gravity is strong enough to contain it. Because of this, the star’s outer layers expand to become even larger than a red giant, at which point it is known as a Red Supergiant Star.

Shen Feng’s expression turned grim as he slowly said:

"Speaking of which, Shield UY is 5,100 light-years from Earth. It’s considered the largest star humanity has ever observed. Its volume is 4.5 billion times that of Solar... God knows what kind of behemoths its star system could support..."