Chapter 290: Probe

After hearing Little X’s explanation, Chen Chen no longer hesitated. “If this is the case, then I can make a trip there...”

Having said that, Chen Chen asked the Black Knights in charge of defense to wear GS Combat Suits and PK Armor, so that they were equipped with the highest level of weaponry, just in case something bad broke through the channel into their reality while they were opening the portal.

Of course, until now, Chen Chen had not encountered such a situation.

As for the PK Armor, Chen Chen had extracted a few more when he was bored. As of now he already had ten sets of PK Armor in possession. As they used nuclear fusion battery technology, the power in these armors was still very durable.

Chen Chen still remembered that he had tested the internal energy of the items after they were extracted from the USB drive into reality. The result of the test was that the energy stored in the extracted items would not be greater than the amount of electricity consumed.

Case in point, the “Galaxy” pendant. Originally, the pendant should have contained energy comparable to an actual star, but after it was extracted into reality, there was only a small amount of energy left inside. This tiny amount of energy was equivalent to the power consumed by the USB flash drive when it extracted the Galaxy pendant.

Therefore, the same applied to the PK Armor. According to the formula that 1,200 kWh of electricity was required to extract one gram of material, extracting the PK Armor from the USB drive would consume approximately 36 million kWh of electricity.

The energy of a kilowatt-hour of electricity was roughly 3.6 million joules, and the energy released by the explosion of 1 kilogram of TNT was about 4.19 million joules. That was to say, extracting a PK Armor required roughly the energy of a nuclear bomb equivalent to 31 million tons of TNT. This was about half the energy of the Tsar Bomba.

No matter how powerful the nuclear fusion battery in the PK Armor was, the capacity of half a Tsar Bomba was way beyond its limits. Therefore, the extracted PK Armor was basically fully charged every time.

Just in case, Chen Chen also extracted the escape pod that charged the PK Armor in The Predator (2018) into reality, so there was no need to worry about the energy of the PK Armor.

At this point, after everything was in place, Chen Chen clicked on Gantz again and paused the image in the middle of the movie, in the room where the protagonist was.

Although it was very likely that at the other end of the portal lay a world where civilization had been destroyed, it was better to be safe than sorry, after all. It was more prudent to open the passage in a location with fewer people. Surely this was better than opening the passage in a subway station or even the room that housed the Gantz black sphere, right?

As Chen Chen opened the portal solemnly, the computer screen suddenly went black and the entire screen seemed to be upgraded from 2D to 3D. A continuously rotating black orb emerged from the center of the screen and rotated ceaselessly.

Black tentacles swarmed restlessly within this black orb. As the orb rotated, the tentacles were drawn into an arch-like spiral, finally causing the black orb to turn into a black galaxy...

This small black orb that looked like a galaxy expanded sharply, swallowing the screen within a few seconds, and spilling out over the screen.

The portal was formed.

As Chen Chen stared at the portal. He could not refrain from asking, “X, is it just me? Why do I feel that each time I open the portal, it seems to be constantly evolving in some way?”

“It’s true and the portal is getting larger...”

Little X confirmed. “It’s not just you, Sir Godfather.”

“...”

Chen Chen pondered for a while before he wondered aloud, “Is this a phenomenon of the USB flash drive itself or is it that the second-form USB drive is imperceptibly evolving in a certain direction?”

He thought for a while but now was not the time to be worrying about this. Chen Chen finally waved one hand. Instantly, a Black Knight who was ready for defense, wearing a PK Armor, stepped into the passage.

From Chen Chen’s point of view, the Black Knight seemed to have walked into a circular door through which no light could pass, only an endless black mist. Then, the Black Knight disappeared completely.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes...

When the agreed time of five minutes was up, there was a jingling sound and a silver Rubik’s cube suddenly fell out of the dark passage, landed on the floor, and rolled over twice.

Chen Chen’s eyes lit up. He gestured with one hand and the Rubik’s cube flew directly into his hands. Then Chen Chen pressed a few of the keys familiarly. This silver Rubik’s cube immediately opened up a few panels and lit up the entire room, filling the place with a lifelike 3D image.

In the image, the Black Knight who had just walked through the passage was standing amid ruins. The room that used to belong to the protagonist of Gantz, Kei Kurono, had long collapsed. Looking around, the entire city of Tokyo was a wreck with endless weeds and vines surrounding the place. Those vines were even wrapped around the skyscrapers, dyeing the entire city as towering greenery...

Seeing this scene, Chen Chen only felt that it was rather ironic.

Although it was destined that the USB drive would open a portal to a world where civilization had fallen, it was still ironic to see the majestic steel capital city, which once stood proudly away from the natural world, was now once again a paradise of nature.

Although humans had the ability to challenge the natural world, they still could not defeat time after all.

“Could it be that, under the scouring of time, no matter how splendid civilization was, it would only end up destroyed one day?”

Chen Chen murmured.

This rueful feeling came and went in a flash. Following that, Chen Chen gathered himself and looked again at the 3D world projected by the silver Rubik’s cube.

He noticed that, in these five minutes, the Black Knight only walked around for a short time. Even so, he had seen many small animals living in the stretch of ruins including wild cats and dogs, along with many parrots and birds.

These were pets once raised by humans, but after the demise of humanity, they became the first masters of these ruins.

As the five minutes ended, the Black Knight turned off the images recorded by the silver Rubik’s cube.

“Something’s wrong.”

After the screening was over, Chen Chen spoke immediately.

“Sir Godfather, what do you mean?”

“From the picture just now, we can see that those buildings collapsed naturally.”

Chen Chen said at once, “Did you not notice that those buildings had collapsed naturally after decades of erosion from rain and vegetation? In other words, the city of Tokyo on the other side of the passage had only collapsed after the complete extinction of humans. The descendants of those pets also prove this point.”

“I see. You’re saying that mankind didn’t perish in a war against aliens?”

Although Little X was only an artificial intelligence, it was close to the level of ordinary people in terms of divergent thinking. At this time, it immediately understood Chen Chen’s thoughts. “If the world accessed by the USB drive must be a world where human civilization is extinct, based on the direction of Gantz’s plotline, their world should have been destroyed by aliens. In that case, after opening the passage, we should’ve seen a crumbling, fallen city that had been ravaged by war.”

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