When the griffin broke out of the ground, everyone finally realized what a colossal creature it was. It was almost as large as the Sphinx statue, with its wings spread wide over a hundred meters. Blood spurted from its eagle beak, which had been split open by Xiang Yu, and it dragged an eyeball violently destroyed by Li Ying. The griffin writhed in agony on the ground, each movement raising clouds of sand and dust.
The exploration team finally boarded the helicopter, all gasping for breath, yet the griffin still had strength left. Its four lion claws dug furiously into the ground, then it leapt into the air, flapped its wings, and charged toward the airborne helicopter!
“Ascend!” Lance shouted.
The griffin was almost ten times the size of the helicopter. Egyptians in the distance fell to their knees in terror, praying to the heavens and shouting in panic.
“What are they screaming about? Get the civilians to assist in the attack!” Lance ordered. “Open all magazines and bomb it! Don’t let it escape!”
Sand and dust filled the air as the griffin screeched in fury, its wings unfurled like the resurrection of the Sphinx amidst the sandstorm.
Joseph muttered, “They say we have angered a god.”
Zheng Rong replied, “Indeed. This creature is akin to a god.”
The panicked civilians shouted, still able to make out the word “Sphinx.”
Kim Pu-ai stood with her mouth open, staring blankly at the scene. Zheng Rong snatched the laptop off her lap, no longer concerned about the beast outside the cabin, and connected it to the camera’s data cable to search for the photos Joseph had taken.
Lance fired another electromagnetic cannon shot, trailing a bolt of lightning that blasted the Sphinx back to the ground.
The recoil was intense, and Zheng Rong impatiently shouted, “Be careful!”
“It’s trying to escape,” Lance responded.
Ugos said, “We can’t let it get away! Who knows if this creature can reproduce, or what it eats? It’s best to find a way to capture it for research.”
Lance took out a set of back armor, tested its strength, and said, “You all stay here.”
Then he put down the electromagnetic cannon, grabbed a grenade belt, slung it over his shoulder, and leapt out of the helicopter!
Kim Pu-ai cried out loudly, and with a swoosh, a pair of glider wings unfolded from Lance’s back as he flew toward the struggling griffin.
“What dumb thing is he doing now?” Zheng Rong asked distractedly as he casually connected a printer, the ancient Hebrew script on the parchment clearly visible.
Everyone watched Lance, but Zheng Rong kept his head down, focusing on the computer, while Li Ying sat beside him, intently watching Zheng Rong.
“Baby, give me a kiss; I love the way you study so earnestly,” Li Ying said.
“Get lost,” Zheng Rong snapped.
“Take care of them,” Xiang Yu said.
Xiang Yu bent down to pick up another piece of back armor, trying it on.
Lance’s voice came through the communicator: “Requesting fire support; pin it back to the ground.”
Gulcat's enthusiastic voice responded, “Roger that, boss. Ready to roast this big fella?”
Three seconds later, Xiang Yu leaped into the air, mimicking Lance’s glider wing deployment, and called out, “I’m here to assist you!”
Zheng Rong: “...”
The two gliders of Lance and Xiang Yu spiraled in the air, converging and splitting behind the Sphinx.
Lance said, “Catch this! I’ll distract it; you throw this...”
Xiang Yu reached out and caught the grenade Lance threw to him. With a tilt of his body, he maneuvered the glider to skim sideways, dodging the griffin’s sweeping wings.
“Hey! Over here!” Lance pulled out a flare gun, firing it off. The Sphinx roared furiously and pounced on him.
Almost instantly, Zheng Rong felt a jolt, pushed aside the laptop, grabbed the electromagnetic cannon, and fired a sudden blast into the sandstorm!
“You’re all risking your lives!” Zheng Rong shouted angrily.
Lance’s laughter came through the communicator. The Sphinx’s wings fanned up and slapped Lance’s glider hard, sending him plummeting to the ground!
Xiang Yu turned around, seizing the final opportunity. He raised his hand, pulled the grenade pin, and threw it into the griffin’s mouth. Then, with a powerful kick to the Sphinx’s forehead, he flew away.
Ten seconds later, the griffin’s eagle neck exploded with a boom, splitting in two. The eagle head flew far away, crashing to the ground. Blood gushed wildly from the severed neck, dyeing nearly a mile of desert red, as if forming a lake of blood.
The headless Sphinx lay quietly in the pool of blood, while in the distance, the statue that Zheng Rong had blasted with one shot lay shattered beyond recognition. The ground slowly collapsed with a thunderous noise, taking this ancient creature into darkness.
The helicopter lowered a rope ladder to pick up Xiang Yu and Lance, then turned around mid-air and flew northeast.
“You, move to the other side,” Lance said roughly, pressing a gun against the back of Li Ying’s head.
Li Ying smiled and, without any resistance, moved to the bench on the opposite side.
Covered in blood, Xiang Yu boarded the cabin and instinctively raised his arm to sniff.
“Are you hurt?” Zheng Rong asked without lifting his head.
“No harm done.”
Xiang Yu waved his hand, scanned the cabin, then found a secluded corner to sit down, the smell of blood still pungent.
No one spoke, as if still reliving those perilous moments.
Lance bent down and took a pair of handcuffs out of a military bag, pondering in silence. Finally, he cuffed one of the rings around his own wrist.
“If you handcuff yourself to him and he wants to escape, he’ll just cut off his own hand,” Zheng Rong said coldly.
Lance had to change his plan, cuffing both handcuffs around Li Ying’s wrists. “Now where are we headed?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Li Ying remained silent.
Zheng Rong sighed, rubbing his temples in exhaustion, and said, “Find a place to settle down. We have too much information to process.”
Lance spoke into the intercom, “Proceed to the underground supply base in the Arab Oil Republic.”
Gulcat's voice came through, “Roger that.”
“Rest up for a bit. Prepare dinner. I'll formally introduce everyone,” Zheng Rong said. “This is Mr. L, an expert in alien technology research who has come at my request to assist us. Let’s welcome his joining us with a round of applause.”
Sparse clapping followed.
“Hello,” Ugos greeted politely, still unsure why Lance had cuffed “Mr. L.”
Kim Pu-ai seemed to understand something and offered a friendly hand. Li Ying, with his wrists together, grasped her hand and shook it up and down to show goodwill.
“I’m here voluntarily,” Li Ying said with a slight raise of his eyebrow and a devilish smile.
Raine said coldly, “If I had a lover who betrayed humanity and sided with the Maya aliens...”
Zheng Rong stared provocatively at Raine.
Raine remained unfazed. “As long as he says, ‘Raine, come with me,’ I would abandon everything and follow love without hesitation.”
Zheng Rong replied, “If I had a lover who betrayed humanity and sided with the Maya aliens...”
He pulled out a gun from his pocket, raised it casually, and pointed it at Lance’s temple.
Lance’s expression remained calm, his eyes warm.
“I would bid him farewell, and as he turned away... like this,” Zheng Rong said, “I’d send him off with a bullet to the head.”
“Bang!” Zheng Rong firmly pulled the trigger.
Lance seemed to understand some unspoken intimacy, a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“Jammed?”
“There were no bullets in it,” Zheng Rong replied, putting away the gun and ignoring everyone else as he curled up in his trench coat and dozed off.
----------------------------------------
The Underground Base of the Arab Oil Republic
“This is not one of the four main human cities,” Lance explained to several team members. “It’s a small-scale human refuge settlement.”
The ceiling of the underground city radiated a blinding light, like the scorching sun. The streets were wide and bright, lined with villa-style buildings. Ugos looked around, examining his surroundings.
“The Arabs are very wealthy,” Lance continued. “They purchase a large number of nuclear warheads, exchanging them for oil. As you know, oil is as valuable as gold for industrial materials... I’ve heard that this hotel is pretty good, and many Middle Easterners live here. You can rest in the lobby for a bit.”
“We can take a vacation for a while; hope you all enjoy your stay.”
Covered in blood, Lance wore only an army green vest. He settled his teammates in the hotel lobby and excitedly went to the front desk to make arrangements.
Staying one night in a place like this was extremely expensive. Zheng Rong took a quick look but didn’t say much, sitting down on the lobby sofa, while Xiang Yu dutifully followed Lance.
“Where are you coming from? Ireland’s main city?” a distant receptionist asked. “What mission are you on?”
Lance and Xiang Yu looked like two soldiers and had already been questioned once at the border.
Li Ying sat beside Zheng Rong, who kicked him away slightly without any politeness.
“Mr. Lance seems very happy?” Ugos commented.
“Ahaha... yes,” Joseph replied absentmindedly, comparing photos in his hand. “Because Zheng Rong just blew his head off.”
“Stop babbling,” Zheng Rong said unhappily.
Li Ying turned his head and asked, “What are you doing? Programming?”
Kim Pu-ai brushed back her long hair, smiled, and said, “I am creating a world.”
“The Koreans created the universe, you see,” Zheng Rong nodded.
Kim Pu-ai turned to Li Ying, explaining:
“This is our latest technology in Korea, a groundbreaking project funded by the Samsung Consortium, hiring top computer programmers, archaeologists, and over a hundred experts in social sciences and natural sciences to collaborate on a study. It’s a project exploring the unknown world.”
Li Ying seemed quite interested and asked, “So?”
Kim Pu-ai’s expression turned slightly somber. “They all died... in the last East Asia Defense War... Now it's just me, and the curator asked me to bring the core data and escape to Northern Ireland...”
“I’m very sorry,” Zheng Rong said absentmindedly.
“So your computer holds the last...” Li Ying said.
Kim Pu-ai nodded slowly. “It is the crystallization of our nation’s wisdom.”
Li Ying thoughtfully cracked his knuckles, while Kim Pu-ai’s eyes glistened with a faint tear. “On behalf of the Korean Computer Science Association, I have backed up the main program and donated it to the Human Heritage Research Museum.”
“Oh... that's really not a good idea,” Joseph said without looking up. “The humidity is too high in the Heritage Museum; the chips might mold.”
Li Ying remarked, “That's quite noble of you. Is the content classified?”
“It’s not anymore. Would you like to hear about it?” Kim Pu-ai asked. “I know you can understand how I feel.”
She looked pleadingly at Li Ying, who politely inquired, “Hmm, sounds interesting... what is it about?”
Kim Pu-ai typed a few keys on the keyboard and explained to her teammates, “This is a model of the Big Bang.”
Zheng Rong glanced at it and said, “Oh.”
“A model. What’s its function?” Kim Pu-ai said, “Hawking was the first to propose the idea of the Big Bang. You know, his ancestors were Korean...”
Zheng Rong: “...”
Kim Pu-ai: “?”
“I’m not laughing. Please continue,” Zheng Rong said.
Taking a deep breath, Kim Pu-ai continued, “Let's propose a hypothesis. Suppose you have a glass box, and the model inside can fully, without any deviation, demonstrate the entire process of the formation of the universe. What would you think?”
Kim Pu-ai’s eyes shone with excitement. “That means that in this glass box, from the moment the universe is born, every event will be faithfully reenacted.”
Zheng Rong said, “That is indeed the case, but can you collect such data?”
Kim Pu-ai said, “Every event that happens in the time stream is a real event, so we can establish the first model through the obtained ‘conclusion,’ then deduce backwards to find the ‘cause’ that triggered it.”
Li Ying understood a bit. “That would require an enormous amount of data.”
“Yes. The computation is very complex. By continuously speculating forward, eventually, it traces back to 20 billion years ago, to the moment the universe formed, finding the single cause that led to all events,” Kim Pu-ai said.
“Hmm... that’s interesting,” Joseph said leisurely. “The universe came into being, one cause leading to countless results, which then become the basis for more causes. You’re replaying the world, the only difference being that it’s in a computer, not the real world.”
Li Ying understood. “You intend to create a virtual universe inside a computer.”
Zheng Rong was somewhat puzzled. “What’s the point? Can you observe every corner of the universe? Even if you want to, can you keep up?”
“Dr. Zheng, you’re being shallow. It’s more than just observing! Think about it — from the birth of the universe until now, and even into the future — all the events in the time stream will follow the development rules of our world and continue to evolve autonomously.”
“In other words — the sun is born inside the computer, the Earth is born inside the computer, all things... life, humanity, they will all exist, develop, vanish, and perish inside this model!” Kim Pu-ai said.
Li Ying pointed to the laptop. “So in the world inside the program, there will also be aliens invading humans?”
“Yes. Humans will develop according to this trajectory, reaching this day, and there will be digital versions of us, busy looking for salvation — with exactly the same personalities, thoughts, and languages as Mr. L, Dr. Zheng, and myself, Kim Pu-ai,” Kim Pu-ai said.
Zheng Rong was completely bewildered. He vaguely understood a bit of Kim Pu-ai’s theory, but couldn’t fully grasp it. Li Ying, on the other hand, had an exceptionally clear logic and asked, “If this system is complete, I mean... if it really works... will all the people inside the computer...”
Kim Pu-ai slowly said, “We will all be reborn.”
Suddenly, Ugos interjected, “That’s just a copy; they exist within their own program carrier.”
“That could be said...” Zheng Rong mumbled, unable to fully articulate his thoughts.
Li Ying chuckled, “The program version of Kim Pu-ai will also try to create such a world inside the computer?”
Kim Pu-ai said, “That's the peculiar conclusion we reached. To be precise, yes. One world contains another world, and so on, endlessly.”
“Then perhaps you Koreans would need a computer core the size of the sun, with countless billions of storage chips,” Zheng Rong remarked.
“Far more than that. I fear the computer’s central processing unit would need to be as large as the entire Milky Way,” Kim Pu-ai said sadly.
“But in the distant future, anything is possible,” she continued softly. “What we can do now is to design this recursive rule and the simplest logic system, and the rest, after billions of years, leave it to the people of the future to complete. Ideas and visions are always passed from one generation to the next, aren’t they?”
In a few years, your computer causality theory will die along with you, just like the creation god of the Koreans — Zheng Rong thought dismissively.
However, his own plan sounded just as vague and unrealistic as the Koreans' delusions of creation.
He could understand Kim Pu-ai’s feelings, so he chose not to comment.
“What if it crashes?” Xiang Yu finished arranging accommodations and suddenly chimed in.
Kim Pu-ai: “...”
“What if the power goes out?” Xiang Yu asked, having only caught a bit of Kim Pu-ai’s explanation and frowning.
No one replied. Lance said, “Everyone, our rooms are arranged.”
They all packed their things and headed to the elevator.
“The Koreans don’t have the power to create a world, but they sure have the ambition to do so,” Zheng Rong sighed. “I’ve really underestimated them.”
Li Ying, intrigued, asked, “If you could be reborn, would you still make the same choices?”
A few people stood in the elevator. Li Ying’s question was directed at Zheng Rong, who remained silent.
Li Ying said, “If I could live again, I would.”
“I would too,” Zheng Rong replied as the elevator doors opened. He snatched the key card from Lance’s hand and entered the corridor.