Hearing what Pan Jianguo said, Kaven and Hayden exchanged a glance and nodded as well.
As titans in their fields, they had heard about the existence of the True Apocalypse Game through certain channels. Reportedly, many top experts and leading figures in the medical world had already become players in the True Apocalypse Game.
At the same time, some powerful and influential politicians also seemed to have been "conscripted" by this True Apocalypse Game.
But they had never heard of it having anything to do with physicists.
They never expected it to be their turn now.
They were all exceptionally intelligent people. Although they had no prior contact with the True Apocalypse Game, based on the rumors they’d heard, they vaguely guessed that the game was closely linked to the disasters happening in reality.
The previous Petrification Disease plague, the biovirus plague, and the nuclear crisis all seemed to be related to the True Apocalypse Game.
Judging from the terrifying World Beasts they were seeing, these creatures must be the monsters that came out of the Space Wormhole at the bottom of the North Pacific Ocean.
The fact that even the Eagle Country’s Pacific Fleet had been almost completely wiped out was a testament to just how powerful these monsters were.
Everything they were experiencing now was likely the result of a simulation run by the True Apocalypse Game.
In the not-so-distant future, once the Undersea Space Wormhole expanded further, these terrifying behemoths might truly appear and annihilate human civilization!
As this thought crossed their minds, images materialized on the walls of the cockpit, showing terrifying tsunamis breaking out all over the world and colossal waves engulfing one city after another.
Towering skyscrapers toppled like building blocks before being completely submerged by the sea.
The people who had no time to escape were like ants washed away by the flood, vanishing in an instant, buried beneath the immense volume of water.
Just as their hearts were clenching with anxiety, the cockpit suddenly shuddered. Several thick tentacles had wrapped around their "Chiyou" Super Giant War Armor. Immediately after, another World Beast lunged forward, opened its spiraling maw, and began to drill into Chiyou’s body.
The Super Giant War Armor swayed, then the Energy Cannon on its chest instantly fired a massive, hundred-meter-thick Energy Beam, blasting the lunging World Beast away. The beam pierced straight through the World Beast’s maw and tore off half of its body.
Chiyou raised its Battle Blade to sever the tentacles, its four arms each brandishing a blade. Rows of intercontinental missiles launched from its back, soaring toward the asteroid-sized World Beast in front of it!
Pan Jianguo looked around. The surface of the sea was littered with the wreckage of countless fighter jets. The thousands of aircraft that had filled the sky moments ago had all vanished, having crashed into the ocean.
As for the once-mighty fleet, only a few hundred damaged warships now drifted on the water’s surface.
The main players in the war had now completely shifted to the dozens of Super Giant War Armors.
However, while these Super Giant War Armors were seemingly invincible amidst the horde, capable of engaging two or three World Beasts simultaneously, there were simply too few of them.
Furthermore, the life force of the World Beasts was far too tenacious. Unless they were completely physically annihilated, they could survive for a long time even after being split in two.
More and more World Beasts swarmed on the sea’s surface, surrounding the Super Giant War Armors and attacking relentlessly.
Soon, some of the Super Giant War Armors began to sustain heavy damage, either losing power or mobility.
At that point, a Super Giant War Armor would become nothing more than a stationary weapons platform. Once its ammunition was depleted, it was at the mercy of the horde.
The human side apparently realized this quickly and began a desperate charge toward the colossal, continent-sized World Beast in the distance.
But the Beast Ancestor noticed this as well. It let out a series of low roars, and the surrounding horde immediately closed ranks, making it impossible for the humans to get near it.
The battle between these colossal beings churned the sea into a maelstrom of furious waves, sending tsunamis surging in every direction. From inside the cockpit, Pan Jianguo and the others watched, utterly awestruck.
Just then, the "Chiyou" armor they were in suddenly unleashed its full firepower. The Energy Cannons on its shoulders and chest fired simultaneously, blasting a path forward. Then, its four arms flailing, it strode forward and charged at the Beast Ancestor!
Red lights flashed inside their cockpit, and a cold, mechanical voice announced:
"Reactor self-destruct sequence initiated. Countdown: 60, 59, 58..."
Hearing this, Pan Jianguo instantly understood that the pilot, encased in the bio-pod, intended to take the World Beasts down with him!
The explosive force of the Fusion Reactor’s self-destruct was basically that of a large hydrogen bomb. If it could get close to the Beast Ancestor, it would surely inflict massive damage!
Even though they knew this was just a virtual game, the three of them couldn’t help but feel a solemn respect for the pilot.
The surrounding horde seemed to understand Chiyou’s intent and lunged forward to stop it, but they were held back by a frenzied barrage of missiles and Energy Beams and couldn’t break through.
In the blink of an eye, "Chiyou" was closing in on the Beast Ancestor. The thrusters on its back flared with even greater intensity, propelling the massive War Armor into a forward leap.
Just then, a tentacle that looked like a strip of upheaved earth rose from the sea, instantly wrapped around "Chiyou’s" body, and squeezed with immense force!
The light in the cockpit dimmed as the tentacle completely enveloped them. Before this tentacle, the several-thousand-meter-tall armor was no more than a tiny toy.
Immense pressure bore down from all sides. The seemingly indestructible Super Giant War Armor was instantly crushed and twisted out of shape as even more frantic alarms blared!
The reactor, having reached its critical point, detonated instantly!
Pan Jianguo, Kaven, and Hayden saw only a flash of blinding white light, then nothing. When the light subsided, they found themselves in the cockpit of another Super Giant War Armor, along with several other onlookers like themselves.
Not far away was the tentacle that had crushed the "Chiyou" armor. The Fusion Reactor had been detonated, but the fusion reaction, humanity’s pride and joy, had barely any effect on the tentacle.
A violent shockwave and a torrent of radiation spewed from the gaps above and below the tentacle’s grip, powerful enough to rip apart the dark clouds in the sky and boil the ocean’s surface. Yet the tentacle itself was merely scorched black; its massive form was barely affected!
"Sumarokov! What are you doing here?" Kaven exclaimed, looking in surprise at a nearby Russian man who looked like a great bear. He was a Russian nuclear physicist. "It’s Kaven, from Princeton University... And Kubo Tong and Mr. Zhang, why are you using your real appearances? You’re not using a disguised avatar?"
The people here were all physicists, titans of the field, and they were all familiar faces who saw one another at academic conferences every year.
The big-bearded Sumarokov laughed heartily, walked over, and gave Kaven a bear hug. "So it’s you, Mr. Kaven," he said. "I never thought you’d be here too."
Pan Jianguo and Patrick Hayden exchanged a glance, then also requested the game system to remove their disguises, reverting to their true appearances.
Upon seeing the two of them, the other colleagues were overjoyed and came over to greet them as well.
"Old Pan, you’re here too! I figured that as the country’s top expert in quantum physics, you’d definitely be here... As for me, I feel a bit out of place as an astrophysicist," said Zhang Yun, a Hua Country astrophysicist and an old acquaintance of Pan Jianguo.
"We’ve all ended up here, so why bother with such formalities? We all know each other!" Pan Jianguo said with a laugh, giving Zhang Yun a friendly punch on the shoulder. Then, his expression turned solemn.
"Everyone," he began, "judging from this True Apocalypse Game, humanity’s ’Giant Combat Robot and Mechanical Armor Initiative’ is doomed to fail... We simply cannot build a mechanical armor as large as an asteroid. It’s completely beyond the technological limits of human civilization."
The others around him nodded slowly, their eyes filled with worry.
’But what exactly are the developers of the True Apocalypse Game trying to do?’
’Surely it isn’t just to make them witness humanity’s failure...’
By now, only a handful of Super Giant War Armors remained. Just as everyone was wondering what would happen next, all the mechs suddenly dove, swimming toward the seabed.
To their shock, they discovered a massive wormhole on the seabed, nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter!
This super-wormhole was on a completely different scale from the newly appeared three-hundred-meter one on Earth. A single glance was enough to make one dizzy!
’So that’s how those asteroid-sized behemoths could appear on Earth! They all came through this wormhole!’
The few Super Giant War Armors suddenly accelerated, arriving before the massive wormhole. They simultaneously fired a beam of blue light, and the wormhole immediately rippled like calm water.
Then, the Super Giant War Armor they were in passed through the wormhole, and the scenery before their eyes changed in an instant. They were now in a vast, boundless sea of stars!
They seemed to be in a meteorite belt. In the distance was a crimson supergiant star that occupied nearly half their field of view!
The moment he saw this star, Zhang Yun, the astrophysicist, found his breath hitching. He stammered in a trembling voice:
"That’s... that’s Shield UY! The Red Supergiant Star!"
Everyone present was shocked. They had arrived at the homeworld of the World Beasts, on the other side of the Space Wormhole—the Shield UY Star Realm!
Before they could get a clear look, the few remaining Super Giant War Armors activated again, carrying them into the Meteorite Belt.
They passed one meteorite after another, each having existed for who knows how many billions of years, finally stopping and hovering before one that was roughly ten kilometers in diameter.
Mechanical stairways extended from the Super Giant War Armors and landed on the meteorite’s surface. Pan Jianguo and the others found their bodies enveloped in lightweight spacesuits.
They filed out of the cockpit and only then discovered that the Super Giant War Armors had many other compartments, each of which seemed to hold more people.
In total, several thousand people emerged from the few War Armors.
Faced with this fantastical space scene, the crowd had no time for pleasantries; they all rushed onto the meteorite.
An artificial structure stood there, brightly lit from within, as if awaiting their arrival.
From the outside, it resembled a hospital, a biological research institute, and a physics laboratory all at once.
Pan Jianguo was swept along by the crowd, feeling his own breathing quicken.
’To learn the Way in the morning, and die in the evening without regret.’
He had a distinct feeling that inside that building lay the Way!