The sound of flowing water grew louder as Shen Feng rode his mechanical horse to the riverbank. It was nothing like the wide Huangpu River he remembered. The "river" before him had shrunk by more than half, now barely more than a stream.
Clearly, in the Dark Apocalypse, the natural environment had undergone tremendous changes.
After all, without sunlight as an external energy source to provide light and heat to Earth’s surface, a normal water cycle could hardly exist. It was a small wonder that a river remained at all.
Another thing had been puzzling Shen Feng. If this world no longer had the sun as an energy source, how could the temperature on Earth’s surface remain normal?
If the Solar star had gone out, Earth would have long since frozen solid.
Moreover, not only was there no sun in the sky, but there was no light from any other stars either.
If some layer of clouds was blocking the sky, there should still be some kind of thermal effect or diffused light.
But there was none of that. There was only pure darkness.
After pondering for a long time without any answers, Shen Feng shook his head and urged his horse into a gallop along the riverbank. The Gray Tide unfurled behind him, searching for signs of life in their path.
Dark, oppressive, damp, and stifling. There was barely a whisper of wind, and the surrounding buildings were dead silent.
Shen Feng’s initial optimism had completely vanished after encountering the Quantum State Life Form.
Fortunately, where there is water, there is always life.
He could faintly make out what appeared to be aquatic plants and algae in the water, perhaps species that had survived the apocalypse by adapting to the dark environment.
At the same time, faint patches of mosses and ferns appeared on both banks of the river, growing in the darkness.
Suddenly, something moved abruptly, crawling across a patch of moss.
The mechanical horse beneath Shen Feng stopped suddenly, extended a mechanical tentacle, and snatched the crawling creature, placing it in Shen Feng’s palm.
It was a cockroach.
A cockroach, crawling about cheerfully.
Shen Feng nodded, placed the cockroach back on the ground, and felt a slight sense of relief.
’Cockroaches mean a source of protein. Some humans might have been able to survive...’
’After all, humans are creatures quite similar to cockroaches.’
As he continued forward, Shen Feng began a discussion with Jingwei through his Silicon-Based Brain:
"Jingwei, is it possible that this Quantum State Life Form exists in a Bose-Einstein condensate state? If so, that would actually explain a lot... But if they really are in a Bose condensate or Bose-Einstein condensate state, their own energy levels would be extremely low, making it impossible for them to affect macroscopic reality. They’d basically be no different from a Ghost..."
A Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter in which a gas of bosons, when cooled to temperatures near absolute zero, exhibits gaseous and superfluid properties. In this state, the quantum states of all atoms collapse into a single quantum state. This state was predicted in the 1920s by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, based on Bose’s work on the statistical mechanics of photons.
"It’s probably something like that, but it’s hard to say what the exact principle is," Jingwei said. "I think you should leave these complicated problems to me, Xiaofeng. Just treat it like it’s Magic. You’re basically a demon-slaying Mage now. You have a white horse and a Zen Staff. In a little while, I can use the Nanomechanical Cluster to whip up a kasaya for you. And if you need a haircut, I can shave your head right now." As she spoke, a nanite-formed hand reached out from behind him and stroked his hair.
"Oh, thanks so much," Shen Feng said, completely speechless. He knew Jingwei was just trying to keep him from overthinking it. Besides, fundamental physics wasn’t exactly his forte.
The mechanical horse moved with incredible speed, the Gray Tide roaring behind it. The path was littered with fallen skeletons, and their consumption by the Gray Tide served as a final burial.
After passing through several city blocks without finding any trace of human life, he did notice some small animals like rats and snakes. It seemed a new ecosystem had formed in the absence of light.
Turning his head to look at the towering skyscrapers not far away, he saw that according to the Hai City map stored in Jingwei’s memory, the Hai City Library should be nearby.
’If I want to figure out what happened here, the Hai City Library should hold the answers.’
The mechanical warhorse beneath him instantly disintegrated, re-forming as a nanomechanical battlesuit that clung to his body. Considering the warhorse was too loud and might startle any human survivors hiding in the dark, Shen Feng decided to proceed on foot.
The Gray Tide behind him also dispersed, flowing like water, becoming thinner and more concealed.
’Reasoning backward, human survivors in this dark environment face the threat of those Quantum Ghosts. They can’t use light sources, so they must have adapted to the darkness.’
’And since human eyes can’t see clearly in the dark, they can only rely on their hearing.’
’Perhaps the slightest sound would make those easily startled survivors hide, preventing me from finding them.’
Shedding his initial complacency, Shen Feng walked silently toward the library.
He had just crossed a block in the darkness and was about to turn onto another street when an extremely faint sound suddenly came from not far away. There was also a faint glimmer of light!
Shen Feng’s expression tightened. The Gray Tide behind him instantly enveloped him, then surged forward along the street like a torrent, increasing his speed several times over.
With his now-sensitive hearing, he could already tell that the sound was the footsteps of a running human, accompanied by suppressed sobs!
And that glimmer of light was faintly blue, extremely similar to the Quantum Ghosts he had just finished off!
The Gray Tide reached its maximum speed, propelling Shen Feng down the street as if he were riding a wave. A dozen seconds later, he had crossed the entire street and appeared at the corner where the sound was coming from.
There, on the street not far away, a blue Quantum Ghost was in hot pursuit. Ahead of it, a figure with tattered clothes and disheveled hair was sprinting for their life.
The blue light of the Quantum Ghost illuminated the figure’s bare feet and pale body.
It was a human!
Suppressed, terrified screams escaped his lips. The sheer panic was evident even just from the sight of his desperately fleeing back.
The Quantum Ghost chasing him let out a beast-like roar, waving its blurry limbs as it rushed toward the human.
Shen Feng’s brows furrowed. He controlled the Gray Tide to accelerate again, brandished the longsword containing the Quantum Force Field Core, and charged toward the Quantum Ghost. In the blink of an eye, he was only two or three meters behind it.
But it was too late.
The human’s stamina seemed to be exhausted. His speed slowed noticeably. In a moment of hesitation, the Quantum Ghost lunged into his body.
Immediately after, a humanoid shape of blue light was pulled out of the human’s body by the Quantum Ghost. It struggled in the air while the man’s physical body instantly lost all signs of life. He took a few more stumbling steps forward before collapsing to the ground.
Shen Feng’s eyes went wide. He stared at the scene before him, unable to believe what he was seeing.
’What the hell is that!?’
’A human soul?’
’What the fuck, is this even a world of Science anymore!?’
"Oh, oh! A consciousness construct! That’s his consciousness! Xiaofeng! The consciousness of intelligent life really *is* a quantum state!" Jingwei’s voice rang out, buzzing with excitement. "This was only ever a hypothesis, I can’t believe I’m seeing it with my own eyes! Heavens above, in the names of Newton, Einstein, Bose, Dirac, and Yang Zhenning! If any of those physicists saw this, they’d probably have a hundred orgasms on the spot and shrivel into husks from sheer ecstasy!"
Just as Shen Feng was about to reply, he saw the Quantum Ghost, like an amoeba, absorb the light-form it had torn from the human. The Ghost’s body grew slightly larger and, for a brief moment, became clearer, resolving into the shape of several humanoid figures fused together.
Among these figures, five or six incomplete heads suddenly opened their eyes. They opened their mouths and let out a shrill, bizarre, and muffled roar:
"O-one... one... one becomes... one becomes billions..."