The Gray Tide, formed from the coalescing Nanomechanical Cluster, continuously devoured the buildings in the surrounding darkness as it rose upward.
The base, originally only a dozen meters in diameter, expanded as it consumed, quickly reaching a hundred meters across. It twisted and coiled its way up, resembling a silver metal tower.
The Hai City Library from just a moment ago was completely enveloped by the Gray Tide in just a dozen seconds, then devoured and broken down into a new Nanomechanical Cluster.
A group of survivors, who had been in the underground parking garage moments before, were now carried to the surface by the Gray Tide. They stood atop the base of the silver behemoth, staring blankly at the ever-growing tower before them.
The surface of this silver tower emitted a faint, silvery glow, allowing them to make out its shape.
They were completely unable to comprehend what was happening.
"An Immortal Rope? The Tower of Babel? Jack’s beanstalk?" the man in the lead muttered to himself. Apparently, despite living in the Dark Apocalypse and guarding a library, he had still managed to do some reading.
In his eyes, the mysterious outsider must be using some kind of Witchcraft, and the continuously growing tower before them was the source of it.
Shen Feng stood to the side, holding the glowing "Magic Staff" formed from the Quantum Force Field Core, a feeling of exhilaration washing over him.
Just now, after seeing those bizarre "histories," he had a sudden realization: he’d been thinking about this all wrong.
Once he possessed the nearly invincible Gray Tide and the Quantum Force Field Core, he should have never continued his investigation step-by-step.
After all, the people who were there when the apocalypse began were long gone. Even if he did investigate, he wouldn’t find much information.
It was better to just smash through with overwhelming force!
No matter what existed up there, no matter what was blocking the entire sky, he just had to devour it all with the Gray Tide.
The strategy of lying low from start to finish no longer suited him.
The silver tower devoured the buildings within Hai City as it continuously rose higher. In the blink of an eye, it was already several thousand meters tall and still climbing!
The roar produced by the friction of the intertwining Nanomechanical Cluster sounded like muffled thunder rumbling from deep within the earth.
The Gray Tide climbed ever upward while its base rapidly expanded. In a flash, it had devoured several city blocks, taking on the appearance of a colossal tower that seemed to lead to the legendary Heaven.
The tremendous noise from the Tower of the Gray Tide’s ascent immediately alerted the Quantum Ghosts in the surrounding city ruins. Small blue lights began to glow all over the city, and then, one by one, vaguely-shaped Quantum Ghosts converged from all directions, heading toward the former site of the Hai City Library.
A closer look revealed at least hundreds, if not thousands, of them.
At this point, the three girls had also awakened from their Hypnosis. The incredible scene that greeted them immediately filled their faces with terror.
Normally, even a single Evil Ghost would be enough to annihilate their entire tribe. The horde of Evil Ghosts appearing before them now could slaughter them countless times over.
At the same time, cries of alarm from other humans echoed from many parts of the city ruins. These were survivors who had been hiding in the shadows, drawn out by the sound of the Tower of the Gray Tide, only to encounter Quantum Ghosts and be hunted down.
By now, the base of the Tower of the Gray Tide was nearly a kilometer in diameter and almost a hundred meters high.
Shen Feng had put on the helmet made of Sacrificial Metal, linking him to the entire Tower of the Gray Tide. Through the Gray Tide, he had a panoramic view of the entire Hai City Ruins.
He let out a cold snort. Tentacles of Gray Tide opened the backpack on his back, retrieving one Quantum Force Field Core after another. Then, long metal tendrils shot out, carrying the cores toward various parts of the city ruins.
The survivors fleeing the pursuing Quantum Ghosts saw a root-like metal tentacle snaking across the ground, carrying a blue-glowing sphere. It slammed viciously into the Evil Ghosts, instantly blasting them to pieces!
Before they could react, the metal tentacles wrapped around their bodies and dragged them all the way to the front of the silver tower.
There, they found other survivors who had been brought in the same way.
One by one, human survivors were rescued and brought to the base of the Tower of the Gray Tide.
Though they didn’t understand what was happening, they knew the silver metal tentacles had saved them. For a moment, they huddled together, at a loss for what to do.
Shen Feng had no time to worry about their emotional state. He split off his Consciousness Antennae to rescue survivors in the city ruins while continuing to control the ascent of the Tower of the Gray Tide.
Fortunately, he had brought dozens of Quantum Force Field Cores with him this time, which was just about enough.
The Tower of the Gray Tide had now risen tens of thousands of meters into the sky, but it was still far from touching anything. All it could feel was air.
’Not enough... Still not enough...’
Shen Feng’s expression hardened. The Tower of the Gray Tide beneath him expanded outward once more. Its massive base spread across the entire Hai City Ruins like a raging tide, devouring one block after another in an instant.
As it twisted and climbed, the Gray Tide itself released immense kinetic energy, causing its surface temperature to rise and emit a faint light, making it exceptionally conspicuous in the thick darkness.
From a distance, the Gray Tide looked like a colossal, writhing serpent, its silver light flickering in the darkness as it twisted its way upward.
This scene stirred the hearts of many survivors hiding in the darkness. Although they didn’t know what was happening, they knew some world-shaking change was underway.
Fifty kilometers... a hundred kilometers... two hundred kilometers... five hundred kilometers... a thousand kilometers... fifteen hundred kilometers...
The higher the Tower of the Gray Tide rose, the graver Shen Feng’s expression became.
The tower had now surpassed the atmosphere and was approaching the upper limit of low Earth orbit, yet there was still nothing above it.
There was no dust cloud obscuring the sky in the atmosphere, no obstruction at all. It was as if everything had been a figment of Shen Feng’s imagination.
Due to the distortion caused by Earth’s powerful gravity and centrifugal force, the base of the Tower of the Gray Tide had now grown to the size of half the Hai City Ruins, yet it still felt as if it were on the verge of collapse.
’Could it be that the sky isn’t blocked by something, but that there’s a problem with the Sun?’
But if that were the case, Earth would have long since turned into a giant ice ball from the extreme cold, and the natural environment would be nothing like it was now...
’Keep going up!’
Eighteen hundred kilometers... nineteen hundred kilometers... two thousand kilometers... twenty-one hundred kilometers...
Suddenly, the rising Tower of the Gray Tide shuddered violently and came to an abrupt halt.
Shen Feng, who had been controlling the Gray Tide with his eyes closed, snapped them open, a flash of excitement in his gaze.
’Found it...’
The once-unstable, teetering Tower of the Gray Tide now had a foundation to anchor to above. It immediately stopped swaying and became much more stable.
Shen Feng looked up. The Tower of the Gray Tide disappeared into the darkness high above, like a tower reaching to the heavens.
The original purpose of nanotechnology was to build a space elevator. This current situation was somewhat close to that initial design goal.
"Unidentified artificial object detected in low Earth orbit. Calculating surface area. High probability it covers the entirety of low Earth orbit space," Jingwei’s voice rang out, much more serious this time. "...This is very likely a Dyson..."
Shen Feng’s expression was just as solemn. He looked up into the night sky and said:
"Correct. It must be a Reverse Dyson Sphere."