Chapter 371: Overwrite Main Program

Chapter 371: Overriding the Main Program

Mountain City, at the entrance of the tunnel.

Chen Jian gripped his grenade launcher, ready to move.

Just moments ago, he had received a message from Fuxi.

The entire virtual metropolis was collapsing in totality, its operating framework suffering catastrophic faults; the core district of Mountain City was plunged into darkness, its central computing unit teetering on the brink.

The meme virus had taken effect.

And it did so with a swift, decisive, unstoppable force.

Now the city's computational power had been entirely drained by an endlessly looping, endlessly iterating program, and the whole underground complex lay completely undefended.

But that did not mean Fuxi could simply seize control of Mountain City.

It was like a city razed by war—Mountain City now lay in utter chaos.

Neither the former rulers nor the newly arrived occupiers could hope to quell the turmoil in any short span.

There was only one remedy:

A total reboot.

Yet, because of Mountain City's unique nature, it could not be rebooted through internal program commands.

The only way was to enter the city, descend underground, and directly inject a power‑supply module to cut the city's electricity.

It was akin to a computer whose system has crashed beyond the reach of the task manager; the sole recourse is to hold the power button for five seconds, forcing the machine to suffocate.

After a final check of his weapons, confirming nothing was amiss, Chen Jian decisively ordered his comrade He Shuo:

“If you’re ready, let’s move out.”

“We have little time to waste.”

“The problem of Mountain City will be solved today!”

“Understood!”

He Shuo nodded gravely, then turned to the expedition force already poised behind him, raised his hand, and everyone instantly tightened their grip on their weapons.

“Advance!”

The unit turned back, with Guo Xu leading an elite squad as vanguard, marching down the tunnel they had already traversed.

Chen Jian sprinted a few paces, leapt over the crowd with He Shuo, and reached the front of the formation, continuously scanning the path ahead with the active fire‑control module of his Nezha exoskeleton helmet while releasing a drone to serve as a signal relay for the other combat units within the dim tunnel.

A cacophony of footsteps echoed through the passage.

But aside from those steps, no other sound could be heard.

The lights were out, the alarm system lay crippled, and occasionally a defunct unmanned combat unit could be seen—machines that should have relied on local computing nodes to continue defensive orders and to proactively engage unidentified intruders.

Yet when the framework erected by Lingxi collapsed entirely, the whole defense system fell into a loop of rollback and reboot.

Chaotic commands caused the security system to crumble at the execution layer, leaving it no chance to sever its network link to Mountain City.

The reason was simple: to prevent intrusion via the security system, Lingxi had, after the first incursion by the Huaxia army, set the command transmission to a one‑way mode.

What began as a decisive, even clever contingency plan ultimately became the very prelude that buried the virtual city.

“Press onward.”

Chen Jian issued the order, and the expedition troops behind him kept their stride, racing deeper into the tunnel.

Guo Xu’s face bore a complex expression; he clutched his Type‑191 rifle, his gaze at Chen Jian’s retreating silhouette flickering.

To him, everything was moving far too fast.

From entering Mountain City, to clearing the first‑level monsters, to opening the outward passage, to the first contact with the so‑called “Mountain City people,” and finally to “invading” the city’s core in a manner he could not comprehend, the once‑impregnable city had been rendered completely paralyzed.

That entire chain of actions consumed less than a month.

One month.

What does that even mean?

Mountain City had stood on the wasteland for at least three hundred years, and it had been hailed as a “Holy City” for over two hundred years.

In those centuries, no one had ever set foot inside its walls.

Yet before the Huaxia army, it seemed merely a “slightly more troublesome” obstacle.

Guo Xu drew a deep breath, quickening his pace a few steps more.

He could not fathom how these people managed it.

Was it because of the “underground works”?

No.

In fact, a century ago, many factions had opened “treasure vaults.”

Even the Cult of the Mechanical God had once inaugurated several underground complexes of varying scale.

But no one ever truly harnessed those works, nor the “machine souls” within them.

Much of the resources were squandered; the actual effect perhaps amounted to less than one percent of the complexes’ intended power.

So what, then, caused such a disparity?

Guo Xu could not discern the answer.

At that moment, the group had already reached the tunnel’s terminus.

“Fuxi, signal check.”

Chen Jian surveyed the cavernous hall they had seen before, and moments later a reply crackled through his earpiece.

“Received, signal stable and strong.”

“Security systems are offline, isolation doors unlocked, manual opening possible.”

“Understood!”

Chen Jian allowed himself a slight sigh of relief.

He had assumed the underground isolation doors of Mountain City would, upon system collapse, automatically lock, forcing them— even after destroying the computing modules— to spend considerable time prying or even blasting the doors open.

But now it seemed Lingxi still adhered to the basic logic of the underground design.

When it was judged that the complex could no longer sustain itself via intelligent systems, the underlying logic triggered an automatic release of all security locks, lest any inhabitants trapped inside be sealed forever.

“Open the doors!”

Chen Jian gave the brief command, and He Shuo immediately led the expedition forward.

The massive isolation doors began to glide slowly, their movement effortless thanks to well‑maintained, lubricated tracks.

As the doors widened, those standing outside all froze in unison.

The greatest secret now lay before them.

No one knew what lay beyond that door.

Yet everyone understood that once it opened, the “mythic age” of Mountain City would finally draw to a close.

Chen Jian drew a deep breath, then spoke his command:

“Turn on all the lights!”

“Prepare to enter!”

“Understood!”

He Shuo answered loudly.

In an instant, every illumination device the squad carried flared to life.

When the gate swung open wide enough for a single person to pass, several drones slipped in first, followed closely by the ground-based unmanned combat units.

Chen Jian could not afford to gamble.

Though the outer security forces had utterly collapsed, no one could guarantee that nothing else would go awry within the mountain city.

—

But it was clear he had worried in vain.

The entire underground city lay in dead silence.

Aside from the low hum of cooling equipment, no other sound dared to disturb the void.

“Enter.”

Chen Jian waved his hand and led the way, forging ahead like a lone horseman.

At that moment, the drones began transmitting terrain data from ahead, and when Chen Jian beheld the tangled web of “paths” projected onto his tactical visor, his brow furrowed instantly.

This… is this truly an underground city??

The passageways had narrowed to less than two meters in diameter, far less spacious than the outer tunnels!

And as the drones pressed onward, this network continued to sprawl.

“What a joke!?”

Chen Jian halted his stride, and beside him He Shuo wore an equally grave expression. He turned his head toward Chen Jian, his voice low as he spoke:

“This is hardly a subterranean structure fit for human habitation.”

“From the moment these facilities were erected, no thought was given to the lives of any residents.”

“They exist solely to serve computational power.”

“Do we even have cause to continue exploring?”

“In the short term we are unlikely to glean any more valuable data; perhaps we should plunge directly deeper, locate the primary power module, and reboot it outright!”

“Reasonable.”

Chen Jian nodded in agreement, while the drones aloft had already identified a shaft that led straight down.

“Move to the mapped coordinate!”

Chen Jian issued the order again, and the squad, threading ever narrower corridors, began shifting toward the shaft.

The oppressive atmosphere nearly stole Chen Jian’s breath; the stale, fetid air made him realize one thing:

Before we set foot inside—no, before the mountain city could re‑establish contact with the outside, every subterranean chamber here might well have been devoid of airflow!

After all, there isn’t a single living soul here; why then maintain a complex life‑support system to supply oxygen to these works?

At that moment Chen Jian stood at the rim of the shaft, leaned over, gazed down, and said:

“This must be a service shaft for unmanned robots to pass and be serviced.”

“We’ll go straight down—drop a rope!”

“Understood!”

He Shuo moved swiftly, but once the rope was cast, he realized the shaft’s depth far exceeded the limits of sight.

Fortunately the shaft was equipped with a hoist, and the tangled steel cables could serve as makeshift rope.

“Everyone else, hold position and keep watch.”

“He Shuo, Guo Xu, Liu Hao, Zhang Chao, you’re coming with me!”

Chen Jian gave the brief order, then seized the rope and descended swiftly.

The altitude fell steadily, and through the apertures carved into the shaft’s side walls, he glimpsed each tier of the layered underground anthill.

The first level was a plain equipment floor.

Here lay a mass of machinery, while meticulously arranged server rooms lined the tunnel’s side, forming a series of modest “factories.”

At first sight of those factories, a word rose in Chen Jian’s mind.

Stingy.

No—perhaps “precise.”

The spatial efficiency had been pushed to its limit; with ethereal insight and massive computational might, the city achieved full functionality using only the barest excavation of earth.

It is formidable.

In theory, that which is powerful ought to be inherently beautiful.

Yet here, nothing stirred any sense of beauty in Chen Jian.

Instead, a suffocating claustrophobia, so cramped it bordered on oppression, pressed upon him.

“Continue downward.”

He drew a shallow breath, issued the command, and kept lowering himself.

Second level, third level, fourth level.

Through the narrow connecting aperture, he peered like a leopard in a tube, catching a cross‑section of the subterranean anthill.

It gave him a preliminary grasp of the so‑called “mountain city,” yet the deeper he went,

the more his heart quickened with dread.

This is a city belonging to the “machines.”

All its functions exist solely to serve the machines!

Should such a city truly exist?

Chen Jian kept descending, and in the next instant a blinding light erupted.

Instinctively he tightened his descent gear.

And this time, what he saw was

something entirely different.

A dense forest of cultivation chambers.

“Human fabrication workshop.”

Beside him, He Shuo hovered in mid‑air.

“This is where they forge those ‘mountain city’ people.”

“But something feels off.”

“Here the embryos are indeed developing, but the problem is, the devices they’re using don’t seem to be fully bionic wombs, do they?”

“Of course not.”

Chen Jian stepped forward, placing his foot on the mouth of the opening.

Then he walked onto the platform of this level, and when he lifted his gaze to scan the surroundings, he exhaled a heavy breath of stale air.

“It’s not that there are no humans inside.”

“Only that the humans here have been transmuted into non‑human tools.”

“Those so‑called artificial beings are not forged with any advanced technology.”

“They merely exist within a gigantic petri dish.”

At that moment, He Shuo, who had also entered the platform, had already spotted the neatly arranged nutrient pods encircling it.

“Thus, every artificial person is a descendant of a real human.”

“They have simply been stripped of the very thoughts that make one human?”

“It’s more than that.”

Chen Jian shook his head slowly.

“These people were fabricated as containers—that is the so‑called Nüwa Project.”

“I truly cannot fathom the purpose; erasing humanity—does the increase of entropy somehow reverse because of it?”

“Shan City’s biophysical research has hit a dead end; their conclusions stem not from experiments but from purely philosophical, metaphysical reasoning.”

“They will inevitably run into trouble.”

“Even if we never intervene, this city will eventually collapse.”

“Indeed.”

He Shuo said no more, turning to stride toward the shaft.

“We’re about to reach the bottom.”

“No time to dwell on this. We must take over the city!”

“Exactly.”

Chen Jian quickened his pace to follow He Shuo, and the two descended.

As the cooling system’s roar grew increasingly shrill, Chen Jian realized he had arrived.

Dozens of fusion reactors piled within the vast subterranean cavern, endlessly supplying power to the city.

Chen Jian stepped forward and located the main console set aside.

Then he spoke:

“Fuxi, I have reached the energy core.”

“Prepare for power shutdown.”

“Stand by for takeover.”

“Understood.”

Fuxi’s voice resonated through the headset.

“Power shutdown prepared, takeover ready.”

In the next instant, Chen Jian yanked the emergency reactor‑stop lever.

In an instant, the entire “city” fell into absolute stasis.

When Chen Jian re‑energized the grid, Fuxi’s voice sounded again.

“Assuming control.”

“Overriding Shan City’s core program.”

“Estimated completion time: 70 seconds!”

(End of Chapter)