<h4>Chapter 588: Catastrophe</h4>


    Trantor: EndlessFantasy Trantion Editor: EndlessFantasy Trantion


    “What’s going on?”


    Seeing this scene, Chen Chen could not help asking, “Are you sure this happened after the spacecraft docked?”


    “Sir Excellency, there’s no mistake. It’s rted to the docking of the spacecraft.”


    X-112 replied, “Through Frank’s sight, I’ve recorded the footage from the Event Horizon when the spacecraft docked, but this video has been sealed by me.”


    Chen Chen nodded. X-112’s approach was correct. The dimension of Event Horizon was suspected to have unknown memes. The ck fog in front of them was evidence. After all, besides a memetic effect that could be transmitted through information, Chen Chen had no other way to exin why the NASA headquarters would be a building filled with ck fog.


    “This swathe of ck fog first emerged at NASA headquarters and then it continued to diffuse over such a huge range.”


    X-112 continued to exin, “At present, this stretch of ck fog is still expanding and it’s almost reaching the area where I’m hiding.”


    “Retreat then.”


    Chen Chen said, “Let the ck Knights take you away from where you are and exit the city of Washington.”


    Chen Chen said casually and then he slowly approached the ck fog from mid-air.


    Through his mid-air flight, Chen Chen roughly calcted that the ck fog was now elliptic in shape, about three kilometers in diameter, and about one kilometer high, nketing one-fifth of Washington. Not only that, as time went by, the ck fog’s scope was gettingrger.


    ording to his calctions based on the borders of the ck fog, the center of the ck fog was indeed the location of NASA headquarters.


    Chen Chen even personally approached the ck fog within a range of 80 meters and then used Field to explore the inside of the ck fog. Though it appeared to be mere vapor, it had blocked Chen Chen’s Field energy.


    However, Chen Chen realized that it could not fully block him. There was still a trace of power prating the ck fog but only to an extremely shallow extent. Moreover, the pration was not from his Field power, but his psionic powers.


    Seeing this, Chen Chen frowned. It was almost unbelievable that it was able topletely shield his Field energy. After all, everything wasposed of the four fundamental forces, yet this ck fog seemed to be beyond the scope of electromaic force. On the contrary, the psionic energy that functioned as a supplementary power for Chen Chen could prate it.


    Chen Chen even noted that the ck fog had swallowed up several citizens who were too slow in fleeing, thinking that they would be able to escape by hiding in their houses. These citizens originally watched the ck fog approaching and kept screaming, but as soon as the ck fog rushed over them, their screams for help disappeared without a trace!


    As if the ck fog was isting reality, entrapping the group of people in another world...


    Chen Chen frowned when he saw this. He turned his head slightly and a huge bus was lifted with a rumble and thrown straight into the ck fog. However, after the front of the bus had reached into the ck fog, Chen Chen suddenly exerted some force and tried to pull the bus out of the ck fog.


    “Twang...”


    There was a sound of metal distortion. As his Field energy erupted, Chen Chen pulled the bus out vigorously and immediately, half of the bus was pulled out!


    That was right, only half of it was left.


    Chen Chen stared in shock but saw that the front of the bus that had prated the ck fog hadpletely vanished and there were signs of forcible tearing at the fracture.


    The ck fog turned out to be like a living thing, silently devouring anything that entered its territory, and even the steel could not break free...


    “Interesting.”


    Chen Chen snorted coldly. He once again took out a miniature reality anchor from the bundle behind him, used his Field energy, and rammed it into the ground!


    “Boom!”


    The reality anchor was immediately plunged into the ground. At the same time, an invisible wave surged out and the next second, the huge ck fog a hundred meters away suddenly stopped!


    Chen Chen was only giving it a shot because he noticed that the ck fog could iste Field energy but not psionic powers, so he thought of using the reality anchor. Nheless, he had never expected that the reality anchor would fix the ck fog in ce!


    “The ck fog isn’t moving...”


    Chen Chen looked at all this in astonishment, only to see that the ck fog that had been surging up and bulging on all sides suddenly had its range reduced significantly. Then, its edges gradually calmed down, just like the waves on the beach, when the turbulent water would suddenly slow down and gradually turn calm.


    The reality anchor had suppressed the ck fog!


    A miniature reality anchor had a suppression radius of five kilometers, so it could cover all the ck fog that only had a diameter of only three kilometers. It was more than enough.


    Of course, if the ck fog had been given a period to expand, things might not have worked out.


    Seeing this, Chen Chen took a deep breath. He became more and more curious about the origin of the ck fog.


    Of course, Chen Chen was not arrogant enough to go directly into the ck fog to explore. He just followed the suggestions of X-112 and came to a house in the suburbs. The residents here had been evacuated by the military. There were only a few people within a radius of dozens of miles who were still reluctant to leave.


    In the room, two ck Knights were still standing ckly in the same ce. One of the ck Knights was holding an X-112 storage device in his hands.


    Chen Chen took the X-112 from the ck Knight, turned on aputer next to him and plugged it in, and then asked, “What happened when the Event Horizon docked with the rescue spacecraft during the time I was away?”


    “After the two sides connected, an image appeared.”


    X-112 replied, “It was fine at the beginning. It was almost the same as the plot of the movie. The rescue team opened the cryogenic chambers and released the two survivors, Lieutenant Starck and Cooper, but the next second, Lieutenant Starck stared at the camera and screamed suddenly. Then there was interference with the signal... When the interference was over, everyone at NASA saw an image.”


    X-112 was silent for a while. “Frank lost the connection with me after that image and the ck fog began to appear from NASA headquarters. As for what happened after the connection was lost, I don’t know.”


    “Is that so?”


    Chen Chen wore a contemtive expression. “It seems that this must be a phenomenon that would only ur due to a memetic effect. It looks like that image is the key point.”


    Chen Chen did not ask what the content of the image was and X-112 did not describe it either because both of them understood the strangeness of memetic effects. Some memes would not only transmit by the sense of “sight” but also would infect you indiscriminately as long as you know of its existence or others described its characteristics to you.


    This kind of meme was difficult to guard against.


    “Let the ck Knights test it.”


    Chen Chen thought for a while and looked at the two ck Knights behind him. “I want to see if the ck Knights who have no brains and can’t think can also be tricked by this meme.”


    With that, Chen Chen asked X-112 to load the video into theputer. Then, he pulled out X-112 again, opened the window, turned, and left the room, retreating to a distance of eighty meters.


    At this distance, his Field energy couldpletely cover the entire room through the open window and observe the situation of the two ck Knights after they had watched the footage. This was also one of the best ways to handle the memetic effect.


    “Let’s start.”


    Following Chen Chen’s order, X-112 began to control one of the ck Knights sitting in front of theputer and at the same time, clicked on the video that was left on the screen while Chen Chen reflexively allowed his Field to go around theputer screen, making it impossible for him to observe what appeared on theputer.


    The two ck Knights watched the video little by little.


    Time trickled by, second by second.


    Suddenly, at the end of the video, the two ck Knights shuddered and at the same time, theputer emitted a ripping sound, and the two ck Knights suddenly copsed to the ground slowly.


    “Sir Commander, I’ve lost contact with the two ck Knights!”


    X-112 immediately notified.


    Chen Chen was observing all this through his Field even more attentively and then, he saw a ck fog slowly gushing out of theputer.


    “Rumble!”


    The ck fog tumbled out from theputer screen in an instant, flooding the entire room little by little, and at the same time, repelling Chen Chen’s Field energy!


    It turned out that the ck fog had appeared like this...


    Chen Chen withdrew his Field energy a little bit and silently looked at the house 80 meters away, only to see endless ck fog quickly gushing from the windows and the cracks in the door. Gradually, a new mass of ck fog formed!


    “Suppress it!”


    Seeing this, Chen Chen immediately took out a miniature reality anchor from the bundle behind him and inserted it directly into the ground. Suddenly, the ck fog that had just formed was fixed in ce again and no longer expanded.


    “A miniature reality anchor’s capacitor can only supply power for about twelve hours.”


    X-112 reminded. “Should I order the remaining ck Knights stationed in Miami to bring more reality anchors?”


    “Very well.”


    Chen Chen nodded. “Be careful not to be discovered by the Northern American authorities.”


    The reason Chen Chen did this was of course, not to be the savior. He was only testing the power of Event Horizon. As for any cooperation with the government, it would restrict Chen Chen’s actions and make Chen Chen unable to fully explore using this opportunity.


    However, when Chen Chen was silently testing out the dimension of Event Horizon, the officials who had already withdrawn from the White House at this time had already taken the Air Force One presidential ne and left the Washington area.


    “What? The ck fog has stopped spreading?”


    The President of Northern America watched the video that was sent to him. It was a footage taken from a high altitude. In the video, the ck fog no longer showed signs of surging forward but hadpletely turned into a dome-shaped fog with smooth edges.


    The fog straddled the center of Washington like a ck egg, which was very prominent even in the dark.


    Its ckness was far more concentrated and conspicuous than the dark night.


    “D*mn it, what the h*ll is this...”


    The president of Northern America gritted his teeth at the ck fog and then looked at the man in uniform beside him. “General Bob, are you sure that the ck fog erupted from NASA headquarters?”


    “I can’t be mistaken.”


    The person called General Bob was a middle-aged man with gray hair but a cold expression. He nodded solemnly and said, “We can confirm this ording to the bird’s-eye view that was sent, Mr. President, please look — this is the map of downtown Washington. Ovep this with the bird’s-eye view taken now and we can see what’s in the area shrouded by the ck fog...


    “Although the ck fog is elliptic when viewed from the side like arge bowl tipped over the ground, when you look at it from a high altitude, you’ll find that the ck fog is perfectly round. Just calcte the radius of the ck fog and we can surmise where the center of the ck fog is.


    “And our prediction was right — the center of the ck fog is the headquarters of NASA!”


    Hearing this, the President of Northern America nodded slightly. He worriedly asked, “What’s the number of people who’ve gone missing in this incident?”


    “The numbers are temporarily unavable.”


    General Bob shook his head with a serious expression. “Because the ck fog appeared so suddenly, we can only do our best to evacuate the crowd but ever since the ck fog has spread, at least several blocks have been swallowed up. Moreover, it’s also quitete at night now, so I’m afraid the number of missing people isn’t optimistic...”


    The reason they called it the number of missing people rather than the number of casualties was that even they did not know what would happen to the people who had been enveloped by the ck fog. At first, they sent troops and armored vehicles into the ck fog, but no matter how many people went in, they would instantaneously lose contact with them.


    Thus, this scared them so much that they no longer dared to send anyone into the ck fog area.


    “Mr. President, please don’t be discouraged.”


    The Secretary of Defense on the side suddenly walked over and interjected. “It’s good news now that the ck fog has stopped spreading. The most frightening thing would be that the spread of the ck fog cannot be stopped. That would be troublesome.”


    “I just want to know what that ck fog is now.”


    The president nodded with a sorrowful expression.


    “That’s easy enough.”


    The Secretary of Defense reminded. “NASA is an agency directly under the White House and all daily activity logs there are stored in the Department of Defense’s secret server, which we can check.”


    Hearing this, the president’s eyes lit up. Yes, he had been overwhelmed by worries. Hepletely forgot that everything at NASA headquarters was under the control of the Department of Defense and could be inspected at any time.


    Following many high-level orders, the log report was soon retrieved and yed in the President’s exclusive vehicle, Air Force One.


    “This is... The docking between the Event Horizon and the rescue team?”


    Everyone immediately saw the scene recorded in the video and also saw the huge screen in themand hall that was in the scene.


    “It’s amon procedure. The Event Horizon has disappeared for seven years. This is a rescue operation reported by NASA and then approved by me.”


    The president of the Northern American Continent looked at the video in front of him, frowned, and faintly had an ominous hunch. “Could it be that all of this has something to do with the Event Horizon?”


    With that, he looked at the sky beside him but saw that there were already twinkling lights under his feet.


    “Where are we?”


    The president of Northern America turned around and looked at the officials around him who were staring at the screen together.


    “We have now entered the sky over New York City.”


    The Secretary of Defense nced out the window. “We’re about to arrive at our destination — the Islip secret military base.”


    However, at this moment, the Secretary of Defense suddenly opened his mouth and widened his eyes, staring at the screen.


    “Secretary Franklin?”


    The Northern American president asked suspiciously, but the other party was still gripped by surprise as if the expression on his face was frozen by death, with an inexplicable weirdness.


    At the same time, it was not only the Secretary of Defense but also General Bob and others next to him who also wore the same look.


    Seeing this, the president of Northern America only felt a chill in his heart. He slowly turned his head and looked at the screen in front of him...


    “Boom!”


    Over New York City, arge passenger ne with ck fog constantly pouring out of the cabin, plunged into the city center...