Chapter 444: Flowing Light
As for these "people" who could successfully sever their ties to their physical bodies, completely become digitized, and live entirely within the virtual network, they were referred to as "Void" within Yamato.
After the Red World Chaos, the Yamato military, feeling the situation grow increasingly tense, further accelerated their militarized research into this new technology, the Void, hoping to create weapons capable of truly countering or even defeating high-end superhumans.
Especially when Bai Mo reappeared in this world, causing the Huaxia Federation, just across the waters, to suddenly change its stance, announcing the start of a mountain-moving and sea-filling project and directly targeting Yamato, the leadership's sense of urgency reached its peak.
The slow-paced, three-year-long land reclamation project, in the eyes of Yamato's high command, was simply a prolonged public execution, an agonizing wait for death to descend.
Because even if Bai Mo himself didn't participate in the war, the Huaxia Federation, purely by its sheer size, facing a Yamato already exhausted from the Sea Race invasion, would still have victory firmly in its grasp.
Over a decade of arduous warfare, coupled with shortages of many crucial resources, had caused Yamato, despite producing a group of super-soldiers no less formidable than those of other major powers, to see its economic, technological, and production development almost completely stagnate, barely able to maintain the levels of many years past.
Societal development had become distorted, with everything serving military combat.
Despite repeated efforts by the navy, military operations attempting to open a breach at sea all ended in failure, as the Sea Race, at the cost of tens or even hundreds of times more casualties, ultimately pushed them back to shore.
The sheer number of marine creatures, compared to humans on land, was simply too overwhelming, so much so that even if they suffered casualty ratios of one hundred to one or even two hundred to one, they wouldn't feel the slightest pang of regret.
“What’s the situation with the military Void bodies?” The major, his military uniform stained with blood, urged for an update from the project manager at the Technology Development Bureau beside him.
“Still... still a bit short.” The man beside him, wearing black-rimmed glasses and with cold sweat beading on his forehead, looking at the major who had just returned from the battlefield, having slain countless enemies, his blade still tipped with Sea Race blood, answered tremblingly.
“Don't fob me off with 'still a bit short' anymore. The Wangri Bridge of the Land of White is already nearing completion. If it can't be completed before the great war breaks out, and it delays critical matters, you wouldn't be able to bear the responsibility, even if you committed seppuku!”
While reprimanding the middle-aged project manager, Major Okita, at the same time, gently stroked the blade in his hand, as if caressing a lover.
The exquisite cherry blossoms on the katana's sheath and this young man, as stubborn as a stone, formed a somewhat subtle combination.
As a steadfast resistance-faction officer, Okita advocated fighting the invading enemy to the very end. Even after experiencing the Great Dark Sky incident two days prior, his will remained unshaken.
Within Yamato, the event two days ago that plunged the world into darkness was named the Great Dark Sky, ostensibly referring to how the battles between the two sides that day turned the sky dark, but subtly implying that the Land of White would drag the entire world into an abyss of darkness.
Of course, these rhetorical flourishes were merely Yamato's unilateral self-indulgence.
It was precisely because of Okita's stubbornness that he was appointed by his superiors to specifically handle matters related to cutting-edge weapons. Thus, he naturally sought out trouble for the various project managers every few days.
“Give us three more days, and within three days, the BE-condensate weapons will definitely be delivered into the hands of Void-01 to Void-05! I guarantee it with my life!”
The middle-aged man rubbed his weary eyes, pulled a can of refreshing spray from his pocket, sprayed a few puffs into his mouth, and then uttered his own grand declaration.
He hadn't had a good rest in over ten days. Even with his body highly enhanced, the fatigue etched between his brows couldn't be concealed.
“I hope your word holds true...” After hearing this reply, Okita departed the Technology Development Bureau's reception room, leaving only his voice echoing behind.
Okita felt somewhat irritated, so after leaving the Technology Development Bureau, he decided to go on another killing spree in the ocean, to vent the pressure in his heart.
Even though he knew such slaughter was utterly negligible as a loss to the Sea Race as a whole; the death of the useless would only become nourishment for the growth of the next generation.
“BE-condensate weapons... I'm afraid they still won't be able to deal with Hei Xue.” The middle-aged man, after Okita left, thought about this problem with a hint of helplessness.
As the head of the entire project, and also one of Bai Mo's former collaborators in Yamato, he didn't believe in the power of these super-weapons with the near-fanatical obsession of the military.
However, things had already progressed to this point. The military, which insisted on fighting to the end and never surrendering, frantically wanted to grasp at any straw, any lifeline. No matter how much he said, nothing could be changed.
He was very afraid of death, and thus unwilling to risk his life to assault the threshold of the Fifth Tier, having remained at the peak of the Fourth Tier. Facing Major Okita, the special envoy, who was a Fifth Tier, even though his rank within the system was actually somewhat higher than the major's, he couldn't help but feel a natural, instinctual timidity.
Even to this day, regardless of the system, the death rate for a Fourth Tier attempting to break through to the Fifth Tier remains close to ten percent, while the success rate, due to the decline in spirit qi levels, has sharply dropped to only about one to two percent.
Under such a broad environment, those willing to risk a ten percent death rate to gamble on a two percent success rate became increasingly rare. Therefore, Fifth-Tier superhumans remain one in ten thousand.
......
BE-condensate matter is the fifth state of matter, following solid, liquid, gas, and plasma, a phase state that matter exhibits when extremely close to absolute zero.
What the middle-aged man's team was doing was precisely to transform light into such a BE-condensate, making it a superfluid-like liquid light, which would then serve as the bodies for the Voids, allowing these digitized beings to gain unprecedented power, and attack enemies at near-light speeds.
Naturally, Voids capable of wielding such devastating weapons would be entities absolutely loyal to the Yamato government... Before participating in the Voidification experiments, they first underwent minor thought modifications to ensure they wouldn't rebel.
The Yamato military believed that Voids, capable of penetrating material barriers without harm and attacking at light speed, would make it difficult for even the strongest enemies to react in time and launch an effective counterattack.
As for the highly intelligent drifting spirits, Yamato, of course, wouldn't, nor would it dare, equip them with such things, even if theoretically they too could use liquid light as their medium.
“Absolute zero at one hundred thousandth of a Kelvin, a superfluid incapable of being obstructed by matter, plus attacks at near-light speed. Even a Six-Tier Marshal, I'm afraid, wouldn't be able to withstand it for half a minute, if it weren't for one fatal flaw...” The middle-aged man looked at the experiment report in his hand, and shook his head, a hint of frustration in his gesture.
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