Chapter 1 Deep Underground

Deep underground, where the deadly sunlight of the surface was blocked. However, due to the entire planet having been heated for thousands of years, it was still extremely hot here. Without shields and life support systems, perhaps only Izhaks and Elizabeth could endure it. Hao Ren led the small exploration team through the wide and crooked tunnel. The road ahead sloped downwards, as if leading to the depths of the earth, and so far, they hadn't seen the end of it.

Exploring on this reality planet that had turned into purgatory, Hao Ren couldn't help but think of Nolan who was left in the virtual world, and the hundreds and thousands of reincarnations that Nolan had experienced. He was sure that the humans in the virtual world were the residents who once lived on this planet, and they entered the virtual world undoubtedly to escape something. Hao Ren once thought that the people on this planet were helpless when the planet fell into the sun, so they had to create a virtual world to escape into in order to numb themselves, but he soon realized that the timeline didn't match up. The earliest world reincarnation in Nolan's memory happened nearly ten thousand years ago, while the data terminal calculated that the orbital imbalance of this planet should have been two or three thousand years ago. There was a huge difference between the two, and even if Nolan's memory of the world was not very accurate, it shouldn't deviate to this extent.

So the Zhuom people entered the virtual world not to escape the star fire – what were they escaping? The eldest son?

The journey in the underground tunnel was very boring, so Hao Ren casually shared his guesses with the people around him. After hearing these guesses, Lily gave her own views: "There are too many possibilities. It is possible that they didn't escape anything at all, but after the technology developed to a certain level, they chose the wrong technology tree. All mankind indulged in virtual reality and couldn't extricate themselves. Then the server in the real world had a problem, causing humans to be unable to log out, so they were trapped in the server like this. Then the planet falling into the sun was completely an accident. It is also possible that they did encounter a crisis back then, and hid in the virtual world to deduce a feasible solution in the simulator, and then an accident happened, causing them to be unable to log out. It may even be that the robots on the planet rebelled, and the rebels locked the humans' spirits in the server, and then used the humans' bodies as batteries to generate electricity - that's how it's portrayed on TV. Anyway, the surface of this planet has been burned by fire, and now it is estimated that only the underground server is still running. The evidence has all been burned, so we can guess whatever we want."

Lily babbled a lot of guesses, and even Vivian couldn't help but look at her: although she usually ridiculed this husky as a stupid dog, to be honest, this writer's imagination was really big, so big that her neck was a circle...

Izhaks coughed lightly at this time: "Ahem, speaking of which, we've just been looking down, but what do you plan to do to save people after you find them?"

"I haven't thought about it yet," Hao Ren was also very unsure when it came to this question. He could only say the best situation to reassure people, "But if there is really only one server below... it depends on whether we can use a spaceship to transport it away."

Lily blinked after hearing this: "...What a whimsical solution."

Elizabeth hopped around next to Izhaks, the little girl asked loudly: "Speaking of which, we've been walking down for several kilometers, right, how..."

Before she could finish her words, a roar suddenly came from the depths of the ground!

The roar lasted for a few seconds, sounding like huge rock formations collapsing in the underground caves. Then there was a tooth-aching creaking and rubbing sound from all directions. At the same time, the ground under everyone's feet vibrated violently. The surrounding super-alloy tunnel made unbearable tearing noises in the vibration, and fragments of soil and rocks kept falling from the cracks in the top of the tunnel. A burst of hot underground gas blew violently through the passage, almost knocking Elizabeth over.

Izhaks quickly grabbed the little girl and protected her by his leg: "Is this place going to collapse?"

Hao Ren opened his hand to hold Lily and Vivian beside him, and breathed a sigh of relief after waiting for the turbulence to pass: "It's quiet now... it shouldn't collapse. I guess this kind of situation must have happened frequently recently. Why didn't I see so many twisted corridors when I came over before?"

"What was that just now?" Vivian asked uneasily, "An earthquake?"

Before Hao Ren could say anything, Lily suddenly helped to explain: "It's the planet disintegrating. The gravity of the sun and the uneven heating of the planet itself are tearing the crust from the mantle. Theoretically, the sun-facing side should be where this movement is the strongest, but now the dark side is also shaking... it's really reaching the critical point."

Lily paused after speaking, and couldn't help but bristle when she noticed the gazes of the people around her: "So how many times do I have to say it before you can remember that I graduated from Peking University four times?! And I graduated on my grades, okay?!"

"Uh, it's probably like what Lily said," Hao Ren scratched his nose awkwardly, and said as he continued to move forward, "Everyone be careful, this planet is now like a candy ball softened in the sun, all structures are unstable, so you must not stand still in an emergency."

Then he added: "And actually the vibration is not the most terrible situation. The worst thing is that the walls and caves around us may suddenly squeeze over at any time. This is essentially a collision of the earth's crust. The plate friction that would take tens of thousands of years on Earth will be completed here in a few seconds..."

Lily's tail exploded into a cluster of swords: "Landlord, what did you say?!"

"Don't worry, there is an emergency disaster avoidance function on the life support collar. When the shield is about to be damaged by a sudden external force, it will teleport you to the spaceship. It's just that the scene will probably be more exciting."

Even a tough guy like Izhaks couldn't help but look at the ceiling with fear: "...Hundreds of millions of tons of crust squeezing down, even a demon lord will be killed in seconds."

"This is the power of nature," Hao Ren smiled helplessly, "We are falling into the sun with a fifty-quadrillion-ton stone ball, so don't expect the working conditions to be comfortable. Everyone stand firm and hold on tight, don't fall behind."

With the first vibration, there would be a second and a third - the group continued to move towards the depths of the ground, experiencing more earthquakes of varying sizes in the middle. As the depth increased, the vibrations became even more terrifying. Each vibration was not only accompanied by violent shaking and falling sand and gravel, but also a booming echo from the depths of the ground, as if exploding a bomb in a huge cave. It was the violent friction between the plates, and the discontinuous gaps between them amplified the roar of the rock collision like a speaker. The structure of this planet was completely disordered, and now it was impossible to say how many cracks and moving rock fragments were distributed inside it. It was shaking in space like a sack full of gravel, and large-scale plate collisions were constantly occurring every moment. But because the planet had not really disintegrated, these collisions were still within "controllable" limits, at least Hao Ren and the others were barely advancing in the depths of the ground.

For the planet, this small expedition team was as insignificant as a group of ants drilling through the cracks in the rocks, but this group of ants had power, and they were hoping to save something.

A completely blocked fork in the road blocked the way for everyone. This fork was blocked by collapsed rock formations, and this was already the sixth dead end that everyone had encountered. This was an unavoidable situation: with the entire planet slowly disintegrating, it was already a blessing to have feasible passages underground. Hao Ren could only lead the team back to the last fork and choose a promising passage to continue exploring. At the same time, he contacted the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace, which was synchronizing low-altitude patrols above everyone: "Terminal, can't you give me a more accurate navigation? This is another dead end."

"This unit has tried its best, but the underground situation is very complicated, and the surface area is reorganizing and deforming. This unit must first ensure that the route is safe and stable."

Hao Ren hung up the communication and shook his head to Vivian beside him: "Safety first, let's keep going."

"To be honest, the underground has become like this... How can Zhuom's virtual world still be running?" Lily felt incredible. "I feel that such complex virtual reality equipment should be very precise, but the earth's crust has begun to split, and the virtual world seems to be barely running."

"Anyway, 1.6 billion people on Nolan's side are still alive," Hao Ren was also a little puzzled. "Maybe the virtual world has many backup servers... After all, this planet has not completely collapsed yet."

Before he could finish his words, he suddenly heard a static-filled voice in the communication channel: "Hello... Hello, can you hear me? This is Nolan..."

Hao Ren answered the call in surprise: "I can hear you, what's going on over there?"

Nolan was silent for two seconds, and suddenly asked: "You are in the real world now, right? What you said before is true, right?"

The corners of Hao Ren's mouth curled up involuntarily: "Well, you've decided to believe it now?"

Heavy breathing came from the communication channel. She seemed to be calming herself down. After a while, she spoke: "What exactly happened outside?"

A sense of unease suddenly welled up in Hao Ren's heart. His tone was hurried: "Is there something wrong on your side? I hear a lot of static..."

"The world... is on fire."