Chapter 355 - 297: God Civilization

If this were in that country across the ocean, given the level of surveillance they’ve been known to employ...

James felt he’d still have a fighting chance to find his targets.

But, given the current situation in the land of the White-headed Eagle! And how their own manipulations had weakened grassroots control to the point of near paralysis...

How the hell were they supposed to find them?!

But, if they couldn’t be caught!

At this thought, James suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.

The next moment, the Celestial Net issued another warning: "Your Excellency, Priestess, a logical vulnerability has been detected! An information leak from the previous Celestial Net conference room has been detected."

James stopped dead in his tracks. He was stunned. He subconsciously dug a finger in his ear and asked again. After receiving the same answer, he stared at his phone in disbelief. "...My God, are you playing some kind of international joke on me?!"

"I am not! This conclusion is based on currently available information," the Celestial Net’s voice replied, as cold as ever.

"NO! NO!" The moment he processed it, James took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. His voice trembled slightly. "Immediately, trace the intruder’s specific IP address through the vulnerability... And you must patch this vulnerability in the shortest possible time!"

Howard had come up behind James. He could vaguely sense James’s towering rage, so he shrank back and didn’t dare say a word.

...

Meanwhile, a young man with classic Germanic features calmly drove a Tesla through a police checkpoint, successfully entering Texas and heading toward Houston.

He was wearing headphones, through which Z was feeding him a translation of the Golden Dawn’s internal online meeting.

His plan to deceive everyone was actually similar to what he’d done in the Dream World—he’d altered the appearances of two black guys to look like him and Hodges, then had Z remotely control the Tesla... deliberately exposing them to draw all the attention!

Of course, what surprised Chu Bamboo was that the enemy had actually waited leisurely until the Tesla’s battery was completely drained before making a move... This had bought him a huge amount of time! So much so that he had already left Florida...

’An Oracle... Extraterrestrial Civilization?’ Chu Bamboo’s mind raced. ’Could an Extraterrestrial Civilization have discovered something about me and immediately issued an order for my capture?’

’But how did the Extraterrestrial Civilization find out...’ No matter how he thought about it, Chu Bamboo couldn’t figure it out.

Clearly, the Celestial Net hadn’t detected anything wrong with him, so the Extraterrestrial Civilization definitely didn’t find out through it.

’Could it be that the Extraterrestrial Civilization has other AIs lurking on the web?’

That didn’t explain it either...

Chu Bamboo’s brow furrowed deeper. Never mind that Z was currently conducting high-intensity scans; even if the enemy was that powerful, shouldn’t his intel be laid out on the Golden Dawn’s table by now?

Previously, once Chu Bamboo had realized the risks, he had already prepared for the worst—

He had issued a slew of pre-set commands for Z to forcibly hack all surveillance systems along their route, monitor the movements of the enemy’s military or police, deduce their encirclement pattern, and finally, control every controllable electric vehicle to launch indiscriminate attacks on patrol cars and even the National Guard, if they got involved...

To stir up chaos at any cost!!

Then, he and Hodges would just keep running...

Along the way, he’d already had Z steal over a dozen identities. After all, the situation with the White-headed Eagle was unique; a lot of identity information wasn’t even entered into the central network... The police on the ground would never be able to find any discrepancies.

As long as he switched identities fast enough, combined with his Disguise Skill and his terrifying combat abilities... then even if the enemy cast a giant, inescapable net over the entire map, he could still escape with ease.

In the absolute worst-case scenario... he and Hodges could just disappear completely into the remote mountains and forests.

He’d even captured a gangster boss and "persuaded" him to give up a large stash of supplies! It was all packed away in his Space Bracelet...

It was enough for him and Hodges to live on for a good six months!

It’s just... none of his preparations had been needed.

It left Chu Bamboo with the feeling of throwing a full-force punch only to hit a ball of cotton. "...This is just pathetic, isn’t it?"

Chu Bamboo heaved a long sigh.

"..." Hodges couldn’t quite appreciate Chu Bamboo’s feelings on the matter. From his perspective, wasn’t it a good thing that they had escaped safely without any trouble along the way?

"However..."

Chu Bamboo began to review the many suspicious points from the day, his eyes narrowing. ’It’s not an AI... could it be something like the Sophons from Three-Body?’

After a moment’s thought, Chu Bamboo quickly dismissed this guess. It came back to the same point: if something like that truly existed, it would be impossible for them not to have detected his trail.

The impression the enemy gave him was... that they’d sensed a problem on Earth and had already locked onto him? No, not even a precise lock-on, more like they just suspected he might be the problem...

’But their knowledge of Earth is extremely limited, and their ability to interfere is very weak...’

"How strange!" Chu Bamboo tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. ’What on earth did I do to make them so nervous?’

He had previously suspected it was because he’d integrated the Hive data into Z... but various factors had led him to deny that idea!

’If the enemy had an AI capable of detecting the changes in Z, that would be a possibility. But all signs indicate they don’t have any AI on Earth other than the Celestial Net.’

’It’s such a weird feeling. It’s like the enemy is having a fit, trying to tell fortunes! There’s no logic to it at all...’ Chu Bamboo complained internally. Then he froze, because he suddenly realized—if Divine Techniques had also existed in the Real World in the past, could there have been predictive Divine Techniques...?

’Could the Extraterrestrial Civilization have them too?’

’Yes, even though my good brother said there are no Extraordinary beings on Earth, that doesn’t mean Extraterrestrial Civilizations don’t have them... After all, God is an extremely powerful Transcendent, and is suspected of being a member of an Outer Civilization!’

’But... why were the previous timelines so normal?’

’Or, perhaps, integrating the Hive data caused a massive change to the future... which was then foreseen by a prophet from the Extraterrestrial Civilization? That seems like a more reasonable explanation... But is it really that simple? Or was it just that I never made any huge waves in my past lives...’

’Or maybe I was just unlucky this time... and happened to be foreseen by God’s civilization?’

After all, from what Chu Bamboo knew about the prophetic Divine Techniques of the God Worship Sect, such predictions were heavily dependent on fate... No one ever knew what they would actually see!

Chu Bamboo thought for a long while and finally decided to leave the problem for his good brother—

After all, his good brother had a whole lifetime to search for the answer, while he—the one who jumped to the future to see the result—had far too many other things to worry about!