The Fog I

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Chapter 17: The Fog I

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Silver assumed that awakeners with mind abilities must have to follow some logic in how they work, needing to interact with other souls to affect them, so what would happen if he put another barrier protecting his soul core... Let's say, for example, the Silver Effect.

The Silver can not hurt his soul as if it's a part of it. It can damage his body but not his soul, of that, he was sure as he experimented with that a lot.

Therefore, after a few more experiments of caution in his soul core, Silver started manifesting the Silver Effect, or Effects.

The spinning Silver Effects were manifested one after another, somewhat overlapping with each other to completely overshadow his soul core, and he even went beyond that just out of caution.

The end result was two gorgeous silver orbs surrounding not only his soul core but also the inner layer of his soul, providing two-layer protection, again, just out of caution.

And yet again, just out of caution, Silver continued to observe his soul for a long long while, seeing if there would be any irregularities, and there indeed was an irregularity.

It was the very slow transformation of his soul as it got invaded by the Silver Effects which were constantly producing energy, and that energy was spreading throughout Silver's soul, forming the Silver Soul.

Since Silver knew of the Silver Effect's capabilities, he expected a similar outcome, but he wasn't totally certain of the end result.

Either way, it was an experiment on his soul, thus he had to be extra cautious, always keeping tabs on his physical and mental state as well as the state of his soul.

Today would declare exactly the fortieth day since the start of the game of awakening, and it was quite the special day as Silver left the labs after a whole night of research.

As usual, he changed from his hazmat suit to some casual clothes, just a long-sleeved white shirt and white pants, running in contrast to his inky hair and eyes which only worked to exhibit his pale handsome face, as pale as a vampire, what living in a lab with the dead would do to you.

The Silver Domain has grown to such a degree that it can envelop everything in a radius of 1km around him. That's a significant distance, but he still needs to at least triple that to be able to see everything in the Umbrella Sanctuary, thus he made it a habit to walk around, just to make sure nothing is wrong.

Today is different for many reasons, the first of which was a discovery made by the astronomers of Umbrella Sanctuary.

Umbrella has grown to the extent that delegating responsibilities and forming different teams that focus on different fields became necessary, astronomy being a very important field.

As late as yesterday, they made a frightening discovery that actually shocked even Silver, being a completely unexpected discovery to the point that he instructed them to verify its authenticity.

The solemn atmosphere in the astronomy division made it clear that its authenticity was verified.

"Sir..." The head of the division quickly greeted him, putting on a serious expression before confirming the discovery, "We confirmed it... We might either be in a completely different galaxy or a different universe altogether, but still in the same star system."

The discovery still made Silver speechless no matter how many times he had heard it. Without feeling a thing, their entire star system was teleported somewhere else?

The oddity was extremely easy to detect but it took a while to verify, just the fact that the constellations in the night sky are completely different led them to such a discovery.

The astronomers had observed the new constellations visible in the night sky for a while now, comparing them to known constellations in our original galaxy and identifying any significant differences. Different galaxies have unique arrangements of stars, and the patterns of constellations were very distinct from what we were familiar with.

Moreover, they checked the Stellar Catalogs which contain an extensive catalog of stars and celestial objects. By comparing the star charts and catalogs from our original galaxy with the new observations, they were able to identify many discrepancies and inconsistencies.

And thus how they were able to verify their frightening observation, "I see... Let's start by creating a new catalog of the new galaxy, and mapping out the new constellations... Also, is there a way to verify if we're in the same universe or not?"

"Um..." The division head frowned, thinking things through before answering, "We can examine the cosmic microwave background (CMB) of the universe and compare it to the known CMB, and see if there are any differences although... This should be a time-consuming task."

The cosmic microwave background radiation is a remnant of the early universe and provides insights into its properties. Detailed analysis of the CMB, such as its temperature distribution and polarization patterns, might reveal differences between the original universe and the new one, if we are actually in a new one.

However, such a task is difficult, Silver realized that, "If you require any resources, just talk to Albert or me directly. I will talk to the physics division to see if they can help."

They can indeed help. While he knows a lot about physics, Silver's expertise still lies in biology, thus he didn't mind advice in other subjects as the physics division also started their work, studying the values of cosmological constants, such as the speed of light, gravitational constant, or the fine-structure constant, as they might vary in different universes.

"The unknown, huh?" Silver muttered to himself. So many unknowns and variables, it was getting on his nerve, especially since he knows that more and more unknowns will appear as time goes by... Silver hates the unknown.

Well, the unknown seems to love him as the moment he stepped outside, he couldn't help but stop as he narrowed his eyes, focusing on his silver domain like never before, seeing some small particles slowly manifesting in the air... "The fog? Finally?"

Silver wasn't surprised. In fact, it was within expectation, just a hunch or maybe a logical assumption based on the expected progression of the game.

The only question is, what will be the effect of the fog? Well, Silver is about to find out, "Call Natalia here." He instructed one of the guards, "And inform everyone... Start the highest emergency protocol."

There weren't many, but there were some awakeners that have very useful abilities besides the usual common abilities, and those special abilities helped Umbrella grow very quickly.

The mud swamp was the first layer of defense against zombies, and the second was the wall. Indeed, They were able to build a wall around Umbrella Sanctuary that's nearly twenty meters high, all due to five specific individuals that have abilities that have something to do with metal control.

And Umbrella had enough resources to make the wall even higher but all those remaining resources were used to construct an underground base, something akin to the HIVE in the resident evil franchise.

Silver played a key role in the Hive project as he was personally responsible for clearing space for the underground base, and if the Silver Effect can even annihilate metal, then it can certainly eradicate soil and rocks.

However, the Hive was still in the works, but they were able to construct a decent portion of the planned layout, including many bankers which are used in case of emergencies, the fog being one of them.

They were even working to envelop the entire town with threads, creating something akin to a spiderweb, a thick web to stop the swarms and the dangers of the sky, all through Natalia's ability, and even design a system through which the web can easily be opened and closed, but the project was still at work.

Speaking of Natalia, she arrived soon along with Albert and some of the core members of Umbrella while everyone else hid underground, "Is it time?" She asked.

"It's time," Silver nodded with a smile, "To New York, we go." The fog might be humanity's nemesis but it was his playground.