Chapter 96: "Ghosts"

Rat-tat-tat!

The suppressed sound of 6.2mm subsonic bullets echoed through the public square.

These "ghosts" were invisible to the naked eye, only visible through the dynamic capture function and hyperspectral imaging of their holographic screens. Yet, the bullets had no effect on them whatsoever.

Leon and his teammate, both elite agents highly skilled in firearms, wouldn't normally miss their shots, especially with the assistance of advanced equipment. But as they fired at the "ghosts," there was no feedback—no impact, no damage, as if they were shooting at empty air.

Realizing this, the investigators immediately understood that physical attacks were useless.

Leon's teammate quickly opened a communication channel, urgently reporting, "This is Team G! Physical attacks are ineffective! I repeat, physical attacks are ineffective...ugh...!"

Before he could finish, Leon saw one of the ghosts pass directly through his teammate's body. In an instant, all signs of life vanished from his teammate, who then collapsed heavily to the ground.

"No! Mike!"

Seeing his comrade fall and another ghost charging at him, Leon instinctively rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding the attack.

But before he could get back on his feet, hundreds of ghosts were already "reaching" for him...

---

Primary Universe Date: November 13, 1996.

Iceland.

Inside the private office of the forward base;

Sitting behind his desk, Samuel Young stared at the holographic screen displaying an image from "tomorrow," dated "1996/11/14." This indicated that he had just completed a [Reset].

Real-time footage from the body cameras of Ada, Leon, and others had been transmitted via the wired base station to the ruins base in the primary universe, where dedicated personnel copied and organized the data. After Samuel completed the [Reset], these diligent employees transmitted the relevant materials back to him through wired communications.

As he studied the image of the "ghosts," Samuel began to suspect that Universe 04's background might be related to a little-known movie—*Spectral*.

After all, the ghosts couldn't be seen with the naked eye, nor could they be detected by thermal imaging. The vague outlines captured on the holographic screen suggested that these ghosts were actually Bose-Einstein condensates from *Spectral*.

Typically, matter exists in four states: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. However, Bose-Einstein condensates are an artificially created state, not a naturally occurring one.

In the movie, an Eastern European country called Moldova, using energy from a nuclear power plant and "rubidium" as a raw material, successfully mass-produced Bose-Einstein condensates.

This substance, characterized by resistance-free, viscosity-free particle flow, allows a large number of particles to gather in the same quantum state, all at temperatures close to absolute zero.

When something passes through the body at absolute zero, it causes severe damage to organs, the brain, and skin, leading to instant death. This explains why the human corpses Leon and his team found appeared burned, yet their clothes bore no burn marks.

Judging by these characteristics alone, Bose-Einstein condensates seem less suitable for weaponization than plasma, as their manufacturing process is cumbersome and costly, with disproportionate destructive power. However, being invisible to the naked eye and able to silently pass through all but ceramic and pure iron walls or structures, they can instantly release substantial energy.

If an experienced human soldier possessed these traits, they would be an exceptional weapon.

In the movie, the Moldovan research team had set up a research center inside a nuclear power plant. By scanning human test subjects at the molecular level, they forcibly extracted the complete neural network system and, using 3D printing technology, printed bodies made of condensates.

This allowed Moldova to successfully create a batch of self-aware "humanoid condensates."

But the neural network systems controlling these condensate bodies, trapped between life and death, endured unimaginable pain and suffering, ultimately driving them insane and leading them to hate all living things.

In the movie, a safety accident led to the escape of some condensates.

Initially, there were no mass casualties, but the condensates could absorb energy through various means and multiply exponentially. Within a few days, they had slaughtered a million innocent civilians, as well as the rebel forces, government troops, and U.S. military personnel who were fighting each other, nearly causing Moldova to fall.

Faced with this common threat, the originally hostile human factions temporarily set aside their differences.

Meanwhile, the movie's protagonist, Mark Cline, who happened to be a weapons scientist, quickly realized that the ghosts terrorizing Moldova were not supernatural phenomena but humanoid Bose-Einstein condensates.

Upon identifying the enemy, Cline stated a profound truth: "Anything can be destroyed, depending on the amount of energy required."

While bullets were ineffective against condensates, high-temperature plasma was not. So, using his expertise and the few remaining U.S. military weapons, Cline developed a batch of disposable plasma discharge guns.

With these weapons in hand and knowing the enemy could be "killed," the military gathered the surviving soldiers to launch an assault on the nuclear power plant, the source of the problem, hoping to curb the out-of-control condensates.

After a series of battles, the soldiers confirmed that the plasma discharge guns were indeed effective, but the energy released was still insufficient to achieve true kills.

In the movie's climax, Cline and his team succeeded by "pulling the plug," cutting off the power supply, and severing the neural network system's link to the condensates.

However, Samuel didn't believe that the condensates alone could have caused Earth 04's nuclear winter.

Even if Cline's team had failed, humanity could have chosen to end the out-of-control situation by saturating bombing with nuclear and hydrogen bombs, turning Moldova into a dead city and land. This would have also stopped the condensates.

Therefore, Samuel speculated that Moldova on Earth 04, after developing the technology to mass-produce humanoid condensates, did not experience any safety accidents and successfully promoted this technology.

Moreover, the world of *Spectral* is set in a near-future Earth, where international tensions are high, and the slightest misstep could lead to a new world war, ultimately escalating into nuclear warfare.

It was clearly this war that led to the nuclear apocalypse, and with no oversight, the condensates began to rampage across the surface, forcing the human survivors to seek refuge underground.

As for the absence of condensates in Iceland, it could be because they could no longer maintain their form and dissipated, or perhaps they moved elsewhere after wiping out the population.

But this was just Samuel's speculation. At this stage, his primary goal was to save the human survivors hiding in Sana'a, Yemen, during [tomorrow].

Secondly, he aimed to gather more information about Earth 04's past from these survivors, helping Atlas locate the source of the condensate manufacturing.

But before that, he needed to make the necessary preparations.

___________________

Read Ahead

P@treon.com/Mutter