In the deep night of Changling Village, a full moon hung high in the sky. I stood before a stone tablet at the village entrance, covered in intricate runes, observing the fluctuations of the energy field through a special mask. Ever since connecting to the Cosmic Civilization Network, these seemingly ordinary runes had taken on new meanings; they were not merely markers left by troops but resembled some sort of monitoring device from an ancient civilization.
The energy fluctuations intensified again. Zhou Jing looked at the readings on the detector; this was the third anomaly this month. Recently, there had been strange changes in the energy field of Changling Village. Those virus programs we thought were stable suddenly became restless, as if responding to some kind of summoning.
"Look there," I pointed to the bottom of the stone tablet. Under my special vision, I could see new runes beginning to emerge. The patterns writhed like living creatures, gradually forming a warning symbol.
"Something is approaching Earth," I said, but before I could finish my sentence, an unusual sound suddenly echoed from the sky. Looking up, the outline of the moon became blurred, as if something was interfering with the atmosphere. Even more unsettling was the feeling of an unfamiliar yet familiar energy fluctuation.
"World Eater," Li Yang's voice came through the intercom; the Antarctic base had also detected abnormal signals. "Stevenson said this energy signature matches exactly with those recorded."
I clenched my fists. The World Eaters—those uncontrolled civilizations drifting through space—had finally found Earth. And their first target was unexpectedly Changling Village.
"Why did they choose this place?" Zhou Jing asked.
"Because this is where the earliest experimental base was located," Honda Miho emerged from the archives holding a recently decrypted document. "Look at this."
It was a survey map. The map marked several special locations in the village: the stone tablet, an ancient well, and a shrine—these seemingly ordinary buildings formed a complete energy network.
"Wait," I noticed a strange symbol on the map. This symbol looked almost identical to the Tai Chi pattern discovered by the Antarctic base, only it appeared much older. Moreover, according to the annotations, this mark existed before the troops arrived.
"So Changling Village..."
"Could be an observation station established by an ancient civilization on Earth," Honda Miho said. "When the troops discovered this place, they inadvertently activated some kind of ancient device."
Suddenly, the stone tablet emitted a low hum. The glow of those runes intensified, forming a beam of light that shot straight into the sky.
Through my special vision, I saw a bizarre shadow taking shape outside the atmosphere. It was not ordinary matter but rather composed of twisted space-time and chaotic energy.
What was even more terrifying was that I sensed a familiar aura from that entity—it resembled Sato after his mutation.
"They're here," I said, "and it's not just one."
The shadow in the sky began to split apart, transforming into dozens of smaller entities. Their forms constantly shifted as if unable to stabilize in any dimension.
At that moment, I noticed a copper plate emerging from the bottom of the stone tablet. Inscribed on it were ancient characters; through my mask's decoding, I recognized them as part of the universal language of the Cosmic Civilization Network:
"Guardians, it is time."
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