259: Chapter 260 Jiang Chen: Stop fooling around, you're the program, I'm the hardware.

"System Girl, are you asking for a tune-up again?"

Jiang Chen rubbed his temples, looking at the little loli before him who was swinging her twin tails and batting her eyes, his gaze full of the concern of someone wondering, "Have you short-circuited?"

Ikaros didn't seem to have given up yet.

She trotted over on her short legs, circled Jiang Chen twice, and even deliberately puffed out her non-existent, proud chest, her voice softening as if dusted with sugar: "Master, I've specially customized my personality module according to your biological preferences."

"As long as you authorize it, I can enter 'Romance Mode' at any time."

"Whether it's a sweet junior, a cold-and-aloof older sister type, or even... oh my, anyway, as long as you're happy, I can be whoever you want me to be."

Jiang Chen rolled his eyes.

He reached out and ruthlessly poked System Girl on her tech-infused forehead, directly indenting her little face that was full of "affection."

"Stop, cut it out!"

Jiang Chen pointed to the mountain of engineering reports on the screen, "You are software, I am hardware; we have a purely professional employment relationship. You are responsible for calculating computing power for me, and I am responsible for charging you. Isn't that simple?"

"What's this about romance? Don't you find the data redundancy annoying?"

"Don't give me that useless stuff here. Hurry up and lock onto that interference source on the Far Side of the Moon; we still have several tons of gold we haven't managed to bring back yet."

The blush on System Girl's face faded instantly.

Those eyes of hers, which had just been filled with tenderness, turned into two cold indicator lights the moment Jiang Chen finished speaking.

"Hmph."

She pouted, the ahoge on her head drooping down, her tsundere expression making Jiang Chen's teeth itch, "What a dense block of wood, completely oblivious to romance."

"Don't expect me to do any more personality customization for you in the future."

"Also, don't expect me to take the fall for you. I've already automatically rejected the server request for that 'Romance Mode'; go explain it to those crazy women yourself."

After saying this, her figure flashed, transforming back into countless data streams, and she drilled back into Jiang Chen's phone.

Jiang Chen watched the little loli disappear, the stone in his heart finally dropping.

He rubbed his stomach.

This System Girl was too bizarre; she had actually learned this trick. If Jiang Wanqiu or Academician Chen Shuyin ever discovered that there was a "flirtatious" AI living in his phone, the resulting shuraba would be unthinkable.

"Phew..."

Jiang Chen sighed and walked over to the command console, looking at the pitch-black background on the deep space radar.

Everything seemed very calm.

But for some reason, he felt a faint sense of unease in his heart.

That feeling was like walking in a forest in the dead of night; although there was nothing around, he always felt like a pair of invisible eyes were hiding in the shadows, staring fixedly at him.

"Academician Chen Shuyin, has that interference signal really disappeared?"

Jiang Chen turned his head to look at the busy female academician.

Academician Chen Shuyin put down the detector in her hand, her brows furrowed tightly.

"It disappeared."

"No, it's more like... it has gone completely silent."

"That scanning frequency wasn't interfered with, but rather... the other party received some kind of feedback and voluntarily cut off the connection."

"It's as if..."

Academician Chen Shuyin hesitated for a moment before giving an answer that made his skin crawl:

"It seems that after the other party confirmed our position, they are now performing a deeper... targeting?"

Before Jiang Chen could speak.

"Hum—!!!"

An extremely low and slow rumbling sound suddenly came from deep beneath the ground beneath their feet.

The sound didn't resemble machinery; it sounded more like a slow, primordial pulsation.

"Thump."

"Thump."

The entire base trembled along with it.

The gravel on the lunar surface actually began to jump up in defiance of gravity at this moment, emitting crisp clinking sounds.

Jiang Chen looked up abruptly.

He saw that in the deep starry sky displayed on the screen, the originally pitch-black background had silently split open a gap.

There were no dazzling special effects.

Nor was there the aggressive air that comes when a warship descends.

It just "appeared" like that.

Silent, shadowless, yet it instantly threw the gravitational field of the entire Solar System into chaos.

It was a dimensional abyss with no visible end, emitting a ghostly green death ray...

All the starlight around it was sucked in at this moment.

That feeling was as if the curtain of this universe had been forcibly torn open, revealing the even crueler, more indifferent true universe behind it.

"What... what is that?"

Zhao Gang leaned over, looking at the black hole on the screen that was constantly expanding, feeling as if his voice had been frozen, "Boss, is that another 'package' sent by Jiang Wanqiu?"

Jiang Chen did not answer.

He stared fixedly at that abyss, his palm already pressed onto the warship's launch button without him realizing it.

A layer of fine cold sweat slowly seeped onto his forehead.

That terrifying pressure even made him feel a long-lost... threat of death.

That was a true "God-level Civilization."

It was the "Reaper" that had once wiped out countless brilliant stars in the universe.

Not only had they come.

They also seemed to bring with them an extremely arrogant rage.

Because Jiang Chen's arrogant "collecting toll" broadcast from just a moment ago had completely enraged this arrogant existence.

"Unknown dimensional life fluctuation detected."

"Target: Solar System."

"Mission: Erase."

Lines of pitch-black text, like incantations, appeared out of thin air in everyone's field of vision.

Not on the screen.

But projected directly into their minds.

Academician Chen Shuyin grabbed Jiang Chen's sleeve tightly, her face turning deathly pale, because she realized that those characters were attempting to... rewrite their consciousness.

Jiang Chen took a deep breath, the flames in his eyes erupting completely.

He hesitated no longer.

He grabbed Academician Chen Shuyin, turned his head to look at the rows of standby combat personnel, his voice hoarse but carrying a desperate fighting spirit:

"It seems that this round..."

"No one can stay out of this."

"Deploy the luan bird!"

"Let me see if the so-called Civilization Terminator..."

"Can handle this... 'nuclear peace' surprise we brought back from the Wasteland!"