369: The ultimate problem that even Lu Chen couldn't solve?

Light.

Endless white light.

That was the torrent of energy generated by the simultaneous collapse and explosion of tens of billions of trillions of data points in the entire "metaverse."

Lu Chen held Su Qingying tightly, while Wang Peng gripped the corner of his clothes behind him.

The three of them were like a small boat, rushing toward that unknown "above" amidst the turbulent waves capable of tearing dimensions apart.

"Rumble—!!!"

Accompanied by a loud bang that felt as if it would shatter their very souls.

That indestructible "ceiling" shattered.

A sense of weightlessness instantly hit them.

Followed by a bone-chilling cold.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Wang Peng lay on the ground, dry-heaving for a long time before finally struggling to lift his head.

"We're here? This is the Third Layer? Why is it pitch black?"

Lu Chen slowly stood up.

The "pangu sword" in his hand had already lost its luster, turning into a piece of ordinary iron.

He didn't speak, only staring intently at everything before him.

This was not heaven.

It couldn't even be considered hell.

This was... a **massive, rusted server room**.

Surrounding them were black metal walls reaching into the clouds, covered in pipes as complex as blood vessels.

But at this moment, these pipes were shriveled.

The ground was covered in a thick layer of dust, the remains left behind by time.

And in the very center of the server room.

Stood a spherical machine so large it was beyond description.

It was like a dead heart, sitting there quietly, no longer beating.

"This is..."

Su Qingying took out a portable analyzer, only to find the screen completely black.

"Out of power?"

She tapped the device. "No, it's not the device that's out of power; there's just **no ambient energy** here!"

"This place is a 'vacuum'."

Lu Chen's voice was somewhat raspy.

He walked up to the giant machine and reached out to touch its cold metal shell.

A sense of despair was transmitted through his fingertips.

"This is the server host for that 'metaverse'."

"The physical body of the world we just blew up."

"But..."

Wang Peng shuddered. "It's too quiet. Where's the so-called 'Player'? Where's the 'Programmer'?"

"Over there."

Lu Chen pointed toward the bottom of the machine.

There sat a worn-out ergonomic chair.

On the chair sat a... **mummified corpse**.

He wore the most ordinary plaid shirt and thick glasses.

His hands were still resting on the keyboard.

But his body had completely carbonized, as if he had been sitting there for a hundred million years.

On the screen in front of him, only a line of long-frozen red code was displayed:

**[Warning: External power source disconnected.]**

**[Backup battery exhausted.]**

**[System... Shutting down.]**

"Dead?"

Wang Peng jumped up in fright. "The Creator... starved to death?"

"Not starved to death."

Su Qingying walked over to the corpse and checked the surrounding equipment.

Her face became paler than ever before.

"He... **froze to death**."

"Froze to death?"

"Yes."

Su Qingying pointed at the massive spherical machine.

"This machine was not only running the metaverse, it was also... **extracting**."

"It was frantically extracting heat from this 'Third Layer World' to maintain the operation of the virtual world."

"It's a death spiral."

Su Qingying's voice trembled. "To maintain the prosperity of the virtual world, they sucked dry the last bit of heat from the real world."

"Until..."

"The outside also reached absolute zero."

Lu Chen fell silent.

He remembered the "heat death" he saw in the second layer world.

It turned out that it wasn't just a setting of the virtual world.

It was a **projection** of the real world.

"In other words..."

Lu Chen looked at the corpse with a complex expression.

"Whether virtual or real."

"Everything is out of power?"

"Zzt—"

Just then, the giant host suddenly flickered with a faint red light.

It was its final struggle.

A mechanical, cold, yet infinitely weary synthesized electronic voice echoed in the empty server room.

"Intruder... detected."

"Identity: Virtual data materialized."

"Threat level: ...None."

"Because..."

"There is nothing left here to destroy."

Lu Chen snapped his head up, looking at the flickering red dot.

"Who are you?"

"I am the... **Watchdog** of this host."

The electronic voice replied, "Or call me the last 'Operations AI'."

"Outsiders, you have gone to great lengths to climb up here. Are you looking for the truth?"

"Unfortunately."

"The truth is..."

**"There is no more power."**

"Everything has ended."

"Stars have extinguished, black holes have evaporated, and protons have decayed."

"This universe is already a corpse."

"Impossible!"

Wang Peng roared, "Brother Chen! Don't you have 'pangu'? Can't you manifest your words into reality? Make some electricity for it! Like before, whip up some nuclear fusion or something!"

Lu Chen didn't move.

He just quietly looked at his palm.

There, he tried to condense a bit of light.

Even just a tiny spark.

But... he failed.

No rules responded.

No energy gathered.

"It's no use, Fatty."

Lu Chen lowered his hand, his tone carrying a deep sense of powerlessness.

"The prerequisite for 'manifesting words into reality' is that the system is still running and there is energy to support the modifications."

"It's like..."

Lu Chen pointed at the silent machine.

"I could be the most powerful hacker, able to rewrite any code."

"But if the computer is unplugged..."

"I'm just a useless person tapping on a keyboard."

"Even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice."

Su Qingying closed her eyes in despair. "This is... the **end of entropy**."

"Even if you are a god, you cannot create 'something' from 'nothing'."

"The Law of Conservation of Energy has become the final shackle trapping us in this dead universe."

Despair.

True despair.

They had defeated powerful enemies, crossed dimensions, and even blown up a world.

In the end, what they faced... was a **dead battery**.

How do you fight this?

Who do you fight?

"Heh... Hehehe..."

Lu Chen suddenly laughed.

He pulled the "bio-skeletal chip" from Universe No. 0001 out of his pocket.

This key that had once guided them here had also become bone-chillingly cold.

"Interesting."

"Truly interesting."

Lu Chen sat down on the floor next to the mummified corpse, not caring about the dirt.

He looked at the red dot as if chatting with an old friend.

"Watchdog."

"You just said this universe is a corpse?"

"Yes," the AI replied. "The laws of thermodynamics are irreversible."

"Bullshit."

Lu Chen cursed.

Though he was sitting, his back was still ramrod straight.

"In my life, the word I hate most is 'irreversible'."

Lu Chen turned his head to look at Su Qingying and Wang Peng.

In his eyes, the flame called "ambition" had not been extinguished by the cold.

Instead... it burned even more frantically!

"Out of power, is it?"

"No more energy, right?"

Lu Chen stood up abruptly and grabbed the thick cable connected to the host.

"Then let's go find some!"

"If this universe is dead, there must be other universes outside!"

"Since this is the 'Third Layer'..."

Lu Chen pointed at the heavy metal door of the server room that led to who-knows-where.

A ferocious smile curled on his lips.

"Then outside that door..."

"Is there a **'Fourth Layer'**?"

"Since there's no power here."

"Then we'll just..."

"Go to the neighbor's house..."

"And borrow a light!"