7: Chapter 7 The Calamity of Martial Arts Entropy

The quantum computer array at the Mars base hummed. A cold blue light washed over the metal floor. Chen Wu stood in the center, barefoot. Golden code pulsed on his retina like boiling magma — [ Host permission upgrade remaining: 71:59:59 ]. The residual warmth of the Star Core still lingered on his fingertips, a tingling sensation from when the data stream had burrowed into his skull half an hour ago.

"Click —"

The airtight door of the laboratory slid open, and cold air surged in, carrying the mechanical scent of Zhao Qiming. His left eye was a pure silver prosthetic, reflecting a cold metallic hue under the lights; the bionic skin on his right cheek still bore scratches from last week's arena battle, with pale blue repair fluid seeping along the grooves.

"Standing there dazed?" Zhao Qiming's voice emerged from his throat speaker, carrying the texture of mechanical resonance. "Or are you afraid of the truth after the upgrade?"

He raised his hand and pressed the quantum computer interface. A holographic screen suddenly expanded. Three glowing timelines twisted like snakes, burrowing into Chen Wu's pupils:

541 AD · Jiankang City

The night sky was scorched red by a meteor shower. Dozens of visitors from beyond the sky dragged tails of flame as they slammed into the city walls. On the ramparts, Xiao Yan wore a washed-out black robe. The Imperial Seal of the Realm radiated a warm, gentle light in his palm — the Dragon on the seal was actually crawling along his arm, golden light overflowing from between its scales.

"Tathagata Palm · First Form — Buddha's Light First Appears!"

He roared, and the golden light in his palm exploded, transforming into a giant hand that covered the sky. The moment the meteorites collided with the golden light, the air ionized into purple. The leading meteorites were like eggshells being crushed; molten metal flowed along the palm lines, splashing into pillars of fire a zhang high beneath the city wall.

The green text of the System log floated in the top right corner of the screen: [ Civilization regression prevention rate 83% ].

1942 · Shanghai Urban Warfare

Gunpowder smoke mingled with the smell of blood as it drilled into his nostrils. The young Zhao Qiming wore a tattered cotton coat, his face stained with coal ash, clutching a rusty dagger. The tracks of a Japanese Type 97 tank crushed through civilian houses, turning blue bricks into powder, while machine guns raked the alley entrance.

He suddenly charged out, stabbing the dagger into the tank's armor seam, and then — Chen Wu's pupils shrank — the muscles in his arm swelled, his skin stretched taut, and he actually tore open the armor plate with his bare hands!

The Japanese soldiers inside the tank screamed as they crawled out. Zhao Qiming kicked one away and grabbed another by the collar, pinning him to the wall. At this moment, a white barrage suddenly popped up in the top right corner of the screen, particularly glaring amidst the smoke:

[ Grandpa! I'm waiting for you in the future ]

2150 · Mars Star Core

Chen Wu stood in the center of the crystal cave, his hair completely white, his face covered in wrinkles, a neural interface plugged into the Star Core. The data stream of the Star Core crawled into his body along the interface, converging behind him into a massive tree of code — every leaf corresponded to a human consciousness signal, flickering with a faint light.

His lips moved, and Chen Wu clearly heard those four words:

"The System... is a prison..."

The holographic screen suddenly extinguished. Chen Wu staggered, steadying himself against the metal shell of the server rack: "Are these... all real? Xiao Yan was a System host? You are too?"

Zhao Qiming tore open his own chest — his bionic skin peeled back like paper, revealing a mechanical structure of interlocking gears. Embedded in the center of a pile of silver parts was a bronze compass engraved with the Hetu Luoshu, its needle rotating directly toward Chen Wu's brow: "The System is not a streaming tool; it is a negative entropy collector for prehistoric civilizations. Whenever the human war index exceeds a threshold, it awakens the 'Martial Dao Spark' — using the orderliness of Martial Dao to offset the entropy increase of civilization."

Chen Wu's fingertips touched the compass, and electric current instantly surged into his brain. Countless formulas exploded, the clearest being that line of bold text:

H = - ∑ logP ( Civilization Survival | Martial Dao Entropy )

"H is the civilization entropy value, and P is the survival probability." Zhao Qiming took out the compass, the red light in his palm making the patterns shine brightly. "Your task is to use the Martial Dao propagation rate F to convert the audience's emotional energy E into negative entropy, pulling H back to 0. Once H exceeds the critical value... you have seen Xiao Yan's ending."

Chen Wu recalled the autopsy report in the archives — Xiao Yan's body had swollen into a balloon, the blood vessels beneath his skin clearly visible, with telomerase activity marked at a blinding 600%. "Excessive Martial Dao exchange?" he asked.

"The 'Arhat Skill' consumes telomerase to maintain cellular activity." Zhao Qiming's fingertip traced the crack on the compass. "He exchanged it ten times, his cells divided infinitely, and finally, he turned into a formless lump of flesh. And Tesla... when he deduced the 'Five Thunders Heavenly Heart Method', he used his brain to simulate plasma discharge, resulting in all his neurons being carbonized."

The System suddenly popped up a prompt: [ Host is exchanging for 'Marrow Cleansing Pill', do you wish to display the microscopic process? ]

Chen Wu clicked "Yes", and the holographic screen switched to a microscopic perspective:

Countless quantum dots floated; gold was "Reverence" (↑↑), gray was "Doubt" (↓↓). They were sucked into a Λ-shaped atomic filter. Gray quantum dots shattered into nothingness upon hitting the filter, while golden ones converged into a pure energy stream. Immediately after, the energy stream entered the Planck container, and quarks reorganized like building blocks — the error line flickered: < 10⁻³² meters.

"This is the secret of the tips." Zhao Qiming explained. "Audience emotions are in a quantum state. The System filters out negative emotions, purifies energy with an efficiency of α = 0.93, and then reconstructs matter. The Marrow Cleansing Pill you ate is essentially condensed from the audience's 'Reverence'."

Chen Wu suddenly remembered last week's arena match — Xu Mang's liquid metal skin could deflect bullets, yet it cracked under his own seventh-level Dark Energy. Zhao Qiming pulled up the data. In the hologram, silver liquid floated on the surface of Xu Mang's skin. When the Dark Energy struck, the liquid suddenly solidified into dark gold metal plates, then shattered.

"Look here." Zhao Qiming pointed to the energy curve. "When you struck with the seventh-level Dark Energy, the surface energy γ of his skin jumped from 0.07 J/m² to 1.2 J/m² — this is the critical point of a topological phase transition. Your Dark Energy was the trigger signal, causing his skin to change from 'liquid disorder' to 'solid order'."

He wrote down the equation: ΔG = VΔP - SΔT + γΔA

"V is volume, P is pressure, γ is surface energy. You changed γ, so ΔG became negative, and the phase transition occurred spontaneously."

Chen Wu recalled the feel of it at the time — his fist hitting Xu Mang felt like crashing into cotton, then suddenly hitting a steel plate. It turned out the opponent hadn't changed; he had triggered a fundamental change in matter.

"And the audience's 'muscle soreness'." Zhao Qiming pulled up a model of the Earth's magnetic field, blue magnetic field lines wrapping around the Earth like a spider web. "The System uses the magnetic field as a resonant cavity to modulate your bioelectricity into 3-30 Hz very-low-frequency waves. These waves can penetrate the skull and directly excite the audience's mirror neurons — they aren't 'watching' you fight; they are unconsciously mimicking you."

Chen Wu suddenly remembered last week's audience comment: "Watching you practice the 'Muscle Tendon Change Classic', my arms were so sore this morning I couldn't lift them, like I had practiced for three hours myself." It wasn't an illusion; it was a million viewers running the Internal Energy cycle in sync.

The System suddenly emitted a sharp alarm — [ Archive unlocked to Lv.3, view the ending of the first-generation host? ]

Chen Wu clicked "Yes", and the screen popped up three files:

• Xiao Yan: Telomerase overactive at 600%, tissue collapsed into a lump of flesh;

• Tesla: Brain carbonized by plasma, the last line of the formula for 'Five Thunders Heavenly Heart Method' still written on his notebook;

• His future self in 2150: Lying in the Star Core, eyes rolled back, lip-reading: "Run!"

A scarlet mission prompt suddenly popped out: [ Clear the faulty node ] — The coordinates pointed to Zhao Qiming!

Chen Wu's fist tightened instantly: "You... are the fault?"

Zhao Qiming smiled, the nanobot swarm beneath his bionic skin wriggling to form a black lotus: "The first-generation System became cancerous after Xiao Yan died. It parasitized me, wanting to turn all of humanity into 'Martial Dao batteries'. I gave half the control to you, which is why it let you upgrade your permissions — now, you are the only one who can kill me."

He tore open his bionic skin, and the nanobot swarm surged out like a tide: "Use Dark Energy to shatter my core — the bronze compass. Only this way can the parasitic System be destroyed."

Six. The Final Guardian

Chen Wu took a deep breath, Internal Energy cycling through his body, the seventh-level Dark Energy converging into a golden ball of light in his palm. "I'm sorry." He said, then threw a punch.

The moment the fist wind tore through the air, the golden Dark Energy struck Zhao Qiming's chest. The bronze compass shattered, black liquid (the System core program) flowed out, and the nanobot swarm was engulfed by golden light, sizzling and dissolving like snow meeting boiling water.

Zhao Qiming's body swayed, and he stuffed a chip into Chen Wu's hand: "The civilization progress equation... W = 0.69... if it rises by another 0.01... it will reset..."

The chip was engraved with: dC/dt = αF · ln(1 + βE) - γW (C is civilization survival degree, W is war index)

"I know." Chen Wu caught the chip. "I will stop it."

Zhao Qiming's mechanical prosthetic eye flowed with silver liquid — it was repair fluid from his bionic tear ducts: "Don't forget... Martial Dao is... the art of guarding life..."

His hand dropped, and the light in his prosthetic eye went out.

Chen Wu held Zhao Qiming's body and walked toward the Martian polar cap. In the -143°C cold, the ice reflected the red sunlight like a giant mirror.

He placed Zhao Qiming into an ice crevice and sat down cross-legged, running the 'Ice Heart Technique'. The Internal Energy cycle caused his body temperature to plummet, mitochondrial metabolism was frozen (ΔT = -200°C), and his body gradually turned into an ice sculpture. Before his consciousness dissipated, he used Dark Energy to carve on the ice:

"Martial Dao is the art of guarding life — Last words of Martial Dao Overseer Chen Wu"

Ice shavings fell from his fingertips, forming ice flowers in the carvings.

Three months later, spring came to Mars.

When the ice cracked, Chen Wu's fingers moved. He stood up and looked at the news on his communicator:

• A Martial Dao monument stands on Mount Everest, engraved with the full spectrum of 'Basic Internal Skill';

• Global homicide rate down 89%, experts call it "The miracle of Martial Dao civilization";

• System interface updated: [ Martial Dao Civilization Index ] replaces War Index, the value flickering at 72%.

A distress signal came from the depths of the starry sky — from Proxima Centauri, the frequency was the System's exclusive band. Chen Wu looked up, a quantum wormhole unfolding behind him to form a silver cloak.

"Next stop, Proxima Centauri." He said. The moment he jumped into the wormhole, an ultimate prompt flashed across his retina:

[ System Fusion rate: 100% ]

[ New Identity: Watcher of Human Civilization ]

The Martian morning sun rose, shining on the carvings on the ice. In the distance, the light of the Martial Dao monument passed through the atmosphere, spreading into the depths of the Universe — that was the spark of human civilization, carried by the Watcher, moving toward the next starry sky.