The events occurring in North America naturally couldn’t be hidden from Fang Zheng, who was located in space.
In fact, when Fang Zheng received Iona’s report, he originally felt no emotional disturbance, however......
"What the hell is this?"
Looking at the satellite cloud image of the North American continent, which seemed to have some kind of cult-like symbols and markings, Fang Zheng was dumbfounded.
We’re sure this is a science fiction disaster film, right?
What the hell is this?
Did we accidentally stumble onto the wrong set?
In fact, after zooming in and seeing various creatures running across the ground resembling demons, Fang Zheng even wondered if Diablo had come here to cause trouble, however...... these don’t seem to be the same demons as in Diablo?
At the very least, that human-sized brain with metal-framed limbs and two cannon-like things below it...... this is totally sci-fi style! At least Diablo didn’t have any such creatures, right!
No, it should be a sci-fi demon style?
What kind of absurd nonsense is this, what kind of ridiculous creatures are emerging!
Although quite perplexed, Fang Zheng took this chance to closely observe the situation, and found things were somewhat amiss.
Now Fang Zheng realized that the Nightmare IV difficulty was clearly equivalent to gathering all the forces invading Earth together. Originally, according to reason, perhaps they would attack in waves, but now they’ve swarmed out completely.
Not only that, these alien races originally belonging to different works somehow seemed to have perfectly unified coordination. According to Fang Zheng’s observation, assuming these alien races are really like those in his memory, they should be fighting each other.
But in fact, they’re not; they’re clearly cooperating with divisions of labor.
Apparently from Independence Day, the gigantic warship is the air force, and Iona also reported a strange alien fleet appearing in the Pacific, attacking the navy forces there. Not only that, just in North America, there are alien forces using legged robots resembling giant octopi, and the faction emitting blue light capable of mind-controlling humans, along with the one that seems more fitting in myth or ghost stories rather than a sci-fi film...... Alien...... force.
These forces do encounter each other, yet no battles occur between them, rather, each faction appears to be working hard to demarcate their territory...... Hmm, this reminds Fang Zheng of when Columbus discovered the New Continent.
It’s not that it hasn’t been reported, just not the time yet.
Back then, the Americans eradicated the Native North Americans and took their land. Now the aliens have discovered their existence, launched an attack, another cycle begins.
Indeed, it’s the cycle of Heavenly Dao, Karma never fails.
Let them mess around.
"First Fleet, continue expanding, our goal is to recover the entire Eurasia."
Fang Zheng totally abandoned North America. In his view, as long as Eurasia is preserved, North America can be left as a pigsty, anyway, those aliens are performing divine transformations to convert Americans into alien soldiers. Once converted, he can burn more.
Let’s leave it for pig farming.
Now ironically, the only relatively peaceful place globally apart from East Asia, due to Fang Zheng’s Azure Fleet’s strong arrival, is the Middle East, which hasn’t been swept by aliens yet.
And this makes sense, as Fang Zheng hasn’t seen any sci-fi films set in the Middle East involving alien invasions.
On this point, the Americans have really messed up the world, even Africa has a massive alien invasion army now......
Despite all this, Fang Zheng remains quite cautious, he’s only dispatched the Azure Fleet’s First Fleet to Earth, not even the main fleet. In fact, Fang Zheng has hidden the main fleet outside the Solar System. After all, based on the system’s urinal design, if these originally diverse alien forces can unite to conquer Earth, there surely is a mastermind behind prompting them.
Fang Zheng remembers seeing the preview for Independence Day’s second installment before his time travel, it seemingly said that the invasion in the first wasn’t the final boss, rather just an advance team. Indeed, Fang Zheng’s experience with Edge of Tomorrow showed the same, the Earth’s attackers weren’t the whole alien force but merely a small advance squad.
This is quite normal, given the significant civilization gap. Using Fang Zheng’s Azure Fleet for instance, placed in Emilia or Louise’s world, he wouldn’t need full deployment either, not even the main fleet. A raid ship and two destroyers would suffice.
Sure enough, from a safety perspective, adding an aircraft carrier would basically be enough.
These aliens attacking Earth are evidently similar.
Thus, Fang Zheng resolved to conceal the main army, waiting for the opponent to rashly act before responding. After all, whoever strikes first loses.
At this moment, Iona provided another report.
"Commander, unknown alien life forms have appeared in area A3, initiating attacks."
"A3...... hah huh? Korea has aliens?"
Upon hearing Iona’s report, Fang Zheng paused briefly, then immediately widened his eyes.
Are you kidding me? Korea...... Korea ever made any sci-fi films about alien invasions?
Well, more accurately, it’s likely these locations were predetermined as alien invasion sites in those Sci-Fi American films......
Americans have really messed things up.
"Let me take a look."
Speaking this, Fang Zheng gestured, soon another monitoring screen was pulled in front of him, then zoomed in quickly. Before long, Fang Zheng locked onto the aliens speeding through mountainous regions, attacking villages and capturing humans.
Their appearance looks somewhat like octopus-like creatures, covered entirely in silver armor, only the back is exposed revealing fresh red flesh and tentacles......
"Oh, so it’s these things......"
Observing this, Fang Zheng realized, considering he played games in his past life, he knows what these are, knowing back then, he enjoyed peeling off their shells.
"Hmm...... from this perspective..."
Watching the scene, Fang Zheng pondered momentarily, then slightly smiled.
"Right, let’s treat this as a gift...... Iona."
"Yes, Commander."
"Perform a comprehensive scan of all alien life groups, consolidating the information as their gift."
"Understood."
Meanwhile, underground in the Imperial City’s air-raid shelter, discussions remained intense. The discussion’s focus was naturally related to the peculiar silver fleet.
Though results showed they helped fend off those alien forces, their identity remains unknown without attempting communication, leaving many, both politicians and scientists, worried. Despite appearances that silver warships sided with them seemingly, it’s merely surface-level.
No clarity on whether they’re planning to imprison them, essentially treating them as piglets within an enclosure.
"Still no response from the other side?"
"Yes."
Facing the inquiries from the higher-ups, academy scientists and professors nodded.
"Nearly all methods have been attempted to express communication willingness, but it’s still met with silence, no response."
"Then, do you think these bizarre aliens are good or bad for us?"
"This..."
Faced with the higher-ups’ inquiry, the Academy of Sciences experts suddenly didn’t know what to say. If they say it’s good, then why not communicate a bit? Do they feel it’s unnecessary? But if they say it’s bad... if they make any move that angers the other side, the result could be even worse.
After all, even those gigantic alien warships that obliterated entire cities were completely destroyed under the firepower of these fleets. It’s imaginable; this fleet clearly possesses superior strength.
"Report!"
At this moment, suddenly a soldier burst in.
"A silver warship has already arrived above our air-raid shelter!"
"What?!"
Hearing this, everyone was taken aback; they hastily looked towards the screen behind them. Meanwhile, the screen displayed the outside scene, where a silver-colored warship hovered outside the shelter, and the soldiers responsible for guarding were also very tense, clutching their weapons tightly. Faced with this unexpected presence, no one is sure if the intentions of the other are good or bad.
"Should we..."
"Don’t panic!"
The commanding officer halted the guards, and the leading Elder stared at the screen.
"Let’s see what these guests actually want to do."
Quickly, under the gaze of everyone, a white beam of light was suddenly projected from the warship, and then a small silver sphere dropped out, about the size of a basketball. Its surface showed no patterns, appearing as simply a metallic ball.
After releasing this sphere, the silver warship quickly flew away, leaving only the floating sphere in mid-air.
Seeing this, everyone looked at each other.
What on earth is this thing?
Soon, the sphere was immediately taken under heavy guard to a secret room in the shelter, and meanwhile, scholars and experts from the Academy of Sciences also came here to look at the sphere in front of them.
"Is this... just a sphere?"
"No, in fact..."
The soldier guarding the sphere answered somewhat puzzledly, then he reached out his hand and gently touched the sphere. Soon, he saw the previously featureless surface of the sphere show a map of the Earth, with four colors of red, yellow, blue, and green denoting territories of individual countries to the north, south, east, and west.
"What is this...?"
Seeing this, the higher-ups were somewhat bewildered. Could it be a kind of puzzle toy sent by the aliens?
But seeing this scene, a scientist’s eyes lit up at once.
"This is the four-color theorem! Indeed, we guessed it right!"
"Four-color theorem?"
"Yes."
Upon hearing the Elder’s inquiry, the scientist quickly began to explain.
"This is proposed by Goodry, a British university student. He wanted to ask if any map could be colored using only four colors so that countries sharing boundaries would not have the same color. The principle behind this was in question. Mathematically, it involves subdividing a plane into non-overlapping regions that can always be marked with one of the numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4 without neighboring regions being assigned the same number."
"That’s indeed interesting."
On hearing this, the higher leadership felt quite curious, as this sort of trivial knowledge is not something they usually come into contact with. It sounded rather intriguing, but...
"What does it have to do with this sphere?"
"It’s a test. It’s clear that the other side wants to use this method to confirm if our civilization level has reached their dialogue standard. If we solve this puzzle, we can advance further!"
"Then can we solve this problem?"
Although the higher-ups weren’t very familiar with the four-color theorem, they understood that solving this puzzle might be the first step towards communication with alien civilizations!
"This... is extremely difficult. To be honest, the four-color theorem hasn’t been completely solved yet; previously, we could decide which areas to fill, but this time, the other side has specified four basic standard points of red, yellow, blue, and green. We must complete the four-color theorem on this basis, requiring supercomputer support..."
"No problem, from now on, all units across the nation will do their utmost to assist you in completing the task! Whatever you need, just say; we only ask that you resolve the problem in the shortest time possible!"
Compared to the excited scientists, the politicians were more far-sighted. Perhaps to scientists, this is just a test, passing it will earn them the qualification to converse with advanced civilizations.
But what if they fail?
Will they be deemed as barbaric beings with no meaning for communication?
As a civilization with a tradition of exams lasting thousands of years, they knew all too well that "exams" aren’t always good news.
No, this should be considered the "imperial examination".
Just like when the Emperor gives a couplet "A row of migratory geese flies south", you’d respond with "Two ducks walk north", otherwise you’d be roasted...
Meanwhile, in the warship, Iona maintained a duck sitting posture on the table beside Fang Zheng.
"Commander, what’s the meaning of doing this?"
Iona looked at Fang Zheng quizzically. Previously, the Azure Fleet had thoroughly inserted the collected data into the sphere, but Iona hadn’t expected Fang Zheng to encrypt the data before sending it. In Iona’s view, if it’s transmitting information, sending it directly would suffice; why bother with all the trouble?
"Simply put, it’s also a kind of stimulus, better than doing nothing."
Fang Zheng shook his head. He followed the civilization contact method of the Forerunners from Mass Effect in doing so, also to give a reminder to his compatriots in this world. After all, this is just a dog food world; Fang Zheng will leave after the sweep, but it’s uncertain if more aliens will appear in the future. If Fang Zheng offers direct assistance and they accept it directly, they might suffer losses next time.
As a precaution, it’s better to follow the rules, good for both sides.
"Furthermore, there’s one more thing... Commander."
"Hmm?"
"Lafite discovered a light-speed transmission signal fluctuation in the Delta Quadrant connecting to the Solar System."
"Oh?"
On hearing this, Fang Zheng raised an eyebrow.
"Let me see."
"Yes."
With Fang Zheng’s words, Iona gently waved her hand, soon the scene before them changed again. Then they saw amidst the boundless starry sky a cube resembling a Rubik’s cube, almost the size of a planet, advancing towards the Solar System...
"Is this perhaps..."
Seeing this, Fang Zheng’s expression slightly changed.
Indeed, Nightmare IV difficulty isn’t so simple...

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