From that night's conversation onward, the relationship between Noid and Sasha grew closer.
But it wasn't the kind of closeness between a couple in love; it was more like a connection between confidants. Sometimes they would go to the stone pedestal, sit under the stars, and chat over a cup of coffee.
Because Noid had so much less experience than Sasha, she did most of the talking. He played the role of a listener, occasionally saying a few words.
From Sasha's stories, he learned many things that ordinary people didn't know. After all, Sasha held a high and powerful position, so it wasn't uncommon for her to know things that were completely unknown to the general public.
She didn't hesitate to tell him these things, mainly because these secrets, while hidden from ordinary people, didn't involve any top-secret, classified information.
"Do you know about the Mars expedition 11 years ago? When we went on that expedition, humans truly proved that we weren't the only civilization in this universe. Mars had indeed once had a civilization, and at that time, we even found technology from the Martian civilization and brought it back to Earth."
"These technologies raised the level of human civilization quite a bit. It's a shame that the doom invasion happened, and some of the research results were destroyed by the war. This is a great pity. Otherwise, we would have definitely advanced much further by now."
Sasha's voice was filled with regret. Noid couldn't help but sigh, because he had read the summary of the background and knew that it was the act of exploiting the remaining ruins of the Martian civilization and the spaceship of a third civilization that awakened the sleeping doom lord underground. Afterward, the doom tracked the fleet and invaded Earth.
The whole process seemed as if humanity was digging its own grave, but was that really the case? From a human perspective, this was indeed an act that would provoke outrage. But from a god's-eye view, humanity was just unlucky.
So, you couldn't blame those people for being wrong. It was because humans knew so little about the universe. Who could have known that a planet where civilization had died out 65 million years ago would contain such a terrifying thing?
Listening to Sasha's account of the Mars expedition, Noid realized that her story made no mention of a spaceship from a third civilization. Unless the system was flawed or Sasha was intentionally hiding it, the information about the third civilization's spaceship was so highly classified that a person with as much authority as Sasha didn't even know it existed.
He wasn't guessing blindly, because the background summary mentioned that the technology on that spaceship had reached the realm of "god."
"As the doom invasion began, scientists accelerated their research and developed weapons for humanity to fight back against the doom."
"The first was a special set of armor made entirely from Martian technology."
"You mean the armor for the military?" Noid asked.
"No, that's actually a scaled-down version of the first one. The first version is the armor I'm wearing now."
"When the first version of the armor came out, humanity rushed to use it in battle, only to realize that ordinary people couldn't wear it. The first volunteer who put on the armor could only last for 10 seconds and almost died."
"Humanity had spent a huge amount of resources to create this armor, but couldn't use it. So, the scientists had to continue developing a new armor system."
"They succeeded, and the second version was born. All the stats were reduced, but in return, ordinary people could wear it, and it could be mass-produced. Finally, humans had some capital to survive a direct confrontation with the doom."
"But the expensive armor couldn't just be abandoned, so the 'Augmented Human' project was initiated. The person who proposed this plan was truly far-sighted, because just three years after the doom landed on Earth, the first elite doom appeared."
"While soldiers wearing the second-generation armor still had a chance of winning against regular doom, facing an elite doom would only result in one outcome: being torn to shreds."
"Humanity needed warriors who could serve as the vanguards for the army. The Augmented Human project was carried out, and the number of people who died during the augmentation process was 95%."
"This isn't a matter of being humane or inhumane. If human civilization had more time, perhaps the number of deaths wouldn't have been so high. But we didn't have time."
"The people who participated in the Augmented Human project were all volunteers. Most of them had lost their loved ones to the doom. Some had lost everything they had. So, for revenge, they were willing to bet on that 5% chance of survival."
"The Augmented Humans were born. In their normal state, they could tear a doom apart with their bare hands. With weapons, they could face an elite doom in an uneven fight. Equipped with the first-generation armor, they could easily slaughter elite doom."
Noid listened intently. This information was much more detailed than what the system had provided. Many of the vague details he had before were now becoming clear.
"Wait, then why didn't humanity use nuclear weapons?"
This question had been in Noid's mind for a long time. The war machine doom that brought the doom to Earth had the size of an island. He didn't believe such a massive thing could enter Earth silently, and upon seeing its terrifying ability to mass-produce, humanity could have directly dropped nuclear bombs to wipe out the doom species.
Sasha could probably guess what Noid was thinking and could only give a weak, wry smile.
"We definitely tried. But nuclear warheads couldn't destroy the exoskeleton of the war machine doom, and the doom lord was inside it. As for the other doom creatures, the terrifying explosion did kill them all. But the thing humans hoped would kill the doom - the radiation, had no effect."
"A scientist once captured a doom for an experiment. Unless high-concentration radiation was directly injected into it, the residual radiation caused by a nuclear blast was not enough to harm a doom."
"And no matter how many doom creatures humanity destroys, as long as the doom lord exists, the number of doom will be endless."
"The only way to end it is to go into the war machine doom and kill the doom lord there. But the success rate of that mission is zero."
Noid nodded, seeming to understand.
In fact, there were a few more things that Sasha didn't say. The first was that Augmented Humans, even if the augmentation was successful, couldn't live past the age of 25. This was because human technology wasn't advanced enough. The second was about the doom lord. The thing that allowed it to produce an infinite number of doom came from Earth itself.
The sign of this was that more and more places were becoming dead lands, with the soil showing signs of desertification similar to Mars. If humanity didn't defeat the doom, their home planet would eventually suffer the same fate as Mars. At that point, humanity would either be devoured by the doom or have to flee into space, searching for a new home, living in constant fear that the doom would one day come after them again.