From the Abyss of Stars Part 1

091. Pseudo-humans

091. Pseudo-humans

The Counterfeit Society— Phylolith, is a cruel and unscrupulous monster.

It often roams the boundary universe between Narrative 11 "United Company" and Narrative 12 "Temple of Annihilation."

Narratives are universes controlled by hegemonic civilizations, with their space and time fully mastered by these civilizations, following independent rules. Each narrative spans hundreds of billions of galaxies.

Li Aozi, or even Azure Star, is just a small planet under such a grand narrative.

Monsters like the Society are different. Mortals can only understand the Society as "civilization devourers," knowing little else.

Li Aozi didn't know much about Phylolith either.

He only knew that its power and mobility far surpassed human understanding, and its mysterious transcendent presence was extraordinarily lofty. As a cosmic lifeform that feeds on civilizations, it troubles even narratives.

There is no way to eliminate or stop its predation, only to persuade it to leave.

But, compared to its god-like status in civilization... people feel more fear than respect for its infiltration methods.

As its name "Counterfeit" suggests, when it infiltrates a narrative, it sends its "citizens"— its cells— into various civilizations. They adapt, choose, eat some of the civilization's beings, replace them, and continue to act, eventually devouring the entire civilization.

The basic citizens of the Counterfeit Society are called "pseudo-humans."

Pseudo-humans are terrifying creatures that approach humans, eat them, and replace their identities, disguising themselves as humans to continue living, contacting other humans, and then eating them.

"The Abyss has gone mad... they were initially just anti-human, now they're against the entire cosmic civilization!"

Li Aozi looked at the pseudo-human corpse on the ground. Besides the face, which was entirely different, the rest was almost identical to him, sending chills down his spine.

Initially, no one paid attention to these pseudo-humans, thinking they were just a group of "doppelganger" tales. Most pseudo-humans encountered early on were not very strong, and not worth worrying about.

But for NPCs, these creatures were not too difficult to deal with; for players, they were terrifying.

Because pseudo-humans could replace players.

Once they killed a player, they could fool the system's panel information and infiltrate the crowd disguised as players.

The intelligence level of pseudo-humans was terrifying, with deep learning capabilities comparable to AI. Some pseudo-humans, mimicking emotional fluctuations, could blend into any circle without detection.

Players often discovered, after chatting for a while about what to eat after logging off, that the person they were talking to suddenly grinned and said:

"I'll eat you."

Players had to constantly maintain out-of-game contact to avoid the risk of pseudo-humans infiltrating their teams. Later on, players horrifyingly realized that pseudo-humans could master their jargon, thought strategies, and action paths, even simulating the tone and habits of replaced players.

Except for being unable to resurrect, they were almost indistinguishable from players.

Due to the hyper-realistic immersion of Star Abyss, internal communication and friends could only be made through in-game phone terminals— which pseudo-humans could confiscate.