Chapter 500 Chu Yan

Beneath a city shrouded in a crimson halo, only the outline of ruins remains. The gray steel skeleton pierces the blood-mist-filled sky. In the ruins of a street marked 'Starlight Avenue', a gray-skinned zombie drags its severed leg and wanders aimlessly. The rotting sole of its boot once held a star-shaped stone carving with the signature of some international superstar. Stone chips fly, and it howls eerily.

Five hundred meters below the ground, the titanium alloy gate slid open silently—

A cold, eerie blue light emanated from the bottom of the vertical elevator shaft. The echo of high heels striking the alloy floor reverberated in the enclosed passageway. The automatic door at the end of the passageway opened, revealing a black circular hall, hundreds of meters square. Hua Xiaoling was nestled in a curved command chair, her slender shoulders encased in black leather. Her legs were crossed, and three holographic projections pierced through space and floated in front of her.

On her left, Chen Yanxiu, the leader of the Holy Revelation, fiddled with a silver pocket watch, the reflection of the lens obscuring her eyes. To her right was a blond middle-aged man with a cold and gloomy face. This man was named Weyland, the leader of the Holy City Organization. Directly in front of her was an old man with white hair slicked back, his face as sharp as a tempered steel blade, his eagle eyes piercing through the data streams.

The assistant rushed forward and whispered something in Hua Xiaoling's ear. Before the whisper was even finished, Hua Xiaoling raised her hand, her fingertips scattering the person as if dispersing air. After the automatic door locked again, she slowly lifted her spine from the chair back, her voice like an icicle piercing the frozen silence.

"We just received news that Lin Xian is still alive and is currently at the 374 outpost."

"How is that possible?!" Holy City leader Weyland immediately exclaimed in a cold voice, "Our people have been keeping watch on the Hako battlefield for two months, and the Phoenix Society has been searching for him. Exposed to the crimson for so long, even a mech would be corrupted!"

Chen Yanxiu on the left also narrowed his eyes slightly at this moment.

Hua Xiaoling raised her eyebrows slightly, her tone extremely calm: "Just now, he activated the pre-rehearsal of civilization number 39081."

The hall fell into a sudden, deathly silence. Weyland's expression froze, Chen Yanxiu's pocket watch clicked shut, and his gaze immediately turned to the old man in the center.

After a long silence, the old man finally spoke in a slightly deep, resonant voice.

"It failed?"

“Yes.” Hua Xiaoling continued in a calm tone, “Chu Yan cut a part of her consciousness into the Civilization Pre-revelation System, the part that should have been devoured by the Master.”

“Mental control…?” The man named Weyland squinted, glancing at Chen Yanxiu out of the corner of his eye, and said coldly, “Isn’t Divine Revelation supposed to be most familiar with the Lord’s power? Hmph, to leave such a hidden danger!”

Upon hearing this, Chen Yanxiu's eyes flashed with anger, but he quickly responded calmly: "My mission is to investigate severing the mental link between Lin Xian and Chu Yan, preventing Lin Xian from maintaining communication with the Phoenix Society. Other issues are none of my concern."

"Unrelated?!"

Weyland sneered, then said to the old man in the middle, "Mr. Shi, judging from the Phoenix Society's actions, our guess can be basically confirmed. In addition, the fact that this guy is still alive under these circumstances proves the point."

The elderly man, addressed as Mr. Shi, kept his gaze fixed on Hua Xiaoling and asked...

"Xiaoling, the Lord's arrival is imminent. Ye Lan must already have a plan. What are you going to do?"

“Mentor,” Hua Xiaoling said calmly, “First of all, it is good news for us that Lin Xian is alive. Even if the plan to remove and replace his beliefs and consciousness through the Civilization Pre-Learning System fails, I don’t think we need to worry too much.”

"Oh?" Chen Yanxiu said with interest, "We can't kill this person now, as his death would cause more trouble than his life. The mental attack also failed. Who knows what Chu Yan revealed to him? He will definitely be on guard now. Under these circumstances, do you still think we don't need to worry?"

"Will they send Lin Xian directly to the Arctic, or are they going to continue searching for the train regiment?" Weyland asked at this moment.

“It’s hard to say. The Phoenix Society will definitely protect Lin, but Lin himself… judging from his previous behavior, he probably won’t abandon his caravan,” Chen Yanxiu said.

Hua Xiaoling's expression was cold as she directly replied, "First of all, compared to the result we want, Ye Lan's ideas and plans are not dangerous at all. Secondly, Lin Xian went so far as to use flash bullets to travel outside the Heavenly Curtain in Dawn City to rescue Chu Yan, so given his personality, he will definitely use the Civilization Pre-Rehearsal Sphere again. Thirdly, he will definitely go to Colorado..."

Her eyes flickered slightly: "Don't forget, we still have an ace up our sleeve!"

“Whether something is dangerous or not is not something we can assess.” Chen Yanxiu’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his tone became aggressive: “Our lord only has the concepts of existence and non-existence. You and I both know that this relates to whether we can preserve our civilization’s chances of survival, right?”

"Alright, we still have a lot to do. Before the Lord descends, we must weaken the Storm Sea defense line and infiltrate Kunlun City as much as possible. The longer we resist, the more losses we will incur for both the Lord and humanity. If we want to find a glimmer of hope, the next period is crucial!"

Mr. Shi looked at Hua Xiaoling: "Make arrangements as soon as possible. From now on, all tasks related to Lin Xian will be handled by your department."

“I understand,” Hua Xiaoling replied.

Immediately, the three holographic projections disappeared one after another, and the room returned to complete darkness and silence.

Hua Xiaoling closed her eyes slightly, as if she was thinking. After a moment of silence, she suddenly said, "Emotions are the shackles of humanity. You have a clear understanding of that now, don't you?"

Pat, pat.

Light footsteps sounded, and a tall, sharp figure slowly emerged from the darkness of the corner.

Chu Yan's face was indifferent, seemingly devoid of any emotion. She walked up to Hua Xiaoling and stopped, calmly saying, "Aren't you worried that I'll ruin your plans?"

Hua Xiaoling smiled slightly and said unhurriedly, "What plan? Is it to protect Lin Xian's safety? Is it to try to speed up negotiations with the Phoenix Society? Or is it a plan to preserve a spark of human civilization?"

She slowly got up, calmly walked to the side, poured herself a glass of water, and said without turning her head.

"The more foolish a person is, the more they need a stance, an emotion, and class antagonism. Throughout history, all the leaders who have brought about the rise and fall of dynasties have used this. When our enemy is no longer human beings, no longer a force that our civilization can contend with, emotions, stances, class, and religion have no meaning."

Hua Xiaoling turned around, took a sip of water, and looked at Chu Yan calmly, saying, "Only science."

Seeing that Chu Yan remained silent, she asked in return...

"You should be glad you've lost the ability to feel pain. Although you're still causing us trouble, you should be able to understand our direction more easily now."

Chu Yan sneered: "Yes, surrendering to survive is a viable survival strategy."

Hua Xiaoling responded calmly without any emotion: "Do you know cats? These animals share some traits with humans: they are sensitive, insecure, and think they are clever. In certain environments, cats are indeed excellent hunters. But strangely enough, the ones who get run over by cars the most are precisely these agile, quick-reacting, and self-righteous cats. On the contrary, dogs don't. They know to dodge when they see a large car because they know they can't beat it, and the car is just passing by..."

Chu Yan looked up at her: "It seems you are very confident that the Tower People will 'go easy on' us?"

Hua Xiaoling shook her head upon hearing this: "You're wrong. Blue Star is just a safe haven for the Tower People to catch their breath and make a comeback. They don't care whether humanity is extinct or Blue Star is destroyed."

She turned her head: "Do you know why so many scientists have joined and recognized us? It's because the Civilization Preview Sphere separated them from their suffering, and suffering makes people lose their minds. Now, absolute rationality allows them to directly realize that resistance is meaningless. On the contrary, recognizing the Lord or the general trend, and looking at things from the perspective of scientific civilization, is the only way to preserve more of human civilization. If you hadn't resisted so fiercely, the tragedies of Colorado and Harco wouldn't have happened. Whether humanity merges with angels through ideology or other means in the future, it will be a huge leap for our civilization. The entire planet is ascending in dimensions, and only intelligent races can continue. Moreover, only intelligent races understand that we... have no other choice."

"So what you need is for me to reconnect with Lin Xian, or to help you find him and cut off his pain?" Chu Yan asked in a cold voice.

Hua Xiaoling responded: "You noticed? We won't hurt him. All we want to do is make him more rational and help him see more of the truth. Is that a bad thing? Or is Phoenix unwilling to let the survivors see the truth?"

"One last question," Chu Yan looked at her, "Why Lin Xian?"

Chu Yan stared at Hua Xiaoling, seemingly trying to find a subtle clue in her eyes.

Hua Xiaoling looked down, smiled and pondered for a moment, then said, "I won't lie to you, nor am I obligated to reveal more detailed information, after all, you are still a member of the Phoenix Society. However... I can tell you very clearly that the power in Lin Xian's body does not belong to the Tower Civilization, nor to human civilization. It may be a game between higher civilizations, but whatever it is... never think of yourself as a player, and even more so, never think of yourself as a pawn!"

She raised her head, her expression turning cold: "So Lin Xian's life or death is completely unimportant; what we need to do is stop him..."

"It was just a wild idea of ​​his!"

...

"From a human perspective?"

In the empty conference room, Lin Xian muttered to himself. He didn't know how much time had passed, but Shi Weidong and the others were still standing by his side. When they saw him wake up, their expressions became sharp.

"Is it over?" KIKI asked immediately, looking at Lin Xian's blank and complicated expression.

Lin Xian stared blankly at the rehearsal ball in his hand.

"How long did I watch?" Lin Xian asked.

"Four hours," Song Wei said. "You don't seem to be feeling well; perhaps you should take a rest."

Lin Xian looked outside the conference room. Inside the bunker, the lights in the main hall were busy, and wounded soldiers were being brought in through the passageway. At the same time, affected by the crimson, the power system here seemed unstable, and the lights flickered occasionally. An extremely oppressive atmosphere filled the air.

"The main purpose of Outpost 374 is to investigate the Hako battlefield and Noah, and finding you is one of the missions," Shi Weidong said at this time. "If you want, I can arrange a team to escort you south at any time. As long as you cross the Amazon rainforest and the Pampas plateau, you will be safe with a million main forces of our interstellar army stationed in Ushuaia."

"Are you confident you can escape from the crimson?" Lin Xian asked.

Raymond cleared his throat and said seriously, "There's definitely no way we're completely confident. There are all sorts of strange things in this Crimson Realm. Not to mention the bizarre creatures, even the mutated Crimson Zombies are far more lethal than the ones we've encountered before. And there are also those hunter creatures... those things are like hunters in the Crimson Realm, appearing and disappearing without a trace. Any ability user with less than 20,000 Spirit Points will basically die if they encounter them. It requires teamwork to survive. But what's even more deadly is... the scarcity of supplies!"

Lin Xian suddenly nodded: "Without this dark frequency resonance device powered by blood essence, everything would rot, and even the water would be undrinkable."

“That’s right.” Shi Weidong nodded: “We are all facing this problem right now. More and more survivors are going to the polar regions for refuge. Water resources are okay in Kunlun City, but the polar regions are already short of food and supplies, and it’s freezing cold. Our Phoenix Society’s planting base also has to build greenhouses to provide energy, but no matter how many greenhouses we have, we can’t supply tens of millions of people.”

Lin Xian frowned slightly: "The Adventists also knew this, so both the Noah by sea and the land transport train fleet were ambushed?"

“Yes, even now, the Holy City Army is still interfering with our search for Noah’s remaining resources.” Raymond lit another cigarette, and through the swirling smoke, he spat out a mouthful of smoke: “Those bastards, they can’t even survive themselves, yet they try every means to cut off our path to survival. They’re perfectly healthy people helping those aliens, damn it, ptooey!”

Seeing that his complexion had improved, KIKI tilted her head slightly and got back to the main topic: "Have you finished watching this game?"

Lin Xian nodded: "The Tower Civilization... So, what about that floating giant corpse?"

“It should be the [Angel] who died,” KIKI said.

"Dead?"

KIKI shrugged and said, "Before Director Ding left, she mentioned to me that she believed the Strange Entities were likely a predatory army 'created' by the Tower Civilization using the genes of the [Angels] and combining them with biological proteins from dead humans or animals. Do you remember when we left Aksai, she collected a lot of Strange Entity tissues but found that they were all substances compressed from human tissue?"

"Then the giant ocean god we encountered at the sea cliffs is probably also related to the remains of the [Angel]." Lin Xian sighed. "No wonder the Foundation named it Uniga 1..."

"So, after reading this, have you been brainwashed by a higher civilization, or are you even more desperate about our future?" KIKI asked Lin Xian.

Upon hearing this, everyone in the conference room turned their curious gazes to Lin Xian.

Seeing their gazes, Lin Xian immediately asked, "Not everyone has seen this game, right?"

(End of this chapter)