Silent Thunder
That spark of touch had long since dissipated, leaving only the illusion of an invisible brand burning his skin beneath the fabric of his chest. Xiang Jinyang stiffly covered the spot, his knuckles whitening, trying to dispel the absurd, lingering shudder with the cold, physical pressure.
A prairie fire? What a ridiculous illusion. It was nothing more than a self-deceiving mirage before the ice sheet cracked.
He forced himself to focus his attention, immersing himself entirely in the repair process. The energy He Yuan had "gifted" him, mingled with the essence of demonic energy, became his only available nourishment. With a sense of humiliation, he activated the "unconventional" optimization techniques he had inherited from He Yuan. His efficiency was indeed far superior to previous ones, and the repair progress steadily advanced.
The feeling of weakness gradually faded, and his control over the Jintian Realm slowly returned. He was even able to mobilize a tiny bit of the power of the Heavenly Dao, and began to carefully sort out the chaotic fragments of rules in the realm, trying to restore order.
Throughout the entire process, he put aside all distractions and deliberately ignored the figure not far away who was also in silence.
He Yuan seemed to have finally lost interest in his dangerous experiments, or perhaps the "little accident" had just occurred and he needed a moment to recover. He sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. The terrifying energy fluctuations around him were no longer emanating from him. His fingertips tapped softly on his knees, as if he were calculating some complex equation. His rare calmness almost gave off a harmless impression.
For the first time, a semblance of peace appeared within Jintian Realm. Only the subtle hum of the rules' self-repair and the invisible yet taut tension between the two men silently spoke of the turbulent undercurrent.
In this strange calm, Xiang Jinyang suddenly caught an extremely faint prayer at the edge of his perception, which definitely did not belong to the Jintian realm.
That prayer did not come through the normal channel of faith, but was more like a fragment of broken, desperate thoughts. Due to some huge emotional fluctuations, it miraculously penetrated the still fragile connection barrier between him and the main world and floated towards him.
“…Heaven is cruel…Why did it send down such an evil thing…” “…The whole village…will be wiped out…curse…” “…The black…flame…cannot be extinguished…” “…Help…Daoist…save us…”
The broken words, mixed with endless fear, pain and curses, pierced into Xiang Jinyang's consciousness like ice cones!
He suddenly opened his eyes!
Almost simultaneously, He Yuan, who had been closing his eyes and regulating his breathing, suddenly raised his gaze. A flash of silver light flashed in his eyes, clearly sensing this unusual information flow. He raised an eyebrow, a hint of interest in his expression. "Oh? Negative data feedback? The signal source is weak, but the emotional energy peak is high."
Xiang Jinyang had no time to pay attention to his sarcastic remarks. He forced himself to concentrate his newly recovered mind, following that desperate prayer, and extended his perception as far as he could!
The scene before him made him feel like he was falling into an icy cave!
It was a small village, nestled in a remote mountain valley, far from the Tianyan Sect. At that moment, the village was completely engulfed by a strange, pitch-black flame! That flame was no ordinary fire; it burned silently, emitting no heat but instead a chilling, consuming all life! Houses, trees, livestock... even the villagers, were silently reduced to ash in the black flames. Not even their souls could escape, greedily absorbed by the flames!
In the center of the village, a ragged child, about seven or eight years old, was kneeling on a scorched earth, praying desperately to the sky. He was surrounded by a faint energy halo, the same source as the black fire but much gentler. It was this halo that temporarily protected him from being burned.
But what shocked Xiang Jinyang even more was that he clearly sensed a very familiar yet strange aura from the child.
That was... the breath of energy dust that escaped from He Yuan's experiment not long ago, which was a fusion of the characteristics of demonic energy and the order of heaven!
This evil black fire was actually a horrific creation derived from the energy dust that fell into the outside world and combined with some unknown conditions!
And this child, by accident, became the carrier of the energy dust, or... the host?
"So that's where the missing data went." He Yuan's voice was filled with pure technical curiosity. "It seems an unexpected mutation has occurred. The energy structure has become unstable and highly aggressive. Interesting, this negative energy conversion efficiency..."
"It's you!" Xiang Jinyang turned his head sharply and looked at He Yuan, his voice trembling slightly with extreme anger and coldness. "It's you who did this!"
Hundreds of lives lost in that village! The evil fire that's still spreading! All stemmed from this man's careless experiment!
He Yuan met his furious gaze, stunned for a moment, then shrugged nonchalantly: "It was just an experimental accident, and data errors are inevitable. Besides, the birth of this mutant itself has high research value..."
"Research value?!" Xiang Jinyang stood up suddenly, and the rules around him that had just stabilized began to shake again due to his emotional fluctuations. "Those are human lives! Hundreds of innocent lives! They were destroyed because of you!"
He had never been so out of control, so angry. The heart of rules that had been cold for billions of years was now burning with pain at the plight and despair of mortals.
He Yuan frowned at his intense reaction, seemingly unable to understand. "It's just the natural loss of underlying data during iteration. Any system upgrade inevitably involves the clearing of old data. Your emotional reaction is irrational."
"Irrational?" Xiang Jinyang walked towards him step by step, the cold light in his eyes as solid as substance, and the temperature of Jintian Realm suddenly dropped. "In your eyes, all living beings are just 'data' that can be erased at will?"
"What else?" He Yuan smiled, a smile that was cold and pure. "Aren't we, including you and me, essentially just more complex data sets? The only difference is the level of authority and the quality of the algorithm."
Such a simple sentence completely trampled on all the foundations of Xiang Jinyang's existence.
The order of Heaven, protecting all living things, turned out to be nothing more than a ridiculous wishful thinking in the eyes of the other party? Even the self itself was just "more complex data"?
Ridiculous! Chillingly ridiculous!
Meanwhile, the tragedy outside continued. The protective aura surrounding the child was gradually fading under the erosion of the black fire, and it seemed that it was about to collapse.
Xiang Jinyang couldn't bear it any longer. He had to do something!
He forcibly mobilized the power of Heaven that had just been recovered, desperately trying to break through the blockade of Jintian Realm, and cast a ray of thought containing the law of purification to the distant village!
However, he was too weak. As soon as the thought left Jintian Realm, it quickly dissipated into nothingness due to insufficient power and unstable passage, and failed to reach its destination.
Even because of his reckless behavior, the core that had just improved felt a tearing pain again!
"Tsk, I told you you don't have enough bandwidth." He Yuan shook his head, as if he couldn't bear it any longer. "Besides, the structure of the black fire is a bit unique. Your traditional purification instructions may not be effective. If you're not careful, it might even cause a secondary explosion."
He spoke lightly, but he hit the nail on the head.
Xiang Jinyang's face was pale, and he gasped for breath as he watched the child outside being devoured by the black fire. A huge sense of powerlessness and anger almost overwhelmed him. He tried to gather strength again in vain, but his fingers dug deep into his palms from the force, leaving blood marks.
Just when the halo around the child was about to be completely shattered—
He Yuan suddenly sighed, as if he was helpless because a troublesome matter interrupted his thoughts.
"Forget it, it's my fault for creating the bug."
He raised his hand, without even standing up, and just casually typed a few lines of invisible code into the void.
The action was as easy as deleting a temporary file.
Outside, the raging black fire that was about to devour the child suddenly stopped!
Then, the underlying rules that constituted its existence were instantly rewritten and dismantled! The terrifying black fire was like a reverse button pressed, madly collapsing inward and annihilating. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared without a trace, leaving only a dead, completely incinerated scorched earth.
Along with the protective energy that originated from the child, it was also cleanly and neatly... "unloaded".
The child knelt on the scorched earth in a daze, watching the world that had instantly returned to "normal" but was now lifeless. He was so frightened that he couldn't even cry.
The crisis is over.
Efficient, precise, and ruthless.
Leave no trace, and... no follow-up.
Xiang Jinyang stared blankly at the instantaneous changes in the outside world, then slowly turned his head and looked at the person beside him who could easily decide the life and death of hundreds of people and "repair" them.
Throughout the entire process, there was no emotion on the other party's face, no pity, no guilt, not even a hint of accomplishment, only a slight sense of relief at having solved a technical problem.
It was as if what had just been erased was really just a piece of erroneous code.
A chill deeper and colder than anger, like an abyss, opened up under Xiang Jinyang's feet.
For the first time, he realized so clearly that what separated them was not only the difference in power, but also an insurmountable chasm in their understanding of the essence of life.
After He Yuan solved the "little trouble", he clapped his hands and looked at Xiang Jinyang, whose face was extremely ugly. He seemed to want to say something, but in the end he just curled his lips.
"Okay, the bug's fixed. The data's cleaned up." He paused, then added, a rare, dry note, "...Next time, I'll be careful to control the variables and try not to affect your 'important data.'"
This was probably the closest thing to an apology he could offer.
But to Xiang Jinyang, it sounded extremely harsh.
Important data?
He slowly closed his eyes, suppressing all the surging emotions back into the depths of his cold core, completely suppressing even the last trace of fluctuation.
When he opened them again, those glass-colored eyes had returned to being like a pool of stagnant water, bottomless and without ripples.
He just looked at He Yuan very calmly and deeply.
There was no content in that glance.
But more than any angry rebuke or desperate cry, He Yuan felt an inexplicable...
Discomfort.
It was as if a surveillance camera that had been working perfectly suddenly returned a meaningless snow screen.
silence.
Silent thunder has exploded between each other.
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