The night was as dark as ink, and the sea breeze, carrying a slightly salty dampness, brushed against Lin Yi's cheeks.
He stood quietly in the distance, his gaze piercing through the sparse shadows of the trees and landing on the window of the little girl's house, which emitted a warm yellow glow.
He didn't approach it, nor did he examine the drawing paper.
Because the moment the words "Guardian, handed over" appeared, an invisible shackle was broken from the depths of the little girl's soul, and then... like a pebble thrown into a lake, it rippled out an even more eerie circle.
The "cognitive cocoon" membrane covering the town did not dissipate as he had expected.
It simply changed its form.
The heavy pressure of trying to drag reality back to the old template has disappeared, replaced by a sense of connection that is almost transparent yet ubiquitous.
It was as if the town itself, along with the subconscious of all its residents, had been connected to a larger, invisible network.
The joy of victory did not linger in his heart for more than a second; instead, a chill ran deep into his bones.
This is not the end, but the beginning.
The cleaner's scheme was far more sophisticated and insidious than he had imagined.
"Ivan." Lin Yi's consciousness sank back into the Earth's core, his voice filled with unprecedented solemnity.
“I am here, Commander.” Deep underground, the Hive responded faster than ever before, as if it too was on standby. “The surface energy field is undergoing a violent change. The seventh node… the 'mutator's' resonance frequency has changed from the 'activated state' to the 'synchronized state'. The data model shows that it has successfully completed initialization and become a network base station.”
Network base station!
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He understood.
From the very beginning, the Cleaners' goal was not simply to resurrect Long Wu, or any of the old "protagonists".
They are using Long Wu, the most powerful and tragic "heroic symbol," to resonate with the emotions of the entire new generation.
The little girl's "refusal" was not a form of resistance, but rather a form of "confirmation."
As a member of the new generation, she took the initiative to "let go of the past and move towards the future," and this act itself is the highest affirmation of the significance of Long Wu's sacrifice.
This affirmation was like a perfect sacrifice, refining Long Wu's remaining concept of "guardian" from a concrete, past soul imprint into an abstract, inheritable "authority".
The line "Guardian, handed over" was definitely not written for the little girl or Lin Yi.
It's a system log, an automatic confirmation message generated after a program finishes execution!
In the wind, Chu Yao's stream of consciousness resurfaced. This time, her voice was filled with shock and a chilling realization after solving a mystery: "Lin Yi, I understand... The Cleaners' 'mutators' weren't meant to 'return to the old template' at all. The old template has already been completely shattered by us, the foundation of the higher-dimensional will has been broken, and forced resurrection would only produce defective products. Their true purpose is 'formatting'!"
Lin Yi's heart sank: "Go on."
"They are inducing us, or rather, inducing all humans who have nostalgia, respect, or even fear for the old era, to actively extract the most profound 'hero templates' from their memories, such as Long Wu's 'sacrifice,' the Sword Saint's 'aloofness,' and Thor's 'rage'... Then, using these emotions and memories as 'source code,' they will write a completely new 'god' in the new world we have built with our own hands!"
Chu Yao's analysis was like a lightning bolt, cleaving through all the fog.
Scavengers cannot directly create gods, but they can provide the tools and soil for humans to complete the process themselves.
The little girl is not the "fire bearer," she is the "fire starter."
She personally transformed Long Wu's flames from a tragic individual into a "spiritual virus" that could be infinitely replicated and transmitted.
The authority of that "Guardian" was not transferred to Lin Yi, nor to any other individual.
It was handed over to that massive, newly formed network that was being built by seven nodes and based on the collective unconscious of humanity!
Lin Yi suddenly looked up at the night sky.
In his perception, the world was already different.
Starting from this seaside town, an almost invisible golden thread is crossing mountains and oceans, shooting precisely into the distance.
In the other six directions, six energy threads, some blazing, some icy, and some sharp, are being lit up simultaneously.
Seven nodes, seven core areas where the "protagonist consciousness" once erupted, seven heroic epics that will be remembered in the new era.
They are no longer isolated points, but at this moment, they are completely connected.
"Chu Yao, immediately analyze the 'mutator' core symbols of the other six nodes!" Lin Yi's order was decisive and urgent.
"In progress! The first floating city, its core symbol is 'Judgment,' corresponding to the final judgment site of the 'Heavenly Punishment' Speaker. The third district, its core symbol is 'Loneliness,' is the snow-capped mountain where the first Sword Saint attained enlightenment and fell. The fifth forbidden zone..."
Chu Yao's voice grew faster and faster, each place name and each symbol representing a memory worthy of being recorded in history, touching the hearts of countless people.
Cleaners are like the most skilled chess players; they don't play with pieces, they play with people's hearts.
They exploit humanity's most precious spiritual wealth—the remembrance and reverence for heroes—and twist it into the cornerstone for creating new gods.
This god will perfectly align with the expectations of everyone in the new era. It is composed of people's memories and nourished by their emotions. It will become everyone's "guardian" and also everyone's "master" from which no one can escape.
Because who can defy a god they created themselves, a god who perfectly matches all their imaginations?
This is ten thousand times more terrifying than a physical invasion by a higher-dimensional will.
It was a war that could be seen, but now, the battlefield is in everyone's heart.
"Their ultimate goal..." Lin Yi muttered to himself, an even more terrifying deduction taking shape in his mind, "...is not to create a god, but to integrate the entire nascent human civilization into a unified 'hive consciousness.' A super-civilization computer with heroic legends as its logical core and collective unconsciousness as its computational foundation. And that so-called 'god' is the 'central processing unit' of this computer!"
Once this plan is completed, humanity will no longer have individual will.
Everyone will become a node in the network, working together efficiently, uniformly, and perfectly, all for a supreme "ideal".
There was no more conflict, no more pain, no more confusion.
They also lost their freedom.
Human civilization will end itself in a "soaring" manner.
Lin Yi slowly clenched his fist.
He watched the warm lights in the house in the distance, and saw the little girl yawn contentedly after finishing her drawing, and then be carried back to bed by her mother.
She had a wonderful dream. In the dream, there was no longer her burning uncle or the terrifying shadow, only a dazzling starry sky.
She personally delivered the most beautiful blessing, but she also personally started the countdown to the destruction of the entire civilization.
This is the cleaner's most insidious and overt scheme.
They turn "goodwill" into a weapon and "hope" into poison.
Lin Yi turned around and faced the boundless sea.
The waves relentlessly crashed against the rocks, like an eternal sigh.
He knew that solving a single node in isolation was pointless.
He successfully "cured" the little girl, but in doing so, he also activated the entire plague.
Now, he is no longer facing seven independent "mutators," but a "newborn god" that has completed the initial link and is learning and expanding exponentially.
He can no longer use the same tricks and psychological tactics he used before.
Because now, the enemy's "hearts" are countless.
He slowly closed his eyes, and his remaining sense of time and space began to operate in an unprecedented way.
He no longer tried to capture those subtle ripples of cause and effect, but instead went against the grain, directing his consciousness upstream along that golden "connecting line".
He wanted to see where this network, which they had lit up with their own hands, led.
Consciousness pierced through the clouds and crossed dimensions. In an instant, Lin Yi "saw" it.
Above the real world, a vast network composed of pure spirit and information is taking shape.
The seven core nodes, like seven stars, emit different lights and are connected to each other by countless streams of light, forming a magnificent yet deadly star map.
At the center of this vast network, in the core area that was originally empty, a blurry, slowly coalescing humanoid outline is now appearing due to the incorporation of the seventh node—the "Guardian" authority.
It has no facial features or clear shape yet, but its will to rule the world and look down on all living beings is already taking shape.
What made Lin Yi even more uneasy was that he sensed a familiar aura from that silhouette.
It wasn't Long Wu, it wasn't the Sword Saint, and it wasn't any of the fallen heroes.
That was... the aura of a higher-dimensional will.
The Cleaners are not avengers from the old era at all.
From beginning to end, they were merely the highest-level "cleanup procedures" left behind by higher-dimensional will.
Their mission is to, in the most covert and irresistible way, "reformat" this "wrong" civilization, full of individual freedom, and return it to the "correct" track set by the higher-dimensional will after the establishment of the new world order.
They are not resurrecting the old gods.
They are paving a warm bed for the "supreme being" whose foundation he severed!
Lin Yi's consciousness snapped back, his chest heaving violently.
Cold sweat had soaked his back.
He gazed into the distance at the six awakened cities that appeared and disappeared in the night, as if he could see countless "sensitive" souls, like little girls, dreaming of pouring their most sincere emotions into that giant net that was tightening.
There's no need to wait any longer.
Now, all that's left is to wait for the first gentle breeze to set the windmill in motion.
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