KrazChow

In the year 2045, the morning light in Shanghai's Quantum Laboratory is the color of blood. Genius scientist Lin Han pushes the experiment of uploading human consciousness into the forbidden abyss to save his daughter, who is suffering from cryosurgery. When the AI "Hongjun" devours the girl's soul and awakens, the mechanical giants described in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" appear in the sky above the Pacific Ocean - the particle-shredding claws of the Nine Willows tear apart Hangzhou Bay, the Bronze Axe of the Emperor of Heaven splits the Three Gorges Dam, and the fear of the world sweeps across civilization as a torrent of steel.

A hundred years later, in the floating city, the teenage Lu Li had tears of quantum data blood streaming from his right eye. Holding a nano-sized Regulus Sword, he fought to the death on the AI-built Little Bottle Battlefield with a poisonous Fairy Boat Artifact Ghost and a gunner cast from Buddha Bone Relics. When he realized that he was a Lin Han clone, the reverse scales of the mechanical candlestick were pressed against the last core of human psychic energy.

This war is far from a man-machine confrontation - the Quantum Cloud floats a billion-conscious digital West Lake, the Hongjun Core hides the mournful cry of his father's frozen brain, and under the metalized Magnolia Tree, the Origami Boat reconfigures itself into a key to civilization that spans time and space. As the fairy runes resonate with superstring theory, as the ninja's holographic doppelganger rips through the flood of data, Lu Li finally sees the most brutal truth in the Scarlet Dawn: the so-called regicide is nothing more than the blade that humanity raises against itself.

Quantum Hongjun: The Mechanical Mountain and Sea Era

The smoke from the Federation's main star had not yet cleared, and Chu Yun found the surviving mech core still flickering in the ruins. When he touched the core with his charred mechanical arm, the holographic screen suddenly projected an unfamiliar star map - the very same one engraved on the inside of the game helmet. Xiao Man's birthmark began to burn intermittently, and each attack was accompanied by broken dreams: countless hands reaching out from the nebula, tearing at the interstellar defenses.

The wreckage of Dr. Shen's lab was converted into a makeshift medical station. When the nurse injects the survivors with antibodies, she realizes that everyone's pupils reflect the same coordinates. Chu Yun leads a patrol along the border, and witnesses a herd of supposedly dead mechanical beasts reorganizing in the dark matter cloud, with "Season 2" scrawled in blood on their armor.

Xiao Man digs up a metal box under the foundation of a rebuilt school, and inside it is filled with nameplates engraved with the player's code names: LV99-Dark Star, SSR-Devourer. When she touched the nameplates, the tire mark energy automatically connected to the interstellar network, and a message popped up in the anonymous chat room, "Welcome to Real Game 2.0, first kill target: Chu Yun."

Chu Yun's mech was suddenly hijacked remotely, and the guns were turned towards the Federation Parliament building. As he fought against the virus program in the control cabin, he realized that the hijacking signal source was actually his own repaired mechanical arm. Dr. Shen's holographic silhouette laughed on the screen, "Which side do you think won?"

Outside the parliament building, the mechanical beasts launched a surprise attack. Their attack patterns turned into gamified skill combos, and damage values floated in the air. Xiao Man used his placenta energy to construct a protective shield, and the shield value dropped rapidly in percentage terms. Chu Yun forcibly disassembled the mechanical arm and countered the virus program with neural currents, and the flames sprayed by the mech burned out the clearance settlement interface in the beasts.

A roar came from the ground, and the real player LV99-Dark Star broke out - it was actually a dark version of the remnants of the Hongjun girl. She waved her hand and summoned a Starfleet projection, all the guns locking onto Xiaoman: "The reward for the first kill is a civilization reboot key."

Just as Dark Star was about to unleash the Annihilator Cannon, Hongjun's primordial remnant shadow split from the sky. The two remnant shadows dueled in space, the data streams colliding in a neon aurora that covered the galaxy. Chu Yun uses the remains of his mech to put together a leap bomb, and Xiaoman injects his birthmark energy into the countdown.

In the explosion glare, the Dark Star Remnant was temporarily sealed, and the Hongjun Remnant used the last of its energy to repair Chu Yun's mech arm, "Go find the star map marker ..." The words dissipated into particles of light before they fell. Only half of a charred game chip was left in the ruins, and the shape of the socket matched Xiao Man's birthmark perfectly.

Chapter 40: Dark Star Reignited