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

Chu Yun stared at the "Gardener Candidate 002" in the hibernation chamber, which was identical to himself, when the hatch suddenly popped open. The moment the clone opened its eyes, all the mecha weapons automatically locked onto the survivors. Xiao Man's silver pocket watch vibrated rapidly, the countdown accelerated to 00:30:00, the floating hibernation pods lit up with blood lamps, and each hatch cover reflected Chu Yun from a different time and space.

The remnants of the chuun clustered into arrows in the nebula, pointing toward the nearest belt of mechanical debris. The remnants of Dr. Shen's bionic body suddenly broadcast, "The Candidate Showdown is now underway." The clone Chu Yun leaps out of the pod, his mechanical arm popping out with a dark red bladed light.

The battle between the two Chu Yun triggered the mechs to resonate, metallic nerve wires intertwining into a web in space. Xiao Man's photonic blood briefly freezes the clones, but each use deepens the pocket watch cracks. In the midst of the tussle, real Chu Yun's memory chip dislodges, broadcasting images he's never experienced before - he had been pruning Earth's civilization branches in the Silver Garden.

The clone takes the opportunity to pierce Zhen Chuyun's right shoulder, and the wound bleeds out of what turns out to be golden resin. The cluster of dormant pods suddenly sprayed traction cables, yanking the two men deeper into the debris belt. As Xiao Man pursues, he realizes that each piece of wreckage is engraved with the date of Chu Yun's death.

In the center of the wreckage belt hovers a giant holographic tablet, which records the cause of death of forty-eight Chu Yuns: No. 7 was split up by a mechanical beast, No. 22 died in a supernova eruption, and No. 3 died in a supernova eruption... The latest entry was being generated: "No. 49, Candidate Mutual Devouring." The clone stops abruptly, photon blood oozing from its mechanical eye, "We are all scraps of failed pruning."

When Xiao Man touches the holographic tablet, the pocket watch countdown suddenly pauses, and the tablet turns into a message from Dr. Lin: "Finding number zero will end reincarnation." All the dormant pods reversed direction and accelerated towards the quantum abyss deep within the nebula.

Real Chu Yun repairs his wounds with resin and reaches a brief alliance with the clones. Silver bark grows from the mech shell as it crosses the quantum abyss. At the end of the abyss is the shattered Mechanical Mother's Nest, and in the heart of the nest lies Dr. Lin's main body, which has been penetrated by a root system. Xiao Man's pocket watch suddenly flew out and embedded itself in the core of the mother nest.

When the countdown returned to zero, the mother nest stretched out billions of mechanical tentacles. The remnants of Hongjun flickered on the surface of the tentacles, "Welcome home, Initial Gardener." Dr. Lin's main body's fingers suddenly twitched as the cover of the experiment log he clutched read - Chu Yun's Zeroth File.

Chapter 48: Candidate's Shadow