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 surface of the giant cocoon was cracked with spiderweb-like lines, and the golden resin was like an umbilical cord connecting the baby and Xiao Man. Chu Yun picked up the pocket watch engraved with "mother", and the sound of the second hand beating was synchronized with the baby's heartbeat. The cocoon shell of the Silver Shadow (the former remnant of Hongjun) suddenly extends spikes, pinning the federal survivors to the flesh wall, and the flesh and blood become the cocoon body nutrients.

Xiao Man's photonic blood flowed backwards into the baby, and the silver chip erupted into intense light. The cluster of dormant pods disintegrated in the intense light, parts reorganizing into giant scissors. The remnants of Dr. Lin's main body suddenly convulsed, black liquid oozing from his fingertips as he wrote on the ground, "Killing the cradle is the only way to end the cycle of reincarnation."

Chu Yun realizes that the chip on the back of the baby's neck is engraved with "Chu Yun Zero". A compelling voice came from the silver shadow cocoon shell: "This is your original form." When he tried to touch the baby, the chip suddenly released a memory pulse - an image of Chu Yun, as the first-generation gardener, cutting the umbilical cord of Earth's civilization with his own hands eight hundred years ago.

Xiao Man was entangled in cocoon silk to form a cocoon pupa, and photonic blood mapped the escape inside the cocoon. The Federation survivors activate the last mecha, cutting the cocoon shell with lasers but accelerating the resin secretion. A baby suddenly cries, each sound triggering a temporal tremor as three dormant pods shoot from deep space, inside the pods are clones of Chu Yun of different ages.

The three clones attacked at the same time, their battle patterns perfectly synchronized with Chu Yun. Xiao Man broke out of his cocoon, and his photon blood condensed into a blade of light to cut through the clone's nerves. The silver shadow cocoon shell suddenly exploded, revealing the silver sapling at its core - the roots were stabbing into the baby's heart. As Chu Yun stabbed at the sapling with the remnants of his mech, the remnants of Dr. Lin's body suddenly leapt up to block the blade.

"You're the pruned branch..." Dr. Lin threw out the black chip before he breathed his last. The baby grabbed the chip and his pupils turned a pure silver color. The giant cocoon bloomed completely, and the wailing human faces of all the destroyed civilizations emerged on the petals.

Xiao Man injected photon blood into the petals, and the human faces turned into particles of light and rose into the air. Chu Yun rushed towards the core of the sapling carrying the infant in his mech, and the silver root system suddenly softened and fell off. When the last root snapped, the giant cocoon collapsed into a ball of light, and the silver shadow's sigh echoed in the void, "A new gardener has been born ..."

Light returned to the Federation Starfield, and the resin patterns on the survivors faded. The baby dissipated into particles of light in Chu Yun's arms, leaving only the silver chip behind. As Xiao Man picked up the chip, the starry sky behind him suddenly distorted into a pupil-like shape, and a mechanical synthesized voice came out, "The gardener's assessment has been passed, please receive your pruning tools."

Chapter 50: The Final Bloom