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

Inside the cocoon, a silver memory fluid flowed, and Chu Yun saw himself 800 years ago: the white-clothed researcher implanted the embryo into Dr. Lin's abdominal cavity, and the monitor screen displayed the "Gardener Cultivation Program". Xiao Man's consciousness was trapped in a sea of data, each wave a pruned civilization crying out.

Mycelium stabbed into Chu Yun's spine, and the command from his starry pupil materialized, "Purification Protocol Final Chapter - Erase Emotional Module." His mechanical arm automatically assembled into a particle cannon, its muzzle locking onto the main city of the Federation. Xiao Man found the memory remnants of the primordial main body in the sea of data - it was the very image of Chu Yun holding baby Xiao Man and injecting him with the chip.

Chu Yun's particle cannon began to recharge, and the survivors were transformed into particles of light that flew towards the muzzle. Xiao Man constructed a firewall with data streams, and photonic blood condensed into sharp blades in the virtual world. As she chopped at the starry pupil, she discovered that deep within the pupil was Dr. Lin's frozen brain.

The primordial essence suddenly appeared in the sea of data, and silver mycelium wrapped around Xiao Man, "Emotions are the stray branches that need to be pruned." Chu Yun's cannon turned to the stars, destroying seven marked planets. The blast debris formed a genetic chain mapping - the very DNA sequence that Xiao Man had been modified.

Xiao Man reverses the data flow and injects his own emotional module into the starry pupil. Dr. Lin's brain suddenly opens its mechanical eyes, "Error! Error!" Chu Yun's mycelial nerves burst, and the particle cannon turned around and blasted at the twin cocoons. The primordial body blocked the cannon with its mycelium, and the remnants of its body coalesced into the shape of a key.

As the cocoon shell shattered, the starry pupil cracked open the passage. At the end of the passage was pure white room where tens of thousands of Dr. Lin clones were operating incubation pods. Inside each pod floated the mutants of Chu Yun and Xiao Man, and the label on the outside of the pod read, "Gardener Vegetation 1024th iteration."

The surviving Federation starfield suddenly vaporized into a holographic projection on the wall. The real Chu Yun and Xiao Man stood on the observatory, with the infinitely stretching cultivation base at their feet. A giant mechanical face swept past outside the glass screen, its pupils the very pattern of the starry sky, "Congratulations on passing the test, new gardeners."

The key left behind by the primordial main body was inserted into the console, and the screen read, "Is the current universe formatted?" The countdown resumed pulsing - 00:07:00. Xiao Man's photon blade was pressed against the back of Chu Yun's heart, while Chu Yun's mechanical cannon muzzle was pointed at her solar plexus. The cluster of incubation pods opened in synchronization at this moment, and countless pairs of their eyes opened in the darkness.

Chapter 53: The Truth in the Cocoon