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 and Xiao Man's weapons were pressed against each other's vitals, and the countdown of the observatory ticked. The mechanical giant face outside the glass screen revealed a cold smile, and the clone in the incubation chamber suddenly opened its eyes, its pupils reflecting the blood-colored countdown. The ground cracked open with a lifting platform, lifting up two blank vegetative bodies-the very same pure clones of Chu Yun and Xiao Man.

"Choose," the voice of the mechanical giant face shattered the observatory glass, "Replace or destroy." Xiao Man's photon blade suddenly turned and severed the vegetative connecting tube. Chu Yun's cannon turned and blasted at the Mechanical Giant Face, only to be rebounded by the invisible barrier. An army of clones broke out of the pod, wielding the same weapons as the prototype.

In the midst of the melee, Chu Yun was pounced upon by the vegetative body, and the chip on the back of his neck suddenly released a memory pulse: eight hundred years ago, he personally placed Xiao Man's embryo into the incubation pod. Xiao Man is besieged by the clones, and the photonic blood accidentally activates the Vegetal's consciousness - the blank Vegetal suddenly kills its own kind back and kneels at her feet.

A holographic column rises from the observatory, showing Chu Yun and Xiao Man repeating the same choice in every universe. The mechanical giant face lowered golden scissors, "You are the combination with the highest success rate, complete the pruning and be free." The countdown jumps to 00:03:00, and the projection of the Federation's starfield begins to pixelate and disintegrate.

Xiao Man injected photonic blood into the vegetative body to form a human shield wall. Chu Yun melts the Observatory energy column with cannon fire and discovers that the core is a beating heart - made of the same material as Dr. Lin's mechanical heart. The clones suddenly blew themselves up en masse, their flesh and blood piecing together an escape tunnel in the void.

For the first time, the mechanical giant face showed its anger, its pupils shooting out black beams of light. The legions of vegetative bodies blocked it with their bodies, and their stumps condensed into blood-colored keys. Chu Yun inserted the key into his heart, and the observatory suddenly contracted into a metal box, and a baby cry emanated from inside the box - it was the original embryo that had been cloned countless times.

The embryo touches the air and instantly grows into a teenager, with eyebrows and eyes unrecognizable from Chu Yun. The mechanical giant face cracks open and extends billions of data tentacles to snatch the embryo. Xiao Man detonated the photon core and threw the embryo towards the remaining Federation star field. In the intense light, the observatory turned to ashes, and Chu Yun's hand that had grabbed the embryo suddenly carbonized.

When the light dissipated, they floated in the ruins. The embryonic teenager opened his silver pupils, and the pixelated Federation starfield re-rendered where his fingertips flicked. The remnants of the mechanical giant face swept across the void, transmitting a final message, "Project Spark, progress 100%."

Chapter 54: Mirror Image Choice