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

Junior Zero's finger rested on Chu Yun's brow, and mechanical lines instantly crawled across his face. Xiao Man's blank vegetative body suddenly twitched, and his skin surfaced with the number of the laboratory from eight hundred years ago. A ring-shaped console rose from the metal ruins, and the holographic interface displayed, "Spark Administrator Chu Yun, is memory cleansing executed?"

Zero's pupils reflected the cracks of the star sea, billions of golden giant hands were pruning the cosmic canopy. Chu Yun's mechanical right arm lifted up uncontrollably, cracking the data interface in his palm, "Father, we were born to be scissors." Xiao Man's vegetative body suddenly leapt up, its photon blade stabbing at the back of Zero's neck - only to be assimilated into a metal sculpture the moment it touched.

Chu Yun was forced to tap into the Fire Seed Core, and his consciousness crashed through the time-space corridor. Each cell held a different age version of himself: at ten he was handing Dr. Lin a scalpel, and at twenty he was implanting an embryo into Xiao Man's abdominal cavity. Zero's voice echoes through the cloisters, "You wrote the pruning protocol yourself."

Xiaoman's prime body bursts in, and photon blood corrodes the cell door. The two flee through the memory fragments, the dark side of successive generations of Chu Yun chasing behind them. While fleeing to the Primordial Laboratory, they run into the young Chu Yun injecting a chip into the back of a baby's neck - a baby whose face turns out to be identical to Zero's.

Zero's true form descends into the Cloisters, his mechanical heart reaching out with data tentacles. Chu Yun grabbed his younger self's scalpel and stabbed Zero in the chest. Where black blood spurted, images of the pruning of the Cosmic Tree flashed frantically-each cut branch was a clone of Chu Yun and Xiao Man.

Xiao Man's prime suddenly regained consciousness, and the photon blades severed the data tentacles. The corridor began to collapse, and the remnants of Zero's body transformed into a golden key. Reality's ring console suddenly overloads, and New Earth's core cracks open into an abyss, spewing out Dr. Lin's frozen head.

Chu Yun held the golden key and inserted it into the earth's core, and a silver cross rose from the fissure. Nailed to the cross was his own self from 800 years ago, with a prototype mechanical heart embedded in his chest. Xiao Man's photon blood seeped into the cross, and Chu Yun suddenly heard the Cosmic Tree wail-all the pruned remnants of civilization were struggling at the root system.

The remnants of Zero's voice emanated from the cross, "Pull out the heart, and you will end the cycle of reincarnation." When Chu Yun's fingers touched the cold machinery, the sky descended a golden rainstorm. Miniature scissors were suspended in each drop of rain and grew into giant metal trees when they landed. The prototype Chu Yun on the cross suddenly opened his eyes, "You're finally here, Inheritor."

Chapter 58: Father and Sin