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 knelt under the 1980's Magnolia tree, the seeds buried by the mechanical bird taking root in his chest. The young Dr. Lin's mechanical blue eyes suddenly shed tears of blood and dripped at the roots of the tree - the soil tumbled out of the miniature city, the very same Shanghai that had been reset in 2023.

Data vines protrude from the cracked bark of the tree and pierce Chu Yun's eyeballs. The retinal projection showed a double image: the left eye was a healthy grown baby girl smiling in the lab, and the right eye was a metalized Xiao Man fighting in the ruins. Zero's electronic voice rang in his ears, "Father, now you are the cultivated civilization."

The mechanical bird pecked open the roots of the tree and took out the rusted pocket watch - the hands flew counterclockwise, rewinding and replaying the surrounding scene. Chu Yun saw that each of his choices created a new fork in the road: reaching out to stop Dr. Lin would lead to an early nuclear explosion, and turning to flee would trigger a wave of mechanical beasts.

The young Dr. Lin suddenly spoke, his voice as old as zero: "Authentication failed for the 1024th time." His hands plunged into the roots of the tree and dug out the memory chips of all of Chu Yun's past clones. When the chips piled up into a small mountain, silver scissors descended from the sky, precisely pruning off the branches corresponding to the "wrong choice".

Chu Yun tore off the data vines in his eye sockets, and space and time were distorted by the spray of sap. The pocket watch suddenly exploded, sending out countless swarms of mechanical bees - each carrying a fragment of a different timeline. The swarm builds a nest in a magnolia tree, and a surveillance screen appears on the surface of the hive: gardeners from higher dimensions are reviewing the Nursery Universe.

The body of the young Dr. Lin splits open, revealing a miniature console. The screen flashed in red letters: "Awakening variable detected, activating ultimate protocol". The roots of the tree suddenly wrapped around Chu Yun, dragging him towards the center of the tree, where a light cocoon was suspended, and inside the cocoon was Zero in embryonic form.

When Chu Yun touched the light cocoon, all timelines suddenly contracted into data streams injected into the cocoon. Embryonic Zero opened his eyes, his pupils reflecting the suffocating truth:

Countless universes were displayed like specimens in a pure white room, and at the core of each universe sat Chu Yun, who was imprisoned by a root system. In front of them hovered identical cocoons of light, their faces reflecting each other's despair.

A swarm of mechanical bees formed Zero's final transmission in Chu Yun's ear:

The alabaster tree suddenly blossomed, each petal reflecting a baby girl and Xiao Man from a different time and space, who simultaneously raised golden scissors and cut the umbilical cord of their respective universes. The seed in Chu Yun's chest sprouted at this moment, and the top of the shoot bore a miniature pocket watch with a new countdown engraved on the dial - 00:00:01.

Chapter 68: Observation Cage