Enforcer Manual
Chapter 457 - 557: Artificial God_1

Chapter 457: Chapter 557: Artificial God_1

Head to Hamill Street.

This was the message Hanna desperately tried to convey to the outside world, even when her consciousness was unclear, because that was where she dealt with the assistant’s relics.

At the moment when destiny was being sealed, one of his decisions caused everyone who came after him to eventually deviate from their predestined paths.

He was supposed to follow the path that destiny had laid out for him and, after delivering Professor Myles’ knowledge to the right hands, he would have exited the stage peacefully. However, in the moment when he was interrogated by artificial intelligence, he suddenly changed his mind and kept that true knowledge to himself.

Tasked with burning the suitcase, Hanna found the last glass bead hidden inside. Whether it was out of a guilty conscience, or a desire to not get entangled in deeper conspiracies, she concealed its existence. Pretending ignorance, she set all the luggage on fire, burying the unburnt glass bead in the soil along with it.

Song Lan eventually found these marks left by the puppets of fate in a place called Hamill Street, digging up the answers buried beneath the soil.

Unlike the regrets encapsulated within the previous four glass beads, the influence of the last bead was much more detailed.

It contained no personal emotions, but instead it recorded, from a researcher’s perspective, one project—a project called "Artificial God" that was real, yet never recorded in the Spiritual Energy Research Institute’s database.

Creating a Deity capable of controlling fate, using the body of a mortal.

And Professor Myles was precisely one of the secret participants and Guardians of this project, perhaps, this was also the reason he ultimately ended his life with a gun in his own room, driven by destiny.

This also seemed to be the closest Angle Saffire ever got to the truth.

If he could have anticipated this earlier, found the assistant, and deciphered the secret in the last glass bead, he might have reached the end of his journey.

But as he said, the real killer wasn’t any specific enemy but fate itself.

In the instant he glimpsed this secret, Song Lan began to feel as if he was being watched.

The entire city seemed to be the eyes of the other party: the soil, the skyscrapers, the trees, even the telephone booths on the street corners, all became tools for surveillance, making him consider for the first time the possibility that destiny truly existed.

Immediately after, a kind of summoning echoed in his heart.

It was as if a deity was calling to its followers, guiding him to a sacred realm that was comprehensible only in feelings.

The sacred realm was located somewhere in the Seventh District, not far from him.

It was originally an empty lot, absent from any maps, but under the call in his heart, a grandiose pyramid-shaped structure stood before Song Lan. When he stepped into the sacred realm, the passing vehicles and pedestrians could no longer see him; they moved along the street, never casting an excess glance at this eerie black pyramid for even a second.

The door to the pyramid opened for him.

At this moment, Song Lan vaguely grasped the true meaning of destiny and death.

This was not a meaningless death; the puppets had questioned destiny, but in the end, only one could find the truth.

And then, he would take the place of Professor Myles, becoming the new Guardian of this secret.

"You have completed all the trials."

In the pitch-black space, a commanding voice pressed down from above Song Lan’s head. As he looked up, the dome of the pyramid was like being placed among the stars, but aside from the familiar constellations, the silhouettes of dark monsters loomed, watching him intently.

They seemed like part of the painting, yet alive.

"You are the only one who has passed the trial in decades,"

"Destiny" opened its arms to him, the brilliance of the stars lit his way forward, and also allowed him to discern the general outline of the building. Everything here was imbued with religious hues, and at the end of the ascending stairs was the throne belonging to a Deity.

But the true face of "God" was not some phantom or some energy inexplicable by science. On the contrary, all of It was a creation of science, reminding Song Lan of Professor Myles’s lectures where he spoke to the students about the Amberville Project.

Amberville had once invented a device.

He believed that if he could transplant his own brain into this device, he could cast aside his frail body and become an everlasting Consciousness Entity.

But at the end of that history lesson, Amberville’s mad plan failed. After his body perished, his consciousness did not last long.

And what sat upon this throne was a device magnified dozens of times, a product of technology that had advanced several decades.

It had a body of steel, looking both majestic and sacred.

At the end of the "Artificial God" project, Professor Myles’s research team finally found a compatible brain for the body.

At this moment, "God" was looking down at him from on high.

"After becoming a Guardian, you will become my blade, eradicating the remnants of demonic entities,"

"God" issued Its edict to Its messenger in a tone that brooked no doubt.

"Eradicate demonic entities?"

Song Lan looked toward the demons clawing among the stars, knowing that the other party was probably referring to these shadows he had never seen before. But if he considered this as a job interview, and the role of the "Guardian" as a job, he thought the position seemed unreasonably extreme.

It sounded like an occupation with considerable risk, and standing here meant that the job’s fatality rate was almost 100%.

Yet the other party had not mentioned anything about compensation or injury benefits, expressing from start to finish Its desire to choose a lucky Audience member to die.

He couldn’t help but lament that this was indeed a god created by rapacious capitalists; even the means of exploiting employees were inherited.

Song Lan voiced the doubt in his heart, "What’s in it for me?"

"The very reason you stand before me is a gift from destiny. You are the result of countless destinies sifted through. You should feel honored,"

The voice remained mysterious and profound, reminding Song Lan of bosses who liked to entice their employees with grand promises.

Therefore, from the perspective of a job applicant, he posed a second question to destiny, "But I am just an office worker, not skilled in combat, nor do I possess such power."

No sooner had he spoken than the light from the stars shone upon him.

Song Lan felt no substantial change, but judging by the special effects on site, it seemed to suggest that he had been empowered, now qualified to battle the demonic entities.

For an ordinary office worker, being bestowed with power by a Deity should be... something to be happy about, right?

"This means that from this moment, you are no longer a puppet of fate. I will grant you the chance to control your own destiny."