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Chapter 679 - 676: "The past us tried our best to protect the future us.

Chapter 679: Chapter 676: "The past us tried our best to protect the future us.

Lin Guang stepped onto the rooftop.

The fierce snowstorm nearly buried this place, turning this reflective glass building into a white column standing tall amidst the blizzard.

His injuries had worsened, and his physical strength was dissipating as his wounds froze over.

On the rooftop, that one parasol and round table still stood in the corner, once filled with pastries for welcoming Lewis; he had casually live-streamed from here, sipping tea and laughing as he threatened all of humanity. But now he was half drenched in blood, his injuries so serious that he was nearly going into shock, gasping violently with every step.

...How exactly did he get himself into this state?

Because of "love"?

Because he had welcomed Lewis into the City of Gods?

He lifted his head, able to see the fireworks lighting up another direction from the rooftop. Those who had not gone into battle were gathering to set off fireworks.

"Whoosh—whoosh—"

Bright lights flared from afar, the blessings of the Fuyuan Festival carried by the lights up into the sky, as if inviting the world into a peaceful and prosperous new century. The radiance, like a round of sunlight, had an ethereal beauty in his increasingly blurry vision.

At that moment, as he dragged his heavy body, he felt as though he were still dreaming.

"Lewis..." He kept muttering the name, straining to move forward, his body heavy as a sack of lead.

As he spoke, suddenly his voice was mixed with sobs.

"Lewis, Lewis..."

"..."

He stared at the platform rising before him, a vivid red button on top with a fingerprint mark; after iris recognition and password input, he could detonate the nuclear bomb ahead of time.

Then...

The story would lead towards a perfect ending.

An unobstructed and resplendent future.

He walked forward, stepping deep and shallow into the soft snow, when suddenly he heard an extremely heavy sound.

"Bang!"

A flash of white light, and blood spread out on the ground, staining the layer of white snow red.

The young man with black hair fell within a meter from his side, his face devoid of color.

"..." Lin Guang fell silent for a second, then continued to walk forward, ignoring Lewis.

Five seconds later, Su Ming’an struggled to prop himself up.

The snow was too heavy, his body heat swiftly being drained away, unable to maintain even a standing position.

But he could still vaguely see Lin Guang’s figure through the blizzard.

Dressed in a black cape, with a white shirt adorned with golden patterns, that prominent figure.

"Judgment..." Su Ming’an raised his hand, and the scales of justice flashed by, but Lin Guang was unaffected.

"Lamb Barrier..." He tried another spell, the white barrier unfolded, yet Lin Guang passed through the barrier, his pace uninterrupted.

For an instant, he saw Lin Guang dressed in Hanfu, with images of cranes and white bamboo embroidered on the black shirt collar, red threads at the cuffs, and the tapping of soap boots on the ground.

The next moment, all he saw was Lin Guang, in the Deity faction’s battle attire, walking towards the nuclear detonation device, in a completely different position than before.

...Hallucination.

A hallucination that had once appeared in daylight was affecting him again.

Su Ming’an wanted to take his medicine, but his hands were too stiff to move, and the High Tower Invitation was still cooling down.

The rooftop before his eyes was dreamlike and vast, seemingly endless. Far away, fireworks symbolizing happiness and warmth were in full bloom, with the faint sounds of "dingling" chimes in the air. Various silhouettes flickered and floated before his eyes, and through the thick snow, many figures floated in the night sky, all watching him on the ground.

He saw Qiu Li, wearing a Demon Fox mask, her red hair ribbon fluttering like a dancing butterfly.

He saw Fayse, falling down and spitting blood, the milk in her hand spilling onto the ground.

And then there was Xia Sheng, with a stack of white threads between his fingers, walking toward the village under the setting sun without looking back.

The pink-haired Sita Xi cried in the explosion.

Yao Wen’s slender figure charged toward the Mechanical Army’s gun muzzle.

Then there was Luna, who jumped off the train.

The red-eyed Lu.

Yamada Machiichi.

After that was Noel, the red-eyed Noel. Countless threads entangled Noel like a spiderweb; no one could escape this war.

In the end, he saw Lv Shu.

The scarlet, destruction-symbolizing nuclear launch button was so close to him, Lv Shu approached it step by step, his silhouette as silent as ever.

"Lv Shu..." Su Ming’an called out.

Lin Guang paused in his steps.

He turned around slowly, very slowly, to look at Su Ming’an.

The snowstorm was too heavy, Su Ming’an could not see the eyes of the white-haired young man, only the silent figure, like a black tombstone sticking out of the blizzard.

"Lv Shu?" Su Ming’an said.

Lin Guang was still looking at him.

"Lewis, I’ll tell you something," Lin Guang said, "In the 32nd year of the Catastrophe, the red-eyed Lv Shu you met at Noah’s was me."

"..." Su Ming’an’s eyes widened slightly.

"It was you?" His voice was barely audible.

"It was me." Lin Guang said, "The one pouring tea for you, listening to your stories, asking if we were friends, it was always me. It was my bionic body that took the form of Lv Shu. I just wanted to know your true attitude towards a real friend."

"Since Caius Tower, you’ve never met Lv Shu," Lin Guang said. "All you’ve encountered was me."

Su Ming’an supported himself on the ground and slowly stood up, staggering a step.

He remembered the words said by the red-eyed Lv Shu when he refused to drink the tea brewed for him.

...

["I’m sorry... for making you not drink," Lv Shu had said, "I thought we were friends and that you wouldn’t refuse it."]

...

[I thought we were friends.]

...

"Where is Lv Shu then?" Su Ming’an asked.

Lin Guang did not reply anymore.

He turned around and continued walking toward the nuclear launch device, his pale fingers placed on the authentication system.

Snowflakes landed on his fingertips.

["If your sense of justice turns out to be a catastrophe for human survival, then you should be labeled ’Evil’. The laws of the City-State should be built upon the physical and psychological needs of humans, providing them with a generous environment and stable life. But a twisted ruler cannot return these things. Apart from war, superstition, and violence, you have given nothing to humanity."] Lin Guang said, "Perhaps that redhead’s judgment of me was correct; I have given nothing to humanity."

His pupils stared at the system; authentication passed.

"But at least, I can end this ’simulation’," he said.

"What simulation?" Su Ming’an asked.

"Ding—ding—" The system interface flashed rapidly; Lin Guang stretched out his hand and began the fingerprint authentication.

"During the Century Catastrophe, mankind was defeated, human civilization lost sovereignty, and Ta Wei invaded," Lin Guang said.

"Yasa Acto as the strongest human of the Century Catastrophe era, acquired the Dawn System and used it as the last measure to resist the invasions of Ta Wei.

"In the first year of the Catastrophe, Acto initiated the Dawn System as humanity’s last line of defense, and all humans took refuge in the ’Two Dimensions’ world.

"In the 72nd year of the Catastrophe, the bionic body Acto once again initiated the Dawn System, and all humans took refuge in the ’One Dimension’ world.

"The principle of the Dawn System is to capture all data and, through its powerful computational capability, simulate past scenes as the stage, using reality as the initial conditions input into the system. Once the final conditions are met, reality is ’superimposed,’ reinforcing the firewall and achieving the effect of suppressing invasions from ’other dimensions.’

"Because it is a data-based world, everything is made up of 0s and 1s, and data represents everything. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the password to reinforce the system, as well as the password to shut it down. The Dawn Code—essentially, it is a firewall against invasions, capable of protecting humanity but also capable of destroying humanity in an instant."

Lin Guang paused here, turned back, and looked at Su Ming’an, who was less than five meters away:

"The ’Three Dimensions’ world is the firewall for the ’Two Dimensions’ world, and the ’Two Dimensions’ world is the firewall for the ’One Dimension’ world.

"In the ’One Dimension’ City of Measurement of year 102, if it wishes to continue existing, it must constantly update the firewall data and thicken the firewall to prevent invasions from other dimensions.

"The ’Two Dimensions’ has become that firewall, continuously ’measuring’ out reasonable firewall data within its repeated simulations, reinforcing the ’One Dimension’ of year 102. This is the necessity for the existence of ’Caius Tower.’

"So—the ’Two Dimensions’ world we currently reside in is just a repeatedly simulated program. Everyone is a program, our time is captured in slices, becoming a line of defense left in the past, repeatedly calculated and overlaid into a superimposed state, and variables like you players are introduced, constantly calculating the correct data flow to protect the City of Measurement in the ’One Dimension’.

"People in the ’Two Dimensions’ do not know that they are walking paths of destiny predetermined in history, repeatedly simulated until the password for the firewall that can reinforce the City of Measurement in the ’One Dimension’ is calculated.

"And once our ’Two Dimensions’ timeline is invaded and erased by another dimension, the deeper-protected ’One Dimension’ City of Measurement will also be erased.

"—The time of the ’Three Dimensions,’ ’Two Dimensions,’ and ’One Dimension’ is parallel ’grid-shaped’ time, not linear. It is a three-dimensional structural pattern. Once any single dimension is completely invaded, this net will instantly collapse, and humanity will face total defeat.

"When I say it like this—do you understand what I mean?"

Lin Guang looked at Su Ming’an.

The snowstorm grew heavier, and his expression became increasingly obscured.

Su Ming’an was so shocked that he couldn’t make a sound; his blood seemed to freeze at this moment, quiet enough for him to hear his own rapidly beating heart.

It was as if a hand was squeezing his heart. He had never considered such a possibility—[These three timelines are actually a grid, not linear. They are happening simultaneously.]

The timeline of the ’Two Dimensions’ of the Dawn War is a repeatedly simulated program—this corresponded to the annual activation of Caius Tower. Caius Tower is a ’dimensional linkage facility.’

He realized too late; the truth was unveiled too late, overturning all his previous thoughts. The live broadcast room chat was going wild—no one had anticipated such a revelation.

Cold sweat slipped down his brow, and he saw blurred and obscure shadows before his eyes.

—Acto was a genius.

Upon learning that the Invaders from the ’other dimensions’ possessed military power enough to overwhelm humanity, he decided to ’downgrade’ the world into a purely data-based world.

Because the world is constituted by data, all those protective weapons, those technological barriers, those World Sources, could all be calculated from data.

Everyone’s actions would be repeatedly ’measured,’ until they update a steady stream of correct numbers to reinforce the firewall between dimensions.

—He used a vast sea of data calculations to construct a firewall, narrowing the technological gap with the invaders.

—Choosing to fight the battle with data, rather than with the bloody direct confrontation of firepower.

’Source’ refers to this data.

And every time Su Ming’an entered Caius Tower through Acto’s bionic body, he was logging into an administrator’s backup account, then bringing back the ’Source’s data collection to the City of Measurement, returning from the ’Two Dimensions’ to the ’One Dimension,’ hence the ’rest periods’ of Caius Tower.

Every time he logged out, the original administrator account would automatically log off to prevent data leakage—the reason why Acto’s bionic body died.

—This world, from beginning to end, has been struggling to survive in ’measurement.’ Data is their civilization’s last line of defense, their lifeline.

Su Ming’an’s breath caught.

Clues chimed and linked together, dominoes toppled at this moment, and countless images flashed through his mind—turns out they had been hinting at the truth a long time ago.

In the distance where the snowstorm raged, fireworks were blooming.

Lin Guang’s figure grew increasingly blurred in his eyes, obstructed by fluttering double images.

"Then why was I able to see the Hawk Hound Captain Anjie in the 102nd year? She was from the era of the Dawn War," said Su Ming’an. He knew Lin Guang was patiently explaining for a reason and seized the opportunity to ask quickly.

"The grid-shaped time creates a ’superposition state’ for individuals," Lin Guang said. "Our time, when the Dawn System was initiated for the second time in the 72nd year of the Catastrophe, was read by the Dawn System. Part of the real ’us’ went to the future, and part of the data-based ’us’ remained in the past.

"The humans of year 102 are our future selves, and the humans of year 32 are our past selves. Only by continuously calculating new firewall data streams in repeated simulations can our past selves always protect our future."

...

This concept made Su Ming’an’s scalp tingle.

— "The past versions of ourselves are forever frozen in time, striving with all our might to protect the future us."

Time is not time, space is not space, dimensions are not dimensions.

All three were somehow combined together.

The concept of ’time’ was not linear, but ’grid time’, a new theory of time built on the three dimensions of the Dawn System. Acto maximized the use of this theory, creating a three-layer dimensional firewall.

— This war was not fundamentally about the battle between the Deity faction and the Freedom faction but a battle of data between all of humanity and Ta Wei.

Su Ming’an recalled the people of this era who had devoted themselves to ushering in a new century.

They poured their hearts into developing technological weapons, sacrificed themselves in bloody battles on the fields of war, hoping that those who followed would see spring.

They sliced themselves up, trapped in the time of the past, becoming a set of repeatedly superimposed data.

They collectively repaired the [One Dimension], the last data firewall of humanity, becoming true stepping stones.

They locked themselves in winter, imprisoned before the end of the war, never to see spring in their lifetimes.

Spring lay in a future far more distant, yet more splendid—a time future unreachable to all.

The City of Measurement did indeed possess spring.

There—monorails and railways spanned half the city, skyscrapers and financial buildings pierced the clouds, overpasses coiled like dragons, and the city’s night was as beautifully scattered as gold.

Countless ordinary people lived like flowing blood vessels. They were the future of people and their next generation. Xiao Mei, Dong An’an, Weber, the students of Constantine University...

Yasa Acto, 32 years after the catastrophe, initiated the Dawn War in the scathing winter, which allowed people to see the bustling city-states bathed in spring 102 years after the catastrophe.

This crazy and repetitive divination, this first and last interconnected grid time-space of three dimensions, this tri-line flow of time that utilized the ultimate intelligence of humanity to reinforce the firewall of the Dawn System, was recorded in history 70 years later by a single word, the name sharing that of the supreme intelligence that ruled over the city-states, called—

...

"The Dawn War."

It lived up to its name.

It was spring.

...

Under the cold night, so still that only the "tick-tock" of the system could be heard.

In the distance, fireworks exploded, golden-red flames scorched the sky, a million troops fought and killed on the red earth, their battle cries clear to the ears.

"— Where is Xia Sheng? Where is Qiu Li? What about the soldiers and civilians who died for the war? — Are you saying they’re just programs?" Su Ming’an felt absurd while being shocked.

Xia Sheng, who resolutely went to his death at dusk; Sita Xi, who turned to ashes in the firelight; all those billions of lives thirsting for freedom—they were all programs?

Those struggles, those beautiful aspirations, those people who shared life and death together—they were just programs?

"— Aren’t people a kind of program, too? Here, everyone is alive, with autonomous consciousness, they just subconsciously follow their destined paths—if you think about it, doesn’t that make anyone a kind of program?" After a moment of silence, Lin Guang said:

"I’ve heard about you, stubborn to a frightening extent, refusing to give up even after being beaten by me, treating yourself as an expendable commodity..."

"— Aren’t you just a program meant for a perfect pass?"

"..."

Cold wind filled his lungs.

Su Ming’an felt a chill all over his body.

Lin Guang’s words pierced his heart, and he remembered Sherrod, who hesitated about himself.

If the ruined world could still function with such dimensional nesting, could Zhai Xing remain uninvolved?

"I..."

He said:

"Am not a program..."