Witch, Fireball and Steam Evil God

Chapter 381 The Road to Godhood
Zhuang Xiao believes that the reason why Simulation No. 53 was able to proceed smoothly and the shelter has been able to continue to this day is simply because they were lucky enough.

Because Observer 009, who was supposed to handle the aftermath, was crushed to pieces on the starship, it directly led to the release of the survivors who had taken refuge in the shelters after they destroyed the city. The committee members were well aware of their predicament; until the end of Simulation 53, they could only hide underground and eke out a living like rats.

This is their true identity.

Reconstructing the Earth's surface will inevitably attract "their" attention and may very well bring in a new observer.

Judging from the number 009, there are many others like it.

Zhuang Xiao witnessed the entire process of the Observer's shattering and fall. The energy it gathered was terrifying, almost equivalent to the energy of a god.

However, they still do not know the specific details of Experiment 53, and can only speculate from the research and investigations so far that the committee changed "arriving at the Empire" to "exploring the existence within the black hole".

A series of truths has led to even more mysteries.

Zhuang Xiao felt like she was still stuck in a quagmire. Everything she witnessed in the "dream experiment" only gave her a slight respite, just as she still didn't understand why the being in that black hole later became Ethan.

With the combined efforts of the three, Chen Qi calmed down temporarily.

The method of persuasion was that when Chen Qi focused all his attention on Zhuang Xiao, Song Xian quietly circled behind him and gave him a heavy back throw. The gun in his hand was thrown to Zhuang Xiao's feet. After that, they used restraint props they found in the biology lab to fix him to the bench.

The biology lab was filled with such props, which had been used to deal with disobedient children.

Chen Qi's eyes were vacant. He had heard the conversation between Merlin and Zhuang Xiao, but he was unwilling to accept the "doll theory" at all. It sounded too absurd. He was overwhelmed with life and work every day. In order to fulfill his father's dying wish, he hoped that one day humans could return to living on the surface.

Now, this crazy woman barged into the lab and told him that it was all fake and meaningless.

They have no soul, which is why they cannot embark on the path.

The Old Gods had no interest in these soulless pieces of wood, and naturally they wouldn't listen to their prayers.

You're the one who's been brainwashed by "dreams," a lunatic who can't distinguish between dreams and reality!
Chen Qi wanted to rebuke Zhuang Xiao, but Merlin and the others clearly didn't care about his opinion. This group of madmen had fabricated a story that only they believed, and then, just like the man who had been executed before, they launched their self-righteous "revolution."

No one would accept the truth fabricated by these three madmen; they couldn't convince anyone in the shelter.

"That's my opinion."

Before speaking, Merlin glanced at Chen Qi, whose eyes were glazed over. Chen Zhaoming had obviously revealed many secrets to Chen Qi before his death, which made Chen Qi have almost blind confidence in Winter. Even though all the signs indicated that Winter no longer cared about the life or death of the shelter and had broken away from the committee's control, Chen Qi, as the project leader, ignored all of this like an ostrich.

Now Merlin understood.

Because that's how the "program" is written.

Before the committee changes its policy, Chen Qi, as one of their chosen "first-class citizens," will resolutely carry out the plan to the end.

"Chen Zhaoming's experiment was a success. As they expected, Winter has fused with divine factors, which has given her a soul."

This is the consensus reached by the three so far, but in Merlin's view, what is more important is what happens after the experiment is successful.

Because it concerns them.

Selected by the committee as a "pioneer team," they went to the "other world" to try to implant an idea in Ethan's mind. Everything they did was based on the successful combination of winter and divine factors. Merlin also realized that the cryo-chamber and the injection for the "dream experiment" were not products of extraterrestrial technology. Long after the destruction of the surface, those orbs of light from the heavens stopped all technological assistance.

Both of these originated from the depths of winter, a change brought about by the fusion of divine elements.

"The committee firmly believed that there was some connection between the divine factor and Ethan, and they believed that this connection would help those who came after them get through that dark place. As it turns out, their judgment this time was correct."

Winter did indeed successfully cross the black hole and arrive at the star system where the Empire was located.

"But on the other hand, they underestimated the impact of pheromones."

Merlin continued to try to explain the connection between Winter and Ethan scientifically, believing it to be the key to their later relationship. He argued that from a biological perspective, from the moment Chen Zhaoming's "God-Making Project" succeeded, Winter ceased to belong to the human realm. She not only gained a complete soul but also became one of Ethan's kind.

"Judging from the results, Ethan was much more attractive to her."

If we consider the worst-case scenario, from the moment Winter managed to leave the shelter and meet Ethan, everything here became meaningless to her. Her meeting with them in the "other world" and the establishment of the guild were nothing more than her giving back to the past.

Looking back, the "goddess" never paid them any attention.

However, this was an inevitable outcome.

Every time humanity attempts to control the gods, it ends in failure and destruction. Merlin believes Zhuang Xiao has a lot to say about this. She once used the seal left by the "goddess" to control Argos, and she used the power of the old gods to gradually transform the "canopy" into what she wanted.

However, a thousand years later, when Argos breaks free from the seal, she will destroy everything she cherishes. If Ethan hadn't entered the "canopy," all that would have been left in that plane would have been scorched earth.

In Merlin's view, the experiments that took place on Winter were not fundamentally different from those on Argos.

The fact that she didn't destroy the shelter immediately after "becoming a god" was already a sign of mercy. He and Song Xian had just found a lot of outdated experimental data.

It was an "experiment" in the truest sense, because the researchers did not know what changes it would bring before the surgery began.

The results showed that hundreds of children died in the experiment, many of them undergoing painful and distorted mutations. In order to extract enough data, researchers often allowed the mutations to continue for a long time until the experimental subjects "died naturally."

In fact, some unexpected changes have occurred in Winter.

For example, her hair turned white, her pupils turned red, and she developed a tolerance to low temperatures that exceeded the limits of the human body. To confirm these data, they kept Winter in a freezer at -40 degrees Celsius for three days, but the results showed that the cold did not seem to have any substantial effect on Winter.

Lucky.

Merlin couldn't think of any words to describe the experiments that had taken place on Winter.

It was precisely these "superhuman" characteristics that made Chen Zhaoming pay more attention to this special experimental individual. This was never a world where the concept of superpowers existed; being able to withstand temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius was already special enough.

At this point, the three of them fell silent.

All the discussions and speculations have led to an issue that cannot be ignored.

Is such a shelter even worth saving?

A group of soulless pieces of wood, human material recycled in a simulation, they cannot even be called real humans.

The Old Gods had no interest in them, and all indications suggested that Ethan was likely one of them, a special individual existing in an unknown plane.

None of the three spoke, because any rational analysis would only yield a pessimistic answer.

Ethan's willingness to cooperate with them in the "dream experiment" was purely out of curiosity, much like accidentally finding a small animal by the roadside and, on a whim, wanting to see where it would go.

Perhaps its home is facing an unprecedented crisis, but that doesn't mean it's willing to save its home from those ferocious beasts.

Even in their view, this is not beneficial at all.

"It seems the committee's plan is going to fail once again."

After a long while, Merlin said with a sense of relief.

He simply didn't know what fate awaited the shelter after the failure of simulation 53.

And he has achieved his goal.

He knew everything, including how they were born—though such a fact offered no hope to the people in the shelter.

"It seems that no matter how many times you start over, you'll always end up on the same path."

The guards' footsteps arrived late, and the seven long-lost members of the committee seemed to have finally remembered that they still had unfinished business. This was also the first time Merlin and the others had seen all of them.

The selected "special citizens" knew the truth from the very beginning.

The one who spoke was that familiar old man; he was the one who presided over simulation number 53.

The old man gazed at Merlin, his eyes filled with pity. "Even if you are broken and reassembled, and your genetic sequence becomes that of another person, you will return to the starting point... Is this the function of the soul?"

Sensing Merlin's questioning gaze, the old man continued, "Now that you've come this far, let me tell you a few more things. Winter wasn't the only one who survived that experiment; she was just the more perfect one. Chen Zhaoming believed that these children should be placed in different environments to extract enough experimental data from their growth process... but he didn't anticipate the harm that bestowing souls would bring."

At this point, the old man changed the subject, "This made them uncontrollable. One of the children placed in the civilian area 'awakened' to so-called free will, became suspicious of the shelter and the committee, and after he came of age, he started a riot in the civilian area."

"This is very interesting experimental data because we found that during the contact with that child, some of the second-class citizens' programs were also rewritten. They deviated from their predetermined operating trajectory. The child became a virus wandering in the shelter, constantly infecting the people around him."

Upon hearing this, Chen Qi's dark eyes regained focus.

He will never forget the name of the man who was executed on television.

In fact, he couldn't explain why he remembered the name of a thug and the thug's dying shouts.

"Lin Jue".

The old man spoke the name of the man who had been executed in front of all the shelter residents, saying, "You've gone a little further than last time, but the outcome won't change this time."

"You failed once, and now you will fail a second time."

(End of this chapter)