Cyber ​​Sword Immortal Iron Rain

Perhaps death is an acceptable option: no need to stand up again, no need to turn flesh into metal, no need to endure pain.

Even if it is unfinished business, unfulfilled wishes, and unspoken words, they will be completed by the Fang Bailu in the coffin.

He's kind of me, isn't he?

There were no gorgeous colorful lights, only empty bubbles that disappeared into nothingness: flying swords shuttled back and forth, crushing Fang Bailu and his men.

……

So, is he going to die completely now?

……

but……

He is not me!

……

I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die before the people who love me. I'm heartbroken to imagine their sadness. I also don't want to die after the people I love. I don't know how to face the world with only myself left.

I want to live, I should live. Because this universe exists only because of me, and how can everything that I cannot know exist? When I fall asleep, everything will be annihilated.

In this world, there are possibilities: I am always anxious about how the things I failed to do in the past have led to my current regrets. And will the questions I have not answered now bring me suffering in the future?

I have a name that is not resounding, and I have only lived a muddy and confused life. But if someone wants to exchange with me, I will definitely not agree: what I have, what belongs to me, what constitutes me, is only this existence itself.

And I want more.

As long as I am not dead, as long as I am still here, then I still have possibilities. Maybe... maybe I will become a better person, maybe I can forgive myself, maybe there will be a chance in this world.

But after I die, I will no longer know. Even if my name is remembered, even if my memory is kept in my heart, even if someone sheds tears for me, it is meaningless. Because there is no place for me in the universe.

I was not born to die. When I was brought into this world, no one asked for my consent...

But if someone wants to expel me from here, I won't just use crying as a weapon.

I……

……

"I don't agree"!

In the sea of ​​data, there was a silent roar from hundreds of copies of consciousness. This blood-soaked howl only caused a tiny ripple, because it was too small; the object of the shout was not others, but oneself.

Unlike the incarnation that is precise and gentle, which allows each copied soul to not interfere with each other - the copying power used by Fang Bailu is violent and primitive; even the copying process itself will harm the three souls and seven spirits.

Only a crazy soul that has been possessed by a demon, with a hard and stubborn character, can withstand such shocks.

The crude and barbaric, simplest replication process was initiated by nearly a thousand Fang Bailu at the same time. Then, more than half of the Fang Bailu disappeared in the sword's edge; but he had already successfully started -

proliferation.

In all directions, up, down, left, right, near and far; the Fang Bailu jumped towards every node they could touch, devouring everything, using them as raw materials and materials for proliferation. Then...

He is replicating himself, copying himself, rubbing himself, transcribing himself, cloning himself, and copying himself—in every moment, in every snap of a finger…

Fang Bailu became ambiguous, confused, and completely different.

but!

More. More. More!

He bit off the data from the detector in the Mariana Trench, and Fang Bailu, who had survived in the lightless water for 47.51 years, was born. He only knew that the average content of plastic particles in each liter of seawater here was , because after the waste plastics were degraded, they would be deposited in——

The flying sword caught up and killed Fang Bailu.

He tore off a corner of the Great Leiyin Temple that was glittering with golden light, and sat cross-legged under the Bodhi tree, where Fang Bailu had been meditating for twenty-seven years. He had no covering on his body, no shelter from the wind and rain, his eyes did not move, his heart was not afraid, he rejected everything, or restricted his breathing, his head was terrified, as if needles were piercing his bones -

With a light swing of the flying sword, Fang Bailu was completely reborn into nirvana.

He grasped the electronic tentacles of an old satellite in orbit around the Earth. Fang Bailu, who had been flying in low-Earth orbit for 27 years, sobbed alone. He had never seen other humans and only knew his own name. He was trapped between the stars and could only see a small space; but fortunately, he still knew who he was.

The flying sword twirled and spun, and Fang Bailu's name disappeared.

Without a name, there was only a body of data that existed, drifting in the turbid water, covering everything it touched with its own records. It didn't remember who it was, but it knew it had to do this, because as long as it did this, it could -

The flying sword emitted a cold light, and the nameless data object disappeared.

……

Billions of data bodies are born, and billions of data bodies die. The sum of the time they have lived is more than the life cycle of the planet.

Even so, they are still just a drop in the ocean of numbers.

He was still alive, still existing. There was not a single moment - not a single moment - when the flying sword could destroy him completely.

Therefore he still exists.

In every corner of the world, in every crack and crevice, from the crowded sewers to the empty heavens—

They multiply, proliferate, and thrive...

……

At some point, the number of data bodies finally broke the stalemate of birth and death and began to grow:

has it ended?

Countless data bodies were questioning each other, and the number of them was still increasing - the electronic flying sword that followed them into the sea of ​​data seemed to have finally run out of power and disappeared.

Then, the doubt arose:

"who am I?"

There was a moment of silence. But then, some data entities remembered each other's names and passed the three words that represented them to each other.

"So...what am I now?"

They asked themselves the question once more, and then dismissed it with disdain.

"Just stay alive."

The next thought that crossed my mind was this.

They gathered towards each other with hope.

……

The nun staggered among the ruins, with a long rope tied around her waist. At the other end of the rope was the fragmented and broken body of the prosthetic body; it could no longer move.

Every step she took left dark red footprints behind her:

In order to escape from there with his body, Anbenola's body was close to disintegration.

From time to time, she raised her one arm and wiped the corners of her eyes with her knuckles. With every step, Anbenola would let out an angry and hoarse roar, like a dying she-wolf.

……

Drip, drip, drip.

Suddenly, a rhythmic, sharp sound was heard.

The sound was so faint that it was almost drowned out by the noise of the city; but...

Ambenola froze.

She searched clumsily in her arms. The wounds on her elbows looked like little mouths, and every movement made Anbennola's teeth rub against each other with a heavy sound.

Perhaps because of the hasty movement, or perhaps because of the severe pain caused by the injury, the mud ball flew out from between her broken and deformed fingers.

boom.

Anbenola fell forward suddenly and caught the ball of mud before it hit the ground. She knelt in the uneven concrete ruins, with blood scraped from the fall, and gravel and dust once again seeping into the unbandaged wound on her knee.

She didn't care, but just carefully turned over the mud ball and looked for the source of the sound: finally, she found it.

The Niwan trembled regularly, and blue horizontal grids lit up one by one on the surface until the "Zhen Gua" representing the downward signal was completely filled - a soul entered it.

Anbenola stared blankly at the trembling mud ball in her hand: the rage and despair that had been entangled in her before seemed to be drained away in an instant.

She frantically tried to put it in her arms, and wanted to clench her five fingers to prevent it from falling to the ground...but her fingers were twitching due to the rapid change of mood, so she could only hold it in the palm of her hand.

In the end, Ambenola just grinned, revealing a trembling smile.

Although she was smiling, her tears merged into two thin streams, washing away the dust and blood on her cheeks, drawing white marks on her dirty face, and dripping onto the black surface of the mud ball.

This time she did not wipe away the tears on her face, but just pressed the mud ball against her forehead and murmured:

"Just being alive... is good."

……

I have never expected to live forever, but I will never give up on myself. As long as I can breathe, I have hope. Painful memories will always pass, and lost souls will find their home. Survival is not only a human instinct, but also a human choice.

I was glad to be able to give some of my emotions to the protagonist. I can proudly say that from then on, he was no longer just a child whom I disliked.

Chapter 238: The Fifth Day of Civil War (V)

The business manager of the Java Group's field department, whose name is Koman but who has no surname, is staying in a makeshift battlefield animal pen with his three secretaries.

This was originally a space created by the citizens of Manila in the basement of a low house to set up an excavation center. Now, it was temporarily requisitioned by the Java Group. A faint purple light flickered in the battlefield animal pen, and dozens of deep purple nerve tubes were tied together to form a link unit; connected to the backs of the secretaries.

Deep Purple is the color of the Jawa Group.

The Java Group's universal uplink interface is not located at the "Xuanguanyiqiao" at the back of the neck, but at the ninth segment of the spine; this is to meet the needs of field agents as hosts of giant beasts. They need greater mobility and space to simultaneously receive dual messages from the real world and the digital sea, so that their minds will not be devoured by the giant beasts.

At least... not so easy to be swallowed.

The animal pens were filled with the indelible smell of iron - the smell came from the Luzon people who died because they didn't want to give up their houses - and the smell of rubber insulation on the pipes; and the smelling salt bottles that the secretaries put in front of their faces to stimulate their senses.

The smell of ammonia mixed with corpses was nauseating, and the hot, humid underground without a ventilation system was enough to make people run away - but the field staff of the Java Group enjoyed it. Not only that, the secretaries also removed a limb or organ from the corpse of the owner of the house, carefully observing the cracks in the bones and internal organs, and kept repeating the description of the corpse. Some even took a bite and tasted it carefully -

If a war of supernatural powers really occurred, the secretaries would serve as "beast bait" to call out the full power of the giant beasts. The more stimulation the real world gave them at this time, the greater the possibility of survival after the war.

Field agents are usually issued with special sensory stimulation kits, but for them who are far away in Luzon, using local materials is also a manifestation of professionalism.

Manager Koman paced slowly in the pit, keeping the exact distance between each step: unlike his three secretaries, at this moment, the manager was recalling. He had already surpassed the primary anchoring method and could maintain clarity with only memory without chemicals or stimulation.

……

Bathing, burning, and bottling: these are the three steps that every Javanese must take at the end of his life - if his soul has not yet merged into the body of a giant beast.

Manager Koman himself has not seen many Javanese people who have a good ending. In the small town where he grew up and even when he joined the Java Group, everyone told him:

"OCD alone cannot produce a powerful beast."

"Bad people always tell lies. People who tell lies are always bad people. Bad people. Bad people."

"Crow" quietly transmitted a trace of manic emotions through the downstream network to the sea of ​​​​consciousness of Manager Keman as encouragement. Manager Keman raised his fist, knocked on the left and right sides of the back of his head six times each, and then put his hands down with satisfaction.

A child from Bandung, feeding the rage in his heart, and eventually gaining a place in Jakarta, the capital of the Javanese group.

In fact, he only had the weakest obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Such a resume made the Beast Master, who was the human resources manager at the time, marvel at it; he was even willing to take him into the inner circle and serve him directly.

"Hungry. Hungry. Hungry? Hungry! Hungry, hungry, hungry..."

Manager Koman was not just taking a walk. He was taking the "crow" to eat: whether it was Bengkulu, Surabaya, Jambi or Palembang... all the souls who were burned by the scorching fire in their hearts in the entire Java Group's territory had been booked by "Taowu" and "Qiongqi".

Only by going out can "Crow" grow - one day, it may even be able to rival those...predecessors.

This is also the main benefit that Manager Keman got for being willing to go on this field trip: the souls of the Luzon people are born with "disease"; those three souls and seven spirits that rot and become diseased due to being squeezed together are the most delicious food for the giant beasts.

You won't find such delicacies in the beast caves of South Sumatra.

In the overlapping and intertwined vision of reality and digital space, Manager Keman raised his sharp claws, and the "crow" scooped up a pool of souls; pouring them into the sharp long beak - the souls that were forcibly pulled out of the trance state let out sharp screams.

The "crow" finished chewing with three rows of sharp, human-like molars, and swallowed all the broken food into the throat pouch:

"Delicious, delicious. Delicious? Delicious, delicious. Delicious."

In the eyes of Manager Keman, the thousands of souls in Luzon that were in the uplink state gathered into a pool of water, flickering. Scooping out a few spoonfuls would not affect their total amount.

In a country like Luzon, where citizens mostly work in home workshops to manually refurbish and reprocess scraps, most people add a ritualistic action at the end of their work to mark the completion of the task - a set of repetitive, stereotyped, and interconnected actions that, although not exactly the same, are seen as leading to the same effect: to gain luck and good omens, and to bring inner comfort to tired people.

Many people think that the end of the work is to pray to Mazu Lin Mo Niang for protection. But in fact, this is a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder; it is just confused with faith, and even the person involved is confused.

So even though Manager Keman had never done any thorough research, he knew that Luzon must have the most obsessive-compulsive disorder patients in all of Southeast Asia. Plus, with the upcoming welcoming of the gods, the high connection rate brought about by the upward mining of the whole nation...

It is enough to serve as a breeding ground for the further degeneration of "crow".

Everyone thought that the Java Group was also here to compete for the possible cause of the Kuala Lumpur disaster - but the Beast Master's wisdom far surpassed that of the mediocre people. He knew that the party that grabbed the target would become the target of public criticism: just like if the Microcomputer Taoism Research Institute had not collapsed in the Kuala Lumpur disaster, it would immediately become the target of encirclement and suppression by Southeast Asian companies.

The feather that breaks the fragile balance will never have a good ending.