Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

human form.

Made of bronze.

He was about 1.85 meters tall, half a head taller than him, with a well-proportioned body and limbs that were close to human proportions. Every step he took produced a dull metallic echo on the dark red ground.

But it is completely different from the armored bronze terracotta warriors in the Qinling base.

It was not wearing any armor.

It is naked.

It has no facial features, no face shape; the face is a smooth, curved surface, like a bronze mask deliberately left blank by the craftsman.

Its torso is not solidly cast like that of bronze figurines, but rather a hollow human skeleton with each bronze rib clearly countable, allowing one to see the internal cavity through the gaps.

In the very center of the cavity, where the sternum meets, there is a groove.

empty.

The shape, texture, depth, and curvature of the groove were exactly the same as the tiger tally brand on the palm of his right hand.

The bronze figure stopped about five meters away from him.

It has no eyes, but Zhou Dazhuang can feel it watching him.

Or rather, look at his right hand.

The crimson-gold light in his palm pulsed violently three times, each pulse brighter than the last, as if responding to some signal.

Academician Qi's voice came through the walkie-talkie.

"Dazhuang, speak up, what did you see?"

He swallowed hard, his voice hoarse.

"There was a bronze statue, naked, faceless, with a hole in its chest."

"What hole?"

"The same hole as the one on my hand."

There was complete silence on the walkie-talkie.

The bronze humanoid figure remained motionless five meters away, its hollowed-out chest cavity facing him, its dark red metallic luster gleaming faintly under the tactical flashlight.

It was waiting for him.

We've waited two thousand years.

Halfway around the world, the night in London is already deep.

The fourteenth day of the Sword in the Stone's force field.

Arthur sat on the second floor of an abandoned barbershop on the south bank, leaning against a dusty mirrored wall, with the tin alloy longsword lying across his knees.

There were no streetlights, no neon lights, and not a single electric light outside the window; the only light on the street was the moonlight and the flickering candlelight in the windows of a few distant buildings.

And the extremely thin, dark arc of light that occasionally flashed across the hilt of the sword in his hand.

He was conducting an experiment.

He discovered something the night before last.

The sword in the stone is not a switch, not a bomb that operates at full power when pressed.

It is a graduated knob.

His hand is the regulator on that knob.

Every time you tighten your grip, you're twisting towards higher power; every time you loosen your grip, you're retracting towards lower power.

Tonight he will be testing more refined procedures.

He gradually reduced his right-hand grip strength from 100% to 5% increments, closing his eyes to sense the change in the position of the force field boundary with each increment.

Eighty percent of the time, the boundary has not moved significantly.

Sixty percent, the boundary began to shrink, first felt from the east, retreating about two kilometers.

Forty percent, the force field radius shrinks from forty kilometers to about twenty-five kilometers. The whole process is smooth and controllable, like turning a precision valve, without any jamming or jumps.

He can clearly perceive where the boundary line is.

Outside that line, the metal oxidation catalytic effect has ceased.

Iron that has been rusted will not recover, but new catalysis will not occur.

He restored his grip strength to 100%, and the boundary expanded back to 40 kilometers, just as smoothly.

Then he tried to do something he had never done before.

Directed output.

He pointed the tip of his sword northward, toward Buckingham Palace.

There was only one thought on my mind.

Only over there.

Hold on tight to 80%.

The change happened in a second.

The force field contracted sharply in the south and east directions, with the boundary retreating to about fifteen kilometers, like a balloon being squeezed from three sides by hand.

The northern boundary, like a slingshot being stretched outwards, expanded to about 60 kilometers in one go, far exceeding the previous uniform radius of 40 kilometers.

He sensed what was happening in the Buckingham Palace area with his eyes closed.

The ancient Celtic oaks grew two meters taller in a minute, their three main root systems piercing through the stone foundations of Buckingham Palace, arching up from the ground like the spine of a giant python.

The twelve phantom images of the Knights of the Round Table simultaneously turned north.

Twelve lances were all pointed at Buckingham Palace.

Arthur released his grip.

The force field returned to a uniform spherical shape within three seconds, the knight phantoms turned back to their respective patrol directions, and the ancient oak stopped growing.

He sat on the floor, his back against the cold mirrored wall, and took a breath.

Moonlight streamed in through the broken window, falling on the back of his hand and on the blade of the sword in the stone.

This sword was never a weapon in his hands.

It's not for killing people.

It is a political tool.

A political tool with a crosshair.

He can choose which direction the world should accelerate back to the Middle Ages, which direction an ancient tree should pierce the foundation of which building, and which direction the spear tips of the twelve phantom knights should point at any coordinate he wants to frighten.

He doesn't actually need to extend the force field to 10 Downing Street.

He just needs to let the Prime Minister know that he can.

Arthur placed the sword in the stone back on his lap and stared blankly out the window at the holly oak that had grown to fifteen meters tall.

Tomorrow, more than two hundred reporters will use paper, pens, and charcoal sticks to record every word he says.

He decided to do something on that occasion.

Use the directional force field of the sword in the stone to point at 10 Downing Street.

Just for a moment.

He closed his eyes and practiced the operation he had just performed repeatedly in his mind, figuring out how many kilometers each grip strength corresponded to, how to control directional precision, when to release his grip, and when to let go.

Like a sniper silently reciting ballistic parameters in his mind.

Forty kilometers away, the lights at the Prime Minister's official residence at 10 Downing Street were still on late at night.

The security system recorded a minor anomaly during the minute of Arthur's experiment.

Every nail in the entire building, from the door frames to the stair railings to every single one in the roof trusses, simultaneously expanded by about 0.3 millimeters.

Then it was restored to its original state.

The security guard on duty frowned as he looked through the logs, categorized it under the item of thermal expansion and contraction caused by temperature fluctuations, and marked it as "no need to follow up".

The files were automatically synchronized to the central server of MI5.

No one connected this record with the young man sitting on the floor in an abandoned barbershop on the south bank, forty kilometers away.

At least not tonight.

Meanwhile, on most of the globe...

Inside the dark red metal tunnel 83 meters underground in Xianyang, it was so quiet that only the extremely slow turning of gears and Zhou Dazhuang's heavy breathing could be heard.

The bronze figure stood five meters away for about three seconds, then stepped forward.

Zhou Dazhuang instinctively took a half step back, his right hand clenched into a fist, and the crimson-gold light imprinted on his palm illuminated the gear assembly at the top of the passage.

But that thing didn't accelerate, nor did it make any attacking gestures.

Its steps were as even as before, with each step spaced two seconds apart. Each step on the dark red metal floor produced a dull echo, like a large drum being slowly slapped down by the palm of a hand.

It stopped about fifteen meters away from him.

His arms hung limply at his sides, the darkness of the passageway shining through the hollowed-out bronze ribs. The smooth, curved face without features was facing him, expressionless, without sending any signals.

But the hollow groove at the junction of the sternum is shining.

A golden glow seeped out from the inner wall of the groove in concentric circles, pulsating steadily at a moderate pace. Zhou Dazhuang stared at it for two seconds and confirmed that the rhythm of the pulse was exactly the same as the imprint on his right palm, without a single beat off.

He could feel the heat surging from his palms, as if someone had plucked a string in his bones, the other end of which was connected to the chest cavity of the bronze skeleton fifteen meters away.

The researcher's rapid breathing came through the walkie-talkie.

"Heart rate 98, palm temperature 39.4 degrees Celsius, theta wave reactivated, Academician Qi, it has stopped."

Academician Qi spoke in a very low voice.

"Dazhuang, don't move, let it make its stance clear first."