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

Zhou Dazhuang swallowed hard; his throat was dry, but his mind was surprisingly clear.

If this thing wanted to fight him, it would have done so the moment it emerged from the darkness.

It doesn't.

It is waiting.

He tentatively raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing the bronze skeleton fifteen meters away, so that the branded crimson-gold light was directly facing the hollow chest cavity.

A beam of light shot out from between his fingers, striking the skeleton and illuminating every single, intricately carved bronze rib.

The skeleton moved.

It's neither an attack nor a retreat.

Its right knee bent, and its entire body slowly sank down, with a series of clicks between the metal joints. The moment its left leg hit the ground, a dull tremor came from the dark red ground.

Then comes the right fist.

The bronze skeleton raised its right arm, clenched its fist, and slammed it heavily onto the ground.

A dull metallic thud echoed three times in the passage before dissipating.

Kneel on one knee and slam your right fist into the ground.

Zhou Dazhuang's breathing paused for a moment.

He had seen this pose before.

In the Qinling Base's No. 7 underground palace, the first action performed by the five hundred elite bronze warrior terracotta warriors after the Tiger Talisman was activated was this.

The right knee is on the ground, and the right fist slams down, the posture is exactly the same.

But the way this skeleton kneels is different from those warriors. The warrior bronze terracotta warriors kneel with mechanical neatness and stiffness. Five hundred of them kneel down and pound the ground at the same time, like standard parts carved out on an assembly line.

This one is not.

There was a slight pause in the process of it kneeling down, the angle of its knees hitting the ground was not exactly 90 degrees but slightly deviated, and the force of its fists was also uneven, with the first blow being heavier and the second lighter.

It's like a living thing performing this action, rather than a program that's been written down.

Older.

More primitive.

There was a full five seconds of silence on the walkie-talkie, and Zhou Dazhuang could hear at least three people on the other end of the monitoring terminal exhaling simultaneously.

Academician Qi's voice finally rang out, his tone completely different from usual, carrying a tremor that was rarely seen in his thirty-seven-year military industry career.

"Dazhuang, what you're seeing right now, I need you to listen carefully to every word I'm about to say."

"Please speak."

"It is not a bronze terracotta figure."

Zhou Dazhuang stared at the kneeling skeleton, waiting for what would happen next.

"The bronze warriors, crossbowmen, chariots, and pterosaurs in the Qinling Base's No. 7 underground palace are all mass-produced products, cast from the same mold, with fixed structures, functions, and behavior patterns."

Academician Qi paused for a moment, and Zhou Dazhuang could hear him turning a page on the other end of the page.

"But the one in front of you has no armor, no weapons, no facial recognition module, a hollow skeleton torso, and a groove in the center of the chest cavity that perfectly matches the tiger tally."

"So what is it?"

"It's the master template."

Zhou Dazhuang didn't understand.

"What master copy?"

Academician Qi slowed down his voice, uttering each word slowly and deliberately.

"Before all elite soldiers, crossbowmen, chariots, and pterosaurs are mass-produced, they all need an original template. That template determines the structural upper limit and functional boundaries of all subsequent copies. What you are kneeling in front of is that template."

Zhou Dazhuang looked down at his right hand, then at the glowing, reddish-gold groove in the chest cavity of the skeleton fifteen meters away.

"Then what's the hole in its chest for?"

"It's not a hole."

Academician Qi's tone turned serious.

"It's the dock, the dock for the Tiger Tally. You insert your right palm into it, and the Tiger Tally imprint will engage with the groove, allowing the holder to connect directly to the entire underground facility through the master plate."

Zhou Dazhuang squatted down, holding a tactical flashlight in his right hand. The beam shone on the knees of the skeleton kneeling on the ground, revealing extremely fine wear marks at the knee joints. This wasn't the first time it had done this posture.

"Then I'll put my hand in."

"no."

Academician Qi's tone was noticeably harsher than before.

"Academician Qi, it's kneeling down."

"I know it's kneeling, but let me finish."

The sound of papers turning over came from the walkie-talkie, followed by the sound of Academician Qi taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling.

"Do you still remember what you were like when you were controlling five hundred bronze terracotta warriors at the Qinling base?"

Zhou Dazhuang certainly remembered that the signals from five hundred bodies flooding his brain at the same time almost tore his consciousness apart. After he came out, he lay in bed for two whole days before he could speak normally again.

"Remember."

"Five hundred bronze terracotta warriors are already mentally overloaded. Direct connection to the master plate means direct connection to the entire factory. We don't even know how big this facility is yet. Just the gear sets on both sides of the hundred-meter passage you walked through have more than three thousand independent transmission units. Add to that the piping system and the deeper areas that we haven't explored yet, and the amount of data may be a thousand times that of five hundred bronze terracotta warriors."

Zhou Dazhuang didn't say anything.

"What does a thousand times mean?"

Academician Qi lowered his voice to a minimum.

"At best, it causes permanent brain damage and irreversible decline in higher cognitive functions; at worst, it causes immediate brain death, with the heart and breathing stopping completely. We don't even have a window of time to rescue them on the ground."

The passageway was quiet for a long time, with only the gears turning very slowly and the dark red liquid flowing quietly through the pipes.

Zhou Dazhuang stared at the kneeling bronze skeleton for a long time.

It remained kneeling on one knee with its right fist pounding the ground, motionless, its hollow face facing him, the crimson-gold light in the hollow of its chest still pulsating steadily, waiting, without urging or being anxious.

We've waited two thousand years, a few more minutes won't make a difference.

"I won't touch that groove."

He withdrew his right hand, and the light imprinted on his palm dimmed slightly, but did not go out.

"But I want to touch it."

"Where should I touch?"

"Shoulder."

There was another silence on the walkie-talkie. Zhou Dazhuang could imagine Academician Qi frowning and weighing his options on the other end.

"Use your left hand."

"I know."

Zhou Dazhuang took three steps forward, reducing the distance between himself and the bronze skeleton from fifteen meters to less than two meters. A very faint metallic scent permeated the air, not the smell of rust, but more like the cold, pungent smell that comes from bronze that has been left in a dry environment for a long time.

He crouched down to look it in the eye.

The eyeless, curved surface was less than half an arm's length away from him, its smooth bronze surface reflecting his own face and the reddish-gold spots of light projected from the brand on his palm.

He stretched out his left hand, fingers spread, and slowly placed it on the skeleton's right shoulder.

The metal is cold.

The cold was the kind that seeped into his bones, like grabbing a handful of copper nuggets that had been frozen in a cellar for thousands of years. The chill ran up his left fingertips to his forearm.

But the instant his skin touched the metal, a white light exploded before his eyes.

It wasn't pain, it wasn't an impact; it was a scene that was forcibly shoved into his head.

A vast space with a dome over forty meters high unfolded in his mind, more complete and clearer than the fragments the Tiger Talisman had fed him last time, the image as stable as if someone were holding up a camera for him.

The dome was filled with people.

There were countless bare-chested craftsmen, sweat streaming down their dark backs, the rising heat turning the entire space into a giant steamer.

The copper hammer pounded on the forging table one after another, sparks flying out from the gap between the hammer and the blank. Each spark was a reddish-gold color, exactly the same as the color of the brand on his palm.

In the casting area further away, molten dark red liquid was poured from pipes high up into human-shaped molds, bubbles churning on the surface, and the heat scorched the eyebrows of the surrounding craftsmen.

A fully formed bronze skeleton, still steaming, was lifted from the mold and carried by four strong men on a transmission track using iron hooks. At the end of the track was an arched exit, and the darkness behind the exit led to an unknown destination.

Everything in the scene is in motion: gears are turning, pipes are flowing, hammers are falling, people are shouting, and bronze is clattering.

An incredibly large underground arms factory.

In the last frame, the camera suddenly zooms out, and the viewpoint rises to the highest point of the dome.

He saw someone.

A figure dressed in black stood on a protruding stone platform directly below the dome, hands behind his back, looking down at the entire factory below.

There was no one else around that figure. The stone platform was at least thirty meters away from the nearest craftsman, like an invisible barrier separating him from everyone else.

The figure did not turn around.