Cyberpunk, but urban

So Ye Lan's statement was completely bullshit to Malkuth. In other words, his statement simply pissed Malkuth off: "Is this the right time to talk about this?! Angela is trying to take away the Seed of Light!"

"Oh."

Ye Lan nodded, and then looked at Angela on the other side. Although she didn't change much on the surface after getting Binah's support, Ye Lan could easily see that this guy was actually moved to tears.

As Ye Lan expected, when he looked at Angela, Angela also noticed his gaze very keenly, and then asked him this question as he guessed: "Huh, you are not going to help me or them? Ye Lan, what are you thinking?"

Ye Lan took out a quick-developed photo from the camera in his hand, and then sent the photo of Angela's smile to the two parties in the confrontation.

After everyone present except Angela herself had received a photo, he walked up to Angela and said to her, "What am I thinking about... Maybe I just want to record you now."

Without waiting for Angela's response, he took two steps back and said to everyone, "Well, I won't bother you guys from fighting for the Seeds of Light. I'm going to accompany those Abnormalities who have been separated from the long work of power generation."

After saying that, Ye Lan leisurely left the office and walked into the elevator alone.

"Okay, the troublemaker has left. Now, I need you to go into hibernation immediately."

Even Angela now almost couldn't hold back her facial expression because of Ye Lan's behavior, not to mention the other Sephirahs. The youngest Tiphereth even held Angela's photo and covered her face with it, having completely lost the will to fight.

It was not until Angela brought up the topic of hibernation to them again that the Sephirahs came out of their confusion and prepared for a decisive battle with Angela.

However, both Angela and Sephirah felt uncomfortable fighting at this time. Binah, who was just there to join in the fun, could throw a few "keys" at Geburah that had deteriorated due to her transformation into a box spirit.

The battle lasted for three days in an indescribable strange atmosphere. During these three days, Ye Lan did not participate in the battle between them at all, just as he said.

But... no one expected one thing, that is, Ye Lan would actually bring all the abnormalities of the company headquarters and sit outside their battlefield, watching their fight like the audience in the ancient Roman Colosseum.

"Tsk, I feel like a clown now, performing a farce for the audience."

Geburah clicked her tongue and waved her original ego to knock away several degraded keys thrown by Binah. This battle between them, which was not really a battle, had been going on for a whole day. However, surrounded by hundreds of abnormalities, none of them dared to fight with all their strength.

Ye Lan took out a bag of melon seeds from somewhere, cracked them, and shouted to Malkuth and the others below: "Hey, you guys should fight more seriously. Don't worry, they are at least stable now, and they won't go crazy and rush in between you while you're fighting."

A targeted rage ignited in the hearts of the employees, Sephirahs, and Angela below. However, for the sake of the Seed of Light, no one on either side dared to attack Ye Lan first.

"Tsk, I can't stand this. Hey, Angela, let's make a deal."

Unlike the official history in the game, this time it was Malkuth who first proposed the deal. But with Ye Lan and the Abnormality looking around, and this guy also protecting Angela, there was almost no chance that they would be able to fully release the Seed of Light.

In this case, it would be better to reach a deal with Angela first and work together to deal with the bastard Ye Lan.

"Yes, I only have one request. I just want to live. I don't care if you all want to die. I just want to live my own life. I also want to take a good look at this city and understand the world I live in. Once the complete light is taken back... then you can judge me at will. Of course, I will not sit there and wait for death."

Angela spoke calmly. Although she also wanted to give Ye Lan, a guy who had experienced countless reincarnations like her, a good beating, but what she wanted more at the moment was the Seed of Light.

"Hey, you guys aren't really going to hit me because of this cooperation?"

Malkuth snorted angrily, and then said to Ye Lan: "Humph, even if we don't cooperate, you will give the Seed of Light to Angela at the right time, right?"

Ye Lan was even happier now. Although he did not hide his thoughts too much, he really did not expect that they would cooperate because of this.

"Ah, our Makuku is right. I do intend to give the Seed of Light to Angela, but now is not the time for it to fully bloom."

Ye Lan rubbed his face and jumped down from the stand he had built around the office.

Chapter 19. Ending

To be honest, in Ye Lan's opinion, releasing the light seed at this time is definitely not a good thing. If Ayin's plan says that the urban people who accept the light seed can give birth to their own gods after a period of time.

Now that Carmen has become a cyber ghost, influenced by some kind of emotion from the collective subconscious of urban residents, after releasing the Seed of Light, her nagging to urban residents will only persuade them to take the simplest shortcut.

For example, what is the biggest desire of a student who is bullied?

It's revenge.

And what is the easiest way to take revenge?

It's about hitting back with super fucking violence.

So, in the opinion of Miss Carmen, who only advises people to take shortcuts, how can we take shortcuts to quickly gain the violence to conquer the world?

Of course it becomes distorted.

Everyone in the city is mentally ill, and few of them do not pursue more powerful power. Just throw the seeds of light to them and let Carmen nag them. How many people can resist such a shortcut? This is tantamount to handing the button of a nuclear bomb to a child, which will only make the end of the world come to them faster.

However, describing all these contents here is just to cover up Ye Lan’s embarrassing situation at the moment.

Ye Lan jumped down from the stands with the intention of trying out his ring that sparkled with starlight. However, this ego ring, which should be the light of his heart, did not produce any effect.

Now Ye Lan, who jumped down with only the ring on his body to face Sephirah and Angela, will have to pay the price for his arrogance.

Without the support of the ego suit, even if Ye Lan had undergone professional combat training, he would still be no match for the box spirits like Malkuth, not to mention a former color-level finisher like Geburah.

After just a few minutes, he could only use the furniture and facilities in the office to avoid a series of attacks from everyone, and soon he lost the space to escape as he was surrounded and blocked by everyone.

"Um...how about letting me change into my ego gear first?"

Ye Lan only had time to say this before he was kicked to the ground by Malkuth and Tiphereth, and then beaten up severely by Angela and several Sephirahs.

Among them, the most ruthless ones were not Geburah, but Hod and Angela.

Ye Lan had expected Angela to beat him up. Rather, he was prepared to be a popcorn machine at the door for a few months after the library opened.

After all, whether it was today or before, he had played many tricks on Angela and other boxes in the endless cycle, but the boxes could not remember these things, but Angela remembered them clearly.

However, our little angel Miss Hod would hit so hard that even Netzach and Yesod were frightened by her, which was beyond the expectations of everyone present.

But this is actually understandable. After all, few people can face their own death calmly, let alone face their second death.

Hod had already prepared to die as an apology at this time, but after Ye Lan's actions, all her preparations became meaningless.

At this time, the fear of death and the shame of his own thoughts occupied Hod's entire mind, and he naturally used all his strength to attack Ye Lan, the culprit who caused all this.

However, at this point, there was nothing anyone could do except beat Ye Lan to vent their anger. The launch of the Seed of Light finally stopped on the fourth day, one day later than in the original plot.

Ye Lan had no idea what this would lead to, but whether it was the beating he received or the change in the time of day and night, he never regretted it.

In the next three days, the entire city will fall into unbearable darkness. The Tree of Light, which has not been fully released, will place weak and incomplete seeds in people's hearts, and the power that these incomplete seeds can bring to people will also become unstable.

This is what Sephirah and Angela could foresee, but Ye Lan knew what they didn't understand due to insufficient information.

While the Abnormalities and employees fell into a deep sleep and waited for Angela to wake them up again, Ye Lan told the Sephirahs who were still awake about the consequences of if the Seed of Light was launched normally.

"So you think Carmen will guide people in the light to become 'distorted', that is, similar to the Abnormality?"

Hokma couldn't believe this at all, but unless Ye Lan was really a lunatic, there was no reason for him to deceive them with these words that were hard for them to believe.

"But... Carmen... I still can't believe she would choose to do this."

Netzach also couldn't believe it. Although he was the happiest one to hear that Carmen was still alive in the light, he was still very sad to hear that Carmen had become a completely different person from what he knew.

"Well, I think that when a person dies, they are dead. Even if the Carmen in the light looks like the Carmen you described, she is not the same person. What's more, she doesn't look like the same person at all."

Ye Lan shook his head and told them his opinion. The Sephirahs were not the researchers who had never experienced anything, so they could naturally adjust their complicated emotions after hearing the news.

However, Angela did not give them the time in the end. Shortly after Ye Lan and the others finished their conversation, Angela asked them to shut down their phones as well.

Ye Lan sat in the middle of the deactivated Sephirah and asked Angela, "What are your plans next?"

"I'm going to turn this facility into my paradise." Angela sat across from him, with the dormant Binah next to her.

She continued, "I want to know everything about the city. No matter what the future holds, I want to understand them, analyze them, and finally organize all the knowledge about them. I remember it was called..."

"Books." Ye Lan told her what she wanted to say.

"Yes, so this is a 'library'. I want to build a library of my own here. Will you help me this time?"

Ye Lan laughed and stood up. He saluted Angela and said to her, "Of course, this is something I have been looking forward to for a long time."

"Then you should sleep first..."

After Angela finished speaking, she tried to use the power of the Seed of Light to make Ye Lan turn into a book and fall asleep like the other employees. However, the light showed different postures on his body, and his figure instantly disappeared in front of Angela.

Chapter 20. In the Dark

Therefore, when Ye Lan regained consciousness, he was not in Angela's library. The endless darkness around him prevented him from observing the surrounding environment, but the suffocating stench of decay kept drilling into his nostrils, telling him that this was definitely not a good place.

Ye Lan looked around. Not to mention the stars in the sky, there was not even the light of a lamp. He thought that he had woken up during the few days when Angela took back the remaining seeds of light.

If that was the case, unless Angela was so mad at him that she had a seizure and deliberately threw him into this place of unknown use, otherwise, the only possibility was that something unexpected happened that he was not aware of.

While Ye Lan was thinking about it, he reached out and touched his surroundings. He pressed his hand to the side and felt something soft and sticky.

The slippery and sticky feeling, coupled with the constant stench around him, really made him feel sick. Although he couldn't see the situation around him, Ye Lan estimated that he might have fallen into a garbage dump, or even more outrageous, a corpse pit. As for where he fell, it's better not to go into detail.

In short, what Ye Lan urgently needs to do now is to leave here and find a place to live where he can wash away the dirt on his body.

Ye Lan stood up by supporting himself with the unknown dirt under him, and groped his way to a wall. He held on to the wall and continued walking in one direction. After an unknown amount of time, he touched a door.

Although he didn't know what kind of person lived behind the door, urban residents were basically no better. In short, Ye Lan was ready to fight the resident who opened the door, and he knocked on the door.

Boom, boom, boom.

Ye Lan knocked on the door. After waiting for a while, he heard very light footsteps from the other side of the door.

"Please... may I ask who is outside?"

A faint, delicate voice came from the other side of the door. Judging from her voice, it should be a young girl.

"Ah! Thank God someone is home. I am a company employee. I was out doing business the other day while it was still light, but suddenly the whole city became pitch black these two days."

"I really didn't have time to go home, so I could only grope in the darkness to find a safe place. I even fell into a garbage dump or something."

"I finally found you here, I really beg you to be kind and open the door for me to rest in your house, even if I can only stand at the door."

Although Ye Lan's words were full of water, it was still a little bit wrong to say that he was lying. The little girl on the other side of the door had never seen Ye Lan speak so freely before, so she quickly opened the door for him.

"Well... well, please come in."

Then, Ye Lan felt the door he was pressing on was pushed open. Fortunately, he took a step back in time, otherwise he might have been knocked to the ground by the unintentional action of the little girl opposite.

As soon as he entered the door, Ye Lan sat down at the door. A slender hand touched his face all the way to his head, and then moved towards the door frame. After a while, he heard the sound of the door closing.

In order to reassure the little girl, he said to her, "Thank you so much. I'll just sit here at the door so you don't have to worry about what I might do."

After hearing his words, the little girl seemed to be relieved. Soon, Ye Lan heard the footsteps moving deeper into the house, and then stopped about ten meters away from him.

He and the strange little girl would have to wait in the darkness for three days at most.

He was fine, because the spy training he had received in the Invisible Company had included enduring darkness for a long time. And as a time traveler who knew the plot, he knew exactly how long this darkness would last.

But the little girl who was willing to let him in was different. For everyone who had seen that dazzling light, enduring this darkness was an ultimate torture.

He was not sure if the little girl could hold on for three days, but judging from the fact that she simply stayed away from him instead of returning to the room, it was likely that the little girl would have a hard time holding on until the end of the night and the dawn.

After all, she helped me, and this kindness is worth returning. Ye Lan thought to himself, and then he said to the little girl: "Little guy, are you still here?"

Although the little girl did not respond to him, the sudden noise of the furniture proved that his voice reached the girl's ears.

"You don't have to respond to me. Just think of me talking to myself."

Ye Lan comforted the little girl who was probably nervous at the moment, and then continued: "We don't know when this unbearable darkness will pass, so let me say something to distract our attention."

"Let me think, what should I say?"

"Right, let's tell a story about a big and possibly bad wolf."

……

……

Time passed quickly during Ye Lan's story, and soon, the little girl was immersed in the story. In the darkness, Ye Lan didn't know how long it had passed, but his story would soon be finished.

At this time, the little girl finally asked him a question: "But why must the wolf be the bad guy?"

Ye Lan said to her with a sigh: "Because this is a fairy tale. People's stereotypes have turned this poor, furry wolf into a ferocious and terrifying monster."

However, it is too difficult for the little girl to understand the criticism of stereotypes behind this fairy tale.

Finally, the little girl commented on the story: "So as long as the bad thing called stereotype dies, the wolf will no longer become a bad and scary monster?"

"Well... you could say that." Ye Lan thought for a moment and continued, "But stereotypes are not about living creatures like us. They are people's views of others."

"Hmm, I don't understand."

The story of the big bad wolf ended in their conversation. Even the little girl herself did not realize that the unbearable feeling of being swallowed up by the darkness alone had completely disappeared in their conversation.

After the story ended, the two were silent for a while. Then, the little girl asked Ye Lan to tell her a new fairy tale.

This long dark night slowly passes by in one story after another.