Embers Ad Infinitum

Shang Jianyao was first shocked before he came to a realization. “No wonder there were so many coincidences!”

Du Heng maintained his slightly teasing smile and said, “In order for Jiang Baimian to break through the barrier and bring the nuclear bomb to the machine, I specially guided her so that she could quickly enter the Mind Corridor.”

“Oh…” Shang Jianyao had an ‘I see’ expression. He then recalled something and asked curiously and with concern, “Do the Kalendarium who want to maintain the status quo, as well as Truth and the rest, know that you want to destroy everything?”

“The Arbiter of Fate and the others should only know that I have some personalities with strong self-destructive tendencies, but those aren’t mainstream. They belong to the suppressed category.” Du Heng smiled and said, “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have paid so little attention to your team and have such little interference to your team. They would only guide you to a certain extent at a few key points, personally or through an agent. Of course, this is mainly because they are afraid that you will feel persecuted because of this and do something irrational and destructive.”

The pressing blinking lights of different colors dyed the room with a hint of heightened urgency.

Shang Jianyao gave a terse acknowledgment. “In other words, Truth and the others still don’t know that our team has such a nuclear bomb?”

“Although I’ve long added an influence to your corresponding memories to make any reader ignore them, there are always variables and accidents in the world. I can’t guarantee anything.” Du Heng was relaxed. “Even if they know now, they can’t exert any influence on Jiang Baimian unless they can defeat me first and obtain control of the New World.”

Shang Jianyao nodded slowly.

He looked back at the door as if he were looking at Arbiter of Fate and the other Kalendarium that were attempting to invade. “It’s no wonder you still let me push open the door and walk into this room despite knowing what they were up to.”

“I actually can’t stop it even if I wanted to.” Du Heng laughed self-deprecatingly. “My various personalities are very independent, and different personalities guard different—uh, although it’s not accurate enough, it’s better to describe them as ‘ports.’ Therefore, even if I don’t want to open the door for you, Xiaochong—who’s on good terms with you—won’t listen. He will open the door corresponding to his. When you enter his room, you—who have the same split personality—will obtain an ensemble and automatically come here.”

Shang Jianyao didn’t understand, but he knew something called ‘tyranny of the majority.’ “Won’t you send a few people who aren’t friends with me to guard Xiaochong’s room and lock him up the moment you discover that he wants to open the door?”

“My use of ‘ports’ was indeed not accurate enough.” Du Heng thought for a moment. “Can you destroy one of your personalities or fuse it with another personality?”

“No.” Shang Jianyao shook his head.

Du Heng nodded. “Every personality of mine corresponds to a room here. As I hold the highest privilege in that machine and control the New World, every room naturally becomes a port that leads here. I’m only talking about how it works, not the principle. You can understand, right?”

“Yes.” Shang Jianyao had learned plenty from his illness and understood this immediately. “For other personalities to enter Xiaochong’s room, it is equivalent to attempting to fuse with him. It’s impossible.”

Du Heng smiled in satisfaction. “It’s good that you understand.

“Here, my flaws show many problems. They are a part of being targeted.”

Shang Jianyao’s thoughts raced as he asked in confusion, “You should have some personalities that want to change the situation. Won’t they secretly go easy and let Truth and the others in?”

In other words, the Arbiter of Fate didn’t need to send different Old Task Force members over and over again.

“Some personalities want to change the situation, but none of them are willing to hand over our dominance of the New World to them. Even if we really want to rebuild order and resolve the latent dangers, we should be the ones in charge.” Du Heng seemed to be affected by those personalities as he spoke confidently and domineeringly.

Clap! Clap! Clap! Shang Jianyao clapped—

He sighed. “It’s no wonder the various large factions haven’t sent anyone over after we told the company the Eighth Research Institute’s location. They’re clearly making preparations, but they are actually stalling!”

Before obtaining full control over the New World or completely failing, the Arbiter of Fate and the others wouldn’t allow people from the various large factions to enter. It was precisely because they understood this that the Eighth Research Institute immediately transferred personnel and didn’t guard this place.

In any case, Professor Li, Doctor, and the others—who had some guesses about the past situation—were loyal to whoever controlled the New World. Mortals shouldn’t participate in a fight between deities. They could return and continue being gatekeepers after the matter was over.

Since Master Zhuang had the intention of destroying everything, he naturally didn’t stop them from evacuating. He might’ve even secretly encouraged them. After all, if he didn’t say a word, the Eighth Research Institute personnel currently loyal to him might not be able to muster the courage.

“To the true higher-ups of the various large factions, there’s only one reason to stop them from figuring out the Eighth Institute’s exact location: The higher-ups don’t allow it. Yes, except for the Salvation Army.” Du Heng confirmed Shang Jianyao’s words.

“How sad. It feels like the Salvation Army isn’t in this circle. Could it be that they haven’t received the news of the Eighth Research Institute’s exact location?” Shang Jianyao was very sympathetic.

Perhaps in order to change the situation, some Kalendarium had secretly supported the Salvation Army after the New Calendar. But that was closer to cooperation than protection, much less treating them as one of their own.

Du Heng smiled and didn’t answer this ridiculous question.

He looked at the flickering lights and said, “They’re almost here. If you have anything you want to ask, quickly ask. I have something to tell you later.”

Shang Jianyao tersely acknowledged it twice. “Why are your remains under the old pagoda tree in Linhe Village?”

“Don’t you understand the principle of returning to one’s roots?” Du Heng sighed and smiled. “After I discovered that my body was completely dead, I got my good student, Wu Meng, to come to the Second Research Zone and bring my remains back to my hometown. He was deeply involved in the brain development and superpowers project. Back then, he happened to be having an academic exchange elsewhere and escaped the calamity. He was the most suitable candidate. Heh, I didn’t expect him to have ambitions because of this.

“He had already undergone a preliminary Awakening. The moment he saw the machine and the corresponding biological chips, he had a certain guess. Later, with the research results of our project, he established his secret laboratory in that ruin and used it to circumvent the Sea of Origins and the Mind Corridor to become rather powerful.

“He’s the first and only human in the Ashlands who doesn’t rely on the platform we provide to reach the level of half a New World human. This is also the limit of humans.

“He sought to seize control of the machine from the outside. For this reason, he did many experiments and created a large number of strange creatures with unique abilities in that ruin. Back then, some Kalendarium wanted to cooperate with him. I could only control this place without freeing myself up. At the same time, I forcefully sent his consciousness into the New World with the help of the Eternal Time Church’s Celestial Master and First City and locked him up.”

“Very exciting,” Shang Jianyao praised sincerely. He then asked in confusion, “The Sea of Origins can be bypassed? Isn’t this our own mind world?”

Du Heng smiled smugly. “When we built that platform, our greatest achievements were two things. The first was that we controlled the damage to our brains to a certain extent through Star Cluster Hall, preventing a situation where several prices were paid at the same time. The second was to associate the second step of improvement with the enhancement of one’s will and changes in mentality. Therefore, there were the islands of fear corresponding to psychological traumas. This was more systematic and quantifiable, significantly reducing the difficulty for Awakened to enter the Mind Corridor.

“However, this was a sufficient condition, not a necessary condition. You can also enter the Mind Corridor using other methods. For example, forcefully stimulating and developing the brain.”

“What’s with the ones that can’t Awaken?” Shang Jianyao changed the question.

Du Heng calmly replied, “The rule we set was to control the number of Awakened and make Awakening a difficult task. With the current system and the New World’s uniqueness, the success rate can actually reach 80%. But if that happens, the failures will basically suffer brain damage, but it might not be serious.”

Therefore, people who didn’t Awaken or show any abnormalities during every Awakening Ceremony were equivalent to having a normal and beautiful sleep there.

Shang Jianyao observed the blinking lights around him. “I have another question. Why do your 13 Kalendarium happen to correspond to the brain’s 13 functional areas? Isn’t this too much of a coincidence?”

“It’s not too much of a coincidence, but only that this number of people—who correspond to different brain functional areas—managed to survive. Some of us had already Awakened back then, but a large number of us were still ordinary people. Do you remember me saying that we were using Li Hui’s brain as an experimental subject back then?”

“I remember.” Shang Jianyao nodded.

Du Heng explained in detail, “Li Hui’s thalamus was the one which allowed us to discover the anomaly. After our consciousness was extracted, we successfully filled his different brain functions and fused them with the anomaly. This was the first step in surviving. After that, the biological chip took effect. The virtual reality created by the machine underwent a qualitative change.”

“No wonder January is Subhuti!” Shang Jianyao came to a realization.

Du Heng nodded. “Subhuti’s corresponding domain also became more complete as a result, allowing him to obtain abilities that don’t belong to the thalamus.”

“Thirteen functional zones, thirteen Kalendarium…” Shang Jianyao repeated and asked in confusion, “Then, how did Truth survive?”

Du Heng simply replied, “Fourteen functional zones. He’s the hippocampus.”

“Oh.” Shang Jianyao had satisfied his curiosity and obtained sufficient information.

Du Heng didn’t give him a chance to ask any more questions. “I’m telling you so much because I hope you can help me end all of this.”

“Huh?” Shang Jianyao was confused.

Du Heng smiled and said, “After the Arbiter of Fate and the others threw you in, they won’t care about you anymore. From their point of view, no matter what happens, the subsequent outcome has nothing to do with a mortal like you. You can’t be of much use because they believe that everyone is selfish. Very few people take the initiative to sacrifice themselves for unrelated people when they aren’t forced. The higher their status, the greater their authority. The stronger they are, the less likely it will be like this.

“They don’t know you, but I do. I’ve come into contact with you and know that you’re a special person with a pure heart. Therefore, I hope that you can get Jiang Baimian to place your body in the corresponding experimental chamber later and activate the Deities’ Forbidden Zone mode to further mutate your brain. Then, with my help, you can obtain a certain level of privilege in the New World and become a Kalendaria to resist the Arbiter of Fate and the others with me.

“Our main goal is to stall for time while creating a relatively normal electromagnetic environment so that Jiang Baimian can remotely detonate the nuclear bomb. Of course, you can also refuse and not participate in this matter. When the time comes, seize the opportunity when the New World’s order collapses to return to your body. Even without you, it’s not like I have zero confidence. I just want to improve the chances of success.

“Yes, I didn’t implant any thoughts into you, nor did I attempt to influence you with other abilities because you wouldn’t be able to pass the last stimulus if that happens.”

Du Heng’s expression instantly turned serious as he sincerely said, “Let me formally ask you: Are you willing to give up your life to end this human disaster that has lasted for decades with me?”

Shang Jianyao fell silent. After a while, he raised his right hand and solemnly pressed it to his left chest before answering in a deep voice, “For all of humanity!”