Chapter 798: Revelations Behind Prison Walls

Time weaving its path, old information reached Lu Xin’s mind through the symbols etched on the prison walls.

He stared at the messages in both horror and fear, as a tidal wave of emotion roiled within him.

To be precise, it was merely a man’s firsthand account.

A man from the pre-Civilization Era.

Lu Tianming – an ordinary Avenger and a disillusioned soul.

Men like him were not rare in any era. Raised in a loving, ordinary family with devoted parents, his peaceful life shattered when his father was deceived into incurring massive debts and was later hacked to death in an unnamed alley on a rainy night. His mother, repeatedly harassed by creditors and overwhelmed by grief, ultimately threw herself from a building.

From that moment, he drifted on the streets, enduring countless hardships before deciding on revenge.

Yet, in society, he remained just one among many lost souls.

There were plenty of others swallowed by bitterness and deep-seated grudges; he was hardly unique.

As he grew older, he gradually developed a peculiar perceptive ability – one that became the linchpin of his revenge.

He had nothing to his name, except for that strange talent.

So, no matter how cautious his targets were, he could always trap them.

After luring them into paying an appalling price, he would then cajole them onto a high rooftop.

And just like his despairing mother, he would descend from the rooftop as light as a feather.

What happened next was all too ordinary – his power couldn’t truly free him from fate.

He was discovered, hunted down, imprisoned, and eventually sent to the Research Institute.

There, someone explained an experiment to him and hoped he would cooperate.

Lu Tianming knew he possessed a certain ability, but he had no idea what its essence was…

He could only attribute it to a natural gift.

This gift made him nearly unstoppable in the real world.

But here, aside from amusing a little nurse with a deck of magician’s playing cards, it was virtually useless.

He couldn’t escape, nor decide his own fate.

His inherent disillusionment and lazy nature meant he had no intention of cooperating with these people.

Yet, clearly, their methods of ‘persuasion’ far outweighed his resistance.

After suffering a few hard lessons, he finally relented.

Thus, he became a staff member on the research project, part of Phase Three, tasked with assisting in the study…

Perhaps by spending some time here, life might actually settle down for him?

He thought: now that his revenge was complete, there was no reason to reoffend – once he left, he’d strive for an honest life.

Of course…

…if only he could even lure the Research Institute’s little nurse into marriage.

……

……

Soon he realized how naive his dreams were, and that he would never have a chance to leave.

As he cooperated and the experiment advanced, he was gradually forced to learn the true nature of the project.

At that moment, he lost his mind.

He understood that no one would let him go after revealing this secret.

He began to rave, to break down, unable to endure the repeated torment – especially after witnessing the Deep Pit labeled with the codename ‘Tian Gong Energy Matrix’. In the corridor he screamed and wept like a madman:

“Doctors, Big Brothers, Old Men…”

“Please, just let me go. I promise I won’t deceive anyone again…”

“All that talk about destroying the world was just a joke. My love for this world hasn’t died yet…”

“…”

“Can you hear me? Answer me…”

“You’re all butchers, executioners – slaughtering this world…”

“Screw you all! What right do you have to force me into being an accomplice…”

“I’ll turn you over, even if you force me back in. Given the chance, I promise I’ll take you all down…”

“I’ll make you regret this…”

“…”

“…”

His madness and unchecked tongue disrupted the workflow, so he was taken to a cell, becoming both prisoner and experiment subject.

Someone calmly approached him and said, “We aren’t destroying the world – we’re saving it.”

“The Genesis Hard Drive is ready. Now, we’re only missing the primary consciousness…”

“It’s an honor to be considered as a candidate for the main consciousness of the Genesis Hard Drive. Prepare yourself.”

“…”

“…”

“Rustle…Rustle…”

Suddenly, the sound of pages flipping erupted.

Scene after scene flashed before Lu Xin’s eyes like a rapidly skipping videotape.

His vision lost focus, becoming unnervingly vacant.

For a fleeting moment, he snapped out of the chaos.

All that remained in his sight were twisted, bizarre symbols scrabbled in blood on the prison wall.

Each symbol magnified relentlessly until it dominated his view.

Then, he suddenly saw that madman, Lu Tianming, standing foolishly in the center of the cell.

Head bowed, each of his ten fingers bled drops of blood.

“Did you see it?”

Slowly, he turned and looked at Lu Xin at the cell door.

Across what felt like countless years, their gazes met in that fateful moment.

Then, a tremendous surge of mental energy burst forth, and Lu Xin saw a sorrowful smile spreading across his face.

His lips moved silently as he mouthed two words:

“Reboot.”

“…”

In that instant, Lu Xin felt his mental power plummet into an endless void.

The ground beneath seemed to vanish as he plunged into an infinite fall – like tumbling off a cliff, or into a boundless vacuum, even as if falling into a starry sky. Finally, he arrived at a place.

He looked down into a vast space below.

Rows upon rows of petri dishes, interconnected by thick cables and precise instruments, stretched out before him.

In each dish lay a naked, curled-up human – men and women in endless numbers.

Block after block of dishes seemed to fill the entire field of vision.

Each set of dishes was linked by massive tubes and cables.

Every four rows formed a group of twenty dishes, every four groups made a pit, and every twenty pits built a storage unit. Extend the view infinitely, and Lu Xin saw at least tens of thousands of these units arrayed within a vast deep pit.

At the edge of that pit, figures clad in eerie black robes—bearing patterns reminiscent of the back of a Jack of Spades—stood silently watching.

Their soft chants and the hum of instruments filled the air.

Within that enormous pit, dark red silhouettes of buildings began to appear, like gigantic 3D projections.

Structures sprang into existence at a dizzying speed.

Various twisted, monstrous human shapes emerged from the projections, baring their claws menacingly.

“It’s in…”

They looked up, exchanged smiles, their eyes brimming with a quiet, satisfied joy.

Yet Lu Xin, watching the petri dishes from the pit’s edge, suddenly felt a chill run through his entire body.

“Swish.”

He suddenly saw that every person in the petri dishes opened their eyes simultaneously.

Their vacant stares, filled with pain and despair, surged toward him as if made of tangible substance.

……

……

“Huu…”

An endless cascade of images flooded Lu Xin’s vision, forming a series of vivid memories.

Uncontrollably, he merged with those memories, accepting them as his own life story.

Startled as if waking from a nightmare, he suddenly looked up and, his voice hoarse, shouted, “Reboot the world – they’re preparing…”

“…Reboot the world.”

“…”

“They’ve woken up…”

At the same moment, Dr. Zhang and Dr. Wang abruptly realized that Lu Xin had awakened and hurried to his side.

They stepped forward, staring dumbfounded at Lu Xin, too fearful to come close.

“You…”

They hesitated, speaking softly, “What did you see?”

“I…”

Lu Xin turned with difficulty toward the panicking pair and Doctor An, whose eyes betrayed thoughtful determination as blood seeped from his eyelids and nostrils.

In a voice choked with suppressed anguish, he managed, “The Genesis Hard Drive…”

“I saw it. I saw the Genesis Hard Drive you’ve been searching for…”

“…”

Dr. Zhang and Dr. Wang wore expressions of horror, momentarily at a loss for words.

Nearby, Doctor An slowly rolled up her sleeve, wiping away the blood that had trickled from her nostrils, eyes, and even ears due to overusing her ability. In her clumsy haste, blood smeared across her face, lending her a tragically pitied look before she replied in a low voice, “I saw it too…”

“So this is what a generation of researchers has been pursuing…”

“…”

“…”

“The hidden truth has finally surfaced…”

At the same time that Lu Xin’s heart filled with terror from the revelations of the past,

Not far from the Old Research Institute Site,

in a cold gray building half embedded into a mountainside, someone stood at a towering window, silently watching the direction of the Old Research Institute Site. Deep furrows marked his forehead as his facial muscles twitched slightly.

“Foolish!”

“A project that gathered the world’s top intellects, all derailed by the whims of a petty little punk, wasting decades!”

His voice carried deep-seated anger: “It wasn’t until now that it fell into the hands of someone completely irrelevant.”

“This is the greatest irony for the world…”

“…”

“After all, he had tainted it, so he isn’t entirely irrelevant.”

Beside him, an old man clad in a bizarre patterned robe smiled softly, “But we must thank Professor Wang.”

“Without him, we would never have found the proper container.”

“Now that he has delivered that consciousness, we should begin the Experiment Subject Recovery Plan.”

“…”

“Very well.”

Earlier, a person nodded coldly and remarked, “But that little guy called Tyrant is extremely troublesome, so…”

His voice suddenly turned icy, “Let’s directly unleash the power of the Genesis Hard Drive!”

“I don’t want to see any more accidents!”