Chapter 87

The trailing sound lingered for a moment, and then the crowd below began to stir. People started hurling curses, turning the once silent area beneath the high platform into a chaotic mess.

They were going to escort him back.

But at that moment, a loud shout rang out. The voice was very close, coming from the front row—a roar of utmost fury.

Horne did not react to it. This was something he had already anticipated. But what happened next exceeded his expectations.

“Bang!” A gunshot rang out.

Hadn’t everyone been through security checks?

“Watch out!”

“Bang!” Another shot, the bullet flying toward where Horne stood.

“Aaah!!”

“Someone brought a gun in!”

“Drop the gun!”

In that second, the entire high platform descended into chaos. Terrified screams erupted from below as people began shoving each other. The City Defense District security personnel instantly subdued the shooter. In the next moment, a figure staggered and collapsed right in front of Horne.

Blood flowed from his chest.

Horne’s breath caught in his throat. He could not move, standing rigidly on the high platform, his entire body frozen.

“Ah!!” Another heart-wrenching scream. Bai Yin burst out from the crowd and rushed toward the high platform.

“Ambulance! Ambulance!!”

“Grab the shooter!”

“We’ve got him!”

“Calm down! Calm down!!”

“Get Horne down first!!”

Horne was pushed and shoved, nearly stumbling. As layers of people surrounded and led him down, he incredulously turned back for a glance. The shooter was a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. He had been completely subdued. In the instant their eyes met, unbridled hatred spewed from the man’s gaze.

The scene was utter chaos. Horne was roughly shoved into a vehicle, which quickly sped away from the site.

The trial results were broadcast in real time to everyone’s terminal, along with everything that had happened that day.

At the new base, they had just sent off a small batch of Aliens the day before and were enjoying a rare period of peace. Wen Yu returned and arrived at the monitoring room. She asked, “How’s the main city doing?”

Han Ya stared blankly at the monitors, lost in thought. It took him a long time to say, “You Wangwang died.”

Wen Yu’s footsteps halted. “He… died?”

“Yeah. Someone sneaked a gun into the trial site and tried to shoot Horne. You Wangwang saw it and took the bullet for him, but he lost too much blood. Resuscitation failed, and he died that night.”

The new base was underground, giving the greatest impression of dead silence. Over the past eight years, they had grown accustomed to it. No sunlight, no hope. The fluorescent strips on the walls emitted a faint glow, dim enough to barely see.

Wen Yu did not know how to describe her current mood. She gripped the sniper rifle she had not yet set down and asked, “Still no word on Hels?”

“Nope.”

“I’m afraid he’ll do something extreme.”

“Me too.” Han Ya responded quickly. A hint of distortion appeared on his face as pain gradually climbed up. He rubbed his face hard with both hands and stood up. “Sigh, I want to go up to the surface for a bit. You coming?”

The surface—the night sky, the stars, the frigid air.

The eternally twinkling lights—perhaps those stars had only existed for an instant, but to a person, it was a lifetime.

The two of them sat on the snowfield, facing the direction of Loch City. Without prior agreement, they both gazed toward that city so distant they could not even see it.

They were so far away, so far that they could not even exchange a word. It was just like time—they could not cross time to reunite with each other… the each other they had met as children on the training grounds, with a single conversation.

In that distant place, what were they doing? What were they thinking?

Wen Yu asked, “When’s the execution?”

“In a week.” Han Ya was in an unprecedented low. After watching the full recording of the trial, he felt a suffocating pain.

Horne looked so haggard. How could he be like that?

He clenched his fist and pounded it into the snow, producing a gritty sound. He clutched the snow in his palm, crushed it, and flung it away. He tilted his head back, gritted his teeth, and said, “Why does their struggle have to sacrifice him? He—he’s Horne! There won’t be—there won’t be—there won’t be anyone as kind as Horne in the whole world anymore!!! ”

Who else would extend a hand in the snowfield, show a smiling face, offer their heart to save those ignorant people, and never look back?

He roared almost uncontrollably.

Wen Yu said nothing, her chest feeling stuffy. Suddenly, a tear appeared in her eye socket. Through that glistening drop, she looked toward the eternal end of the snowfield.

To the south was Loch City, to the north was the Aliens’ nest at the Obelisk.

For the past decade, Horne had fought against the Aliens. Yet in the end, it was not the Aliens who tried and condemned him.

“Was he really wrong?” Han Ya asked, then answered himself. “Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. Sometimes I feel like, aside from biological structure, there’s no difference between humans and Aliens. What humans have always needed to fight against… it doesn’t seem to be the Aliens.”

Wen Yu’s entire body froze for a second. Suddenly, she turned her head to look behind her, toward the deeper snowfield, the more desolate wilderness.

“Han Ya.” She straightened her back and called out, lowering her voice with a seriousness she only used before firing a shot.

Han Ya buried his head in his knees, his shoulders shaking nonstop, his voice thick with nasal tones. “What? Don’t comfort me. I really—really can’t imagine a world without Horne.”

“It’s not that. I thought of a way. Maybe we can save Horne. Want to try?”

Wen Yu’s voice carried a rare quickened heartbeat. “Right now, only we can do it.”

In 2030, a team of British archaeologists returned to the Dead Sea and found a clay disc in a cave near the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery site. Linguists deciphered the text engraved on it. Research claimed it was a prophecy of humanity’s survival over millennia: political and financial storms, wars ignited by greed summoning greater delusions. In the chaos, someone would awaken, lead people to victory over it, and usher Earth into a new era.

Almost everyone knew the text on that clay disc:

Humans were ignorant yet arrogant. They endured wars, plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis…

And God permitted it all.

Humans never reflected for a moment—delusion, indifference, scheming. Together, they built a tower.

This tower was named: Humanity’s Collective Karma.

–

The dim and cramped room was covered in dust: a small bed, a table, a slightly slanted floor.

No lights, no one nearby, no sounds of any living creature. It was as quiet as long-abandoned wasteland, like ruins untouched since ancient times.

Hels opened his eyes again and slowly sat up. Moments later, he realized his situation and struggled fiercely, but the ropes binding his entire body remained unmoved. His mouth was sealed with wide industrial tape; he could only make muffled whimpers, no other sounds.

A hazy red blur filled his vision, now crusted into stains. The area behind Hels’s ear was a bloody mess—that was the consequence of forcibly destroying his Resident Chip. He could not access his terminal or contact anyone.

Exhausted to the bone, for a full two months, he had been in a state of near-starvation and dehydration, barely sustaining life.

“Oh, you’re awake again. Don’t wake up so fast. Do you have drug resistance?”

The voice was gentle, but not the familiar kind—it was a gentleness Hels had never heard before.

“Keeping you locked up this long and no one’s noticed. If I killed you, no one would even know. I still want to ask you that question: Do you regret it?”

Regret saving Horne from the Control Tower?

Hels could not speak. The shadow in the darkness did not seem to expect a reply. He snorted, his breath clearly audible. “It doesn’t seem to have much to do with me anyway. Time’s still long. I’ll tell you this story slowly. It’s just that Horne gets executed tomorrow—he won’t hear it. What a pity.”

Hels struggled again, growling from his throat like a beast.

“Don’t shout. No one will come here, and even if they did, they wouldn’t find you.”

It had been a long time. In this confined little room where he was trapped, he could see half-blasted-open concrete outside. Rebar protruded from it. Beyond the broken, cracked walls lay thick clouds and night, separated from them by a whole wall of sealed glass.

Horne was originally scheduled for execution the next day.

Many people waited, waiting for an accounting from humanity. The city did not sleep.

But that very night, Loch City received a red alert from the new base.

The Aliens counterattacked. They had not been fully intercepted. They bypassed the new base and were now heading straight for Loch City, expected to arrive at dawn.

After suffering massive losses, three months later, they were finally striking back.

The news hit like a thunderbolt, completely shattering the Military District and government buildings in Loch City.

They no longer had the Electromagnetic Net, no protection. The old Electromagnetic Net had at least blocked half their attacks. Now, this human city—already halved in population—needed only a slight tremor to be completely annihilated and vanish.

Everything fell into disarray. The entire surviving city stayed awake through the night as panic descended. The dilapidated churches had never heard so many prayers.

All deployments against the Aliens were handed over to General Leon. Soldiers had long been stationed at every populated spot in the city.

The prison was pitch black.

Horne sat on the small bed, back against the wall, eyes closed. The light from outside the cell illuminated his profile—gaunt and sharp, as if the edges had been smoothed away. But when he opened his eyes, the icy pool within remained piercingly cold.

The door opened, and a figure walked in, pulling up a stool to sit in front of Horne.

Seeing the visitor, Horne closed his eyes again, utterly indifferent.

“The Aliens are back. Humanity no longer has the Electromagnetic Net. We might face true extinction tomorrow,” Ganal said slowly.

Many people had requested to see Horne over the past two months, but all had been denied. This was the first time in this narrow, dim cell that Horne had seen anyone from outside.

“Mm.” Horne replied indifferently, waiting for Ganal’s next words.

“If I gave you a chance to save Loch City, would you do it?” Ganal’s voice was low. Listening closely, there was no triumphant vigor or victorious posturing—only exhaustion.

A long time passed before Horne spoke coldly. “I thought you were willing to blow up the Control Tower to frame me because you already had an escape plan.”

From initial denial, breakdown, depression, and self-doubt, he had gradually calmed down and truly understood the reasons.

He had spent months in this sunless prison not because he could not shake Ganal’s government, but because he could not shake the grand despair of the entire human race. He had just assumed Ganal and the others had some unexpected backup plan.

The filthy bulb overhead flickered twice, suddenly dimming further, as if dragging the entire cell’s dead silence into the cracks of the earth.

Ganal stared at Horne, silently watching. After a moment, he spoke again, his voice still slow. “I care more about humanity’s survival than you do.”

Horne frowned slightly. He did not want to reminisce, nor did he care about the truth now, and he certainly did not believe Ganal had come just to chat idly.

“Mm, what is it?”

“Something that needs you to do.”

Horne slowly opened his eyes. In the profound depths, the two men locked gazes.