Chapter 116

Horne’s unspoken words solidified on his lips.

That was the first specific response they had received from the Hermit in many years.

The frequency net overhead in the Hertz Resonance Room spread out like a starry sky, as if staging a trajectory reorganization, with flowing waves and lines resonating into beautiful arcs.

You Wenjie hurried through the door and looked up at the frequency net. In all these years, it was the first time he had seen such a large area vibrating at 440 Hz frequency, and even at that moment, the vibration continued, conveying some kind of information to them in waveform.

The information nets around the room were all resonating. The room was not large, yet it seemed as if billions of stars were shuttling through it.

“Has the content been decoded?” You Wenjie walked to the central platform and carefully watched the fluctuations jumping on the main control.

“It has already been translated into text.”

The technician decoded the Hermit’s message and projected it onto the wall. It was a single sentence in human language, only a scant few words, yet everyone in the resonance room fell silent.

Ains’s memorial ceremony had ended. Horne turned back toward the ward area. The pure white, serene corridor was so holy it had not a trace of impurity. He walked in this light, his lips lightly touching as he silently recited that sentence several times already.

“The moment you arrive, only then do you possess the ability to look back?”

What did it want to express? It was like a prophet sent by God, giving humanity riddle after riddle.

His footsteps stopped in front of the ward. Horne knocked lightly twice, but there was no response from inside, so he pushed the door open.

The window was open, and outside was the night. The wind from the simulated city blew in, and the curtains drifted casually, making the entire room feel even more empty and lonely.

Hels was not there. Horne stood in the middle and waited for a while, then went to the medical center. The doctors there told him Hels should be resting in the ward; he had just broken his fever, and after changing the dressing on his wound once more, he could go back.

The positioning red dot overlapped perfectly with his location, so he should be nearby, but Horne circled the medical area twice and still did not see Hels’s figure.

He sent him a message, but there was no reply. Horne had originally planned to wait, but he felt very tired. Not long after, he still returned alone to the top floor of the Red Light District.

If the Hermit was willing to respond to humanity through frequencies, it meant it knew everything—even as Jia Lan had said, it was willing to help humanity. Perhaps not just humanity, but the return of both species.

Horne lay on the bed, his limbs feeling as heavy as a thousand pounds, pressed under the blanket so heavily he could hardly move, while his brain continued to race at high speed.

What did “arrival” represent? The aliens’ descent? If the aliens had descended, its response would be meaningless.

Unless it was what he had heard in the Hermit Lab before: the last day before descent. But that would mean that only when the aliens descended immediately and humanity faced immediate extinction could humanity be reborn.

Then, the return date it had set, and this response, both clues pointed to the same answer: the Hermit would help humanity, but only on the last day.

And then what?

The real choice was still in humanity’s hands. The Thunder Pavilion Channel was mobilizing forces, planning to assault. Messages flew across the channel rapidly, and the entire Thunder Pavilion was lit up through the night.

Meanwhile, in the city-wide channel, Loch City was still explaining the cause of the black rain over the past two days. The preliminary hypothesis was that carbon black residues had long existed in the high altitude, and under the polar vortex anomaly, high-altitude components had sunk to near-ground level, creating the illusion of black rain. But there was no conclusion yet; they would continue observations.

They were boiling with excitement, saying this was a once-in-ten-thousand-years extreme climate. During the downpour of black rain, it was like an ink wash painting; a handful dripped into the hand was clear and transparent.

Horne finally stood up and walked to the window.

The window was cracked open a little, and cool wind pelted his skin. He took a deep breath, bent down, and leaned on the windowsill to overlook below.

A lot of people had gathered on the street, even though it was already night and the rain had not stopped.

They clustered below in groups. At first, it was tentative, but later, discovering the black rain was harmless, it turned into revelry: spinning, taking photos, trying to capture this historic beauty. The rain pattered on their hair, clothes, laughing faces; the clamor came from very far away.

An ink wash painting—it was beautiful. Horne reached out, and raindrops fell into his palm, revealing his palm lines.

That very night, Horne received definite instructions from Thunder Pavilion: three days later, assault the Tower.

This time, it was a frontal attack, divided into four parts entering: one team each from the East and West Districts, one team from the Plaza District for cover. Horne and Wen Yu, holding particle guns, would enter the Obelisk. Hels would follow as Plan B, while Jia Lan was the key to bringing them into the Obelisk. Once the Obelisk opened, the three of them needed to use the frequency tuner made by Homan to balance their respective frequencies and directly enter the room where the Fate Community was located.

To go to the Plaza District at a time not planned by the aliens, they could no longer use the previous infiltration tactic. Infiltration was meaningless now; with only ten days left until descent day, they had to decide their own future.

Jia Lan still felt humanity’s plan was too hasty. It believed the Hermit had already given humanity guidance.

“You are still distinguishing between ‘humans’ and ‘aliens.’” After hearing this, Jia Lan angrily walked away.

Horne agreed with Thunder Pavilion’s plan. They could not wait any longer.

The longer they waited, the more people the sword named “Ains” would kill.

Everyone was required to voluntarily leave farewell words and letters on the terminal.

Some would die, many people—who knew. In a few centuries, someone would learn from these farewells that once, for over a hundred years, humanity had lived in the night of ignorance. They had despaired, resisted, and finally died on the road to the future.

It would be a fierce battle, but no matter what, three days later, it would end.

What would the Fate Community be like inside…?

Horne thought of that mass of black, throbbing matter, and his heartbeat quickened along with it.

No matter what it was like, the aliens would go extinct, and humanity would end their rule that had lasted over a century. There would be no more “ifs”; they could only move forward.

Three days…

Horne’s gaze turned toward the Tower District.

Just right—he still had a brief time to resolve the issue of the Hermit’s identity, and Hels’s physical condition.

“Knock knock.”

It was not until nearly eleven that Horne guessed Hels had probably returned, so he went next door to knock.

“Knock knock.”

The door opened, and a fresh scent of body wash wafted out. The living room light was off, Hels’s bare upper body half-hidden in the dimness, his hair still wet. He looked at Horne, stunned for a moment, then smiled: “Colonel, what’s up?”

Seeing him there, Horne imperceptibly relaxed. He glanced at Hels, then immediately shifted his gaze inside, expressionless as he said: “Can I come in?”

Hels stepped aside.

Horne sat on the sofa, and the spot beside him sank down. Dense steam also drifted nearby.

Hels had just finished showering and sat lazily next to Horne, leaning sideways, propping his head as he watched Horne for a long time. Seeing him silent, he asked: “What’s wrong? Came to my place just to space out? Or do you want to ask how to write a farewell letter?”

Horne lowered his eyelids: “No, just came to check on you.”

As he spoke, Horne examined the wound on Hels’s body. The hemostatic bandage was around his waist and abdomen, but now nothing was visible. Besides that, there were no other scars on his body—not even the old ones.

He remembered Hels once had residual scars from childhood abuse—fierce marks that would never heal properly—and now they were all gone.

Even in the dim light, the lines of Hels’s muscles were still clear. The man lounged casually like this, his chest rising and falling slowly with his breath, surrounded by post-shower heat, like a beast about to fall asleep.

Horne looked at Hels, and Hels stared back at Horne, the playfulness in his eyes nearly naked. When Horne realized it, he froze for a moment and immediately looked away.

Hels laughed out, but he didn’t dare laugh too loudly, only saying softly: “I’m fine. Aren’t you going back to rest?”

Horne looked toward the black night outside, the pattering rain. He clenched his fist, his fingers silently exerting force. After a long while, he coldly said into the air: “I want to stay here, or you come over and keep me company.”

Hels’s smile stopped.

The dense mist from the showerhead hazily pelted his face and skin, washing away the repression of this period. Water droplets blurred the naked figure in the mirror and the hair clinging to his face.

Even after coming out of the bathroom and lying on the bed, Horne still did not want to talk much.

The two lay at opposite ends of the bed, half a meter apart in between. Horne turned sideways, his back to Hels.

With the lights off, the room fell into a hazy stuffiness, only the vague rain outside, like an eternally marching second hand. It had been a long time since he had lain on the same bed with Hels. Once, they had embraced tightly; now, it was the span of one arm.

Horne had just noticed this when Hels’s voice came from behind: “Horne, can I hold you?”

Horne half-opened his eyes and said flatly: “I think I’ve already answered that…”

Before his words finished, an arm wrapped around his waist, exerting force to drag his whole body from one end of the bed to the center. His back instantly collided with a chest—scorching hot, carrying an intense heartbeat. Soon, another hand passed under his neck.

Horne was completely encircled in the embrace, unable to move. Naked skin pressed tightly together, the temperature at the contact points surging sharply, intertwining and mingling. Itchy, yet hard to restrain.

“Thump thump,” the heartbeat was especially obvious. Hels’s hand covered Horne’s heart, grasping every beat into his palm.

Horne held his breath for a few seconds, slightly curling his body to give Hels more of his skin. He said softly: “Watch your wound.”

Hels chuckled “pfft” from behind.

His breath brushed Horne’s neck, and he immediately clenched his fist tighter, tensing his muscles.

Hels leaned to his ear: “More than the wound, I’m concerned if you’re in a bad mood?” Bad enough to proactively suggest staying.

Horne did not move, only frowning slightly before relaxing, and “mm”ed.

These things had happened too suddenly; even his emotions had no time to sort out. Everything had come at once, and it still felt like a dream. Thinking of this, Horne’s fingertips gripped the blanket, suppressing his hatred as he said: “Three days from now, the first thing I do is what Ains did that day.”

Humanity would remove the mask. This culture should no longer have its history.

Horne buried his head slightly, letting himself relax a bit, then continued: “But she was too hasty, thinking everyone acknowledged her.” Unaware that institutions, over time, become culture; culture becomes subconscious acceptance, accepting things that were wrong from the start.

Hels: “Mm, it’s almost over.”

“Alright, no more of that.” Horne stopped his own gloominess in time, his voice muffled as he said, “The farewell letters Thunder Pavilion mentioned…”

“Hm?”

On the terminal, farewell letters poured in one after another, flooding the entire channel. None of them knew who would survive three days from now, so they all sent them.

Horne glanced once and closed it, frowning as he said: “Don’t write one.”

“Why?”

“You don’t need to. You won’t die.” Horne had never been so resolute. “Don’t let me see yours in the channel.”

Hels just laughed. His hand gently rubbed over Horne’s chest: “I won’t send it there. I’ll send it only to you.”

Horne was silent for a moment, then repeated word by word: “You won’t die.”

Nothing could harm him.

“Okay.” Hels responded softly. The next second, he suddenly flipped over, pressing Horne’s shoulder to pin him beneath him.