Chapter 90

Volume Three: Fate Community

——“I am merciful, allowing you to see a new sun.”

In the Tower District, Ais sat on the window sill, casually gazing into the distant horizon. It stiffly twitched the muscles of its face, using particle to draw these words in midair.

The distant horizon lit up as one, with rolling thick smoke and flickering firelight piercing through the clouds, burning blood-red. The red glow reflected on every street in Loch City.

“Mom, what’s that?” a child asked.

The mother holding the child didn’t answer. She looked up toward the distance, toward the heights, toward places she had never been. People around her shouted hoarsely in haste, one after another rushing past her toward the city gate. Someone lit firecrackers and hurled them at the guards.

“What else is out there?! Are there still cities?”

[Tower District: Residents, please return home on your own and stop the parade.]

The terminal broadcast the Tower’s message many times, but the residents didn’t stop because of it. They only wanted to know what had happened beyond the city walls.

——“You think you’ve glimpsed the path through the cracks in the wall, but that path is also an illusion I’ve granted you.”

At the entrance to the Red Light District, two people stood.

Ye Shu shook the wine glass in her hand, spilling it onto the ground. She said deliberately, “Is it still in the plan?”

No sooner had she spoken than a figure quickly emerged, clad in a red trench coat, voice steady: “The Aliens went ahead of schedule. Everyone’s dead, the Underground Base is gone. It failed.”

The wine glass stopped shaking. A long silence followed.

In the gap of silence, a terrifying rumble came again from the distant place, like thunder exploding at the horizon. Then, more and more residents of Loch City gathered, with even more heading to the city gate.

“It looks like just some explosion. There might not be a city out there. How could there be anything outside?”

“I want to go out and see. What if there really is?”

——“I never worry about the awakening of human thought.”

Even the people lost in drunken revelry in the Red Light District came out, curiously peering outward. Wan Ji returned to the bar counter, pulled a gun from under the cabinet, tucked it into his coat, then slipped out the front door secretly to join the marching crowd outside. But the crowd was too long. When it surged to the city gate, the Alien guards forced it back. Everyone could only stand still, watching the night sky bright as daylight, as if appreciating the aurora.

A gunshot rang out.

A bullet struck an Alien guard’s head with precision. Though it couldn’t kill the Alien, it was enough to injure it briefly.

The mother holding her child hid in the crowd, staring in shock at the stranger beside her. She whispered, “Are you crazy? The guards will kill you in a moment.”

Wan Ji quickly reloaded, raised the gun again, and aimed at the Alien guards ahead: “Then why is my only option to accept being killed?”

——“Because how do you know that what you call awakening isn’t another, deeper chaos?”

The guards swarmed forward, and Wan Ji fired continuously.

They maintained the facade of human systems, changing neither laws nor customs, only taking control of human survival. They conquered with seemingly peaceful domination, with everyday life and stability.

“Leader, that girl, we’ve al—ready im—planted the chip, frequency. What next?” an Alien guard beside it asked.

Ais placed a finger to its lips. Amid Loch City’s frenzy, its voice was ethereal, almost inaudible: “Shh. Wait.”

Wait for the soaring emotions, for humans to shout loudly, restless and eager to act, the distant firelight reflecting in everyone’s pupils, burning ever brighter.

The scorching heat rippled outward layer by layer, turning into a torrent in their ears. When the torrent calmed, only echoes remained.

When Horne opened his eyes, these echoes filled his mind. A few seconds later, even those echoes faded completely, leaving only the thick smell of alcohol in his nose and, in the extreme quiet, the blare of the television broadcast.

“A month after the unrest, we have quelled the residents’ unease and protected Loch City’s peace. Threatening elements unwilling to compromise have all been eliminated. For residents willing to resume daily life, the Tower will forgive. The Tower is always responsible for Loch City.”

His vision gradually cleared from the blur. Horne rolled his eyes, focusing on the pure white grid ceiling. One thought filled his mind: Did the afterlife have television too? Could it even let him know what had happened to the place where he’d lived before death?

He moved his arm. As expected, there wasn’t much pain. No matter how cruelly the Aliens had pierced him before death, it shouldn’t hurt after dying. So he tried to sit up. This movement immediately tugged at the wounds on his body. He drew in a sharp breath of cold air and instantly sobered up.

This was a hospital room. The door was closed, the projected television was on, showing a scene from an amusement park where children played and laughed, full of color.

He hadn’t died.

A recon drone flew past outside the window. Horne slowly rose from the hospital bed, enduring the pain, and took step after step to the window. He pulled back the curtains, and thick fog swirled in, along with the familiar streets.

The sky was gray, gray like dense dust that could never disperse.

The street below was eerily quiet, with fewer pedestrians than usual. Shredded paper scraps and garbage piles littered the area. Something burned by the trash can directly below, sending up a wisp of gray smoke. Passersby hurried along with heads down, bundled in their clothes. No one stopped.

The hospital room television continued broadcasting: “The children are happily playing. Loch City’s residents continue to live happily.” Every child in the footage smiled sincerely.

The broadcast ended, and the flames by the trash can below extinguished completely.

Horne turned around, slowly placing his hand over his heart. A light touch made him wince in pain.

The last scene he could recall was them trapped in the Snowfield, like turtles in a jar. The Aliens had pierced his heart, and he had faced death.

Yet now he stood here, making that pain seem like an illusion.

As he pondered this, a “click” sounded. The door opened, and the person entering paused. A clear female voice rang out: “Mr. Horne is awake!”

The voice brought color surging into the hazy white hospital room.

Several nurses hurriedly gathered outside the room, peering in from the doorway. Only one entered to ask: “Mr. Horne, I’m your private nurse for this time. Besides the pain, is there anywhere else particularly uncomfortable?”

Horne’s mind was thinking slowly at the moment. The nurse’s question didn’t reach him. He only frowned and immediately asked, “What about Hels?” His voice was terribly hoarse, and the nurse quickly handed him water.

“I don’t know. That gentleman cared for you day and night for a month. He might, might have gone back to rest temporarily.” The nurse spoke extremely carefully, frequently glancing at Horne’s expression. After finishing, she waved her hands nervously. “I don’t know. I’m not guessing about that gentleman. I really don’t know.”

“Mm.” Horne answered faintly. His heart settled a bit. Only then did he register the nurse’s earlier question. “No particular discomfort.”

Just some pain at the wounds.

“That’s good. Truly a miracle.” The nurse muttered softly, taking the water cup from Horne’s hand and placing it on the bedside table.

“What?”

She came over to check the data on the instruments, confirming all indicators were normal: “When you were brought in a month ago, you were covered in fatal wounds. There was no way to save you. But luckily, a few days later you were out of danger, and the wounds healed quickly.” As she spoke, she patted her chest with lingering fear. “Phew, God must favor you. If anything happens to you later, we’re all done for.”

“Fatal wounds?” Horne frowned.

Not an illusion. He had truly known back then that he couldn’t survive. In the instant he heard Hels’s voice, reluctance had surged in his heart, just like last time.

Twice he had felt certain he would die.

“Yes. We now suspect if the latest version of the bone reset device has some special effect on deep wounds. It’s been sent to the equipment department for re-evaluation, but results aren’t out yet.”

The bone reset devices of the past were mainly for skeletal injuries, with much poorer effects on body wounds. After improvements, they were now fully divided into skeletal and wound types. But logically, for a heart-piercing injury like that, even the wound reset device shouldn’t work. They couldn’t explain it scientifically; they could only call it a miracle. Many in the ICU had paid attention to Horne’s injuries, but no one dared approach closely. The reason was that certain rumored gentleman had hardly left his side, putting the entire floor on edge.

Horne had survived again, from this unexpected assault. Those few penetrating bombs had pierced through the entire Underground Base. The escapees had faced the Aliens head-on in the Snowfield, with nowhere to hide.

Thinking of the Underground Base, Horne felt suffocated. Images flashed frame by frame in his mind, finally turning into pained gasps.

He had only just learned of that place, and now it was gone. He had lain there for another month, and the time since the Aliens’ arrival was just over a month.

His hand gripped the bedsheet, creating deep wrinkles. The nurse could only silently adjust the parameters, not daring to speak, afraid of upsetting him.

Silence. Horne closed his eyes and concentrated, opening the communication logs with Hels in his own terminal. Their conversation had stopped long ago, at Hels’s joke—back then Horne hadn’t remembered these things and naturally hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with him.

Hels’s location now showed in the Slum.

He was still alive too.

So this was how he had been afterward.

Horne typed some words in the chat box, hesitating.

[Horne: I’m awake. Come over.]

It seemed a bit overstepping, too commanding a tone. No good.

[Horne: Are you free? Can you come over?]

It seemed too cautious. No need for that. He thought about it, deleted, and retyped.

[Horne: How are you?]

Since he could care for him nonstop, there shouldn’t be major issues. Delete.

What did he want to ask him? What did he want to say? Or what did he want to confirm? There was so much, so much it nearly overflowed his chest.

[Horne: ……]

He sent a string of ellipses.

The terminal held all the city news from this past month. The news said humans had tried to breach the city gate, harming Loch City’s peace and other humans’ safety.

His heart beat steadily. After a moment, Horne opened his eyes.

Another recon drone flew past outside the window, more numerous than before. As the whoosh of air faded, the hospital room door opened again.

Horne turned his head slightly, meeting the gaze of the two entering.

“You’re finally awake!” Han Ya paused for a moment, then hurried over. Wen Yu let out a breath of relief and followed slowly.

Obvious scars remained on Han Ya’s face, but his injuries weren’t as severe as Horne’s, so he had been mobile for a while. He anxiously scanned Horne for a moment, then murmured, “I said it, a guy like you—Heaven won’t let you die so easily.”

After checking the situation, the nurse quickly left: “I’ll go prepare new medicine.”

Horne asked Han Ya about what happened after that day. Han Ya briefly explained that a fierce blizzard had suddenly hit that night, forcing the Aliens to retreat while they hid in a secret passage. But Han Ya omitted the part where Hels had carried the blood-soaked Horne and jumped into the passage—heart-wrenching, something he had never seen before.

Hiding in the secret passage wasn’t exactly good news either. By the time the sun rose the next day, only a dozen or so survivors remained.

The Underground Base, with nearly ten thousand residents, ended up with just over ten returning to Loch City. The Underground Base was gone, almost all scientists dead, the collider destroyed, all data and samples lost.

It wouldn’t have been so extreme originally—the Underground Base had disaster plans—but no one had anticipated penetrating bombs. Those were military tech from Loch City a century ago. In the century fighting the Aliens, such bombs had been useless. If any existed, they should have been buried in the snow under old Loch City.

Horne listened in silence, finally looking up at the gray sky outside the window. Pain throbbed faintly in his chest. He lowered his head, his tone lower than ever before: “Pretending to cooperate with Ais like that was a mistake.”