In that instant, everyone in the Flood Camp froze abruptly.
In the blink of an eye, everyone's memories changed.
Everyone's ingrained understanding was toppled with a crashing roar like dominoes, spreading continuously forward through time. Old memories collapsed and scattered, while new memories surfaced and formed.
Only then did everyone realize that what they knew in their memories was false, wrong.
More precisely, it had been tampered with.
"Ah!" The woman responsible for the preliminary review cried out. Only now did she realize that what she had seen in the inspection hut had not been a brain vat at all. What had truly appeared there was a tall man.
"Holy crap!" The bald, burly man was filled with terror. In his memories, he had once sat on a handcart and held Jade Falling Saber's brain vat. In reality, there had been nothing between his hands at the time, while a man in a black cape had been walking alongside him all along.
"Goddamn it!" Shen Sao Ye trembled slightly. Only now did he realize that the voice that had constantly asked him questions like an offscreen narration—yet had been naturally ignored by him—had belonged to this man.
"Fuck!" Cyber Spider-Man's teeth ground with a creak.
There had never been any Jade Falling Saber, nor had there been any newly arrived mechanical companion. That person had never existed from beginning to end. Their minds had merely been deceived, twisted.
And they had actually brought such a person all the way back from outside!
"Gather!!" Gong Yudie shouted, drawing her gun and charging toward the command center.
Nearly every Flood member drew their weapons and raced toward the command center.
But just as they reached the command center, its front doors suddenly opened, and a tall man strolled out unhurriedly.
It was