The Dilemma

In the pitch-black, illusory starfield, Ai Liyuan stood alone as a majestic voice came from all around him, questioning him about everything that had happened on the island.

Although the Hong Alliance, which possessed True Virtual World Technology, could not access every memory a person had, it could monitor human emotional activity in real time. In the present-day Hong Alliance, no one could lie unless their physiological structure had already departed from that of a human.

Ai Liyuan calmly revealed all his experiences. This artificial illusion was still far inferior to Li Heng's power to freely control human thoughts and ideas. By now, this academician's psychological resilience might have surpassed that of most soldiers who had fought for their lives on the battlefield.

After recounting everything he knew, Ai Liyuan gave one final warning:

"I can confirm that everything I said was what I personally saw, heard, and felt. Your current technology can also tell that I am not lying. But I cannot be certain that any of it was real. Even my memories may have been altered. I do not know whether I am still the person I once was."

That was what made the superorganism so terrifying. He did not use human methods such as drugs or hypnosis to manipulate surface consciousness. He directly altered the material foundation that constituted the human self at the cellular level. All physiological indicators remained normal, yet the person's identity had already changed from what it once was.

It could be said that as long as no one knew about the alteration process, that person would appear no different from any other human to others. Every thought and choice would seem to arise entirely from free will. The same was true from the altered person's own perspective.

Ji Hong, who had been questioning Ai Liyuan, could not help frowning. This ability to alter human thoughts was more frightening than any visible display of overwhelming strength. Even if their opponent were a super-advanced alien Civilization capable of destroying Earth with a wave of his hand, humans would still fight desperately in the face of inevitable death. Humanity had never lacked the courage to resist.

He did not know whether this academician's memories had been altered, but Li Heng's ability to modify human memories was an undeniable fact.

Whether it was the cloned brains discovered on the island, each containing memories from different periods of the same researcher's life, or the hundreds of human brains containing animal memories, they all pointed to one cruel conclusion: the indomitable will humanity took pride in was nothing more than a castle built on a beach before that monster, ready to collapse with a single sweep of the waves.

Ji Hong said quietly, with both difficulty and relief, "The self-will humanity prides itself on is actually terribly fragile. Yet artificial intelligence, created by humans, is more reliable than we creators are."

In the past, countless novels and films about artificial intelligence rebellions had planted seeds of suspicion in people's hearts. Most people had always been deeply wary of these assistants with immense computational power. The wave of unemployment triggered by the Smart Manager only further swelled this opposition.

Research into using artificial intelligence to imitate human self-awareness had been strictly restricted. The artificial intelligences of today were merely hollow shells with human appearances. They seemed capable of conversing normally with people, but their underlying logic made them less intelligent than mammals. They possessed no awareness of "self" at all.

Ai Liyuan and the soldiers on the island had all had what they saw and heard altered, trapped unknowingly in an illusory world. Yet the Level One artificial intelligence assigned exclusively to the academician had faithfully carried out its duties. Li Heng's power could not affect the operation of these artificial intelligences. Perhaps that, too, was a different kind of irony.

Pulling his wandering thoughts back from that brief moment of reflection, Ji Hong began carefully considering how to deal with Li Heng's power. The human brain held no secrets before this creature, and with his ability to alter his appearance at will, the Hong Alliance was completely defenseless against him.

Several minutes later, Ji Hong gave a bitter smile and said softly, "There is no solution. As long as humans remain in their current life form, this immortal individual with endless time can gradually alter the minds of one high-ranking official after another. He could even become a senior figure within the Hong Alliance, openly infiltrate humanity, and effortlessly take control of this vast organization."

This was undoubtedly not a life form that had evolved naturally on Earth. Perhaps the initial guess—that he was an alien super-life-form—was closer to the truth. An individual with such power could destroy Earth Civilization by himself. The gap between them was like a difference in dimensions.

This was an opponent they could not defeat by force. The failure of nuclear weapons had already proven that humanity's current military strength could not destroy him, while his immortal body rendered any plan of delay or evasion useless.

After carefully considering every action the other party had taken from beginning to end, Ji Hong found a key point in the information Ai Liyuan had provided: Li Heng's power came from all Intelligent Beings. He hoped to grant all humans longer lives, and even the creation of Jelly creatures was meant to advance humanity's unification.

Judging from his current actions, this goal was very likely genuine. If a creature capable of freely altering memories merely wanted to rule humanity, there would be no need for such trouble. He only needed to hide among the population and slowly alter people one by one.

And within that lay humanity's path to survival. As the only Intelligent Civilization on Earth, Human Civilization was the source of his power and held irreplaceable significance for him. Moreover, ruling humanity by altering memories would likely cause some kind of loss. Perhaps collective creative intelligence was also an extremely important resource.

If they could not destroy him, then they could only coexist with him.

Ji Hong adjusted his thinking. He would no longer choose confrontation and destruction, but consider how to coexist with this superorganism. The Hong Alliance, composed of countless fragile individuals, was instead the weaker side. Since the other party needed Intelligent Beings, coexistence was possible. What Ji Hong needed to do now was fight for humanity's interests within that coexistence.

Thinking of everything the other party had done, the old man sighed. Every move made by this superorganism had been forcing them. He was compelling the Hong Alliance to accelerate humanity's integration and unification.

Either the Hong Alliance or the Commercial Alliance would eventually disappear, and the victor would unify Human Civilization. In fact, they had long possessed a complete plan.

The emergence of Lh-1 protein had allowed the Hong Alliance's biotechnology to surpass the Commercial Alliance by an entire era in just one year. Within twenty years, the Hong Alliance would gradually roll out those research achievements and, during that time, dismantle the Commercial Alliance's member states from within. Only the life-extension technology they possessed could make most of the powerful and wealthy abandon futile resistance and willingly merge into the Hong Alliance.

Money and power were naturally important, but compared to life, they were nothing. A life expectancy of at least one hundred and twenty years would be enough to make those elderly old rivals voluntarily relinquish the interests in their hands. The entirety of Human Civilization would achieve peaceful unification within thirty years.

Unfortunately, such peaceful unification required a long period of gradual infiltration. During that time, most ordinary people around the world would not be able to enjoy the Hong Alliance's medical technology. Li Heng could not tolerate them dying needlessly over the course of decades.

The Hong Alliance hoped to advance human unification gradually. They did not wish to unify Human Civilization through a violent war. In their eyes, citizens of the Hong Alliance came first, while the other eight billion people around the world came second.

But to Li Heng, a short Unification War might reduce the world's population by several hundred million, yet the unified Human Civilization would still have enough resources to give every person a lifespan of one hundred and twenty years. In most regions outside the Commercial Alliance and the Hong Alliance, average life expectancy was not even seventy. This could allow them to live fifty more years. Of the billions who would die of old age or illness during the Hong Alliance's thirty-year Unified Plan, most could survive.

He did not care about the tangled interests among these organizations, nor would he consider the complex social relationships, closeness, and distance between humans. He would only calculate humanity's total resources and productive capacity. When those resources were sufficient to let more people survive and live longer, he would act without hesitation.

Those who died in a military unification war were certainly innocent. But in Li Heng's eyes, the billions who died because of unequal resource distribution were equally innocent.

That was the irreconcilable contradiction between the Hong Alliance and Li Heng. And in this direct clash, Li Heng, who had survived the center of the nuclear blast, had become the stronger side. His will would therefore determine the direction of this world.

Ji Hong used the information Ai Liyuan had provided to fill in all the missing pieces. The Symbiote that had appeared last night had made Li Heng's goal perfectly clear to them. Since those standing at the top of the world were unwilling to share those resources with other humans, he would simply create an entirely new Intelligent Being.

Humans always preferred compromise. If they were plainly told to love one another and coexist peacefully with people of different languages and races, they would certainly be unwilling. But if a stronger, smarter, entirely new Intelligent Being appeared, then ordinary humans who resembled them more closely would become friends they could unite with and help.

Ji Hong thought intensely. Hong, the artificial intelligence connected to his brain, calculated every possibility alongside him. Li Heng, this superorganism, had now become the prevailing force on Earth. Going against that tide would only leave them bloodied from the collision. The original Unified Plan was no longer suitable. He needed to formulate an entirely new plan—an extraordinarily radical one that would shatter every existing nation within one or two years.

Wiping the sweat from his temples, Ji Hong looked at the new plan and nodded. Even standing at humanity's summit, he still possessed human weaknesses, such as familial affection and friendship.

Most of his old friends had died many years ago. They had been comrades willing to lay down their lives alongside him for the founding of the Hong Alliance. Their descendants now occupied many important positions within the Hong Alliance.

With Hong at his side, he knew perfectly well that many of them had appropriated collective interests for themselves. Yet his guilt toward and memories of his old friends had always prevented him from being ruthless.

That was humanity. The contractual bond of marriage, the blood ties of family, and the social ties between relatives and friends formed an invisible net that bound every person within it. Even Ji Hong, standing at the top of the Hong Alliance, was no exception.

Every technological revolution represented a leap in productivity, and large numbers of vested interests were replaced by new things. The emergence of smart electric vehicles had swept fuel-powered cars into the garbage heap, while the rise of artificial intelligence had caused countless workers to be laid off across most industries.

A star at the top of the industry could film hundreds of movies in a year. He only needed to license his image to film companies, collecting image-use fees without appearing in person. The income of a small number of people had expanded dozens of times over compared to the past, while the price was that countless actors had been forced out of the industry.

It was even more so for writers. Novels mass-produced by artificial intelligence were better than those written by most people. Both studios that produced formulaic novels and small-to-medium-scale authors had been forced out of the field.

Under the original plan, it was not that Ji Hong lacked the ability to immediately extend those biomedical technologies across the entire Hong Alliance. But that would lead to the collapse of large numbers of existing pharmaceutical companies, unemployment for countless workers, and severe social unrest.

Unfortunately, circumstances did not bend to human will. In the current environment of alien biological invasion, every action had to be accelerated. He could no longer hesitate because of certain personal feelings.

In addition to facing attacks from the Jelly creatures with their unified consciousness, the New Humans fused with Symbiotes also meant that the long-shelved genetic research targeting humans had to be put on the agenda. Experiments could no longer be limited to those with terminal cancer or genetic disorders.

It was not only to uncover the secrets of those Symbiotes, but also to master the means of manipulating human genes. The Hong Alliance had to accelerate human evolution in order to counter that ability to alter memories.

When the free will most important to Intelligent Beings had become a plaything in the hands of some terrifying life-form, the moral reservations of the past had become worthless.