The Reborn and the Script

Ji Hong spoke privately with Ai Liyuan in this virtual space. He obtained a vast amount of information from the academician, which provided him with many foundations for formulating his plans.

Many dangers that had been anticipated would no longer occur; that super-organism also required an orderly world, and he would not use that power to destroy the entire Earth's ecosystem.

Regardless, the worst-case scenario would not come to pass. This was not a life-or-death racial war of alien invasion, but a conflict of ideologies.

A piece of information was transmitted through "Hong." Ji Hong frowned slightly. The soldiers on that island, the organisms in the petri dishes, and other living creatures were all subject to physical and mental examinations by Googol Tech. Although the Hong Alliance did not experiment on humans due to ethical constraints, maintaining the survival of those brains was not a difficult task.

Now, those human brains possessing animal memories had been detached from the environment woven by Li Heng. They had fallen into over a dozen hours of unconscious darkness, only regaining the sensation of light when the Hong Alliance reconnected them to a virtual world.

Researchers quickly understood the sequence of events from those brains-in-a-vat. These brains had undergone catalytic growth, and the brains injected with animal memories had spent over a decade in that illusory ruined city, while only a short year had passed in the outside world.

However, these brains also failed to solve the problem of neural cell regeneration. Their neuron counts had decreased significantly due to this catalytic acceleration, which coincided with the actual time they had spent in the virtual world.

Their lifespans had not been effectively extended. In the process of receiving excessive information, their neuron counts were far lower than those of ordinary humans with the same amount of memory, and their remaining lifespans were significantly shorter than average. A few brains even developed Alzheimer's disease, a condition typically associated with old age.

By comparison, those soldiers were much luckier. They had only been deceived by certain visual and auditory signals. According to them, they had frequently seen the friends, family, or lovers they missed during the day in their dreams throughout that year, and thus had lived quite happily.

Now, Googol Tech was intensifying its research on those human brains with animal memories. These brains-in-a-vat could provide them with quite a few new discoveries, helping the Hong Alliance further understand the thinking mechanisms of the human brain.

However, some unexpected situations had also emerged among the soldiers. The number of neural synapses in the brain of a soldier named Gu Qi did not match his age, and the hippocampus, which processes short-term memory, was also significantly different from that of an ordinary person. Researchers estimated that his memories might be five to ten years more extensive than those of an ordinary person of the same age; this was very likely a trace left behind by that super-organism.

Such obvious intelligence could not be an oversight by that creature; rather, it seemed like information deliberately transmitted to the Hong Alliance, using a soldier's memory as a channel for communication between the two sides.

A soldier with memories from several years in the future—an artificial reborn one.

In the underground base of the Southern Region, the soldier named Gu Qi was waiting for a decision from higher authorities in a fully enclosed metal room. During the recent examination, abnormalities had been discovered in certain parts of his brain, and his current situation was somewhat delicate.

This soldier, who appeared quite ordinary, did not care much about his own situation. He still felt a bit dizzy; it was as if he had had a very long, long dream, and the fusion of future memories with his current self left him with a splitting headache.

In the dream, he and his comrades had their vision and hearing deceived by the Immortal Demon on the island, sinking into an illusory peace without realizing it, until the war a year later forced that monster to retreat temporarily, and he, along with his comrades on the island, was rescued.

However, merely forcing the Immortal Demon to retreat had cost the Hong Alliance tens of thousands of hypersonic unmanned combat aircraft and 10% of its naval fleet. Even the ten strategic nuclear missiles, which served as the final trump card, had failed to kill him.

On that very evening, the event known as "Starfall" marked the beginning of a world war. This time, it was no longer an internal struggle among humans, but a war of invasion against human civilization by the Immortal Demon and his alien biological troops.

Communications across the globe were largely destroyed, and in a short period, a large number of new humans fused with Symbiotes appeared. When these humans became emotionally agitated, they would transform into monsters that lost their self-awareness, slaughtering surrounding humans indiscriminately.

While the interior was plunged into massive chaos, the Immortal Demon launched a fierce offensive. The naval fleets of the Hong Alliance and the Commercial Alliance were destroyed by over eighty percent within a week. The remaining fleets could only retreat to coastal waters, relying on coastal defense artillery and air force power to barely resist those seemingly endless blue creatures.

Then came those giant biological weapons wreathed in white steam. Their scales were sufficient to resist the bombardment of most electromagnetic shells, and the green crystalline eyes on their heads could fire high-energy green lasers; most high-speed missiles would be instantly shot down by them.

The armies of the Hong Alliance and the Commercial Alliance could temporarily resist their attacks, but the armies of other countries had no ability to resist these giant creatures. Their speed was swifter than the fastest tanks, and the red bombs projected by their swinging giant tails could shatter several hundred-meter-tall buildings in an instant. The rest of the regions on Earth fell within a short three months, and the Immortal Demon became the strongest force on the surface, controlling 70% of humanity.

Under such immense pressure, the Hong Alliance erupted with unprecedented power. Researchers at the Academy of Sciences obtained many brand-new biological technologies from those Symbiotes, and the military power of the Hong Alliance expanded several times over in a short period. Those humans who would mutate into monsters also had their physiological hormone levels suppressed by the Hong Alliance, and the Symbiotes used against humans instead became the Hong Alliance's greatest asset.

The less populous Commercial Alliance was not so lucky. The seas of Europe and the Americas were completely cut off by the blue creatures. The left side of the Eurasian continent was completely occupied by the forces of the Immortal Demon within a year. Only the Commercial Alliance in the Americas failed to find a way to suppress the symbiotic humans, and internal chaos and conflict caused this behemoth to gradually lose its ability to resist in the face of the alien army.

Three years later, over eighty-five percent of the land and all the seas of the entire world had become occupied territory of the alien creatures, with only the Hong Alliance still struggling to resist the power of the Immortal Demon.

The last two major forces on Earth, conversely, did not use nuclear missiles to wage war. The Immortal Demon did not fear nuclear weapons; his Jelly army was hidden in the deep sea. Once the Hong Alliance used nuclear missiles, he would also launch nuclear weapons on a large scale. The final result would certainly be the collapse of the Hong Alliance's human organization first; humans who had lost their complete industrial system could not be the opponents of alien creatures.

Fortunately, the Immortal Demon needed the existence of humans. In past wars of conquest, many small countries had chosen to surrender to the alien creatures entirely, and the Immortal Demon had given them quite good treatment—at least much better than death or becoming slaves.

This also led to the emergence of many surrenderists among humans. They claimed that resistance would only bring destruction to everyone, and in order to continue human civilization, surrender was not an unacceptable choice.

Over these three years, Gu Qi had gradually grown from a sergeant to a colonel. He was among the first batch of genetically adjusted soldiers after the Hong Alliance obtained biological technology from the Symbiotes. They were all equipped with fourth-generation semi-biological, semi-mechanical exoskeletons, which were at least ten times more powerful than soldiers equipped with third-generation exoskeletons.

To counter those overwhelming alien creatures, the Hong Alliance abandoned the natural reproductive method of male-female union. The maturity of artificial wombs and catalytic cell division technology allowed humans to master the power of creation. Genetically adjusted new humans could grow from newborns to healthy adults in just one year, and combined with learning in the virtual world, it took only eighteen months to cultivate a qualified soldier.

The Hong Alliance and those alien creatures entered an endless war of attrition. It appeared that the two forces had fallen into a stalemate; however, the Immortal Demon, who possessed most of Earth's resources, would certainly be able to hold out longer than the Hong Alliance, and the war machines under his command that possessed a unified will would not fear death like human soldiers.

The high command of the Hong Alliance also realized this. They devoted all their efforts to developing new types of deep-sea submarines. Those monsters that filled the oceans never left corpses on the ground, which made them realize that perhaps the secret to dealing with them could be found in those blue creatures.

The sixth year after Starfall, Gu Qi led a small team through the front lines. They boarded new deep-sea submarines and entered the seabed. They were to obtain the corpse of a Jelly on this journey, allowing the scientists of the Hong Alliance to find the secret hidden within.

Overcoming numerous obstacles, they successfully brought back a corpse of a Jelly creature. After in-depth research on this alien creature, the Hong Alliance discovered that there was a huge defect in their genes: a specific type of bacteria could erode their brains, causing the memories of these creatures to become distorted and chaotic.

These Jelly creatures would synchronize memories with their kind when they met, which kept them of one mind. However, as long as the memory of one Jelly was distorted, their entire population would be infected by this distorted memory.

This single-minded population was incredibly powerful; however, as long as that targeted bacteria was created, the hundreds of millions of alien intelligent creatures in the entire ocean would turn into fools even stupider than single-celled organisms in just a few days. They would even have their most basic appetite destroyed!

The blockade of the ocean was lifted. The Hong Alliance contacted human resistance organizations ruled across the world. They rose up, and within a year, they completely destroyed the giant biological weapons on land. Human civilization finally ushered in the dawn of victory.

"However, it was precisely at this time that the Immortal Demon, who seemed to have disappeared, appeared again. He used Symbiotes to parasitize humans to analyze the human brain, and now he finally possessed the ability to manipulate human memories. Possessing the strongest individual martial power on this planet, he gradually controlled all the human high-level officials. Humans would no longer even have the thought of resistance; everyone would become a permanent slave!"

Gu Qi told Ji Hong everything he knew. This old man was the only person he trusted in his past, present, and future.

At the end of his memory, it was precisely after this old man had his memory modified to become an accomplice of the Immortal Demon that a large number of Hong Alliance high-level officials committed suicide in despair. The entire Hong Alliance also completely collapsed within a few days, and he himself was killed by the Immortal Demon personally during the final resistance.

Ji Hong committed the entire script to memory. He had already understood the entire plan of that immortal being. If the Hong Alliance did not cooperate with his actions to unify human civilization, in the end, he might truly choose to slowly modify the memories of all humanity into a form that suited his preferences.

The old man let out a long sigh. This was an open conspiracy; his power was indeed something the human civilization at this time could not resist at all. No matter how powerful the force of nuclear missiles was, it could not compare to this power of modifying the human heart.

This soldier named Gu Qi was not entirely a fake reborn one. Perhaps the process in the middle might have some differences, but the final result would indeed be consistent with the ending in his memory. That immortal being was using this reborn one to convey a script to him, and at the same time, it was an invisible warning.

Ji Hong looked at this soldier who had turned from an ordinary soldier into a resolute commander overnight and said:

"Have you ever thought that all of this is just fake? Perhaps that Immortal Demon has already mastered the power to manipulate memories at this moment, and your memory is nothing more than a smoke bomb he threw out?"

Gu Qi was stunned upon hearing this. His memory was still stuck on the final battlefield. Before him was the demon with the appearance of a young child. That terrifying creature only glanced at him, and he lost consciousness in an instant.

Having received the old man's reminder, he thought carefully about this possibility, but in the end, he still shook his head and denied it:

"I still believe that my memory belongs to me. If I am truly a reborn one, then the things in my memory should appear in reality. We will defeat that demon and achieve final victory. Facts will prove everything."

Even though the old man's words had planted a seed of doubt in his heart, the soldier named Gu Qi still firmly believed in himself. He did not want to believe that the version of himself who fought bravely on the battlefield was just a dream.

He stubbornly believed in his memory of the future. He believed that he was the chosen one who could defeat the Immortal Demon. Even if the possibility of having his memory modified was far greater than an inexplicable rebirth, he would rather believe that this memory came from himself in the future of a parallel world; he could not be a puppet controlled by others.

Ji Hong nodded and said: "Very well. The information you brought is important intelligence sufficient to reverse the future. I will raise your clearance level. The Hong Alliance will plan a strategy with this as the core. We will achieve final victory."