Memory War

Harmonic Leaptone whipped her head toward Lin Ye. "Tuner, that dark red star—wasn't that the 'loneliness' you left for yourself?"

Lin Ye did not answer.

The being continued, "The 'empathy' within that star was stripped away and sealed inside by the Tuner of the previous era. You have no right to keep it. It belongs to me."

Iron Curtain stepped forward, his silver-white outline erupting with intense light. "Bullshit! Every star on the Tuner's cloak represents a civilization he remembered with his life! You think you can just take them because you say so?"

The being's expression did not change at all. It still wore that unnervingly gentle look.

"I am not asking."

Its body suddenly burst apart—not in an explosion, but in release. Billions of memory fragments poured from its body, surging toward the expeditionary army like a flood.

Every fragment was the memory of a civilization it had copied.

Harmonic Leaptone's expression changed drastically. "It's drowning us in memories! It won't kill us, but it'll overload our Definition Systems!"

The Chromaglass Weaver's color-defense net cracked before the first wave of the memory flood. It was not that the defense was too weak, but that the memories were too real—every copied civilization's memories were so complete that no one could tell whether they belonged to someone else or to themselves.

The mirrored surface of Myriad Faces reflected the rise and fall of tens of thousands of civilizations at once, each image exploding into a crack across the mirror.

Only Lin Ye remained where he stood, utterly still. All eight billion stars on his cloak lit up at once. He absorbed, sorted, and stored every memory fragment flooding in. His speed and precision were so extraordinary that even the being's expression flickered.

Lin Ye raised his head, his multicolored pupils