Novels online

Chapter 538: Then and Now

Beyond the controller of a given avatar, no one could definitively know the exact number of avatars others had active at any single moment. This was one of the greatest secrets for high-level cultivators in the superhuman era.

After all, peace was the prevailing trend, so most avatars played roles unrelated to combat. They were more like anonymous online aliases, but with a far superior hidden effect for behind-the-scenes operations.

As long as one didn't court death by flaunting their power before someone a tier higher, the risk of exposure wasn't significant.

Of course, this was also a major reason why some keyboard warriors quieted down. No one knew if, while they were spouting nonsense, an elder brother was quietly watching them show off from behind.

...

Furthermore, many individuals habitually held back when using the combat power assessment system, meaning everyone could only, at best, guess the number of corresponding avatars based on the given number.

And for the authorities, it was easy to count the publicly manifested avatars, but as for the parts secretly hidden underground, only a god would know how many there truly were.

In the Earth era before the Federation's unification, countless avatars were already the top choice for spies across nations. Thanks to the trend initiated by Bai Mo, the mutual infiltration of superhumans' avatars between countries was commonplace.

...

A single thought could wipe out all these ordinary people, yet I have no way to free them from their pitiful cycles of reincarnation.

...

I once mentioned something similar to a fellow who cultivates the path of ruthlessness. He said I was 'hurting my own kind.'

Normal people feel anger when they see a human slaughterhouse, but they rarely feel that way about a pig slaughterhouse; at most, they feel disgust at the gore.

If I could be like him, and view myself and ordinary people as completely different species, perhaps I wouldn't experience this pain anymore," Yun Jie said with a smile, recounting some of his past experiences.

"But can you do that?"

"If I could, I would have switched to the path of ruthlessness long ago. In the end, I am still a human, not a cold, unfeeling machine."

"In another three hundred years, do you think your descendants, and the descendants of others, will view ordinary people as a different species?" Bai Mo also smiled, bringing up this deeply unsettling question.

Yun Jie's generation had lived through the transition of two eras, and they clearly knew that they themselves were once ordinary people, not born as gods.

However, their descendants were different. Spirit Qi transformed both parents into something akin to "divine beasts" cloaked in human skin. Newborns inheriting this "divine beast" bloodline had vastly superior physical qualities compared to ordinary people from birth.

At one year old, Yun Ru already possessed the athletic ability of a normal adult. When she first entered the combat power assessment system at three, her score of 1-4 astonished countless people.

Now, at ten years old, she had even set her sights on surpassing her mother Yue Yu's record.

As the youngest vice-captain back then, Yue Yu had reached the Fourth Tier at eighteen years old.

However, that was both due to her extraordinary talent and, more importantly, because she rode the crest of the era's great wave—she caught the Spirit River Autumn, the only "creation of the world" opportunity.

...

"We are definitely not the kind of people who treat others as less than human!" Yun Ru, deeply familiar with her father's nature, immediately displayed a strong will to survive in her first sentence.

"Little Mei, am I right?" She pinched her sister's cheek.

"Mm!" Little Yun Mei, drowsy from the serious topic, responded vaguely.

Compared to her twin sister, Yun Mei was more like a normal child.

Upon hearing this, Bai Mo looked at Yun Ru with amusement, which made Yun Jie's back chill slightly, wondering if Bai Mo had some strange ideas.

His fearless daughter seemed to have been pampered a bit too much; now she dared to argue with anyone.

"Have you noticed that among the next generation around us, there seem to be quite a few precocious geniuses?" Bai Mo suddenly asked.

He seemed to have discovered something interesting.

"With four billion people on the Moon, it's normal for a few geniuses to emerge," Yun Jie hadn't noticed anything amiss, or rather, he didn't believe anyone could tamper with Yun Ru under his nose.

"Never mind, it's not a bad thing. It's just someone who went out to make a living, and now it's time to pay the debt," Bai Mo continued, speaking in an incomprehensible manner.

"..."

"..."

Yun Jie was accustomed to Bai Mo's intermittent moments of cryptic talk, while Yun Ru was completely bewildered.

The truth of the matter was quite simple: over ten years ago, the information lifeforms, the Heretics of the Crimson World and Gaia, who were forced to self-destruct, realized the truth of the Tianxuan Continent at their last moments.

Everything they had cultivated was merely "fodder divine art."

This meant that even if they wished to leave behind their legacies and cultivate successors, it would only serve as a delicious meal for that eternally insatiable maw.

Gaia was unwilling to end like this, but time no longer allowed for anything more. So, they decided to gamble their slim hope on the new era.

After purging all contaminated power, the two shattered everything they had left and scattered it among the newborns across Earth for a period of time in the future.

These fragments of information, which couldn't even be considered true legacies, would only accelerate the brain development of children to a certain extent, allowing the recipients to win at the starting line.

The Heretics of the Crimson World and Gaia gambled that among these young geniuses, one day, someone would grow powerful enough to perceive the past and reverse life and death.

And that powerful being would remember the kindness of the two and pull them back from the long river of historical information.

It was a desperate, all-or-nothing gamble, seeking survival in death.

...

"Back to the real reason I invited you here," Yun Jie's expression suddenly turned solemn, his cold gaze almost tangible.

The indoor thermometer clearly showed that his mere look had caused the surrounding temperature to drop by a full five degrees. The previously sleepy Yun Mei jolted awake and leaped off the sofa.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Yun Mei looked at Yun Jie like a startled bunny.

"Little Mei, you listen carefully too. What I'm about to say is very important for both of you." He gently stroked Yun Mei's hair, comforting the anxious little bunny.

"I am about to take that step."

Yun Jie took out the pre-prepared core of a formation array and gently pressed it. Immediately, a massive, three-dimensional spiritual array, constructed from light, sprang from the tabletop, engulfing him entirely.

Waves of energy, nearly ten times more intense than before, surged from Yun Jie. However, all this surging, tempestuous spirit energy, which seemed as if it would devour everything in the next second, was now rigidly confined within the three-dimensional spiritual array, able only to bare its fangs at the three outside.

"Why choose now?"

PS: What a certain reader in the comment section said made me feel a bit guilty ORZ. I'll try my best to update more frequently in the future, I'm very.