บท 3: Elizabeth
บรรณาธิการ: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The moon was massive tonight.
After 10 o'clock, the crowds on the streets had dispersed almost completely.
Occasionally there would be a few young people riding motorcycles outside the store, whizzing past with their girls onboard.
Ling PingAn sat at the counter, watching variety shows on television and feeling bored.
Variety shows had been getting worse and worse.
Even the singing competition program that Ling PingAn had been following for three years had inevitably come to the point where the creators had to bow their heads to viewers and resign themselves to please the capitalists.
Watching a so-called "singer", dressed in a ridiculous gaudy costume and looking like neither a woman or a man, stand there shrieking and howling was annoying.
Ling PingAn turned off the television.
"Was this music?"
"What an insult to my intelligence!" Ling PingAn shook his head.
Since God knew when, music in the Federal Empire had gone down a path of no return.
Many people had begun to think that the higher one sang, the better one's singing ability was.
The majority of these music variety shows were completely focused on delivering showmanship for the sake of delivering showmanship.
They didn't even bother to cover up what they were doing anymore.
What they were doing was just stuffing the ears of their audiences with any kind of junk simply to increase the program's number of views.
Thinking about this, Ling PingAn opened his phone and looked at what was trending. "Horrible singing" was indeed one of the highest things trending.
This made Ling PingAn feel somewhat more relieved.
But, unfortunately, when he tapped in, he realized that all the posts were full of users whose job was to clean up the mess.
Advertising accounts and fans had dominated all corners of his screen.
Almost everyone was speaking along the same lines, and only positive comments were getting any attention and critical comments were not.
Looking at all the fancy articles and comments that were nothing but supportive of the show, Ling PingAn decided to turn off his phone.
Out of sight, out of mind.
"I think I'll close the store and play games," he thought.
E-sports was, after all, the fairest game after all.
Should he win, all credit goes to him, and should he lose, his teammates could be blamed.
Black and white, right or wrong--everything was crystal clear.
He walked up to the entrance of the store and started pulling down the roller gate.
"Why, is it foggy again?" As Ling PingAn was about to pull down the roller gate, he saw that there was thick fog in the streets outside the door that unbeknownst to him had clandestinely suffused the entire alley.
It was pitch-black amid the fog. There wasn't even the slightest bit of light.
Seeing this, he stopped pulling down the roller gate.
Suddenly, he thought about the young girl from yesterday, and the items she had left behind in the store: A bag of some unknown dried leaves and an exquisitely crafted dagger.
"She might come back and redeem them, right?" Ling PingAn thought. "After all, that bag of leaves alone is probably worth thousands of dollars…"
...
In the dark of night, Han Li walked up to the electrified steel gate.
Machine guns, which had been set up on the turrets of the fence, began to rotate, aiming at her.
A camera also rotated in her direction. It started scanning her.
Soon, a female-sounding electronic voice could be heard, "Welcome back, Major Han Li."
"The 1.3 million people in the Donglin City Safe Zone thank you for your dedication and sacrifice."
The steel gate, which weighed several tons, opened on each side, revealing a narrow passage that was only big enough for one person to pass through.
Han Li raised her head and walked in.
As soon as she'd entered, several mechanical probes protruded from all directions, and, at the same time, an electronic seat appeared in front of Han Li.
Han Li sat down on the seat. Strips of electronic bandages fixed her body firmly in place.
A liquid-crystal display dropped down in front of her.
Lines of her body's data were subsequently displayed on the screen.
The electronic voice began announcing, "It is now New Era Year 23, 12 July, 3:15 a.m."
"Welcome home, our respected Major Han Li!"
"Today, your height is 168 cm, and your weight is 55,000 grams."
"Blood Oxygen Saturation, 99 percent. Myoglobin level, 21.8 G/L."
"Your body data is excellent!"
"Your mental fluctuation has decreased slightly. Please pay attention to regulating your mental health and examine the safety of your spirit."
"An appointment has been made for you with Chief Physician Zhao Licheng. The consultation time is tomorrow, 9:10 a.m."
"An application for a Spirit Mending Service has been made. The service time is New Era Year 23, 15 July, 2:00 p.m."
Han Li's chair descended gradually as the sound of the electronic broadcast rang out.
Swiftly, it reached the underground.
At the entrance, several soldiers carrying loaded rifles saw Han Li arriving and immediately saluted, "Welcome back, Officer Han!"
One officer came up to her and saluted, "Major Han Li, Brigadier General Wang Jingcheng is waiting for you in his office."
"All right." Han Li nodded.
Her ears were still constantly ringing from the ravings. She touched the scalding book on her body. Han Li knew that before she could confirm that the book and its contents were absolutely safe she must not disclose their existence to anyone.
Because mankind couldn't afford a second great apocalypse.
Han Li thought of her teacher, who was also her adoptive father, Yan Cheng.
Once he had been one of the most powerful demon hunters of Donglin City, an elite soldier who had once driven away Class A monsters.
"Do not cry for me…" Her teacher, who was now at the brink of collapse and about to succumb to a miserable fate, was lying in a cabin crafted of a special alloy and looking at her through its glass, "I'm about to ascend into space and be with humanity within the eternal space."
"This is the fate of demon hunters, and where our greatest commission lies."
"Sacrifice and dedication are not worthless."
"At least, you're still alive."
"Everyone is still alive."
"Human civilization remains!"
The young Han Li couldn't understand any of this. She could only cry as she chased after her teacher's cabin. She pursued him until she was deprived of all strength, wailing and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Half an hour later, a carrier rocket lifted off from the launch base in Donglin City.
Carrying Han Li's teacher and adoptive father, it flew and flew, flew out of the atmosphere, flew out of the stratosphere, broke free from the grasp of gravity, and soared into the wilderness of boundless space.
That was the home of demon hunters.
And a closure, chosen voluntarily by every demon hunter.
They couldn't stay on their home planet and become a nightmare for humanity.
It was 23 years into the New Era. Oodles of cabins belonging to demon hunters were floating in space.
That was the elegy of mankind and also the epic of humanity.
The ravings near her ears dragged Han Li back to reality.
She raised her head, looking at the alloy wall of the underground base and the soldiers in front of her.
"At least…," she said to herself, "...I have freed myself from my teacher's fate."
The demon that had been sealed in her body had been completely destroyed.
Its power had been completely controlled by the demon hunter.
But the ravings near her ears were reminding her that when one woe goes, another could remain.
However, she had had no choice.
"Let me become mankind's test subject."
"For freedom and survival!"
This was the great commission of demon hunters, the true essence of sacrifice and dedication.
...
The clock ticked toward twelve midnight.
Ling PingAn was a little annoyed, having lost several games.
He raised his head and looked at the clock. "It's 12 already?…Looks like that girl won't be coming today…"
"Maybe she's been grounded by her parents?"
Thinking about it, that seemed like a real possibility.
The wealthy and nobles of the Federal Empire placed great importance on that kind of stuff.
Although public opinion had been lashing out at them, they just couldn't change.
In the eyes of these old men, playing games was not a proper occupation, writing novels was a path that led nowhere, and doing interesting things like cosplay was humiliating to one's family.
Hence, in the eyes of the young people in the federal territory, conservative parents were more hated than the federal government who had assumed control over everything. They really wished that they could have a referendum and vote those people away.
Through the twists and turns of fate, Ling PingAn thought about the cup of tea he'd made with those leaves that afternoon.
"It's so strange! I haven't needed my glasses until now…" He scratched his head and took out the bag of leaves from the drawer.
The shriveled leaves were packed inside a plastic bag. As he looked at them, they didn't seemed out of the ordinary.
But once dipped in boiling water, his entire being became full of energy.
In the afternoon, he'd won 13 games in a row and was the MVP for all the matches!
"Since there are so many leaves…"
"Let me make another cup…," Ling PingAn thought to himself. "In the worst scenario, I'll just compensate her with some money when she comes back."
So thinking, he poured a few leaves out of the bag.
Then, while holding a teacup, he walked to the water dispenser and turned on the hot water.
In an instant, the delightful aroma once again permeated his nose.
"This smells so good!" Ling PingAn held the teacup, took a sip, and his whole being immediately became energetic. It was as if his mind became active and all his fatigue had been swept away.
"Looks like I'm bound to dominate tonight," he said with confidence.
...
The sky was dark red in color.
It seemed like a huge mass of gore that pressed heavily onto the roof of the world.
The sun that had once brought light and heat to the world was now like a lump of cold flame that was gradually extinguishing.
Its light could no longer warm up the world.
Humans could only linger on in the last days of their existence.
Wind howled across the ruins.
Collapsed buildings were piled everywhere, forming hills of debris composed of gravel, brick, glass, and steel.
Everywhere lying exposed were rusty steel bars and corroded cars of which only the frames remained.
Elizabeth walked among these ruins.
Her electronic sensors were constantly transmitting all kinds of data to her core.
Whether it was the vibrations from the ground, the pheromones in the air, or everything she could "see" with her eyes.
Via the 341 nano-electronic sensors installed in her body that were tightly integrated with her nerve cells, all were converted into data and continuously transmitted to the quantum core in her brain.
There, all the data was restored into real images and then transmitted back to her brain.
It was like having had a filter installed, or adding an extra layer of firewall.
This was the only way that mankind could still survive in this miserable world.
Since the Void Storm, 100 years have passed.
The once-glorious human civilization was now like an expiring candle swaying in the wind, which might be extinguished at any moment.
Survivors had to abandon their fragile bodies and embrace machinery.
Symbiosis with machinery had become the last hope for mankind.
Even so, it was inevitable that the global population would still continue to decline.
Today, the massive North American continent only had 3 million people left, all of whom were trapped despairingly within a doomsday fortress as they struggled, gasping for air.
At this moment, Elizabeth, constantly monitoring the quantum core installed in the frontal lobe of her brain, was keeping an eye on the data and information that came from the core.
Elizabeth abruptly halted her steps as her whole body became vigilant.
Buried within her flesh, nanomachines began to activate one after another, covering all of her body.
Two laser swords extended from her arms.
The sensors all over her body tapped into an activated state.
The sensors responsible for Spirit Power-detection lit up all in red.
"Detected fluctuation of Demonic Energy!"
"Repeat! Detected fluctuation of Demonic Energy!"
She hopped up abruptly. The miniature missile launchers mounted on both her shoulders immediately launched two miniature missiles that had already been armed.
This missile was only ten centimeters long.
But the warhead it carried was incredibly powerful!
Boom!
Boom!
One after another, the missiles hit a hill of ruins to the left of Elizabeth, the source of the detected Demonic Energy.
Waste slag and steel bars were flying all over the sky.
The explosion also brought out what was hiding within the hill of ruins. An entity with a spider-like body, as big as a bison, with countless tentacles, grasping the ground firmly. Its scarlet eyes lit up cruelly as it looked at Elizabeth, who was suspended in air, her whole body enshrouded in armor.
"Cursed creatures!" Seeing this thing, Elizabeth didn't feel much emotion in her heart, but she was still shocked nonetheless. "A descendant of Demon Moon!"
Descendants of Demon Moon were among the most dangerous descendants of Diablo in the North American continent.
They were the children of the Dark Side of the Moon, the Diablo entrenched on the lunar surface.
They were also one of the greatest enemies of mankind. These d*mn things would kidnap human females and use them as tools to increase their offspring.
Reproductive isolation was like a joke to them.
Therefore, the moment she saw the monster, Elizabeth immediately wanted to start the miniature fusion reactor installed in her body and escape.
But as the order had just been issued, the fusion reactor had just begun to operate.
A strange scene appeared before Elizabeth's eyes.
A thick fog, an unknown fog of great density, abruptly shrouded the ruins where the descendant of Demon Moon was located and the nearby area for a few hundred meters.
This fog was so powerful that Elizabeth could only see the descendant of Demon Moon struggling to flee for an instant before the thick fog before plunged everything into utter silence.
Something extremely terrifying seemed to be descending.
It killed the descendant of Demon Moon amid the thick fog.
What's more, from the beginning to the end, all that the Descendant of Demon Moon could do was to struggle for a brief while.
Seeing this, Elizabeth landed on the ground.
She hesitated, stretched out her arm, and pressed the watch on her wrist, "Drone!"
The watch fell off automatically, then turned into a fist-sized four-winged drone. Under Elizabeth's gaze, it flew into the thick fog that had appeared inexplicably to investigate it.
However, once the drone flew into the dense fog, it lost contact with Elizabeth.
The essence of human technology couldn't even persist for a single second within the thick fog.
Elizabeth's expression immediately became solemn.
After a long while, seemingly having made up her mind, she walked toward the dense fog.
She had to find out...what exactly was inside this mass of thick fog?
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