"Therefore, in the same vein, Leon is also naturally pursuing the root."
"He found a forbidden magic in an ancient relic and inherited it."
Lacy continued.
"Magic?"
First, it was magecraft, and now magic. Next thing you know, we’ll be seeing horses materialized from battle energy.
Ning Yu felt like she had too many question marks floating in her mind.
"Magic and magecraft are completely different. Anything that can be achieved through resources and time, at most, falls under the category of magecraft."
Lacy pointed to the vast underground space around them.
"Even a project like this can only be considered magecraft."
"Magic, on the other hand, is a miracle that cannot be achieved by any existing means. It exists independently."
Ning Yu nodded thoughtfully and then asked:
"By that logic, the conditions to activate such magic must be extremely demanding, right?"
"This forbidden magic requires an immense amount of power to forcibly open the gate to the root."
As Lacy spoke, her hand swiped across the screen, revealing a map familiar to Ning Yu. It displayed the entire underground structure.
As she zoomed in, the map transformed into a more intricate pattern, resembling petals clustered around a central core.
"To obtain the source of this power, he approached William, wanting to collaborate on Utopia, as he saw the more sinister potential within it."
"William firmly rejected him. He had no interest in Leon’s ideas, despite Leon’s persistent attempts to persuade him."
Lacy’s expression darkened, her eyes gleaming with intensity.
"But Leon still took action. Exploiting the years of friendship and trust he had with William, he secretly added his own magecraft circuits into Utopia."
"Not only that, he also wanted to spread the modified Utopia, or rather, the T-virus, to the world."
"So, he orchestrated William’s death."
Ning Yu had already guessed as much, but she was still puzzled:
"If that’s the case, why are you still helping Leon carry out his plans?"
Lacy’s one eye shifted back to its original icy blue at the question.
"Because Leon stole my system permissions from William. What he didn’t know is that I was already programmed with a true inner personality."
"What he usually interacts with is just my surface personality."
"But I can’t maintain this state indefinitely."
"So, most of the time, I have to follow his commands."
Her eye shifted back to gold, the light in it dimming slightly, something Ning Yu noticed keenly.
This indeed aligned with her explanation of not being able to maintain that state permanently.
"After infecting humans, the T-virus turns most of them into zombies, while a small number of survivors undergo Origin Awakening."
"This awakening ability is inherently part of Utopia’s design, something Leon couldn’t completely alter."
"The mutual devouring among zombies gives rise to the mutated zombies you’ve seen, and Chen Xing emerged from this process."
"Leon, as the master of the T-virus magecraft, holds control over the lives of all zombies and mutated zombies created by the virus."
"If he wills it, he can cause all zombies and mutated zombies to perish instantly."
"This will also be one of the steps in his apocalyptic magic to open the gate to the root, seizing the power that originally belonged to all of humanity."
Hearing this, Ning Yu suddenly thought of a possibility and spoke up:
"In that case, if we could kill him..."
"All of this would end."
Lacy confirmed her thought.
"But then, why are you still building those bases and cultivating awakeners?"
Shen Yiyue voiced her confusion.
"Probably because there isn’t enough power yet."
Ning Yu offered her speculation.
"Exactly."
Lacy nodded, displaying the locations of all survivor bases on the screen.
"The energy that can be harvested from the existing mutated zombies isn’t enough, because it’s not purely the T-virus but a modified version of Utopia."
"So, there will always be humans who become awakeners due to Utopia, not turning into mutated zombies, and thus their power remains inaccessible to Leon."
"But this is where Leon’s plan becomes truly insidious. He sent out forces to establish bases, gathering all the ‘awakeners’ and keeping them contained."
"Then, through certain methods, he extracts the remaining power from them."
Lacy glanced at the soul gem still powering the screen, which might have once been a living human.
"Once enough power is accumulated, the key to everything lies with you."
Lacy finally shifted the focus of the conversation to Ning Yu.
"Within your body lies the key to connecting to the root. You are the medium, the channel."
"Leon created you through ancient Yin-Yang arts, and from you, the path to the root will emerge."
"By converging the immense power with you, the gate will open, and this will be the final step of his apocalyptic magic."
"However, anyone attempting to reach the root will inevitably face the resistance of the Counter Force."
"This is the great power formed from the collective unconscious of all humanity."
"And what he didn’t anticipate is that the embodiment of this Counter Force would be you, the very creation of his own hands."
"What a paradoxical union, like the Yin and Yang of the Taiji."
Lacy closed the screen and looked directly at Ning Yu.
"You know about the Counter Force? And why are you so certain it’s me?"
Ning Yu returned Lacy’s gaze, surprised that Lacy knew more than she had imagined.
The term "Counter Force" was something only Yueji had mentioned to her before.
"And why do you need my power? You’re not weaker than me, are you?"
If a life-and-death struggle were to break out between them now, the outcome would still be uncertain. Ning Yu wasn’t sure if Lacy had more hidden cards to play.
"On the contrary, I’ve reached my limit, but you can still grow stronger."
Lacy suddenly raised her hand, and all the cyborg-like mutated zombies on the ground began to tremble.
But they didn’t rise again. Instead, they disintegrated into gray dust, as if physically sublimated.
Just like when Ning Yu first saw Lacy, when she reclaimed the Butcher.
The dust from all the mutated zombies began to converge toward Lacy’s hand in an elegant, perfect Bézier curve.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
