Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 633: β-type replicant
This is...Zofia Soma's body.
Ke Lan was very familiar with this "thrilling" body.
He had touched every inch of this body. That silky touch was hard to erase from memory once experienced...Looking at this familiar body, he suddenly felt a little dry in the mouth, and an urge to walk up and hold it in his arms arose in his heart.
But reason kept reminding Ke Lan that all of these were fake, whether it was the gold bars that had just piled up into a mountain, or this extremely beautiful body...all of these were illusions extracted from his memory.
"Is this...tempting me?"
The next second, Zofia's body disappeared, and in its place was a huge round table. Ke Lan noticed that at the edge of the round table, there were twenty-two Gothic chairs with tall backs and exquisite carvings, and twenty-one of them were occupied. But from Ke Lan's perspective, these "people" were all shadowy, and not only their appearance, but even their figures and clothes were unclear.
Only the chair closest to him was empty.
This was the only empty chair at the round table, and it was placed in reverse, with the seat facing him, as if issuing a silent invitation to him.
"The position is vacant..."
Ke Lan quickly realized that the twenty-two chairs corresponded exactly to the twenty-two Major Arcana cards from number zero to number twenty-one...The people sitting next to this round table were none other than the twenty-two members of the Undead Crew.
The empty chair was supposed to belong to the fifth "Pope" Chiron, but now...
"..." Ke Lan stood still and did not move forward. He knew very well what these illusions symbolized... wealth, love (or lust), power... These illusions revealed the most naked desires engraved in the human soul. Everyone has desires, even those saints who are extraordinary and otherworldly.
There is no one in this world who has no desires or demands... Even the most basic desire to survive can be considered a desire.
Having desires in one's heart is not something to be ashamed of, and modern society certainly will not classify normal negative emotions of human beings into the "seven deadly sins" like the ancient church did. In many cases, desire can become a powerful driving force - the reason why human civilization can continue to develop is that desire has played an extremely critical role in it... A race without any desires cannot create a brilliant civilization.
But what Ke Lan couldn't understand was why the images of these things appeared in this space? Was it to tempt people to come forward?
Is this a trap?
However, Ke Lan was clear-minded - not only him, but anyone trapped in this strange space could tell that these things were illusory, and no one with a bit of common sense would be fooled... Moreover, this space had the ability to reset time, so why did it need to use low-level methods like bait and traps?
"I do like money, and I also like beautiful women. As for power... the more power the better... but it's just a matter of liking it. I don't desire it to the point of losing my mind..." Ke Lan believed that even if these illusions disassembled a Blasphemer mecha and placed it in front of Layton, the big mecha-lover would not be so foolish as to believe it. At most, he would just take a few more glances with drool.
As for Ke Lan himself, he suddenly realized that he really didn't seem to want anything in particular...
As if it had heard Ke Lan's inner thoughts, the round table disappeared, and the Gothic high-backed chairs and the figures sitting on them also disappeared...
As the light and shadow changed, Ke Lan saw a drop of crimson blood floating in the air, as crystal clear as a gem.
"……Blood?"
Before Ke Lan's brain could react, the blood in his body had already begun to boil - no, that's not right, it was not his blood that was boiling, but the part of the "living armor" that was mixed in his blood and had not yet condensed into a solid body!
Not only the living armor in the blood, but even the living armor outside the body that had condensed into weapons began to show signs of instability.
It was restless and craving... Although the living armor had no self-awareness, Ke Lan could empathize with that impulse...
I really want to... I really want to swallow that drop of blood...
"Why is this happening?" Ke Lan's eyes twitched suddenly, "Could it be... that is a drop of... 'real blood of God'?!"
He tried his best to suppress the impulse coming from his body, and even took back the shield and spear condensed by the living armor... He knew that the drop of blood was fake, but the living armor in his body did not think so.
Ke Lan clenched his teeth, but the sticky red liquid continued to overflow from his nasal cavity, ear canal and even the corners of his eyes. A fishy-sweet taste slowly rose from the depths of his throat... He was almost using all his strength to fight against the out-of-control living armor.
Just when Ke Lan felt that he was about to be torn apart by the power within, everything suddenly returned to the starting point.
Another seven-and-a-half-minute reset...as expected.
Those illusions symbolizing "desire" have disappeared without a trace like burst soap bubbles, but the white light is still suspended there. Ke Lan looked up and saw a tall and thin figure in a black robe slowly walking out of the white light.
Ke Lan was facing against the light, and could only see the outline of the figure outlined by the white light. He couldn't see the other person's face at all. What's more, he was wearing an exaggeratedly large hood, and the brim of the hood hung down to the tip of his nose.
Unlike Zofia and the members of the Undead Crew before, the texture of this figure was more like a real object. The most important point was that when he stood in front of the white light, his body blocked most of the light source, and the previous illusions were all integrated with the white light.
Ke Lan's breathing suddenly quickened - even though the figure in the black robe had not spoken a word or revealed his face, Ke Lan had already guessed his identity.
"You are in this tower indeed." Ke Lan said in a deep voice, "You mean... your real body."
“Clap, clap, clap.” The tall and thin figure in a black robe suddenly clapped his hands. “To be honest, the surprise attack by the Undead Crew was indeed beyond my expectations… It’s just a pity that you were still a step too slow.”
"So, the entire ancient bronze city ruins is actually a trap... Through the hijacking incident, you deliberately exposed this stronghold to the Ark's vision and used your real body as bait... Is it just to kill these hundreds of thousands of field troops?" Ke Lan asked.
"You will soon know what my purpose is." The prophet shook his head, "But now, I want to talk to you about this rare opportunity."
"Talk to me?" Ke Lan immediately became alert, "Are you trying to persuade me to join you?"
"Yes, you and I are essentially the same kind of people." The prophet took two steps forward and stretched out his arms to both sides. "We are both lucky and great evolvers... but those hiding in the shadows only see us as guinea pigs in a laboratory box."
He paused and continued, "You should also know how the lab deals with the mice that survived the experiment, right? Even if there are lucky ones who survived, they will be injected with a sufficient amount of cyanide at the end of the experiment... I just don't want to be squeezed dry and sent to the incinerator, but I was labeled a heretic. Don't you think this is ridiculous? What is the difference between the crew's practice and the ignorant and greedy church in the Middle Ages?"
"Based on what you and your men have done, I don't think the name of a heretical sect is unfair to you." Ke Lan replied with a look of contempt.
"What did I do? I just gave them power... You should know that if you want to survive in the wilderness of this planet, power is the most important thing, right? Ask those exiles who are dying of hunger, disease, and serious injuries, will they choose to be crushed into the dust like an ant, or give away everything they have in exchange for more powerful power? The so-called human nature is just a fragile fig leaf for human civilization... In fact, the thinking of most people has always remained on that damn Earth, but the only way to survive in this vast universe is to become stronger."
"So what? You implanted the monster's young into the bodies of living people and made them your weapons... Don't think I'm so easy to fool. Exiles who are dying of hunger and disease, people with weak bodies can't become containers for the seeds of erosion. You are not saving people, so don't make your behavior sound so noble." Ke Lan retorted.
"I never said that I was saving people. I just wanted to become a better creature... I need to conduct a lot of experiments and get closer to the goal called 'perfection' little by little. But I don't regard them as lab rats. I regard them as martyrs, martyrs who sacrificed for the truth."
"It seems that after being a so-called prophet for so many years, you have become quite good at speaking, but I don't want to argue with you at all." Ke Lan said, "To me, you are my enemy, and this will never change... If I hadn't been lucky, I would have been killed by you several times, right? I... am a very vengeful person."
"Are you willing to be a pawn of the Undead Crew?"
"At least they don't want to kill me now."
"Have you ever thought about this? When they gave you the living armor, no one actually knew whether you could successfully fuse with it... They were just using you as an experiment. If they failed, you should be able to guess the result, right?" The prophet suddenly sneered, "You don't really think they are helping you, do you?"
"But if we have to compare who is worse, I would rather stand on the side of the Ark." Ke Lan said, "At least, the undead crew will not allow the residents of the Ark to eat people."
"It seems that you don't know your own life story yet, poor fellow." The prophet said word by word, "From the moment you were born, the experimental project with you as the core has already started to operate. Everything you have experienced is arranged by the script..."
"Where is the evidence?" Ke Lan stared at the other party's figure - although he held a disdainful view of every word said by this prophet, he still had to admit that the other party's statement coincided with a guess in his heart.
My own life... maybe it is really controlled... otherwise, so many coincidences would never come together, and many things would never be able to get a reasonable explanation.
"Not only you, but also most of the people on the Ark, their scripts are also carefully arranged by the crew...Except for a little improvisation by the 'actors', everyone is a puppet pulled by strings...For these poor puppets, they can already see the day of their death when they are born."
"Speak human language." Ke Lan said expressionlessly, "I don't like dealing with the Riddler."
"Do you know why the population of the Ark has always remained at 50 million? So many people die every year, and the population that is 'consumed' is far greater than the number , but there has never been a population crisis on the Ark? Even if the babies born in the public breeding center can make up for some of the gap, have you really carefully calculated the gap between the number of deaths and the number of births each year?"
“…”
"Let's not talk about others, let's talk about you--" The prophet changed the subject, "Ke Lan, do you still remember what you experienced when you were a child? Do you still remember those classmates who went to school with you in the compulsory education institution?"
"Have you ever tried entering the names in your memory into the Security Bureau's archives... Are the people you find based on the names really the people in your memory?"
"Have you ever noticed that many of your memories before the age of sixteen are very vague, and there are some details that you just can't remember no matter how hard you try... Have you ever doubted whether your memories are real or fake..."
“You know something called a beta replicant?
Their embryos only need 20 days to develop into the state of a 16-year-old human. Their memories, emotions, and life skills can all be implanted in the brain through external devices...
It only takes one month for a young person who has just graduated from a compulsory education institution to integrate into human society...
Like any other 'legal citizen of the Ark', there are no loopholes in any of his identities...
The only drawback is that most of them will not live past the age of 40. After all, the cloned human mitochondria have a fatal flaw, and the crew has not yet solved this problem.
But it doesn't matter. These people are born to be consumables anyway. If a clone is used until the age of 40, the cost of breeding has already been recovered."
