Where will McLaren hide?

Passing through blast doors and steel walls, Leonard Hargraves sensed something was wrong in the air. The space itself is curved and distorted. Something created a powerful magnetic field inside the base, tearing apart the fabric of reality.

As he thought, the fortress of Mekron could also be counted as a particle accelerator. Was it genius activated? For what purpose? How can it help repel the army in front of the door?

"Picia, where do I go?" Leonard asked, but he only "heard" psychic static. What happened in the fortress interfered with telepathy.

He was on his own.

Leonard ended up making it to the Collider at the fort, a closed circuit of steel in which particles moved at breakneck speeds. An unknown stream of blue energy quickly passed through the superstructure, and the red genome entered it like a fish swimming in a river. He did not identify the particles inside the collider; Perhaps they are undiscovered by modern science, or are not inherent in the reality of the planet.

To his surprise, Leo began to see things in the river. Strange, inhuman blue apparitions made up of raw data, flickering to appear and disappear. These mirages never have a fixed shape and are constantly changing.

What happened?

The living sun can tell the surrounding energy to be concentrated in one place in the center of the facility; The connection point of the two loops that make up the infinity symbol. He followed the blue creek towards the finish line, eventually crashing through more steel walls. Blue streams of water flowed out from behind him, dispersing into tiny particles.

Leo's crash course ends in the heart of the fortress, where H. Brown is the heart of the fortress.

Command center in Giger's nightmare. The whole room looks like a Gothic steel cathedral, and the walls are alive; Veins of metal flow through them, infusing the entire building with a heavy black oil. The structure seems to breathe, while the curled tin spikes form the pillars that support the roof. An eye-like screen projected images of the battle outside, and a loudspeaker sounded a warning.

Six giant biomechanical brains the size of elephants form a circle around a small blue dot floating in the middle of a column of energy; The focal point of the entire superstructure. Each brain is protected by a reinforced glass jar, cut off from the outside world, and connected by thick wires. Leo guesses that they are biomechanical supercomputers that house artificial intelligence that manipulates their masters' entire war.

McLaren was right there, standing on the platform below the blue dot. The shriveled old man wore only plain white clothes and needed a black cane to walk. He is the only body in this terrible iron heart, commanding his AI servants in Bosnia.

"Transfer all the data to the alternate base" McKelen's voice sounded so calm, so small. So humans. "Activate all the remaining units outside and open the gates."

"Start data transfer." The voice of a robot came over the speaker. "Warning: Dimension coordinates are incomplete. Highly volatile expectations—"

"It doesn't matter if we destroy Sarajevo!" Open the door!"

Makelen suddenly noticed Leonard, who was raising his palm towards the man.

Now that he can take a good look at the genius's face, the living sun realizes that the battle has also taken a toll on him. McClain, who is in his seventies, seems to have not slept for days. His eyes were black from fatigue and his hands were shaking with nervousness.

He looks like... It's normal. He doesn't wear a costume and is not a legendary, charismatic Dark Lord. McLaren was just an ordinary guy who had just come out of a nursing home; A man who killed millions, if not billions.

However...... He looked tired of it all. Destroyed by a decade of endless wars.

The sun's hand trembled.

"Don't make your shots worthwhile." McLaren said bitterly glaring at Leonard. "You won't have another chance."

Instead of lashing out at him, Leonard Hargraves stared straight into the eyes of the hateful dictator. "Are you happy, May?" He asked in Bosnian.

This question took the genius by surprise.

"Do you like this life?" Leonard asked. Although he didn't release any plasma blaster, his hand was kept up. If Picia had known, she would have skinned him alive. "Alone in a bunker, surrounded by machines, killing people everywhere?" Is this your wish? Do you like this life?"

It was only when the day was carefully considering this issue that the fortress shook. He looked away, then focused on Leonard again.

"No," McKelen admitted, sounding tired. "No, I'm not."

"Then why don't you stop?"

"Why do you care?" The genius replied sharply.

"Because...... Because I want to believe that human life should be cherished. Even yours. I could kill you if I had to, but you can say I'm naïve...... As long as there's a chance to end it all, I'd like to try. Leonard paused, trying to find the right words. I don't know what makes you, but you have to realize deep down that hurting someone else doesn't help. ”

He did it. Leonard could tell it from his face.

"Please surrender calmly." The Living Sun asked. "Stop your machines from working, and we'll give you a fair hearing. No one will die; Even you don't know. You provoked all this, and you can also end it. ”

Makelen's expression suddenly changed from sadness to anger.

"I didn't pick anything up," the man roared, his voice full of resentment. The anger that had been pent-up for years finally exploded. "What you did. The Serbs killed my son in Srebrenica, and you people, you are just standing by! If you want to end this war, then stop getting in my way!"

Leonard got the answer from the man's intense and hateful gaze.

He will never stop. It doesn't matter how many people are sacrificed in order to ignite the fire burning in his heart; It's a hell that can never be extinguished. This vicious, hateful man will not rest until the whole world is brought to its knees.

A demon born of war.

Leonard fired with regret.

A crimson force field activates around Rogue Genius, deflecting a stream of plasma. The metal and electronics around the Mekron melted, but the warlord was completely unharmed. A similar magnetic field protects the huge brains, protecting them from danger. Leonard flew to the Genius, intending to break through the force field and end McLaren's life.

A roar echoed to his left, and a wormhole opened. The last bio-mechanical dragon came out of it, claws reaching out to the living sun.

A powerful force of gravity pushes Leonard against a steel wall, knocking him into a mechanical panel. The dragon keeps gravity active, trying to break the core of the red genome.

"It could have been beautiful!" A new Eden!" McKelen's face twitched with anger. "I could have eradicated disease, solved world hunger, and brought peace! Life expectancy has increased and everything is automated! Everything would have been perfect!"

The mischievous genius raised his staff at Leonard and gritted his teeth in anger.

"If it weren't for you......," he said, his hands trembling as he fell to the ground with his cane. If it weren't for people like you, I could save the world!"

"Look out of your window, Maekren!" Leo replied angrily, trying to break free from the gravitational field of the fighting beast. "You didn't save the world, you killed it!" You live among the dead!"

The genius visibly flinched, his fingers clenching his cane. By now, he was so angry that he couldn't speak coherent sentences. "If politicians had a little imagination, I wouldn't ...... I'm not going to give you all the kill data! I've got to get them to stop! They don't listen at all! Incomprehensible!"

Ignoring the madman, Leonard bombarded the biomechanical dragon with plasma. The scales and flesh of the creature melted, leaving only mechanical implants and charred bones. But surprisingly, it keeps moving and doesn't release the pressure.

At the same time, the blue sphere began to expand inside the energy column, turning into some kind of energy lens. A spatial anomaly that leads to a place of bright blue light. As Leonard looked at the tears, he felt something pass through his mind. For a second, he thought it was Pisia, and then realized that the telepathic signal was coming from a spatial anomaly.

The picture is formed in the mind of the living sun, like in a blue stream. He was at Hackney

ey) vivid pictures of childhood surrounded by criminals; On his first day at the London Fire Department, he helped evacuate a family from a burning building; Found the strange box in the mail, containing a crimson potion; The day he and Alice founded Carnival

"What is this?" Leonard asked, captivated by the portal and the images teleported to him. Even the flaming dragon stopped attacking, captivated by any power that came from outside the blue wormhole.

"Akashic Records......" McKelen muttered, her eyes wide in triumph. General compendium. All the data, all the information, all the knowledge, all the intentions and emotions, all came from this place. The source of blue power, the source of all genius knowledge...... A blue world of pure wisdom. ”

McLaren raised his cane at the portal, his anger replaced by excitement.

"It's all here!" All the secrets of the world, all the things that solve the problem! It's all here!" He turned his back to the red genome and chuckled to himself. "Even you have to see how beautiful it is!"

The stream of images in the mind continues, but instead of Leo's own life, they show more unfamiliar scenes. Imagine an alien world covered in a huge ocean, ruled by fish-like creatures; Supernovae light up the dark space of space.

"With it, I can start all over again!" Mech

o

Boast. "Solve all problems! Once I get there, I know everything!"

Leonard looked at the blue with divine charm until he found a small black stain.

The telepathic signal immediately disappears, and the screen goes black. The screens in the facility turned red, and the loudspeakers changed tone. "Warning: An anomaly detected. Warning: An anomaly was detected. Warning: Unknown dimensions are converging. ”

The Blue Hole seems to be swallowed up by darkness from within. Black specks slowly emerged from the blue portal, staining the entire portal. The room seemed to be frozen, and the temperature dropped at an alarming rate.

Even McKelen didn't know what was going on. "That'...... That's not the blue world...... That's somewhere else...... That's ......"

Within seconds, the blue star turned into a black hole, a dark sphere from which no light could escape. It is not a door to a purely informational dimension, but a door to emptiness and nothingness.

"It's all dark." Makelen stared into the abyss and muttered to herself.

And then......

The abyss stared at him.

A dark pulse erupted from the portal, vaporizing the dragon, the artificial brain, and much of the room. McLaren barely had time to scream, his force field vanished, and the void consumed him.

Leonard felt the dragon's gravitational field disappear, and his own gravitational field was drowned out in darkness. An alien force threatens to devour him, like a black hole devours a star.

Something was watching them from the other side.

The dark gaze peeled the macrona layer by layer like peeling an onion. skin, meat, bones, and then crawl down. Within seconds, the genius was gone from existence, his atoms torn apart and annihilated.

If it weren't for his heart to keep his body intact in a powerful gravitational field, Leonard would have suffered the same fate. Even now, he felt that the outer layers of his solar body were disintegrating, its molecules annihilating into nothingness. The thing's constant gaze would tear him apart and destroy his heart in a matter of minutes, just like it did to McKelen.

His human mind simply could not comprehend what he saw. A vague shape reminded Leo of an eye, surrounded by a dark, empty cloud; There is a void of consciousness in reality, and the living darkness swallows the light, not is driven out by it. A gigantic entity, so powerful, so omnipotent, that it could destroy their reality with just one glance.

It wants to come in.

The black portal slowly widened, and the radius of the vicious gaze grew larger. Behind the door the entity has been watching, unaware, or perhaps unconcerned about the damage it has caused. If the particle accelerator continues to expand the portal...

"McLaren will kill everyone in Sarajevo"

As Pisia's words came to mind, Leonard immediately released a stream of plasma in the portal. A scorching flame like a nuclear explosion.

They soon ceased to exist.

They are not absorbed by the hole and are not extinguished. They disappeared, leaving neither heat nor smoke behind. The dark forces on the other side of the portal didn't even notice Leonard's counterattack; Its mere appearance erased his flames.

Compared to this entity, the living sun looks like an ant trying to attack an elephant.

If he can't destroy the portal directly, what can Leonard do? If he doesn't do anything, this thing will wipe him out of existence in a matter of minutes, and then the same for the fortress. The destruction of the particle accelerator may cause the portal to implode, but Sarajevo will be destroyed.

The destruction of the particle accelerator...

If Leonard can destroy the fortress sufficiently, he can destroy the portal before it gets bigger. But the explosion could kill him.

Leonard thought of the hundreds of people out there. Heroes fight to change this desolate, ruined world. Friends like Pitia who have family at home; The soldiers tried to rebuild a good and democratic civilization. Good.

Leonard didn't hesitate.

He gathers all of his remaining energy, summoning any power that can provide energy to his core, and causing his core to implode on its own. His body turned white, and his light burned the entire room to ashes. Black holes absorb most of the heat, but not all of it.

"It's like they say......" he muttered, staring defiantly into the darkness in the distance. I'd rather die with a bang than die with a whimper!"

His last thought to his comrades outside was that the living sun had turned into a supernova.

Leonard's light engulfs the world in a catastrophic explosion, and the darkness comes back from wherever it comes.

Dark.

It was pitch black. A pitch black nothingness. He can't see, he can't hear, he can't smell, he can't taste. He could barely think.

He felt cold.

He felt numb.

On top of that, he felt lonely.

Is this death? Is the darkness behind that door an afterlife? Or is it all an illusion, the last cheer of his brain before the final end?

He never really believed in any god or afterlife. He thought he was going to disappear and cease to exist. It's a mercy than spending it in the dark forever.

In his memory, he always lived through someone else. He may look like the sun, but he never feels warm when he's alone. So he filled the emptiness with his fellow human beings, and their happiness became his own. Loneliness always scared him more than death.

Now, he thinks alone. Face his regrets alone.

He will never have a wife, he will never have children. He didn't write an urban fantasy novel that he always said he would write. He will never return to London, nor will he see the people he left. He would never be reconciled to some of his friends because he had fallen out with them; He will never avenge the Costa people and will not bring Augustus to justice. He will never know if his sacrifice will make a difference.

There is still a lot to be done.

But...

He has no opinion.

He tried.

He's done his best.

He saw light in the darkness. He felt like driving to the end of a long tunnel, even though he couldn't see what was behind the exit. Is it heaven? Is it the last door? Is it the Christians who are right, or the women who are right? Hindu or Buddhist? All, or not a single one?

He doesn't know, but whatever awaits him in the future, he can endure it.

He walked into the light.

Leonard opened his eyes.

Instead of angels, he saw a white ceiling.

He has regained his fragile human form, albeit with some changes. His dark skin was somehow hairless, and his muscles were aching all over. His dark eyes struggled to adjust to the light, though he noticed that two people were looking at him.

"Simple, Leo." Ace, the mischievous teleporter, smiles at her friend. "You're back from hell."

"It's good to see you're awake, sir," Stitch said. This strange genome was always dressed in a plague doctor's outfit, so much so that Leonard never saw what he looked like inside. "You're worrying us."

"Where...... sun's eyes adapted to the environment and allowed him to see clearly. He seemed to be in some hospital, lying on the bed and hanging from the machine.

Apparently, he is not dead yet.

"Vysoko," Stitch replied. "A few dozen kilometers from Sarajevo. We evacuated here after the battle. ”

"We won!" Ace smiled happily. "We won, Leo!" We fucking won!"

"How long did it take me......" Leonard struggled to say something. His throat was dry and sore. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"Three days," Stitch replied.

"And Melun's fortress......"

"It's gone, it's a crater of molten steel and glass." Ace smiled at him, glad to see her friend alive. "You blew that place up well."

"To be honest, we thought you died in the explosion."

"Me too," Leo replied in the same tone.

Ace touched the plague doctor with his elbow because he wasn't sensitive enough, and looked back at Leo. "We found your core in the wreckage, transformed into a white sphere the size of a hand. Even with the help of an assistant, it will take a few days for your strength to reshape your body. ”

"Sarajevo has been occupied, although the city is in ruins," Stitch explained. "Shining Knight and her team are busy destroying the last surviving robots, but the production plant has been demolished. The genome wars are over. ”

It's over.

This sentence took the burden off Leonard's shoulders. He originally co-founded Carnival with Pisia to fight dangerous genomes and help humanity recover from war. McLaren was once the greatest threat to all of humanity, and now ...... Now he's gone. It took almost a decade, but maybe humanity will finally rise from the ashes of the old world.

By some miracle, Leo survived.

Perhaps, perhaps, he should reconsider his beliefs. After seeing the creature outside the portal and his NDE, he wondered if religion made sense.

Stitch cleared his throat. "And yet ......"

"But?" Leo repeats.

"Bahamut is now in orbit deep in space, far beyond our capabilities," the plague doctor said. "The Cossack tried to put it down and even broke half of his bones under the influence of gravity, but he was not fast enough."

"Who cares?" Ace asked, much more optimistic. "No one can activate it anymore."

“mec

o

Some of the bases are still there," Stitch replied pessimistically. "While both our enemy and his allies are dead, there is no guarantee that no one else will find a way to invade the satellite. I'm sure we'll regret that failure. ”

"The evil that people do will continue after they die," Leonard said, looking back at the white, lifeless ceiling. Did Bahamut look down on them from a high vantage point above their heads?" Good people are often buried with their bones. ”

"Is that a Shakespearean poem, sir?"

"I don't know," Leo admitted. "I only remember those quotes. I guess that will make me sound smarter. ”

"No," Ace chuckled, though her smile wasn't yet in her eyes. Something weighed on her mind. "By the way, he's dead, right?" That is, there was no last-minute escape, or there was a clone hiding somewhere? Is McLaren really dead?"

The memory of the disintegration of the "genius" flashed through Leonard's mind, much to his uneasiness. "Yes," he said solemnly, but his allies breathed a sigh of relief. "He's dead forever, and I don't think he'll ever come back."

In retrospect, Leonard still shuddered. There is no malice or mercy in the actions of this entity; Only curiosity. The god-like creature simply noticed the gap and looked inside, like a child looking through a keyhole. If it weren't for his bad luck, Leo could easily swap places with McKelen.

No, he shouldn't think like that. He was given a chance to be reborn, and he was going to look forward, not back.

Still, if such a powerful creature is waiting outside......

"How many casualties?" Leonard asked, trying to counteract this existential fear with factual news.

"A quarter," Stitch replied. "It's a good day."

"Jesse is dead," Ace replied with a frown, looking less optimistic. Her brother was heartbroken. I think he'll retire. ”

The news left Leonard Hargraves sad. Due to the frequent battles with the most dangerous genomes, Carnival has experienced a lot of missteps, with personnel loss in almost every engagement. Leonard buried too many good people. "Mr. Bo? Pythias?"

"Mr. Bo is...... Well, you know him. He's bragging about his killer robot to everyone who will listen. Ace's expression became stern. Pythia though ......"

She glanced at the other bed in the hospital, and Leo followed suit. His eyes widened in horror at the sight of what he saw.

Alice was lying on a bed next to himself, given a large dose of sedatives, and using an intravenous medical device. Her skin became as pale as a dead person, and her gaze was hollow.

Lifeless.

"Alice!" Leonard tried to get up from the bed, but didn't have the strength to lift himself up. Ace frowned and put his hand on his chest, forcing him back to the bed. "Shit!"

"Hey, calm down," Ace said with a frown. "You're still sick, you can't help her."

"She's been like this since the battle, sir." Stitch explained coldly. "Her symptoms are consistent with those of severe brain damage."

"She's overused her power," Leo realized sadly. He had warned her, but she was willing to take the risk.

Maybe she knew it would end like this.

The Plague Doctor nodded. "If given time, Nihogg could cure her. He said it was only natural for him to help her recover, given the key role she played in today's victory. ”

Leonard shuddered. "Considering the means of this person, we need to warn her husband and son. It's their choice, not ours. ”

"I've already called them." Ace shook his head. "Poor horse."

"Miss Martel has left you something, sir." Stitch handed Leonard a USB stick. "I apologize for my indiscretion, but we've seen it."

"What's in there?" Leonard asked, frowning.

"A predictive analysis of the coming years," Stitch explained, "the calculator and her pre-battle compiled a database listing the greatest threats to human civilization." I'm sure Picia anticipated her fate and hope to help us after that. ”

"I guess Augustus is on the list, right?" Leonard asked, his tone turning vicious. He was given a second chance to see justice served, and he wasn't going to waste that opportunity.

"Yes," Ace nodded, her expression grimacing. "But others have taken the top spot."

This surprised Leonard. Who could be more dangerous than an invincible, megalomaniacal warlord?" Who?"

"There's a neurotic called blood," Stitch explained. "According to the data, it has a high probability of triggering an extinction event in 2017 if it is not killed beforehand."

"I guess it's about his daughter's death." Ace added with a frown. "You'll have to wait for Augustus to come, Leo. That psychopath is time-limited. ”

Leonard looked at the USB flash drive, wondering what terrible prophecy was inside.

"Blood ......"