Love, death, and false man

Chapter 67, 2441-2. The Meaning of Truth

Cyborgs?

Or something?
Fang Yan's eyelid twitched, but because it was a mechanical prosthetic eye, it did not contract like a fleshy pupil. The simulated pupil, based on infrared radiation, shone with a terrifying scarlet luster.

My head is splitting open...

Yes, I had already gone blind during that battle.

Her long, untrimmed hair was a bit messy and curly. Apart from the scar left over from the summer vacation, she was completely unrecognizable as herself, and she didn't even know the age of this body.

It was mentioned in the logbook.

Not only is the brain unable to handle information beyond all eras, but actively using the characteristics of Soulfire will also increase the entropy of consciousness, thereby inducing irreversible mental chaos.

The original owner of this body had long since collapsed into madness and could only continue to complete the mission by erasing and overwriting his own memories.

In order to complete the task accurately, I have formatted my memories on each timeline to the initial version with the least burden.

"What kind of mission is this...? I'm doing it myself! Mind control of myself!"

Fang Yan realized this astonishing fact.

Essentially, he's still a high school boy searching for something at the lakeside park. Why did he choose this version? Is he at his strongest now, or what?
Indeed, Fang Yan could sense that there was an extremely dangerous and terrifying power within this body. People would instinctively fear the divine power of nature, thunder, waves, and earthquakes.

But with the aid of this body, it seems that it can contend with it effortlessly.

The most important information is tattooed on the chest.

Fang Yan looked at the tattoo on his chest. It wasn't the classic style, but rather a fluorescent target-like pattern, a symbol of unknown meaning.

V.

There are also two simple lines of text. The first line is █████████████.

what!
The words I heard were exactly the same as those I heard on the satellite phone in the captain's cabin during my summer fishing trip in the deep sea—completely incomprehensible, like the ramblings of someone with a split personality.

There is another line of text below.

The ultimate goal is to understand the meaning of the above text.

The fluorescent target tattoo on his chest is the only tattoo; otherwise, it wouldn't be considered important information. It's clearly the most important one, with a priority even higher than the record book. Is it his only mission?
What's even more thought-provoking is this "V," the only symbol that isn't a Chinese character. What does it represent? Victory? But if it's the most important information, it shouldn't be that simple.

There must be some special meaning behind it.

what is it?

Fang Yan couldn't find any relevant fragments in his mind at all; it was as if it were a completely formatted forbidden zone, where not even a memory fragment could be found.

"I'm so fucked out."

Undoubtedly, Fang Yan was eager to try. Although the information was mysterious and the current situation was chaotic, his ultimate thirst for knowledge and exploration were surging.

He turned to look at the foreign woman.

Yes……

No electronic targets are needed anymore; information is read from the Salvation Army's servers. These eyes... possess terrifying power, able to turn on or off at any time, reading people's thoughts.

Just like eyes... they're like satellites.

It was far more than just reading instantaneous thoughts; it was directly... reading all her memories, presented like a book, with an index based on age, month, and event type.

Theresa is nineteen years old, but she is already half a widow.

Her husband is a member of the Restorationists in the Duchy of Aetheria. He is engaged in dangerous underground activities to expel the Ascetic Order from the country and restore royal power, and has not been home for three months.

He's a fucking scumbag.

Fang Yan thought to himself, looking at Theresa holding a baby who was over a year old in her arms, "Abandoning your family to do your mother's underground activities?" He carefully calculated the time.

This guy... he's committing a crime. When Theresa was pregnant, she was probably the same age as him.

Wait a minute... the Duchy of Aetheria? Holy crap, an ancient feudal system.

In 2441, what were these idiots doing? Why are they getting worse and worse?

Fang Yan continued to flip through the red-covered record book, searching for historical events around the year 2030, but many pages had been torn out, as if he had covered something up while controlling his mind.

It only states that in 2032, the greatest and most heinous terrorist event in human history occurred, causing a complete historical break.

Because of the convergence of singularities, all timelines flow at the same speed. People in the future can only glimpse past scenes in real time through gravitational particle accelerators and do not know what happened in 2032.

But there are definitely people who know, people who have a [historical timeline], who know what happened.

The notebook in one's own hands is also another form of [historical timeline].

The problem is that many pages have been torn out, hidden away like a riddle, perhaps to prevent the system from crashing?

Fang Yan seems to have figured it out a bit.

I am from 2030, and I may have arrived in the future through a singularity. Singularities, which arise from all major historical events, are things that completely defy the laws of causality and physics. Perhaps I experienced some inexplicable and wondrous thing in the singularity, went through some strange cycle, and have different versions of myself on different timelines.

Because the flow rate of all timelines is exactly the same, it's very strange when you think about it carefully. What am I doing in 2030? He must exist.

I was riding my bicycle at the time, and I think I saw something.

Hold……

do not care.

Furthermore, the logbook also mentions that as long as you follow the tasks arranged in the logbook and kill the designated people at the specified time, the higher the progress of the current time-space combat mission, the more memories you can recover.

This is the only way.

This string of words was repeatedly emphasized, and Fang Yan had no other choice but to do so.

The first target to be killed.

【于2441年10月11日上午11点15分49秒，杀死阿斯特里亚王国苦行修道会裁决所总长，[至尊]安迪，必须精确到秒。】

This is one of the many targets I need to eliminate in this timeline.

Supreme?

Related memories surfaced.

Many people have played extremely important roles in history, whether they are clones or real selves "cloned" from singularities. There is not just one, but among all of them there is a [Supreme] version.

Together they form the [historical axis], one of the countless threads on the rope of current history. Killing only one is useless because the singularity converges, and under the historical narrative of the Soul-Sucker, fate cannot be changed. Only by killing him on all timelines at the same time can this thread be completely pulled out and removed from history.

Damn it, am I fighting against the Soul Absorber's destiny-bound binding, trying to completely weaken him?

What the hell does the chest tattoo mean? Only after doing it will you know. This so-called "Supreme" Andy has to do it by this designated time.

Having read Theresa's mind, today is September 29th, and I have about ten days to prepare to kill this person named Andy.

He had been found by Teresa by the lake and had been unconscious for several days. This woman... thought very simply, and looked at Fang Yan with a strange gaze.

The family's food reserves were insufficient to last through the winter, and she also had to care for an infant. Her husband was involved in underground activities, and she had no one to rely on. More than ten years ago, during the Astria Empire's repression, all her relatives had died and been executed by the ascetic monastic order.

The area where Fang Yan is currently located is a detention area of ​​the Principality of Aetheria. It is a remote and impoverished place. Due to satellite technology and some other groundbreaking technologies, it has become a concentration camp without the need for barbed wire. Its own citizens have become second-class citizens. The rich areas are colonized by the Astradians, ascetics. This damn country is a theocracy.

Fang Yan saw far too much in this woman's mind, far beyond what someone his age could comprehend.

Ethnicity, theocracy, land, hatred.

An evil religion, oppressive rule, thought control, the most cruel and terrifying torture and enslavement, artificial satellites hanging in the sky, a horrifying eye constantly scanning everyone through the Vatican's algorithm.

She needs a able-bodied young man to get through the winter.

Fang Yan skimmed through the woman's memories, even just skimming through the scattered text, and felt a chill run down his spine.

Given that Fang Yan was still serving in the Salvation Army at this time, he simply recited what was written.

"I will liberate you, liberate the fate of all mankind, and I will destroy the so-called Kingdom of Astraea."

Fang Yan, a high school student, said that he was able to do it because this body had an incomprehensible power. He could feel that even a falling meteorite could be easily pierced through it.

There was still plenty of time, and they couldn't just abandon the mother and son. Teresa had taken care of her while she was unconscious for a while. She already had a husband who was a member of the underground Communist Party who had abandoned his family, and if she didn't take care of him, things would really get out of control.

Even with just the notebook and Tereza's thoughts combined, we still know far too little about the world.

I'll be staying in this containment area for two or three days, who cares about you here or there? I'll just suppress all the mind-control dogs around here, get some information, and then embark on my journey to the Kingdom of Astria.

"Eh?"

Theresa was somewhat surprised; she didn't know what liberation meant, and those two words were not among the vocabulary she had learned since birth.

This is……

Sensitive characters and blocked content are not allowed to appear in the book.

Reading Theresa's immediate thoughts, I see her trying to recall the two words, phrases she vaguely heard her husband mention.

Fang Yan's throat tightened. What's wrong with this world? It's so bizarre...

The record book shows that Andy, the charlatan leader of the Kingdom of Astria, is just one of many, and this timeline seems to be completely controlled by the Old Gods Church.

Looking at the densely packed kill list, I'm really screwed.

I am experiencing the most bizarre day of my life. I know where I am, I know what I am supposed to do, and I understand it all too well…

We must begin a mass killing spree immediately.

Everything was so clear in order to find the true meaning of V.

(End of this chapter)