Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 86 Please
More memories flashed by—

At the age of eighteen, he stood in the judging room.

The other party contemptuously threw his paper "On Neural Noise Filtering Model" on the ground and stamped it with a "Rejection" mark.

At the age of nineteen, he was in a neural engineering laboratory in Zurich.

His consciousness map was projected onto the holographic screen, and unfilterable "noise" appeared in one corner of the map, quickly contaminating the entire model.

He ran the repair program, and the system returned a cold warning: the source of the problem wasn't the equipment, but himself.

It was his flawed brain.

At the age of 22, he designed a virtual model of the "Multimodal Brain-Computer Interference Resistance System".

In the end, however, the authoritative professor pointed out a fatal flaw in his underlying theory that he had never noticed, thus negating the foundation of his theory.

All previous efforts were wasted.

At the age of 23, his pancreas and liver began to malfunction, and he was locked in a white hospital room, never to leave again.

Ultimately, he succumbed to clinical death.

The blood in his body was being slowly drained away and replaced by cold antifreeze.

Those liquids seeped into every cell, extinguishing the last trace of his life.

He is no longer "Zhuang Fan", but just a specimen sealed in a liquid nitrogen container.

Time has lost its meaning.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he heard some faint echoes coming through the liquid:

"The patient's brain waves are abnormally active, which doesn't seem like they've entered a dormant state..."

"The data stream seems stable to me, so there shouldn't be any major problems. This often happens in the past..."

"Do you want it defrosted?"

"The risk of thawing is too high, let's observe it further..."

The word "thaw" struck him like a thunderclap deep within his consciousness.

What do you mean?
He strained to hear the conversation outside; the researchers seemed to be evaluating a segment of the procedure.
“There is still one demon general in his mind... but the initial stimulation was insufficient, and the target has become adaptive.”

"Okay, let's increase the simulation difficulty then."

"Alright, first increase the attack frequency of the zombie horde and scorched earth, increase the difficulty of scavenging, weaken the defense of the recycling station, and model the old coastal city."

"That's not enough. Tataji needs to increase his offensive drive, Watson and his sister need to lower their intelligence, Gage's manufacturing skills need to be removed, and Xiong Er's sniping ability needs to be significantly weakened."

"Manager, what about Zhuang Fan's ability to manipulate mist?"

"Canceled, it's a supermodel."

Upon hearing this, Zhuang Fan felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

If the previous memory alteration was something he could still handle, this conversation outside the cabin did indeed instill a sense of fear in him.

The hordes of zombies he experienced, the companions he encountered, all his struggles and battles...

Is it really just a meticulously designed simulation program with parameters that can be adjusted at any time?

If so, then who exactly is he?

Was he possessed by a demon general? Was he sealed in a cryogenic chamber? Or was his consciousness uploaded to a container, where he was having an endless dream?
"Hmm, it seems the target heard us."

"Enhance the illusion device and initiate deep sleep."

Zhuang Fan was plunged into darkness again; all the experimenters had vanished.

All of this is an illusion; it's the devil playing tricks.

He muttered to himself, trying to comfort himself.

The demon general's voice suddenly came: "There's no need to get hung up on whether it's real or illusory; it will only add to your troubles."

Zhuang Fan looked slightly tired. He shook off all his random thoughts, but still remained somewhat wary.
"I'm actually still in the cryo-chamber. Everything I've experienced, including you, is all fabricated?"

The demon general hesitated for a moment: "I've already said, don't dwell on these things, they're meaningless to you."

"Of course I'm conflicted."

Zhuang Fan said with a hint of sarcasm, "If it's really fictional, then your script is too childish. You've turned me into a fugitive simulator, and the gameplay experience is terrible."

"."

The demon general didn't know how to answer.

Zhuang Fan felt increasingly depressed and continued speaking:
"Then what is your purpose? Is it to devour me little by little according to a pre-programmed simulation?"

The demon general was silent for a moment, then nodded: "Yes, this is my purpose, and I must carry it out."

Now it was Zhuang Fan's turn to despair. He repeatedly reminded himself that it was all just a trick by the enemy.

"Anyway, we can't escape their grasp."

Zhuang Fan suddenly felt relieved and laughed:
"Then I'll keep playing. I hope you can give me more new experiences."

The demon general said with a hint of gentleness, "As you wish."

The dark world has changed dramatically.

This time, it's not those painful memories.

The demon built for him an old street he was most familiar with from his childhood: red brick residential buildings, a clock tower park, a rusty swing, and a crooked old locust tree.
The whole world was as quiet as a faded old photograph.

On the fifth-floor balcony, a woman with no facial features is hanging out white shirts dripping blood.

In the park, a swing sways without wind, with two broken legs sitting on it, swinging tirelessly.

The streets were bustling with lion dances and firecrackers, attracting huge crowds and creating a lively atmosphere.

But the next second, everyone's faces began to melt, the streets turned into rivers of blood, the celebration became hell, and multi-legged creatures slowly crawled out of the river.

Zhuang Fan could handle all of this, but he did feel a sense of unease.

The demon sensed a slight fluctuation in his emotions and decided to push the mental torture to its climax.

The sky was torn apart as a meteorite, trailing a long, fiery tail, hurtled down and smashed the city into a sea of ​​fire.

A tsunami surged from the horizon and engulfed the land.

The earth then cracked open, engulfing humanity within it.

Then came thousands more scenes of disaster.
In every disaster, he watched helplessly as his parents were turned to charcoal in flames, suffocated in floods, or crushed in collapses...

Time and time again, it's so real it's outrageous.

Zhuang Fan overestimated his mental resilience and became increasingly agitated, passively watching everything unfold.

When he saw once again that the entire city was covered in red lava, and that countless people were struggling in the lava and screaming in agony, he finally broke down.

"Stop it."

The demon general remained gentle: "You've surrendered?"

"Sculpture Skills"

Zhuang Fan clenched his fists, his eyes bloodshot.

The demon general was full of mockery:
"Zhuang Fan, I need to remind you that this is a dream within a dream, and it's on the seventh floor. The flow of time here is different from the outside world."

"Hundreds of years have passed here, but only a few hours have passed outside. Can you really endure that long?"

Blood was seeping from the corner of Zhuang Fan's mouth. His vision blurred, and his consciousness was fading away.

The demon general sighed softly, "I thought you could last for decades, but it's just too boring."

With almost no resistance, the demon easily infiltrated his consciousness, stepping into the eighth and ninth layers of the dream within a dream, until it reached the deepest layer.

That was Zhuang Fan's most terrifying memory.

"No human being has ever been able to lock their memories in this hidden location."

"Get out!" Zhuang Fan made his last-ditch effort.

The demon general ignored him and quickly dismantled the memory of fear, first decompressing it and then releasing it completely.

It was certain that this time it could completely crush Zhuang Fan and extinguish all his will to resist.

New memories are being revealed.

The night was dark, the sky was full of stars, there wasn't a single cloud, only a slight cool breeze swept across a remote mountaintop.

A domed tent was pitched on the flat ground, camping lights flickered dimly, and two astronomical telescopes were placed next to it.

There were two men at the scene.

Zhuang Fan, and his father, Zhuang Yuanhang.

The familiar conversation echoed in Zhuang Fan's ears.

"Son, is the telescope adjusted?"

"It's adjusted."

"What about glucose?"

"Bring it."

"Pay attention to using your brain."

"It's okay, it's not a big problem."

Simple setting, simple characters, simple dialogue.

The demon general was stunned for a moment, then realized something was wrong.

This memory fragment is too calm and peaceful; where did the fear come from?

What happened to the deepest memory, the seal?
It frowned, and just as it was about to switch scenes, it realized it couldn't.

Not only can it not do it, it can't even move.

It is trapped in this fragment of memory.

impossible.
The demon general carefully sensed it and discovered that the "capacity" of this memory fragment was astonishingly large and was expanding at a terrifying rate, without end.

Is this the kind of memory that humans should have?

The capacity of memory fragments increased wildly, almost completely freezing its thoughts.

It looked around, unable to understand why an ordinary memory could be so large, so large that it was squeezed inside and couldn't escape at all.

It struggled desperately, roaring with all its might:
"What exactly did you do?!"

(End of this chapter)