130: Chapter 130 Echoes of Three Billion Years

Chen Fan's consciousness "stood firm" within the radiance.

No vision, no hearing, no touch—only the pure perception of existence.

He knew he was inside the Stellar Core crystal, surrounded by a torrent of life energy accumulated over three billion years.

This energy was not stored quietly; it was flowing, resonating, and remembering.

【Time Remaining: 2 minutes 57 seconds】

The First Trial: Torrent of Memories

Countless fragments of consciousness surged toward Chen Fan.

It was not an orderly flow of information, but an emotional explosion from billions of lives at their final moments—fear, anger, sorrow, resentment, love, hope... These emotions crashed against the boundaries of his individual consciousness like a tsunami.

The final sigh of an Atlantean scholar as seawater submerged the crystal tower.

The call of a Mu Continent mother to her child as she was converted into energy within a pyramid.

The electromagnetic wail of some long-extinct silicon-based lifeform before its planet exploded.

Chen Fan's consciousness was like a small boat in a storm, liable to be overturned, submerged, or assimilated at any moment.

But he gripped an anchor—the photograph of the little girl from the Alps. The Doctor's daughter.

The smile of an ordinary human. A future worth saving.

This simple imagery became the core pivot of his consciousness.

He no longer tried to resist the torrent of memories; instead, he accepted them, letting them flow through him while keeping his core unchanged.

【Time Remaining: 2 minutes 41 seconds】

The Second Trial: Energy Structure

Stellar Core Energy was not mere "fuel"; it was an organized mathematical existence.

Chen Fan "saw" that the energy inside the crystal flowed according to complex geometric laws, forming countless nested golden spirals, Fibonacci sequences, and multidimensional fractal structures.

To absorb this energy, he first had to understand its structure.

But this was not an understanding reached with the brain, but a direct resonance with consciousness.

Chen Fan mobilized the 137 Key Sequence within his body.

The sequence began to resonate with the crystal energy, but the process was exceptionally painful—as if every cell was being dismantled and reorganized.

He "saw" the essence of Stellar Core Energy: it was not a remnant of the Big Bang, but something far more ancient—fragments of universal consciousness itself.

The "Sowers" were not some high-level civilization either; they were... scavengers of the universal consciousness.

Their mission was to sow life throughout the universe, nurture consciousness, and then harvest it upon maturity. They would recycle, purify, and reinject the scattered conscious energy into the universal consciousness network to prevent the universe from "dying" due to entropy increase.

This was a cruel truth: the existence of life was essentially an energy cycle conducted by the universe to maintain its own existence.

【Time Remaining: 2 minutes 19 seconds】

The Third Trial: Confrontation of Wills

An alien consciousness suddenly appeared inside the crystal.

It was not a previous civilization, but... a monitoring program of the Sowers.

"Unauthorized consciousness intrusion detected." That consciousness was cold as a machine. "Identification: Seventh Cycle Gardener-7, resonance overload mutant. Purge protocol initiated."

Invisible pressure began to squeeze Chen Fan's consciousness.

This was not a physical attack, but a logical one—the monitoring program sought to dismantle his will with irrefutable "truths."

"Your resistance is meaningless. Life will eventually be harvested; this is the law of the universe."

"Your sacrifice will change nothing. The previous six cycles have already proven this."

"Accept reality and become part of the harvest; this is the most rational choice."

"Look at those memories—all resistors failed, and all civilizations perished."

Each "truth" was like a blade, cutting away at Chen Fan's will.

He indeed saw failure.

He saw despair.

He saw countless beings more powerful than himself ultimately succumb or be destroyed.

【Time Remaining: 1 minute 47 seconds】

But just as his consciousness was about to collapse, Chen Fan remembered the woman's words:

"I am not 'Guardian-3'. I am... a human."

The first created life, the first "Gardener," yet she had never given up resisting in three billion years.

And there was the Doctor, who chose atonement despite knowing death was certain.

And Lei Zhen, whose body was mutated yet maintained the will of a soldier.

And those ordinary people—neighbors helping each other during the omega virus outbreak, strangers sharing food in quarantine zones.

"Perhaps we will all fail." Chen Fan's consciousness sent out a firm response. "But failure is no reason to stop resisting."

"Rationality? If rationality means accepting enslavement, then I choose to be irrational."

"Universal laws? If laws mean the strong can harvest the weak at will, then such laws should be broken."

The monitoring program fell silent.

It seemed unable to comprehend this kind of "irrational" persistence.

【Time Remaining: 1 minute 23 seconds】

The Fourth Trial: Energy Integration

The monitoring program was temporarily repelled, but the true challenge had only begun—Chen Fan had to actively absorb the Stellar Core Energy instead of passively enduring it.

He tried to use the 137 Key Sequence as a "key" to unlock the energy structure, but found this was only basic authorization.

To truly control this energy, a deeper resonance was required—not with the Key Sequence, but with the three billion years of life memories stored within the energy.

This meant he had to temporarily become them.

He let his consciousness disperse, like a drop of ink into the ocean, merging with the torrent of memories:

· Becoming a dinosaur, watching the sky turn red before an asteroid struck the Earth.

· Becoming a prehistoric giant flower, slowly freezing as the ice age arrived.

· Becoming a deep-sea fish, falling into the mantle as tectonic plates tore open a trench.

· Becoming a Neanderthal, singing a final song as the Sapiens tribes arrived.

Every "becoming" was a small death. Every return to self was a rebirth.

The boundaries of his consciousness were blurring, and his individuality was dissolving.

If this continued, he would lose himself, becoming part of the memory torrent, never to return.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 58 seconds】

"I am Chen Fan." He repeated this for the countless time, like a mantra, like an anchor. "I will save humanity."

These words were becoming increasingly feeble.

Just as he was about to dissipate completely, an unexpected voice rang out in his consciousness:

"Child, take hold of this."

It was the woman's voice.

It didn't come from Earth, but from... deep within the crystal?

A golden light rose from the torrent of memories, condensing into the woman's image—not a physical entity, but a memory imprint of her original form from three billion years ago.

"I hid my 'First Memory' here," the light-shadow of the woman said. "This is the memory of my birth as a lifeform—that pure curiosity, pure joy, and pure sense of existence. Use this as your final anchor."

She injected that memory into Chen Fan's consciousness.

In an instant, Chen Fan experienced the most primitive feeling of life in the universe: no purpose, no fear, no responsibility, only the joy of existing.

This simple yet powerful feeling stabilized his near-collapsing self.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 41 seconds】

The Fifth Trial: Protocol Encoding

Now, he could control the energy.

But the three-minute task was not just about absorbing energy; it was about encoding the Gene Resonance Protocol and transmitting it to all of humanity through the energy.

This required extremely precise conscious operation—like writing a seven-billion-word encyclopedia with one's mind, where every single word had to be flawless.

Chen Fan began to work.

He reprogrammed the Stellar Core Energy:

· Step one: extract the essence of the 137 Key Sequence—not the base pair arrangement, but the mathematical truth behind it.

· Step two: combine this truth with the fundamental genetic frequency of Earth's life.

· Step three: design an autonomous choice mechanism—each recipient can decide whether to accept the evolution.

· Step four: add security protocols—to prevent the evolutionary process from being interfered with by the Sowers.

· Step five: add a collective consciousness protection layer—to prevent evolved humans from becoming new predators.

Every step consumed massive amounts of computational power and willpower.

His consciousness was operating at an extreme overload, like a quantum computer pushed beyond its limits, processing billions of calculations every nanosecond.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 29 seconds】

The Sixth Trial: Sower Counterattack

The monitoring program appeared again, this time with even greater power.

"Large-scale protocol encoding behavior detected. Threat level: Maximum. Initiating forced purge."

Invisible forces began to dismantle the protocol structure Chen Fan had just constructed.

It was like an invisible war, raging fiercely on the conscious level.

Chen Fan continued encoding while diverting his attention to resist.

He quickly fell into a disadvantage—the monitoring program's power came from the entire Sower system, while his power came only from his personal will and a portion of the Stellar Core Energy.

"You cannot win," the monitoring program declared coldly. "An individual can never oppose the system."

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 17 seconds】

Chen Fan suddenly laughed.

On the conscious level, laughter was a peculiar release of information.

"You're right, an individual cannot oppose the system." A strange realization filled his thoughts. "But I have never been just an individual."

He did something insane—instead of using his own consciousness to fight the monitoring program, he opened the boundaries of his consciousness and sent an invitation to all the three billion years of life memories stored in the crystal:

"If you also do not wish to stop resisting, then lend me your strength."

A brief silence.

Then, a miracle happened.

All the highest achievements of previous civilizations, all the ultimate desires of life, began to converge.

They had no language, no logic; they only had pure power—the power of resistance.

This power surged into Chen Fan's consciousness, not overwhelming him, but becoming a part of him.

Now, he was not fighting alone.

He was the collective of the will to resist from three billion years of life.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 09 seconds】

The monitoring program was repelled.

Chen Fan seized the final opportunity and completed the final encoding of the Gene Resonance Protocol.

It was a perfect protocol:

· Based on the principle of voluntariness

· Respecting individual choice

· Providing the possibility of evolution without coercion

· Preserving the essence of humanity

· Built-in anti-harvest protection

· And... it could be reversed—if future humans felt this evolution was a mistake, they could choose to return to their original state.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 05 seconds】

Transmit.

It was not a physical transmission, but a quantum consciousness broadcast.

The encoded protocol, amplified by the Stellar Core Energy, became a wave of information spanning space, instantly covering the entire Earth.

In that instant, every human on Earth, no matter where they were or what their state of consciousness was, "received" this information package.

It was not a command, but an invitation.

The information package unfolded in everyone's subconscious, manifesting in the form of a dream:

A voice said: "This is a possibility for evolution, and a choice of responsibility. Please decide freely."

Then, the dream ended.

【Time Remaining: 0 minutes 02 seconds】

Mission complete.

But Chen Fan faced one last problem: how to return?