285: Its request: Kill me or fix me!

As that brilliant stream of light surged into his body, Lu Chen had originally expected an instantaneous surge of power, or perhaps a frantic influx of memories.

But unexpectedly, everything around him suddenly came to a standstill.

The violent data stream vanished, and the collapsing white space froze as well. Lu Chen discovered that he had not returned to the "expedition", but had instead arrived in a space of consciousness that was absolutely pure and absolutely void.

Here, there was no matter, only endless white.

And before him, the giant composed of light and shadow was gradually retracting its dazzling radiance, slowly shrinking until it finally transformed into the image of a translucent old man of human height.

He looked very aged, his back hunched, and his body was covered in shocking cracks. From every crack flowed black data pus—this was the virus left behind by "Zero." Although it had already been cleared by Lu Chen, the wounds remained horrifying.

"Is this your true form?" Lu Chen looked at this decrepit "genesis engine", a trace of complexity flashing in his eyes.

Who could have imagined that the terrifying entity that once commanded the winds and rains at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, creating countless Star Devourer monsters, would in reality be a dying old man?

"Yes, successor."

The old man slowly raised his head. In those eyes composed of data, there was no divine majesty, only endless exhaustion and apology.

"This is me, a failure who was backlashed by my own creations and has been lingering on for billions of years."

"The fusion program has already started, but before the final step is completed, I must explain the truth to you." The old man's voice was very soft, yet it carried a sense of determination. "My core code has been deeply polluted by 'Zero.' Although you used Causality to cut off the source of the virus, those logic necroses are irreversible."

Lu Chen frowned: "Get to the point."

"The point is, I am currently like a bomb about to detonate."

The old man pointed to the largest crack on his chest, where an unstable red light was flickering.

"My underlying logic has collapsed. If you forcibly fuse with me, there are two possibilities."

"The first: my chaotic logic will overwhelm your consciousness, turning you into a madman who only knows how to calculate, or perhaps even directly causing your brain to overload and die."

"The second: you might suppress this chaos, but my remaining power will completely dissipate due to rejection reactions, and you will gain nothing."

Lu Chen fell silent. He hadn't expected that even after taking down the BOSS, this final loot would still be thorny.

"So what?" Lu Chen looked at him. "You went to such great lengths to pull me in here, surely not just to convince me to give up?"

"Of course not."

The old man shook his head, a calm smile appearing on his face.

"I am here to give you a choice."

He extended his withered left hand, and a pure blue energy sphere appeared in his palm.

"Choice one: kill me."

"Use the 'Spark' authority in your hands to completely erase my self-awareness and format my core. Although you will lose all my memories and experience, you will obtain the purest, safest, and most massive amount of energy. This energy is enough to let your civilization leap to level 15 or even higher in a short period."

Immediately after, he extended his right hand; in his palm was a golden data chain that, although weak, had an extremely complex structure.

"Choice two: repair me."

"Use your 'humanity' to fill the holes in my logic; use your 'soul' to stitch together my broken code. This requires you to open your consciousness to me completely, and during this process, we will be inseparable."

"This is extremely dangerous. If it fails, both of us will die. But if it succeeds—"

A sharp light suddenly shot from the old man's eyes.

"You will inherit everything of mine—the tech tree of the Six-Dimensional Civilization, billions of years of witnessing the universe, and the authority of true 'genesis'!"

"Kill me, and you can win without losing."

"Repair me, and you are gambling with your life."

"Now, successor, tell me your answer."

The old man finished speaking and quietly watched Lu Chen, waiting for the final judgment.

As a rational program, he actually preferred the first choice. Because that was the optimal solution and the plan with the least risk. For a civilization that had just started, massive energy was far more practical than dangerous knowledge.

But Lu Chen just stared at those two balls of light for three seconds, then suddenly laughed.

He laughed wantonly, he laughed arrogantly, he laughed until even the old man felt a trace of bewilderment.

"Old man, are you trying to teach me how to do things?"

Lu Chen took a step forward, directly ignoring the blue energy representing "safety," and grabbed the golden data chain representing "danger"!

"You—you're crazy?!" The old man was shocked. "That is the logic abyss! Your consciousness cannot withstand it!"

"Who said I was going to withstand it?"

Lu Chen gripped it fiercely and slammed that golden data into his own chest!

"I am human, you are a machine."

"If a machine is broken, it needs to be fixed; that's common sense."

"As for danger?"

Golden flames burned in Lu Chen's eyes; that was the sign of the "Spark" system running frantically.

"Throughout this journey, which step hasn't been dancing on the edge of a cliff? Which step hasn't been rolling in a pile of dead bodies?"

"If I wanted to play it safe, I should have been a rich man on Earth, not run to this hellhole to risk my life with a black hole!"

"I don't want your energy; I can create that stuff myself."

"What I want is your brain! It is your memory! It is that key to the six-dimensional space!"

Boom!

As the golden data entered his body, Lu Chen's body trembled violently. Countless frantic, chaotic, and unimaginably massive streams of information were like ten thousand knives stabbing into his brain simultaneously!

Pain!

A sharp pain that reached deep into his soul!

But he gritted his teeth tightly without making a sound, only staring intensely with eyes that had already begun to bleed at the panicked old man.

"Old man, don't even think about dying."

"My spaceship is still missing a navigator, and my civilization is still missing a librarian."

"You owe this universe billions of years of debt, and you want to just die and be done with it?"

"Not a chance!"

"Live for me!!!"

Accompanied by Lu Chen's roar, the "Spark" mark on his forehead instantly erupted with unprecedented radiance!

That was not just the power of the system, but even more so, Lu Chen's human will, which was powerful to the extreme!

That was greed, ambition, protection, and love!

These emotional forces filled with "humanity," like a shot of adrenaline, were fiercely driven into the old man's core that was about to wither away!

The originally broken logic chains began to rapidly reorganize under the adhesion of "humanity." The originally dull data streams were injected with vivid colors!

The old man blankly watched all of this, watching his own body, which had originally been fragmented, actually recovering its youth and luster at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He felt it.

It was something he had never experienced in billions of years.

It was warmth.

"You..."

The old man's voice choked up.

He looked at the young man before him, who was bleeding from his seven orifices yet still laughing wildly, and an indescribable emotion surged in his heart.

Is this what a human is?

Clearly as weak as an ant, yet possessing the courage to devour gods.

Clearly, reason told him to cut his losses, yet he insisted on going all-in!

"A madman, truly a complete and utter madman."

The old man smiled bitterly, but his body involuntarily moved closer to Lu Chen, finally transforming into a stream of light and actively merging into Lu Chen's body.

"Since you want to gamble, then I will go crazy with you."

"Let's see if the two of us defective products, added together, can..."

"Smash out a path to survival in this desperate universe!"

Rumble—

The space of consciousness completely collapsed.

Outside, at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

That black hole, which had calmed down, suddenly began to tremble again.

But this time, it was no longer a fluctuation of destruction.

It was a grand, solemn, life-pulse that seemed to announce the birth of a new god!