95: Chapter 95 Remember the Face of the Dead!

Chapter 95: Remember the Faces of the Dead! Early morning.

Torch Base, the old wooden door opened.

Three figures walked into the stone corridor from the golden light of the door gap.

Footsteps were dull and sluggish.

Liu Yuyan walked in the front.

Her silver-white armor had been retracted, replaced by a dark grey professional suit jacket.

A few loose strands from her low ponytail stuck to her neck, but she didn't bother with them.

Lin Xiaoman followed behind, her hood pulled down to her eyebrows.

The front of her hoodie still had unwashed brown stains.

Henry walked in the back.

The right leg of his gold-rimmed glasses was wrapped with a piece of medical tape. His steps were steady, but his shoulders were slumped by half an inch.

The three passed through the stone corridor, no one looking at the murals again.

On the altar, Su Chen leaned against the ancient tree.

He wore a black trench coat, with his mask hanging at his waist.

Seeing the three of them, he stood up straight.

"You've worked hard."

Liu Yuyan walked to the altar and took out three crystals from her inner jacket pocket.

Dark purple light pulsed in her palm.

"Three Tier E, all wiped out. Three hundred twenty-seven survivors."

Her voice was steady.

But the hand handing over the crystals, her fingertips, were trembling.

Su Chen didn't take them.

He glanced at the three of them.

The bloodshot eyes in Liu Yuyan were more than she wanted to hide.

Deep in Lin Xiaoman's pupils, silver-blue data streams flowed extremely slowly.

Henry stared at a point in the void, his blue-grey eyes unfocused.

"What's wrong?"

Silence.

The breathing of the ancient tree expanded and contracted in the plaza, golden light flowing through the gaps in the stone bricks.

Seven seconds later.

Lin Xiaoman broke first.

"On the beach... there was a pair of pink shoes."

Her voice was soft, but the tail of her words was shaking.

"With bows, the left shoelace still tied... just the shoes."

Tears hit the stone bricks with a plop.

Henry took off his glasses to wipe the lenses.

His hands were shaking, and he couldn't get them clean no matter what.

"There was a boy. Golden curls, freckles."

He paused, his throat dry,

"His chest was corroded with a bowl-sized hole."

"I... cannot save the dead."

Liu Yuyan said nothing.

But her right hand clenched, her knuckles tightening inch by inch.

Su Chen watched them.

He knew this would happen.

Sending them to the War Zone wasn't to level up by fighting monsters.

It was to let them see with their own eyes—what it feels like to not be able to protect everyone.

Blood and death are the best teachers.

Cruel, but necessary.

He kept this tally.

When they are strong enough to protect everyone in the future, they can pay it back.

Su Chen reached out, took the three crystals, and turned them in his palm.

Dark purple cold light reflected on his knuckles.

"Those things you saw—"

His voice was low, without waves.

"Pink children's shoes, the lollipop boy, arms corroded into carbon."

"Remember them."

The three looked up.

Su Chen's gaze went past them, toward the end of the stone corridor, toward the normally functioning human world outside the door.

"Because three years from now, these scenes will appear in every city on the globe simultaneously."

"Not one beach, but the entire planet."

"Not hundreds of people, but billions."

The echo of the stone corridor sent these words back, hitting everyone's chest.

Lin Xiaoman's tears were still on her face, but the silver-blue data stream in her pupils suddenly accelerated.

Henry pushed his broken-legged glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, his blue-grey vision regaining focus.

Liu Yuyan's back straightened, the curve that had been pressed down, pulled tight again.

"Santa Monica was just a trailer."

Su Chen took back the crystals, his voice as flat as a weather report.

"The main feature hasn't started yet."

The plaza was quiet for three seconds.

Su Chen turned, walking toward the ancient tree.

His right hand raised, palm pressed onto the dark golden trunk.

Golden light surged from his fingers, the ancient tree's breathing frequency suddenly doubled, and the patterns on the bark all lit up.

"Sadness is a medal, but not a shackle."

Su Chen turned his head, gaze over his shoulder, landing on Lin Xiaoman and Henry.

"You two, are you ready?"

The two looked at each other, confused.

Su Chen's next sentence crashed onto the altar.

"Promotion. Tier 2 Watcher."

The lollipop in Lin Xiaoman's mouth almost fell out.

Henry's hand stopped on his glasses frame, like someone hit pause.

Tier 2.

The same level as Liu Yuyan.

Possessing true extraordinary active abilities.

The system panel popped up in Su Chen's vision, he scanned the points, and his eyelids didn't even move.

Confirm.

The ancient tree roared.

Not sound, but vibration.

From roots to trunk, from trunk to every branch, the entire dark golden ancient tree seemed to be injected with a solemn pulse.

Two golden light orbs condensed from deep within the branches.

Hovering above the altar, one left, one right, slowly rotating.

Inside the light orbs, flame-shaped patterns surged and flowed.

Heat could be felt from three meters away, warm and heavy.

Lin Xiaoman stared at the ball of light in front of her, the silver-blue data stream in her pupils stopped.

Not a crash, all computing resources were analyzing the energy structure of that light orb.

Couldn't analyze it.

Beyond cognition.

Henry looked at the other light orb; this didn't fit any known physical model.

But the Kindling in his chest was jumping.

Jumping more violently than before any surgery.

"ancient tree trial."

Su Chen's voice came from the light,

"The second time. Pass, and you are Tier 2 Watchers."

"Leader."

Lin Xiaoman's voice was shaking, not from fear, but the thrill of being at the highest point of a rollercoaster before the plunge,

"The last trial almost cried me stupid... this one won't be harder, right?"

"Yes, and no."

Concise to the point of cruelty.

Henry took a deep breath, and when the air in his chest was exhaled, his eyes changed.

"Forty years on the operating table, I have never given up halfway through a surgery."

Both reached out at the same time.

The moment their fingertips touched the light orbs—

Golden light exploded.

Two bodies slowly hovered in the light, eyes closed, expressions gradually relaxing from tension.

The altar was quiet again.

The ancient tree's golden light receded by more than half, only a layer of warm halo remained around the two floating bodies.

Liu Yuyan stood by to protect them, Holy Light outputting steadily.

Su Chen took a notebook from his pocket, flipped to a blank page, and wrote a few words.

"Act 7: Torch Base Expansion."

The pen tip moved down a line.

"Tier 2 Sequence Active Ability Design—"

"Lin Xiaoman · Mechanical Ascension: Extraordinary-level Data Intrusion + Mechanical Beast Manipulation."

"Henry · Holy Healing Apostle: Battlefield Global Healing + Life Barrier."

He glanced at the two floating in the golden light.

He had already drafted the content of the trial.

Senior Lu Yan and Seraphina's "lives" would play out completely in their consciousness.

Including the battle, the sacrifice, and the moment they passed on the Kindling.

The last Tier 1 trial was to let them "watch".

This Tier 2 trial was to let them "live".

Live through the predecessors' lives. From beginning to end, from birth to death.

Su Chen closed the notebook.

He leaned back under the ancient tree, looking up at the eternally unchanging pale golden sky.

Too many things to do, not a single second left for emotions.

On the altar, the golden light pulsed like a heartbeat.

Two lives spanning a thousand years were playing out in the light.