250: Chapter 251 "Order Wars" [Clone City]: [Ascension Project] Officially Launched

The Central Control Center at the top of the Clone Tower was filled with ear-piercing alarms and scarlet warning lights.

Outside the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, Clone City had descended into total chaos: over twenty Hosts were gathered in the plaza before the Clone Tower, the sky reddened by the glare of explosions. Thick black smoke and exposed electrical sparks filled nearly every street. Clones who had awakened their self-awareness were smashing every visible surveillance camera on the streets, while Sentry Robots, rendered useless metal cubes by the System paralysis, lay scattered throughout the city. In the Mechanical Maintenance Area directly behind the Clone Tower, Clones dressed in silver-gray work clothes continued to pour out from the passage leading to the Underground Garbage Dump, a silver-gray flood slowly spreading toward the Clone Tower. This entire Clone City—a precision experimental city that had cost the middle-aged man decades of effort—was on the verge of complete collapse under the influence of the Carnival Clown's disorder, the Hacker's intrusion, the Passerby Man's calamity, and the impact of all thirty-three Dream System Hosts.

Yet, the middle-aged man standing in the center of the massive circular conference table in the Central Control Center at the top of the Clone Tower showed no sign of panic. There was only a hint of helplessness that his original plan had been disrupted, along with a morbid anticipation of executing the Ascension Plan ahead of schedule, completing his Life Status elevation, and gaining more "Forbidden Knowledge" after becoming a "Perfect Creature."

The Living Book, "corruption aberration," which the middle-aged man held tightly in his arms, had a cracked human-skin cover that flickered slightly with his breathing and the external chaos. It was as if it were enjoying the descent of Clone City into disorder, or perhaps anticipating the offerings of this grand sacrificial ritual.

The ninety-nine Original Humans arranged in a circle around him had long since lost their usual lofty arrogance and composure. They were frozen in place by the "monitoring chips" in their brains, with only their freely moving eyes betraying negative emotions such as fear, panic, despair, supplication, anger, and disbelief. Just as people often say "the eyes are the windows to the Soul," these ninety-nine Clones of "Original Humans" were now using the only part of their bodies they could control—their eyeballs—to continuously scream from their Souls.

They had originally thought they were the masters of this city and participants in this experiment, never realizing that from the moment they stepped out of the Incubation Devices and completed the so-called "Physical Age Freezing" modification, they were merely sacrifices implanted with false memories.

"Well then~ these are my final words to you. My 'children,' goodnight, and thank you for 'voluntarily' becoming sacrifices for my [Ascension Plan]~ Hahaha!"

The middle-aged man's voice wasn't loud, yet it was like a cold butcher's knife flashing with a chilling light, instantly severing the last hopes and lingering illusions of the ninety-nine Original Humans.

Almost the same second his words fell, the skin on the bodies of the ninety-nine Original Humans began to crack like the human-skin cover of "corruption aberration." This was the middle-aged man Awakening the Mysterious Gene Fragments that lay dormant deep within their DNA.

Panic instantly gripped the hearts of every Original Human. Their eyes widened as they watched the middle-aged man slowly raise the Living Book to his chest. An intense survival instinct actually allowed some of them to break through a fraction of the "monitoring chip's" control, letting out gurgling whimpers from their throats, their eyes filled with unbelievable terror and entreaty.

The middle-aged man's palm gently brushed over the human-skin cover of "corruption aberration" against his chest, his fingertips feeling the sensation of slimy flesh. His gaze swept firmly across the ninety-nine faces he had spent decades with day and night; there was not the slightest hint of hesitation or reluctance in his eyes, only a morbidly fanatical sneer curling at the corners of his mouth.