The man's eyes instantly turned blood-red. "You... you killed Giss!" he bellowed.
"Giss?" Hearing the name, Wang Bing and Ji Liuli exchanged a glance, actually closing ranks to face the man side by side.
The man's eyes seemed to spew fire as he let out a beast-like howl. Instantly, countless figures materialized around them—individuals of varied demeanor, every one of them radiating a spiritual glow blindingly bright.
Wang Bing said, "Wells, you never told me the leader of the Superpower Alliance was Giss—your own younger brother."
Wei Yuan hadn't expected the man before them to be Wells, the legendary figure who had laid the company's foundations. Yet his current state seemed off. He was far too impulsive, far too prone to rage, whereas those capable of monumental breakthroughs in research were typically exceptionally composed.
Following his principle of never placing himself in harm's way, Wei Yuan retreated several paces and unobtrusively stepped behind Ji Liuli.
Ji Liuli slowly racked the bolt, chambering a purple bullet with a crisp click. "The Superpower Alliance was founded by your brother," she said. "Which means their Human Cleansing Plan was actually drafted by you?"
"That's right, it was my plan from the start," Wells said. "I loaded the brand-new polymeric lifeform onto an influenza virus. Once it spreads, it will sweep the globe in no time. When that happens, people will discover that any fever can be fatal. The casualties from this influenza will be a hundred, a thousand times greater than the Great Influenza back then. Ninety-nine percent of the entire world will be weeded out."
"Are you insane?" Wang Bing said. "Disseminating the polymeric lifeform? That wasn't our plan!"
Wei Yuan pricked up his ears.
Ji Liuli spoke up. "There were indeed some alterations to the original plan."
Wang Bing's face darkened. "What kind of alterations? As a partner, how come I didn't know? Were you in on it too? The two of you conspired to deceive me?"
"Only limited modifications, proposed by me," Ji Liuli said. "Our original plan was to release a weakened strain of the polymeric virus to induce panic and strike at our competitors. Once it became a pandemic, we would roll out the specific cure, driving up the company's share price in one stroke to acquire our rivals directly.
"However, I made a special request: release the real polymeric virus in one specific country, and then contain its spread in neighboring nations using the cure."
Following his awakening, Wei Yuan's biochemical knowledge was extraordinary. He knew this so-called specific cure was actually designed to trigger a pre-programmed abort sequence in the polymeric virus's genes, interrupting their replication. The problem, however, was that the current polymeric virus possessed no such abort sequence.
Ji Liuli looked at Wells. "I only wanted to purge a small faction of disgusting people, yet you want to wipe out the entirety of humanity? You truly are mad."
Wells's voice was low and gravelly. "I am not mad! The mad ones are those whose greed knows no bounds—those old fossils on the board of directors! Living to a hundred and thirty isn't enough for them; they still want youth restored, they still want immortality!
"Just replacing their failing bodily cells costs billions per person every year in surgical expenses. Against the company's hundreds of billions in profits, that is admittedly trivial. But the problem is that they refuse to die, and they refuse to step down! Twenty years, thirty years, a hundred years—they want to sit in those seats forever, yet they contribute nothing anymore!
"We create all the value, yet the seats above never open up. In truth, those old bastards are so feeble that anyone handed a gun could slaughter the lot of them! Their impregnable security would crumble to dust the moment their pay is cut for a single month. So why should we let a pack of clowns like that stand over our heads?"
"Then why not just kill them off?" Ji Liuli asked.
Wells shook his head. "That doesn't solve the root problem. We could only take three of those seats, and the rest would just be filled with people as dumb as swine. Perhaps their sons, their relatives. But the only ones truly qualified to sit in those seats should be truly powerful superhumans like us—and perhaps this little fellow as well. I despise him, but I must admit he is one of our kind.
"Yes, our kind! We possess the power to reshape the world; a single one of us could wipe out an entire legion! We are no longer the same species as ordinary mortals, so why should we cater to them? Why should we obey their rules?! Why should we constrain our rights to the same level as theirs? Morals? Laws? Could such laughable absurdities ever bind us?
"It isn't those old fossils who are in the wrong; it is the system, the world itself!
"The world has never belonged to whoever arrived first—it belongs to whoever has the last laugh!"
Wells turned toward Wei Yuan. "You, little newcomer. You are strong, and you do not hesitate when you kill. You are a natural-born powerhouse. Are you willing to be constrained by weaklings who are nothing more than bugs, and live as they do?"
Wei Yuan pondered seriously for a moment, then shook his head.
Wang Bing suddenly said, "There is some truth to what you say, but that is no excuse to slaughter ten billion ordinary people! Superhumans have only just been engineered; we understand only the barest fraction of those mysterious gene sequences. The vast majority of superhumans cannot pass them down to their offspring—the next generation will still be ordinary humans. Even if doing this were necessary, it is far too soon. Follow your path, and we will destroy ourselves!"
For the first time, Wells showed hesitation. "My research is close to a breakthrough."
"Close? How close?" Wang Bing pressed.
Wei Yuan also knew that in genetics and bioengineering, what appeared to be a minuscule step forward could easily require decades or even longer to truly break through.
"Very close... I'll achieve a breakthrough right away. I only need a month... no, a year... no, fifteen days..." Wells's eyes suddenly began to lose focus, his speech turning incoherent.
Just then, a beam of sky light shot down from above, illuminating the area around Wells. Within the sky light, a young boy bearing an enormous backpack was walking blithely along. The road was clean and smooth, flanked by flowerbeds filled with vibrant blooms, everything exuding a counterfeit warmth and cheap, orderly prosperity.
At the sight of the boy, Wells's expression twisted into sudden, sheer terror. He cried out, "I'll be faster! One week... no, no, tomorrow! I'll break through tomorrow! Otherwise... otherwise it'll be too late..."
He stepped back, instinctively trying to put distance between himself and the boy. But taking merely a single step, he collapsed to the ground, his body gradually shedding its human form. Only now did the three notice that beneath his feet lay a mat of flesh, connecting him to the colossal organism blanketing the central mainframe. Wells had long since become a part of that living entity.
Ji Liuli and Wang Bing both looked grim. Neither of them had realized that Wells had also been devoured and turned into a puppet. Had they approached rashly just now, an ambush might well have gravely wounded them.
Fortunately, Wei Yuan had been prepared; crushing Giss to death the moment he appeared had utterly enraged Wells and put the two women on guard.
The sky light continued to shine. The boy walked into a courtyard by the road—a very ordinary two-story house. Straining slightly, the boy unslung his backpack, took out a bag of bread, and walked toward the ground-floor bedroom.
In the bed lay an elderly man, bloated and corpulent, staring blankly at the ceiling while muttering unintelligible words. When he saw the boy enter, his eyes locked onto the bread in the boy's hand, and he snatched it away.
The bag tore open, spilling bread across the floor, but the old man didn't care in the least. He stuffed piece after piece into his mouth as though he hadn't eaten in ages.
Watching this, the boy suddenly cracked an eerie smile. "Eat up," he said. "If you don't eat now, it'll be too late."
One of his eyes suddenly shifted to the side of his face, fixing on Wei Yuan. In an ethereal, drifting voice, he said, "If you can destroy that big guy hogging the servers, I'll tell you the truth of this world!"
At the tip of Wei Yuan's finger, a speck of azure-gold lamplight ignited. Calmly, he said, "From head to toe, every part of that thing has an affinity with me. What difficulty could there be?"
He flicked the spark of lamplight out. In an instant, azure-gold flames filled the entire space, blanketing not only the gargantuan monster in the center, but even igniting the microscopic particles floating in the air.
Chapter 791