119. I Don’t Want to Die

  Swoosh——!

  A dark red beam instantly verged, the viole flow engulfing the entire 【White Knight】. His armor was tinuously destroyed aed by the scorg rays as he roared loudly, ultimately uo stand his ground. He ushed skyward by the high-temperature metal ions with immense kiiergy.

  Hiss!

  Li Aozi quickly activated 【Blood of Immortality】. His body healed rapidly, but due to the repeated use of this Omega Energy, his lifespan was greatly reduced. Staggering, he tried to get up, but to no avail, his age-spotted hands couldn’t support his Beta-tier body.

  “Du Zexin… damn it…”

  Li Aozi’s aged voice echoed across the ground. Due to severe aging of his impnt, his vision was blurred, uo see the way ahead, and he could only crawl toward the massive white me a daze.

  Hum...

  The hydraulic rods slowly moved, and the giant white hand opened up, carefully lifting Li Aozi into its palm and bringing him close.

  “Haha… damn it, I knew you weren’t dead…”

  Before Li Aozi could finish his sentence, he noticed the smooth, fracture on the cockpit.

  “…Damn it?”

  He slowly crawled towards the cockpit, only to see a headless body inside, blood spttered across the entire cockpit. Du Zexin’s head y on the keyboard, his eyes still filled with rage.

  “Damn it… you… what happeo you? Then who was just now—”

  The broadcast system activated, and a synthesized eleic voice sounded:

  “Maes… are not a wrong path.”

  “You?”

  “Idiot, are you stupid?” the broadcast retorted irritably. “I’m a 【Meist】. If 【Biochemists】 back up their sciousness, we 【Meists】 certainly upload ours into meical bodies.”

  “You mean you uploaded your brain’s sciousness into this mech?”

  “Yes, this 【Future Watcher GAMMA】 is my masterpiece, painstakingly tuned.”

  Du Zexin cursed:

  “Do you look down on us 【Meists】? If that beast, Professor Abyss, manage multiple avatars, then of course I’ve got my own preparations. This mech’s puter is lio my brain interface. My sciousness, soul, and thoughts are all fully recorded here.”

  “Just like the ibal or Bio King Kong.”

  Du Zexin seemed to take a deep breath before speaking in his synthesized voice:

  “My air filtration system was directly damaged by an unknown toxin. I had already ihat poison gas when that ssh struck me. I o check my body, so don’t bother me.”

  “Damn, I was worried about you!” Li Aozi flipped him the middle finger. “You could’ve told me you had this ability... But damn, even with your body in this state, you still be saved?”

  “Right now, it's just a decapitation. As long as there's still time, it be reattached and used again. I o check the iy of my body, and if it’s no good, I’ll use impnts instead. After all, I’m a 【Meist】, and my adaptability to impnts far exceeds that of 【Warriors】.”

  Du Zexin’s wradually restored Li Aozi’s sense of security.

  “You’re really thh, huh?”

  Li Aozi joked.

  “You’re just as clueless as a graduate student. If you had even a bit of Ph.D.-level intelligence, you’d figure out my professional abilities.”

  Du Zexin s him in annoyance, muttering disdainfully:

  “Good-looking people always seem to have empty heads. I’m so smart yet look average—what kind of world is this? Should I get pstic surgery or something?”

  “Didn’t I tell you that people with high intelligence have no free will and are drawn to society?”

  “Speaking of society,” the synthesized voice shifted, “that guy cimed to be a citizen of the ‘Hidden Society.’ Do you know anything about them? You’re a ic being, so you should know something, right?”

  This question, which had always given Li Aozi a sense of mystery, was met with a rare shake of his head:

  “I don’t know.”

  “Never heard of it? Such a powerful force... mysterious toxin, and a ssh that could damage this alloy-ceramiposite armor. His sword seems capable of severing even chemical bonds.”

  Du Zexin’s pints only made Li Aozi shake his head further.

  “There are many notorious societies in the universe—citizens of the Outer Society of Pergai are called ‘demons,’ and they’ve bee the sce of the os, the top-level society.”

  “What about others?”

  “Other societies don’t match up. If it were from a terfeit society, it wouldn’t be this powerful; even a chairman couldn’t do that.”

  Li Aozi didn’t finish his sentence.

  ‘Besides, 【Eye of Truth】 specifically ters terfeit societies... that hidden effect is definitely not something a terfeit society could achieve.’

  Then who is it?

  Hidden Society, Gaia... this wasn’t information that had ever appeared in the game.

  “No matter what, at least we repelled him. We 't be a match for the 【White Knight】; he’s too powerful, far beyond Gamma-tier... he must be like you, an alien.”

  “He’s at least sidered an alien now.”

  Li Aozi y in the palm, his gaze unfocused.

  “Li Aozi?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why aren’t you fident?” Du Zexin said while cheg his body, “This isn’t like you.”

  “Shut up, how many times have you seen me? You don’t know what I’m normally like.”

  “Look at yourself; your brain isn’t great, but you’re pretty det-looking.”

  Du Zexin seemed to want to mock Li Aozi, but as a mae, he couldn’t, so he just fshed his lights:

  “Seriously, yood-looking, or rather, you have araordinary quality—it makes you unfettable. I feel like even if I fot my birthday or who I was, I wouldn’t fet you, like I’m addicted. It’s uny; I’m supposed to be attracted to maes.”

  “Damn, sounds like you actally exposed something serious...”

  Li Aozi couldn’t help but ugh:

  “Mecha-fetishists, why do you 【Meists】 all like these metal and iron things? It’s too funny, haha...”

  Du Zexin, seeing him ugh, casually said:

  “Now that’s more like it.”

  “—What? What did you just say?”

  “Screw you, you little cutie, I love you, my dear little cookie,” Du Zexin said irritably. “Look at you, usually sant with yood looks, but now you’ve beeen down like a lost soul.”

  “Things have gotten out of my trol. I feel uneasy; you don’t know this feeling. Just thinking about the Hidden Society makes me feel powerless. I know nothing about them. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I ’t do anything. I ’t resist the 【White Knight】's oppression; his power is too overwhelming. I ’t do anything except die, revive, and die again. Do you know what that feels like, Du Ze—”

  “Idiot, you’re too damn arrogant.”

  Having spent enough time with Li Aozi, Du Zexin dropped his formalities. He packed his body, put it into a secure partment, and turned back, staring at Li Aozi with his sixteen eyes:

  “No one guarahe future will follow your will. What do you think this is, a game? Li Aozi, you have to uand, you’re not the protagonist, aher am I. In this game called reality, we’re all just passing through. Sooner or ter, we’ll die.”

  Li Aozi shrugged, uned:

  “What are you talking about, damn it... you died ooo, didn’t you?”

  “I’m talking about you, yant fool. You don’t get death; you’ve got your friend’s Omega Energy, and you won’t die.”

  Du Zexin said, somewhat bitterly:

  “I will, Li Aozi. No matter how many bodies I switch, my will shall eventually wither, my thoughts will bee 0s and 1s, and even steel will corrode. Sooner or ter, I’ll perish from entropy. Maybe I’ll end up just like you said—intellectually drawn, twisted, and corrupted by society, like that bastard who attacked us.”

  “But you’re different. You die and revive. You’ve seen so much—stars, blue skies, the gaxy, the sun—are Azure Star people tent to be trapped on the ground? No, they aren’t. Do we really believe there’s no sun? No, we just ’t, don’t dare to think about it.”

  “You’ve seen the universe we’ve always loo know.”

  “The sunlight we dare not dream of is everyday for you.”

  “The starry sky we ever reach is merely your homend.”

  Li Aozi stared bnkly at Du Zexin’s camera:

  “Damn it, you…”

  These statements were not part of his official character.

  The official description of Du Zexin painted him as a righteous, stious, talented, and powerful person—in other words, a hero.

  “I want to go to space.”

  Du Zexin said:

  “I don’t want to see what the universe looks like, nor do I want to bee a high-level 【Meist】. I don’t even want to be a hero who saves humanity’s fate. I don’t want to fight monsters like society—I just hate this p with its Frost-Pted, Tianhuan, Zhengxu, and Red Arrow trash nations.”

  His eleic eyes fshed, and he expressed all his emotions in the cold tone of a synthesizer:

  “Li Aozi, I don’t love space; I just want to escape.”

  The synthesized voice couldn’t tremble, nor could the eleic flow feel joy or sadness:

  “I want to put my soul in a , bury it somewhere for a few hundred years, and after humanity goes extinct, walk in a meical body through the apocalypse, traveling, esg, surviving.”

  “I hate this world, and I want to leave it. Since I saw that children’s alphabet book when I was a kid, I’ve had this unwavering belief in running away—but I always thought I loved space, loved that untouched starry sky.”

  “Du Zexin...”

  “Then you appeared in my view, bringing with you everythiiful I had ever imagined. I suddenly realized—I’m not ied in the universe at all. I just want to leave this stupid world.”

  “When I was young, because I was a boy, my ces to study were taken by girls. When I grew up, my promotion and pay raise ces were gone because I had a retive w in the gover. Later, when I tried to ge this try, David Lin was thrown in.”

  “Now, I’ve met you. As ridiculous as it is, the days with you have felt like the most real, exhirating days of my life, stupid Li Aozi.”

  Du Zexin welded his upper and lower halves together, reviving the mech’s posture:

  “Li Aozi, if you think you ’t do anything, just look at me. I think no one’s luck is worse than mine.”

  “Du Zexin, that niame was just a joke—”

  “At least you have people who love, care, and worry about you.”

  Du Zexin pced Li Aozi into the cockpit:

  “I have nothi, but at least you’re half a friend to me.”

  The mech swiftly broke through the checkpoint barriers, taking Li Aozi into the endless night and snowstorm.

  inally silent, the cold wind and snow were blocked by the mech. The shaky body was sturdier than expected and more stable than the usual mechs, indig Du Zexin had put in a lot of effort, with his scious input providing signifit aid in trolling it.

  Li Aozi’s destination was an abandoned camp outside Triaown, the best unch site, where selected pyers awaited.

  Li Aozi’s bio-pool could hold 25 pyers, and when the nuclear bomb detohe robust bio-pool would eheir safety.

  Xia Jianjied that everything was going smoothly and was heading to the meeting point.

  pared to these things, Li Aozi was more ed about Du Zexin’s dition.

  He was different from before, vastly uhe Du Zexin in his memory.

  Li Aozi g the data.

  The favorability didn’t ge much; some things couldn’t be measured by numbers.

  So why did Du Zexin say those things?

  Li Aozi suddenly remembered something:

  “How’s your body?”

  “...Not too bad.”

  “Really? Your head’s cut off, and you ihat poison gas.”

  “I’ve put it on ice. If the head is off, I’ll have a 【Biochemist】 reattach it. As for the gas, it’s simpler—just repce the lungs with impnts. As a of Law III, buying these things is easy.”

  Since Du Zexin’s mentor, a 【Meist】, said so, Li Aozi, an outsider, didn’t doubt him.

  “I hope you’re okay,” Li Aozi said, “and I mean it.”

  Du Zexin didn’t ter with ‘How many lies have you told then?’ but instead said:

  “This hydrogen bomb only clear 70 kilometers of Camity, but the Camity’s aggregation speed is faster than you think. If you don’t want to enter space with just a skeleton, you’ll o detonate a smaller nuke when you reach the ionosphere.”

  Li Aozi sighed, shaking his head:

  “There’s no time; I just send my brain out, regee in space, and fly alus, I’ve got the bio-pool with me, so it’s safe ioo.”

  Du Zexin replied, “That will lose you a lot of initial speed.”

  “Time waits for no one.”

  “Do you have to go to spaow?”

  “I must. Holy, it’s already te; I should’ve been in space a month ago. The Camity crisis ’t wait.”

  “You’d better add a lesson.”

  “I know damn well, but there’s no way and no time to find a sed nuke.”

  “Find what?”

  Du Zexin said:

  “There’s ht here, isn’t there?”

  With that, he lifted his meical hand, pointing at the reactor in his chest.

  -----------------------------------------------------

  {The Hidden subplot has been id out sihe first volume, starting from Nomi’s survival, through the Bight storyline, including the Yavanna arc as well.}

  FAL