Chapter 121: The Truth of the World

“...In other words, you want three seats on the lunar mission.”

Dr. Chen gazed calmly at the woman before him.

Juno, a goddess as exquisite and magnificent as a Venus sculpture, was teasing a white raven in her hands. Her perfect features and imposing aura failed to shake Dr. Chen, just as the stern-faced, rugged man standing beside him failed to elicit any reaction.

Truly interesting.

It was not that they lacked firm wills; rather, they had forcibly excised that particular human need from themselves.

Juno’s eyes held a deep sense of pity. It was the same look a normal person might give a perfect work of art, only to discover an unavoidable crack running through it upon closer inspection. These two were the most excellent and complete humans Juno had encountered in the Artificial Divine Realm of 2055, yet they possessed a fatal flaw.

“Correct. Deliver three people to the far side of the moon, and we will agree to your demands.”

Two hours earlier.

Dr. Chen, having rushed from the Yazhou Rocket Launch Center to the Magic City, had sought out Juno, who had been waiting for some time. Getting straight to the point, Dr. Chen expressed his desire to cooperate with the warriors from other dimensions. With their help, he was highly confident in resolving this tragedy—a tragedy that had persisted since the Third World War, a tragedy that had spiraled completely out of control.

“You could make it to the moon yourselves, couldn’t you?”

Although he had never seen the Psionic cultivators unleash their full power, based on his visual observations of their body control and the instantaneous output they revealed at will, Dr. Chen did not doubt that they could reach the moon using their own strength.

“We could, but if we exhaust our energy along the way, we would inevitably fall into a period of weakness while facing continuous radiation in outer space. That would be detrimental to any potential combat we might encounter after landing.”

This likely did not include Lan Yi. Juno highly suspected that the “Old Demon Lan” could already traverse the void between Earth and the moon with his physical body alone, though his speed would likely be quite slow. Of course, all four Psionic cultivators, including Juno, were holding back their trump cards.

“Why do you want to go to the moon?” Dr. Chen pressed, eager to gain the power of the Psionic cultivators.

“The truth of your world is hidden either in the future or on the moon. For us, once we approach that truth, it will be time to fight.” Juno shrugged indifferently.

Dr. Chen, sitting across from her, looked thoughtfully to one side.

There was nothing there.

But theoretically, there were countless greedy and hideous eyes fixed on that spot, along with a person who should have stayed behind to personally oversee this negotiation. That person’s name was Lan Yi. His absence seemed to make the cooperation somewhat awkward, yet Dr. Chen had realized something.

“Was this request made by Lan Yi?”

“Huh? That’s right.” Juno arched a delicate eyebrow.

“Then we agree.”

So simple? The three lunar seats were given away just like that. If she hadn’t known that Lan Yi had no time for anything else and had basically never left the Magic City, Juno would have suspected that the “Old Demon Lan” had already contacted Dr. Chen in private. Was she really to believe they had never met, yet were of one mind? That was a bit too bromantic.

The terms of the cooperation were very simple. The Psionic cultivators would lend their power to Dr. Chen, and Dr. Chen would provide three lunar seats to the Psionic cultivators. As for the details and anything further—the apocalypse was imminent. They were all smart people; they wouldn’t propose demands that couldn’t be executed.

“So, where do the ghosts actually come from? You don’t seem ignorant of the Obsessed and the ghosts, but your actions seem more like... compared to the Obsessed...” Juno made a subtle gesture. The Azure Dragon Federation did not appear to have any intention of stopping the apocalypse. At the very least, the Obsessed believed they were the ones preventing it.

Moreover, when faced with the Obsessed, the attitude of Dr. Chen, representing the Azure Dragon Federation, was as if they simply didn’t exist. It was truly baffling.

“To understand that, we must begin with the Third World War.”

Dr. Chen’s opening line surprised Juno. The Third World War had ended decades ago in this world, yet by the sound of it, the root of everything originated from that conflict. Perhaps finding this a rare moment of relaxation, Dr. Chen adjusted his posture to a more scientific and healthy position and posed a question to Juno.

“It seems that even in other dimensions, there is still a division between two types of civilizations. You are clearly not on our side, are you?”

Juno nodded. She was indeed not standing with the River Civilization.

“Then, from your perspective, how did the Azure Dragon Federation manage to turn the tables fifty years ago, despite being in a position of absolute disadvantage?”

Besieged on all sides, the flames of war reached the mainland. The coastal economic zones were completely ruined, and industrial areas were targeted by precision strikes. It could be said that short of mutually assured destruction via nuclear annihilation, the Azure Dragon Federation had endured every possible blow!

At that time, in terms of military strength, the Azure Dragon Federation was not only facing the steel torrents surging from the north, but also the ferocious, nation-ending fleets and a chaotic coalition of forces. It was a war that threatened to extinguish the nation, or at the very least, reduce it to the level of the backward states of the primary world.

Beyond a land force that barely reached near-first-class status, the Azure Dragon Federation was incredibly weak in every other aspect. Yet, under such absolute adversity, the Federation suddenly launched a strategic counter-offensive in the middle of the war. Not only did they grind the steel torrents into the mud, but they also achieved impossibly precise anti-ship strikes.

It was a miracle. In the propaganda of both sides in the Artificial Divine Realm of 2055, one side claimed it was the unity and heroism of the people, while the other claimed it was a dual breakthrough in chip and material technology, relying on high-end weaponry to turn the tide. Looking at the subsequent explosion of technology in the Azure Dragon Federation, the latter explanation seemed closer to the truth.

“...Time, isn’t it?” Juno suddenly thought of another possibility.

“Correct. To outsiders, that war lasted only eight months. But in reality, we fought for a full fourteen years. Over those fourteen years, through a collective casualty rate of up to 8,000 percent, we mapped out every possibility on the battlefield, formulated the optimal tactical solutions, and determined exactly where the enemy’s bottom line lay.”

Dr. Chen spoke without emotion, stating the earth-shattering secret of the Artificial Divine Realm of 2055 in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

This was the ultimate secret of this world. It was also the ultimate causality of this Artificial Divine Realm. The man standing before Juno was one of the architects of this ultimate causality. In this moment, even though he was merely an ordinary human who could be crushed by a Psionic cultivator with a flick of a finger, in Juno’s eyes, he had become extremely dangerous.

The origin of the ghosts was becoming clear.

And Dr. Chen... was likely the first ghost of all.