After stocking up at the maximum level, all the handsome men in the apocalypse are looking for suppo

Chapter 236 Clock Countdown

That relieved calm that belonged to Dr. Morris did not linger on Night's face for long.

The fragile balance that had just been achieved on the overpass was shattered by a sudden, deep chime that echoed throughout the city.

Above the city, a giant clock projection made of light appeared out of nowhere. The minute and hour hands were still, while the slender second hand moved forward step by step with a cold and precise rhythm.

With each tick of the second hand, a section of the city is enveloped in blinding white light. Then, that section, along with its buildings, streets, and life, vanishes completely, turning into a blank space representing nothingness.

Inside the deepest reserve bunker of the military, the air was as heavy as lead.

Hundreds of civilians who had just been evacuated to this place huddled together, some holding their children and trembling silently, while others had already broken down and were letting out suppressed sobs.

Lieutenant Cui stood in front of the main monitoring screen, his face completely bloodless.

On the screen, the city map is divided into countless grids, some of which are turning a glaring red at a visible speed, indicating that they have been "erased".

“The East District… has completely disappeared. Only 30% of the Southwest District remains.” His voice was hoarse, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth. “At the current rate, the entire city has at most 24 hours left.”

In one corner of the bunker, five people who had just materialized from a semi-energy state sat against the wall, each with a grim expression.

Constructing that semi-permeable spacetime membrane consumed a huge amount of their energy, leaving them in a state of extreme weakness.

Su Wanqing looked down at her hands; the golden energy lines flowing under her skin had become dim and sparse.

She thought for a moment and said to Lu Zhao beside her, "The semi-permeable barrier is collapsing... The Weavers have changed their strategy."

Lu Zhao was staring at a small detection device on his wrist, where a red data line on the screen was rapidly increasing.

“It’s not just strategy,” he shook his head, turning the device screen toward the crowd. “They’ve sent in higher-level collectors. The energy fluctuations detected in the city center are more than ten times that of the previous advance team.”

Just then, Xiaoling, who had been standing in front of the monitor screen, suddenly stiffened, and the closed purple mark on her forehead burst out with a dazzling light.

Her voice rang out, but it was no longer the little girl's tone; it had become unusually mature and emotionless: "I saw... the form of the mainframe... It's not a single entity, but a cluster of intelligence formed by the fusion of thousands of consciousnesses, hovering in the center of the city, like a nebula made of crystal and light..."

She stretched out her small hand and gestured a complex and distorted shape in the air.

Lu Zhao immediately took out paper and pen from his pocket and quickly wrote down the image she described.

“It’s…evaluating us, not just collecting us…” Little Bell’s voice continued, “It wants to know if we’re worth preserving…”

Before she could finish speaking, the light on her forehead suddenly dimmed, and she swayed before being supported by Lin Che beside her.

She blinked, her voice returning to a childlike tone, tinged with lingering fear: "It thought we were special because we tried five times... Most civilizations only lasted one or two attempts..."

"Five attempts?" Su Wanqing frowned slightly. "But I only remember three cycles..."

In the corner, the "Night" with Maurice's face looked down at his translucent hand, his voice low: "Because the first two failures were too thorough, I couldn't even establish a memory connection."

Su Wanqing stood up and walked straight towards him. Her face was a mixture of anger and despair after her last glimmer of hope had been shattered.

"What other cards are you holding back?" She pointed to the ever-expanding blank area on the monitor screen. "Our balancing act has failed! The Weavers simply haven't accepted coexistence!"

Morris, or rather "Night," slowly opened his eyes. A fleeting, almost imperceptible pain flashed in them, only to be quickly replaced by a chilling rationality.

“They didn’t send ordinary collectors, they sent the chief of the Weavers’ Council. It will not accept any results that are less than 100% collected.”

As soon as he finished speaking, an even more terrifying scene appeared on the monitor screen—the huge second hand of the clock suddenly began to spin faster, jumping one notch almost every second!
Large swathes of the city disappeared in an instant in the white light.

"The countdown has accelerated!" Lieutenant Cui exclaimed, bracing himself on the control panel. "The entire city is down to... Oh my god, less than twelve hours left!"

An even greater panic erupted inside the bunker. All eyes turned to the five weakened men, their last hope.

The Guardian icon popped up automatically in the air in front of Su Wanqing, issuing the highest level of red warning.

"Warning: The semi-permeable barrier cannot withstand collection at the mastermind level. The ultimate defense protocol must be activated."

Leaning against the cold wall, Su Wanqing felt dizzy. She struggled to stay upright and asked, "What... the ultimate defense protocol?"

The guardian did not answer, but instead projected an incredibly complex three-dimensional image in the air: three cores floated in the center, surrounded by five points of light, and countless energy lines connected them into a perfect closed loop structure.

“Rebuild the complete core, construct an absolute barrier... but the price is,” its voice was flat, “the complete sacrifice of three cores and five key figures.”

The guardian's emotionless pronouncement made the already heavy atmosphere inside the bunker even heavier.

The four words "complete sacrifice" weighed heavily on everyone's heart like four mountains.

The refugees' sobs subsided, leaving only a deathly silence of despair.

Just then, the "Night" with Maurice's face in the corner slowly stood up.

His translucent body began to solidify rapidly, and the red energy lines beneath his skin, representing anger and instability, faded away one by one, transforming into a deep and cold blue.

“It’s time to be honest.” He glanced around at the weakened crowd, his gaze finally settling on Su Wanqing’s face. His voice was flat and devoid of any emotion. “I am not merely a fragmented copy of consciousness created by Dr. Morris to perpetuate the plan.”

I am a monitor sent by the Weavers, participating in each cycle in a different capacity.

He waved his hand gently in the air, and a series of blurry images unfolded before the crowd. In the images, his face kept changing: he was once a doctor who saved lives in the early days of the apocalypse, preserving vital medical data at a critical moment; he was once a high-ranking military officer whose flawed decision led to the premature annihilation of the resistance; he was also once an inconspicuous wanderer, observing the collapse and glimmer of humanity in unnoticed corners.

Each time, he exerted a small but fatal influence at a turning point in history.

"You've been lying to us all along?" Lin Che gritted his teeth and charged forward, his fist glowing with the faint light of the Orion Sequence.

However, before he could get close, he was violently bounced back by an invisible blue energy barrier and slammed to the ground.

"Was all the cooperation, all the sacrifices, just a pre-arranged, hypocritical script?"

"Night" didn't even glance at him, continuing expressionlessly, "My mission is to assess the creativity and adaptability of the human race under extreme pressure. To be honest, in the first four cycles, I was utterly disappointed in you."

He turned to look at Xiao Ling, who was being held protectively in Xiao Ran's arms, "But the child is right. You are indeed more resilient than most civilizations recorded in my database. Most races can't even last two out of five cycles."

He turned to the trembling monitor screen displaying a map of the city's demise: "I thought this time it would be a complete failure like before."

But the 'semi-permeable barrier' you created did indeed surprise the mainframe. Unfortunately, it was merely surprise; it wasn't enough.

Su Wanqing leaned against the wall, biting her lip, her nails almost digging into her palms: "And now? Are you going to personally eliminate the experimental subjects you've observed for five cycles? And produce your final evaluation report?"

A very subtle, almost human hesitation suddenly appeared on Night's face. His lips twitched, then returned to their straight state.

“I can offer a deal.”

While everyone's attention was focused on "Night", Lu Zhao quietly lowered his head and activated the deep scanning mode of the small detection device on his wrist.

His fingers swiped rapidly across the screen, and lines of data streamed down like a waterfall.

“You have already obtained a relatively complete core,” Night’s voice broke Lu Zhao’s concentration. “As long as you hand over the other two cores to me, I can guarantee your safety, and the safety of another person. You can choose who to take with you.”

These words were like a stone thrown into a deep pool, instantly turning the deathly silence of the entire bunker into an uproar, which was then suppressed by an even greater fear, until you could hear a pin drop.

Su Wanqing stared at him in disbelief: "You want me... to sacrifice everyone here just to save one person?"

Her gaze swept over Lin Che, then over Lu Zhao, and finally landed on Xiao Ling's pale face, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Don't even think about it!" Xiao Ran stepped out from the crowd, pulling his sister even tighter in his arms. "No one would make that choice!"

On the other side of the bunker, Lieutenant Cui's face was ashen. He quietly gave a signal to the special forces soldiers around him to prepare for action.

The soldiers understood and dispersed subtly, their guns seemingly unintentionally aimed at the location of "Night".

Just as tensions were about to rise, a barely audible beep sounded from the device on Lu Zhao's wrist.

On the screen, an energy fluctuation analysis chart finally took shape. The data showed that while the main body of the "night's" energy characteristics perfectly matched the weaver's, about 15 percent of the fluctuation frequencies exhibited a completely different pattern, closer to... the human bioenergy field.

A pure weaver agent should not have this pattern of energy mixing.

Lu Zhao frowned. Unless... he wasn't entirely loyal to the Weaver.

Lu Zhao raised his head and, taking advantage of the chaos, quickly projected a miniature analysis chart onto his palm. Then, he made a very subtle gesture to Xiao Ling, who was not far away.

The closed purple mark on Xiaoling's forehead flashed briefly, as if she immediately understood the meaning of the chart.

She leaned against her brother's chest and whispered to Lu Zhao with barely moving lips, "You saw it... he wavered between two masters."

Lu Zhao nodded almost imperceptibly and put away the projection in his palm.

He thought, yes, he was lying, but not entirely. We need to know his real purpose.

Xiaoling's lips curled into a mysterious smile that seemed beyond her years, and she added softly, "Perhaps, he himself doesn't know either."

"Night" seemed to have anticipated everyone's reaction. He curled his lip and revealed a cold smile: "A noble refusal... How familiar this scene is. You answered me the same way in the last reincarnation. And what was the result?"

He took two steps forward, closing in on Su Wanqing, his voice becoming extremely soft, like a devil's whisper: "But at the last moment, you still chose Lin Che alone. You wanted to use your own life energy to send him into the final escape route... Unfortunately, it was too late."

These words were like a poisoned blade, piercing Su Wanqing's heart.

She took a step back in shock, her face turning deathly pale.

"Don't listen to his provocations!" Lin Che immediately stepped forward and supported her as she swayed. "He's trying to sow discord among us, making us distrust each other!"

"boom--!!"

A deafening thud suddenly came from directly above the bunker, causing the entire underground fortification to shake violently. Pieces of concrete and dust rained down from the ceiling, hitting people on the head and shoulders.

Lieutenant Cui rushed to the sensors and shouted anxiously, "It's the Weaver's heavy detectors! They've penetrated the upper defenses and found our exact location!"

Panic erupted among the crowd.

At this critical moment, "Night's" voice rang out again, cold and urgent: "Time is running out, Wanqing."

This time, make your choice now. At least two people can be saved... otherwise, everyone will disappear completely within these few minutes.