As soon as the Human Emperor Banner came out, I became the Lord of the Old Ones

Chapter 243 Killing three birds with one stone

Long Jianhuan told Xu Yan that the Black Dream organization had indeed fallen into a slump after the death of its leader and was on the verge of collapse.

However, with the appearance of a sealing card, the organization, which was on the verge of annihilation, was given a new lease on life.

Just as the name "Knox" implies, it has become stronger after being tested by the flames of rebirth.

That was a "Phantom Butterfly".

It contains Knox's last words.

In his dying words, Knox perfectly foresaw his own death and the blow his organization would suffer.

They even accurately predicted certain steps in the operation to capture him, as if they had prior knowledge of the actions of all pursuers, including the Security Bureau.

According to his last words, if he only wanted to survive, he had a hundred ways to escape the Alliance's capture.

However, from the moment he awoke from the dark nightmare, his personal life and death no longer held any meaning for him.

He would rather turn his own flesh and blood into firewood to ignite a raging fire and illuminate the path to a new future.

Xu Yan couldn't understand.

"What do you mean? He could have escaped, but he chose to stay in the encirclement and commit suicide?"

"Yes, according to Knox, his biggest advantage over the knowledgeable members of the Heroic Spirit Alliance is the information gap. Having experienced the Black Nightmare, he is well aware of future developments."

Long Jianhuan said, "However, after decades of efforts by the Black Dream Organization, including assassinating countless key figures they believed would lead the Alliance to destruction, spreading or erasing certain important technologies, and weakening and supporting certain forces, the course of history has become completely different from Kronos's past nightmares."

In other words, the future has changed.

"On this timeline that Knox himself altered, his greatest advantage—his ability to foresee the future—has long since vanished."

"He has passed on all the knowledge he has about future developments and technologies to his loyal followers who are willing to sacrifice everything to save civilization through the Black Dream organization."

"Having given his all, he has become a useless person."

"Even his excessively high prestige within the Black Dream organization, and his brain, which is constantly being eroded by the Black Nightmare and is already riddled with holes and deformed, could potentially undermine the organization's ultimate goal."

Kronos felt that, in terms of the ultimate goal of 'preventing the apocalypse and continuing civilization,' the negative effect of his continued existence gradually outweighed the positive effect.

"On the other hand, after a long period of development, the Black Dream organization has inevitably suffered from problems such as bloated organization, overstaffing, deeply entrenched internal forces, and the waning faith of some members, even some middle and high-level members, who have gradually forgotten their ideals."

"Many people join the Black Dream organization for impure reasons. They are not driven by lofty ideals of saving civilization, but simply to gain power from the Black Dream organization and satisfy their own selfish desires."

"In particular, due to the long-term attacks from the Alliance of Heroes, the Black Dream Organization often has no choice but to recruit people who are outside the Alliance's order when recruiting new members."

Thieves, bandits, wanted criminals, serial killers, terminal patients with spiritual erosion, all kinds of demons and monsters in the literal sense.

"To recruit loyal and reliable men from good families, aside from a stroke of luck, it seems the only option is brainwashing. "In extraordinary times, extraordinary measures are inevitably necessary."

"But if all newcomers are like this, it seems like a pipe dream to achieve lofty ideals."

Knox keenly realized that the Black Dream organization was ailing.

"Just like the League of Heroes."

"The history of the successive destruction of the four ancient civilizations has long proven that neither the Heroic Spirit Alliance nor the Black Dream Organization can completely eradicate the deep-seated problems originating from human nature on their own."

"Especially when Knox discovered that even the organization's top leaders, who had initially followed him, were loyal to him, and firmly believed in the coming of the apocalypse, and who remained unmoved in the face of gunfire or torture by the Security Bureau, had gradually become corrupted and unrecognizable as their power and influence expanded, he made up his mind even more."

"If we don't take the most decisive measures to rescue the Black Dream organization, the organization he founded will fall into an endless abyss along with the corrupt and decadent Heroic Spirit Alliance in the dream, and be completely swallowed by the apocalypse."

"Therefore, Kronos took advantage of the Alliance authorities' manhunt."

There are three objectives.

"First, through martyrdom, one can become the supreme and infallible spiritual leader in the hearts of all Black Dream believers."

"Every living person makes mistakes."

"Especially for Kronos, whose intelligence and abilities are mediocre and who has only risen to the top by relying on information advantage, losing information advantage will inevitably lead him to make countless mistakes in the near future, resulting in his disgrace and the disintegration of the organization."

"However, as long as he dies and soon after his death makes his last words public, he will be invincible and will never make any more mistakes."

"Secondly, through his own death, he completely separated himself from the Black Dream organization, and also made all Black Dream members realize that 'preventing the apocalypse and saving the future' is neither Knox's mission alone, nor can it be accomplished by Knox alone."

"This is a common mission for all believers, and it must be accomplished by the joint efforts of all believers."

"The Black Dream Organization does not need and cannot have a leader who is always right and always victorious, but as long as the battered believers can stand up again after 'decentralization,' try again and again, fail again and again, and persevere and advance one after another, they will surely be able to completely change the future and shatter the damned apocalypse."

"Third, Knox was not alone in being surrounded and ultimately killed."

"He convened a top-level secret meeting within the alliance's encirclement. Most of the attendees were high-ranking members of the organization who had sworn to follow him to the death from the beginning and were now in power as the first generation of Black Dream followers."

Knox carefully selected the list of attendees.

"Those he selected to attend the meeting were people he considered to be corrupt and decadent, or arrogant and conceited, or stuck in their ways, or who had intricate connections with businesses and gangs and placed their own interests above lofty ideals."

He believes that the leaders of these organizations, like himself, have completed their historical mission.

"No matter how much they have contributed to the organization in the past, or how loyal they have been to it, letting them continue to live will only hinder the organization's continued development and lead to its ultimate destruction."

"Therefore, Knox used the alliance to take away all the aging senior members of the organization in one fell swoop, but made room for the young, ambitious, pure-hearted, and energetic members of the organization to rise and grow."

(End of this chapter)