Ark, after I died, the operators started to love me.

Mike realized what was about to happen. He sat there without moving when suddenly a group of men rushed in from outside the bakery. They were all uniformed, menacing-looking military police officers.

He had seen these people before, and now they rushed in to arrest people without hesitation. Apart from a few military police officers who went straight to the counter, the others took out standard weapons and smashed all the furniture in the bakery.

The cupboard was smashed to pieces, and bread mixed with shards of glass was left unattended. At that moment, the obese man had just helped Elsa hide deep inside the bakery, leaving her to face the ravenous military police alone.

Before he could even utter a word, a military policeman struck him in the stomach with his weapon. The bakery owner, struck hard, collapsed to his knees, coughing in agony.

"Men, what happened? Why..."

Before he could finish speaking, the military police slammed him hard on the back again.

The obese man lay on the ground, unable to get up.

Mike, who witnessed everything, was like a bystander, unable to intervene or make a sound.

Things unfolded as he had predicted.

Several more people came in from outside. The military police escorted a woman whose face was covered in blood and threw her in front of the bakery owner who was kneeling on the ground.

The lead military policeman mumbled a few words.

"You dare to collude with the Yan people in an attempt to overthrow Ursus's rule over Lungmen; this is treason."

Before the bakery owner could even protest his innocence, the military police standing behind the two men drew their knives and stabbed each of them from back to chest, killing them instantly.

The military police who had killed people didn't care about any of that. They brazenly brought out some flammable materials from the kitchen, lit a fire, and thick black smoke billowed from the bakery.

This place is located in a busy area, so if there is black smoke, someone will notice that there is a fire, but no one dares to come and put it out.

Mike looked at the two people lying dead on the ground, their eyes wide open, and then looked up into the depths of the bakery.

Where is that girl?

Could she be the source of this distortion?

The thick black smoke and raging fire could not disturb him.

Mike walked inside step by step, and the moment he lifted the curtain, he frowned deeply.

10. Things that were unattainable in youth

She is dead.

It might not have been hidden properly, or it could be for some other reason.

She was killed by the Ursus military police.

She lay on the ground, her eyes wide open, perhaps thinking before she died, "Why her?"

But she did die.

Before witnessing this scene, Mike had always believed that she was the source of the distortion.

The most beautiful memories of 1064.

She appeared in front of him many times.

The bakery is also the location of the Twisted Core.

Could it be anyone else but her?

Reality told Mike that it wasn't this girl.

She was part of someone's fond memories, but also the beginning of a complete breakdown.

"what happened to you?"

Mike felt someone push him, and then Mostima called out to him with concern from behind.

He looked back and saw that it was the adorable M3 that had pushed him.

He looked at his location again. From the moment he entered the bakery until he woke up, he had stood still.

Did I just disappear, or go somewhere?

"No, you were just standing there in a daze, and we had no idea what was going on."

Upon hearing this, Mike immediately set off into the ruins of the bakery without saying a word.

He already knew who the two charred corpses at the door were; now he needed to check on the situation inside the kitchen.

The curtain had long been burned in the fire, and when Mike stepped inside, he found nothing but collapsed bricks and rubble.

Seemingly to confirm something, Mike asked the guard again, "Does the Ursus guard accept women?"

"We generally don't accept them, but we can't rule out special circumstances."

"For example?"

"Military cadets who have undergone rigorous training."

"Okay, you don't need to say anything, I understand."

He turned around and shouted to the people outside, "Get out of there immediately, run far away!"

However, his voice was somehow disturbed, and when it was transmitted, the people standing outside could only hear static.

Mike's expression changed; he knew something was wrong.

The keen-witted guards also noticed and shouted, "What just happened?!"

"A nightmare. This place is someone's nightmare. His best memories and his worst, most painful memories are all here."

In an instant, another scene appeared before Mike's eyes.

Flashback to 1064.

A few hundred meters away, an excited boy walked toward the bakery with the gifts he had bought, where his favorite girl was.

When he saw the black smoke rising into the sky and the flames billowing from inside the building, he finally realized something was wrong.

The neighbors on this street only dared to stand on the outside and watch; no one dared to put out the fire.

Everyone knew that the arsonist was an Ursus military policeman, and anyone who tried to put out the fire would be blacklisted, potentially bringing misfortune upon themselves.

Faced with such a dire situation, all people can do is respond with silence.

The boy rushed into the bakery and found two adults lying dead on the ground.

The screen disappears here.

Mike strode out of the bakery. He was only a dozen meters away from Kal'tsit, but those dozen meters felt like tens of kilometers away.

The boundaries of distance are beginning to blur.

Realizing something was wrong, Kal'tsit immediately made a judgment, first using her M3 to block in front of everyone and shouting, "You all retreat!"

Just as everyone was taking action, a dark figure emerged from the void, its body emanating a thick black mist. The terrifying thing about it was that anyone who came into contact with even a little bit of it would experience a sharp decline in various attributes such as mobility and thinking.

The Ursus guard following behind Mike swung his saber again, but it was blocked by the opponent's saber as it came down.

It was also an Ursus guard, but his mask had disappeared, leaving him faceless. Only a deep light emanated from him.

Everything is transforming from existence to nothingness: the bakery, the neighborhood, the soil beneath their feet, the air—everything is distorting and blurring.

Without hesitation, Fiameta fired the grenade launcher. The projectile, glowing with fire, materialized into the shape of a phoenix and hurtled straight toward the dark figure.

To Li Boli's surprise, her precise shot missed, and the grenade landed more than ten meters away.

"How could this be?"

"Your perception of distance is incorrect."

Mostima reached out and helped her turn on the electronic devices she was wearing.

The fully charged special battery immediately came into play, and with a buzzing sound, Fiameta's ears were filled with the sound of electricity, and the scene before her eyes changed.

The dark figure standing at the entrance of the bakery was an Ursus guard, but he looked completely different from his companions.

The mask disappeared, leaving no face. In the place where the face used to be, there was a glowing sphere that would make people dizzy if they looked at it for too long.

Don't look at that.

Fiameta soon discovered that as long as she stared at the other person, the battery power of the anti-jamming device she carried would drop rapidly.

Without hesitation, Li Boli pulled the trigger a second time, this time hitting the opponent, but the grenade also engulfed the nearest Ursus defender.

"Don't worry about that. Your level of attack won't even hurt a powerful inner guard."

The battle between the two inner guards could only be described as brutal. They wielded their sabers incessantly, the blades flashing, and the black mist, which was of the same origin, continued to spread outwards, forcing Kal'tsit and the others to retreat as well.

Mostima, holding two staffs, watched the infighting among the Ursus guards, unable to intervene for the time being.

The fallen angel remembered something: would the Doctor's projection, which Kal'tsit was commanding, be affected by the battle if it remained in the bakery?

“You’re still worried about someone who doesn’t even exist? Kal’tsit has the data; all she needs to do is create another projection.”

Fiameta's words made sense, but they didn't really solve the problem, and Kal'tsit didn't create another Doctor's Projection as a result.

At this point, Mike figured out the source of the distortion.

That was an Ursus inside guard.

To be precise, they were Ursus's inner guards corrupted by evil spirits.

He has a most beautiful memory in his heart, which dates back to around 1064.

That same year, right there in that bakery, everything he cared about was gone.

As an Ursus man, he was conscripted back and, after a series of rigorous selections and training, became an inner guard stationed in the North.

Nearly forty years have passed, and corrupted by evil, he returns to the place where his beautiful dream ended and his nightmare began in the final moments of his life.

Right in front of this bakery.

A young man succumbed completely to the tyranny of reality.

"What a man cannot obtain in his youth will haunt him for the rest of his life."

The azure light dissipated.

A monstrous creature, radiating an aura of power, stood before the crowd.

11. 1+1=2