Why is his holy light red?

Chapter 94 The Prelude to Destruction

The atmosphere in the city of Yaliu Tree is like a steel string stretched to its limit.

On the surface, the stock price of Yong Sheng Technology remains stable and has not plummeted, and the review process seems to have entered a long tug-of-war.

But everyone in the city knew that the pressure cooker's exhaust valve had been completely welded shut, and it was only a matter of time before it exploded.

The root of all this is simply because the person standing outside the building putting pressure on us is a "holy angel".

This god among men spent years forging a golden signboard representing "absolute justice" through flawless absolute power and moral fastidiousness. Even though millions of keyboard warriors online conspire every day about when he will lose control and massacre cities, even the most scathing trolls have to admit, with a heavy heart, that before the god fell, what he identified was evil.

Therefore, there was no need to wait for any investigation report to be released. The moment the Holy Light Angel descended upon the headquarters of Eternal Life Technology, the conglomerate had already been sentenced to death in the public's mind.

Capital has the keenest sense of smell.

Statements from various shareholding institutions decoupling their operations flooded the media's inboxes like snowflakes: the storefronts of Yong Sheng Technology's chain pharmacies and retail stores were so badly damaged by rotten lettuce leaves and eggs that their original color was no longer recognizable.

The group is teetering on the brink of collapse. Lower-level employees, unable to withstand the online harassment, posted their resignation certificates online overnight in an attempt to protect themselves. Meanwhile, union leaders, smelling blood, jumped onto the poker table and used a full-scale strike to strangle the conglomerate, trying to extract a huge sum of money from them.

The reactions on the streets were even more primitive and brutal.

From the day after the intervention of the Holy Angels, the protest marches spanning the upper, middle and lower districts quickly turned into a massive "zero-dollar purchase" frenzy.

It's even difficult to blame those petty thugs for this—after all, Yong Sheng Technology has recently been using its monopoly to drive up the prices of drugs and food to the point of driving people to despair.

Since the steel they earn can't buy medicine and bread, the most logical choice is to activate the Federation's traditional skill ingrained in their bones: simply rob!

After all, we are all legitimate and free citizens, so how can buying something for free be considered stealing?

The Molotov cocktails and broken glass scattered on the street may seem like a chaotic mess, but this is just a small appetizer before the storm.

The epicenter that could truly overturn the city of Yaliu Tree remained inside the headquarters building of Eternal Life Technology. The entire city held its breath, waiting for the final piece of evidence, powerful enough to shatter the existing power structure, to fall at the exact moment.

Faced with this crisis, Lucas, the CEO of Yong Sheng Technology, has even grown a few more gray hairs.

On the top floor of the Yong Sheng Technology headquarters building, thick glass blocks out the noisy protests from outside.

"Snap"

Lucas slammed the phone on the table with a dull thud. He slumped wearily into the large leather chair, rubbing his temples, which were throbbing from the stress, with both hands.

Those rats who only know how to look at financial reports and dividends! After being blocked at the door by the Holy Light Angels for a few days, the cowardly shareholders on the board of directors were like ants on a hot pan, frantically calling to force him to resign, trying to use his head as CEO to quell the anger outside.

Lucas gave a cold laugh.

These idiots only care about money and have no idea what a great revolution Eternal Life Technology is undertaking.

He is very close to the final result; perhaps he is just one thin veil away from it, waiting for him to lift it.

The power of the Hand of God, true immortality and eternal life, an existence that cannot be killed by any means.

As long as we can survive until the final stage of the experiment is completed, the losses of the several factories and the plummeting market value of tens of billions will be nothing at all. At that time, even money will no longer have any meaning, and the immortal people will become true gods.

Lucas turned on his computer and pulled up various research materials on the Hand of God. Just as his eyes were gradually becoming feverish, a strange electrical sound rang out.

The office lights flickered without warning, and the image of the Hand of God on the main holographic screen was instantly erased. In its place, countless spots of light eventually pieced together to form an extremely surreal three-dimensional phantom.

He was a man dressed in an extravagant tuxedo and wearing a classic black and white smiley face mask.

"Good evening, Mr. Lucas. It seems your empire is leaking quite badly. Your Cyber ​​Knights have exhausted all their strength fighting the Iron Titans, and have only spare power to stop our invasion."

The masked clown of the Black Moon Circus. His voice, distorted by a voice changer, had the quality of a cheap phonograph, or perhaps the sound of something inhuman, simulated by wood and metal.

Lucas's pupils suddenly contracted, and his body tensed instinctively.

"You bunch of lunatics, how dare you show yourselves in front of me?" Lucas gripped the obsidian tabletop tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning a sickly white from the excessive force. He stared intently at the holographic projection, his voice filled with suppressed extreme anger, like a trapped beast driven to the brink of despair.

The masked clown seemed completely oblivious to the murderous rage emanating from him. The phantom formed from specks of pale blue data gracefully bowed in mid-air, performing a perfectly executed hat-tipping salute.

"Please don't be angry, Mr. Lucas." The mocking voice, distorted by a voice changer, echoed in the cold office. "The purpose of a circus performance is always to bring pure joy to the audience. If you feel unhappy—that only means you are not a qualified audience member."

This sentence completely ignited Lucas's suppressed rage of several days.

"Bang!" He slammed his hand on the table, causing the crystal glass beside him to shake violently. He glared at the phantom figure through gritted teeth: "Don't give me that crap! If you hadn't caused such a huge mess on the streets a few days ago, how could the Holy Light Angels have had an excuse to disregard federal law and force their way into my headquarters?! All my current troubles are all your fault!"

Lucas's chest heaved violently as he stared intently at the two empty black eye sockets on the Joker mask, wishing he could drag the other person out through the internet cable and tear them to pieces: "What exactly are you after?! When we first discussed the collaboration, you didn't want a single penny, you didn't mention any conditions. Now that my experiment is about to be completed, you want to completely ruin it! What do you want?!"

The tuxedo clown ignored his hysteria, the edge of the holographic projection flickering slightly. He raised a white-gloved index finger, shook it gently, and asked, "Lucas, you're a shrewd businessman. But do you really know—what the true nature of so-called 'superpowers' really is?"

"That's a miracle in the history of biological evolution! It's the highest peak that human science and wisdom must conquer!" Lucas snorted without hesitation, his tone revealing the arrogance of a capitalist and a mad scientist.

"Oh, what a classic and boring materialist statement." The tuxedo clown let out a chilling chuckle, his laughter tinged with undisguised pity. "If all you have in your head are these cold data and genetic chains, you'll probably never be able to complete your final experiment."

Lucas had absolutely no interest in this kind of ethereal, mad philosophy.

"I don't have time to listen to your nonsense!" Lucas's eyes turned completely cold, his finger hovering over the call cut-off button. "What do you want now? Name your price; I don't have time to waste!"

"Don't worry, my friend. I've said before, the circus is meant to bring joy to the audience. As an apology, I'm here to offer you one last helping hand."

The clown's phantom slightly turned its body, raised its right hand, and snapped its fingers in mid-air with an extremely crisp sound.

With a "whoosh," the image on the main holographic screen was forcibly switched instantly.

A mechanical instrument design drawing with an extremely complex structure and a strange geometric aesthetic. Blue and white lines slowly rotate in the air, while densely packed parameter labels scroll continuously beside it.

"A special blueprint that can perfectly complete the final piece of your hardware." The Joker's voice held a seductive magic. "You don't need to pay any price. Just build it, and your stalled final experiment will immediately have its perfect curtain call."

Lucas stared at the design drawings of the device in front of him for a long time. He seemed to understand some of it, but he was even more puzzled.

"This is... a device that uses a living person as a battery?" Lucas said in disbelief.

The clown in the tuxedo clapped exaggeratedly in mid-air, his white gloves making a crisp "clap-clap" sound.

"Your eye is still sharp. No wonder you're a tech-savvy leader who's fought your way up from the lab. Looks like I don't need to worry about the hardware assembly for you anymore." The Joker stopped moving, his two dark eye sockets on his mask staring straight at Lucas. "However, back to our previous topic, superpowers aren't science. They're a kind of miracle built on imagination. So, any superpower needs an anchor point of imagination."

"Even the immortality you desire is essentially the same."

"What are you referring to as the anchor point of imagination?" Lucas felt that this might be the key.

"It's hard to describe specifically." The tuxedo clown thought for a moment, then said, "Let me ask you a question: how do you know the time?"

"Look at the clock."

"That's right, a clock is the anchor point for the concept of time. In an absolute vacuum where there is nothing, there is no concept of time."

Imagination cannot be confined to empty spaces, and neither can time. Only things that can be directly observed, felt, and whose variables can be discerned can serve as anchors for imagination.

"Nothingness doesn't produce miracles. Good luck, Lucas."

Lucas frowned, pondering the meaning of the sentence and the true purpose of the tuxedo clown.

The Black Moon Circus was incredibly mysterious. Although Immortal Technology had been under God's control for many years, their research had yielded little result. It was the sudden appearance of these circus clowns that provided Lucas with new ideas, enabling him to develop several generations of superpower serums and successfully become the CEO of Immortal Technology.

This shows that the Black Moon Circus had a much deeper understanding of the Hand of God than he did.

They knew this divine creation inside and out, yet they never even considered stealing it; they even scoffed at the enormous profits that Immortal Life Technology had made in recent years through its mutation drugs.

Now, they've brought out this human battery device. Even if it's actually useful, what exactly do these clowns want?

But now is not the time to think about this. Even though he knew it was a trap, he had no choice but to jump in.

On the other side of the communicator, beneath a massive, all-black curtain that blots out the sky.

Dozens of masked clowns, dressed in extremely exaggerated and colorful costumes, were hidden in the shadows of the circular audience seating area, surrounding the dark stage in the center.

"Whoosh—"

A blinding spotlight shone into the stands, enveloping a clown wearing a teardrop-painted mask in a beam of light. He slowly straightened up, placed one hand on his chest, and gracefully bowed to the surrounding emptiness.

"Friends, if I may be frank, this script is far from perfect." The Tearful Clown spread his hands, his tone tinged with disdain. "Capitalists are the most boring things on this planet. They only care about profit, so we should never have tempted them to destroy the world in the first place. This is a complete failure."

"Whoosh!" The second beam of spotlight swiftly cut towards the highest point of the stands.

A grotesque, gigantic humanoid silhouette crouched within the light spot. The brightly colored circus costume was stretched to the point of bursting by the extremely abnormal and terrifying muscle groups beneath its skin; the density visible to the naked eye was as if the mass of a dozen adult male elephants had been forcibly compressed into a single body.

The monster wearing the bizarre bull-head mask let out a murky roar: "The core of the script has never been these clowns from the Immortal Technology group, but the god in heaven on earth!" But as it turned out, this tactic was meaningless. According to the original stress test, he would either be bound by his own pathetic moral shackles, watching helplessly as the lower classes rotted away, or he would completely tear up the Federal Code in utter despair.

"But now? He's chosen a mediocre middle ground! This not only makes our plan look like a joke, but also wastes two extremely expensive puppet clones!"

"Thump, thump".

On the central stage, the clown in the tuxedo, who had just cut off communication with Lucas, casually tapped the standing microphone twice, the piercing electrical roar drowning out the bull's complaints.

"No. At least, we successfully forced him to step on the edge of the line." The clown's mask swayed slightly in the darkness, his voice tinged with neurotic fanaticism. "Breaking the line is addictive. Once you've tasted the sweetness of crossing the line, the defenses of reason will irreversibly crumble. The federal president still has to face the constraints of Congress and term limits, but once this god begins to slide, nothing in the entire world can stop him. Once he slides into the abyss, the destruction of the world will be imminent."

Friends, the profit margin on this deal is extremely high.

"Absurd!" the teardrop clown coldly interrupted him. "My deduction is exactly the opposite! What we need is for him to be completely driven mad by this rigid system, to develop absolute disillusionment with humanity. But this time, he's actually learned to exploit legal loopholes to vent his pressure! Once a pressure cooker finds its vent, it won't explode. He hasn't gone to extremes!"

"Having tasted the unbridled stench of blood, do you think a wild beast can retreat back to its cage and eat vegetarian food? No one can stop it!"

""

"Don't try to understand the Holy Light Angel with your ant-like brain!"

Swish!Swish!Swish!

As the debate intensified, spotlights on the circular stands blared one after another. Countless clowns wearing bizarre masks rose from the shadows, their shrill laughter and sharp rebuttals mingling, instantly plunging the entire area inside the giant curtain into a vortex of argument.

"Quiet, my friends."

A voice, calm and undisturbed yet imbued with boundless majesty, descended from the sky.

The entire circular grandstand, along with all the spotlights on the central stage, was completely cut off at the same instant, plunging the circus into absolute darkness.

The sound had no specific source; rather, it seemed to come directly from the dome of the giant curtain, pressing heavily into the minds of every clown.

The clowns, who had just been tearing each other apart like a pack of mad dogs, froze in place, none of them daring to utter a single heavy breath.

"We are clowns making a spectacle of ourselves amidst the ruins, and the only fools who have glimpsed the truth. We are destined to be enemies of this world, so we can only rely on each other."

The voice from the dome echoed slowly and deliberately: "Stop the pointless arguments. Destroying the old world was never our intention; it was just a necessary first step. Never forget our true goal."

"Besides, this performance hasn't really come to a close yet, so don't rush to judge Yong Sheng Technology's performance. Believe me, when those greedy capitalists are drowning, what they're best at is dragging everyone down with them."