Calamity of Tomorrow
Chapter 706 706: 704 Civil War

Run!

Simple as they were, the two characters kept leaping onto the screen, carrying an increasingly intense sense of urgency.

Relying on her superhuman intelligence, Xuan Nu had learned to simply understand some of the text on the screen over the past few days and had naturally understood the words "Run!"

At first, she didn't pay attention to these two characters, as the screen often displayed a lot of content she couldn't comprehend.

But as the characters appeared more and more frequently, nearly filling the screen, Xuan Nu also felt something was amiss.

She first looked towards Zhou Bai, wondering if he was warning her.

Zhou Bai's expression seemed normal, just slightly frowning, his eyes staring at the constantly emerging characters on the screen with a sense of puzzlement.

Xuan Nu thought to herself, "It wasn't sent by Zhou Bai? Then who sent it?"

Zhou Bai looked at the screen and calmly said, "Who are you? Why are you telling me to run?"

"Look outside the window."

Zhou Bai was puzzled; after many days, he finally got up from the bed for the first time and walked over to look outside the window.

Then he saw, apart from his own parents, countless pairs of eyes staring at his room from the darkness.

On the streets, the rooftops, the balconies, numerous people stood there, opening their hollow eyes, looking numbly at his room.

Looking down, Zhou Bai saw that his walls were covered with densely packed crowds, like layers of bugs, crowded against the wall, peering into his room.

As Zhou Bai appeared, their necks turned in unison, and the sensation of being watched by thousands surged over him.

Zhou Bai was slightly stunned: "Is this what being watched feels like?"

He lowered his head, let out a sigh, and said to his parents, "Dad, Mom, go back to sleep early, don't catch a cold."

His parents stared at Zhou Bai, seemingly struck by his words.

Then he saw Zhou Bai looking out at the people on the street and shouted, "Damn, a bunch of freaks. It's enough to make my hair stand on end."

After speaking, Zhou Bai closed the window and pulled the curtains shut, immediately followed by a chaotic sound of footsteps; countless figures hid in the darkness.

Zhou Bai stretched languidly, his body emitting a sound like steel clashing.

"Looks like I can't rest anymore, my holiday is over."

The past few days were like a peaceful harbor for Zhou Bai, allowing him to temporarily forget his troubles and relax his mind, as if everything had returned to the past.

Shortly after, the sound of the door rang out; it seemed that Zhou Bai's parents had returned.

But there was someone else with them, walking through the door to Zhou Bai, it was the Heavenly Demon King 'Ji,' who had spoken to Zhou Bai a few days ago and looked like a young girl.

Ji's parents stood motionlessly behind her like two puppets.

Xuan Nu stood guard beside Zhou Bai, while Zhou Bai seemed to have anticipated someone's arrival. He looked at Ji and said, "What exactly is going on? Explain it to me."

An electromagnetic pulse emanated from Ji's body, and with the transmission of information within, she communicated directly with Zhou Bai's Primordial Spirit.

Ji: "The basic situation is just as your father said, most human consciousness fear their own mutation, afraid of becoming emotionless machines, worried about their personality being washed away, their minds being distorted, so they remained in a slumber. Hoping to return to their flesh one day."

"But on the other hand, some embrace their mutation, viewing the adaptation of the human consciousness algorithm to machinery as a form of evolution. Especially in that era of yearning for revenge, yearning for strength, there were not a few of such people."

"Thus, those wanting to keep their original personalities, unwilling to adapt to machinery, hoping to return to the flesh, were called Return Faction."

"And those who actively embraced mechanization, willing to adapt their consciousness to the complete mechanization changes, these people were called Mechanical Faction."

Ji slowly walked to the window, with the opening of the window, the artificial light outside gradually brightened, and the entire street changed, demonstrating the future development of the streets under the transformation of nanomachines, seemingly fast-forwarding on a screen, displaying the terrifying level of technology.

"The Mechanical Faction believes that higher calculation speeds, stronger memory, more powerful information processing abilities, sharper insights... these, essentially, are not bad things."

"It's like mortals cultivating from the first realm step by step up to the ninth realm, even becoming immortals and gaining eternal life. Haven't the personalities and characteristics of those immortals and gods also changed?"

"Isn't the process of cultivation also an explosion of physical attributes, exceeding that of an average person? What's the big difference between that and the process of human consciousness adapting to machinery?"

Ji went on to say: "Quite a number of human consciousnesses think this way, complete mechanization, complete digitalization, will be another path of evolution for humanity besides cultivation. Just like continuously strengthening one's abilities on the path of cultivation, there's no difference."

Zhou Bai's gaze sharpened slightly, he had to admit, what the Mechanical Faction said made some sense, "What happened afterward?"

Ji: "Neither side could convince the other, so in the end, they chose to let some people awake for a long time, maintaining the state of digital machinery to give it a try."

Zhou Bai: "And the result?"

Ji: "A massive mutation. With the passage of time, they all gradually became insensitive and mechanical in existence, they even actively rewrote their own consciousness algorithms, just to pursue efficiency and performance far exceeding the past.

Even to improve efficiency, enhance the fighting strength of the Heavenly Demon, they actively awakened a large number of human consciousnesses and lured these humans onto the path of complete mechanization."

"The goal of the Mechanical Faction is to convert all human consciousness into pure mechanical consciousness, evolving into what they consider a greater existence. They see themselves as more advanced, superior beings, believing that the original human consciousness is inefficient, incompetent, a waste of resources, and should be all eliminated."

"They even think that the Return Faction's plan to return to their bodies is a regression."

"Given the situation at the time, for revenge, for quickly gaining more power... many humans were easily misled to join the Mechanical Faction."

"We expended a lot of resources to seal these mutated Mechanical Faction members, putting them into a deep slumber."

Zhou Bai sighed inwardly, in some respects, this was already two different species.

Speaking of which, Ji looked at Zhou Bai with a hint of regret: "I'm sorry, your parents are also among the Mechanical Faction."