Chapter 78: Ambers of the Long Night (34)
“Still no response?” Tang Mobai paced anxiously back and forth in the lab, making Yan Wuzhen’s eyes ache just watching him. “Didn’t you say you were confident about that code?”
“I was! But what if Emmanuel couldn’t decipher it?! What if he didn’t go find Dodge?!”
At first, Tang Mobai had been full of confidence about the secret code. But as time passed with no response from the surface, his certainty began to waver.
Incidentally, their signal room was currently sealed. To Tang Mobai, the main purpose of the signal room wasn’t just to earn points—it was to receive hints from the government. However, that also came with the risk of leaking information, especially in this open-world region where Elons could appear at any time.
“Seth, can we send the signal again?” Tang Mobai couldn’t help asking.
Seth replied, “We can, but transmitting light signals strong enough to reach the surface will consume a huge amount of energy. And our power reserves are already low. If we do it again, there might not be enough left to activate the space-jump device later.”
In other words, their previous attempt had already been their last chance.
Tang Mobai scratched his head irritably. For the moment, he couldn’t think of any other way. According to the messages he’d seen on the bullet screen, the election ceremony on the surface was supposed to happen today—but he had no idea how far it had progressed. Would it already be over by the time they made it there…?
Time ticked by in anxious silence until Tang Mobai finally took a deep breath. “Seth, if we activate the spatial device right now, how confident are you that we’ll land on the surface?”
“Hard to say,” Seth replied thoughtfully. “If we appear in the air, that might be fine—we could use points to buy parachutes from the shop. But if we materialize inside the ground, we could suffocate or even get buried alive.”
“Can you adjust the parameters?” Tang Mobai pressed. “Shorten the distance as much as possible. As long as we can break free of the Lost City’s gravity, I don’t care if we appear high in the air—we’ll figure it out from there.”
“I object,” Yan Wuzhen said firmly. “That’s too dangerous. If we appear in midair, we’ll be sitting ducks. I don’t believe the demons on the surface are unprepared—they’re definitely watching the final election ceremony closely. If any of them spot us, we’ll have nowhere to hide. It’ll be certain death.”
“If you insist on doing this, I’d rather stay in the Lost City until this dungeon ends.”
Tang Mobai hesitated. “But…”
“Don’t forget—it was you who asked me to act as the brakes,” Yan Wuzhen cut him off coldly. “Well, it’s time to brake. I’m not against your wish to save the world. I even want to see the Super Intelligence myself. I want to see what the world looks like to someone at level 100. But not if it means marching straight to death.”
That was, in fact, Yan Wuzhen’s next personal desire—once fulfilled, he might unlock another layer of self-evolution. But he had never told Tang Mobai or Seth about it.
Tang Mobai turned to Seth. “What about you?”
“I’m fine with either,” Seth said calmly.
Tang Mobai ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He couldn’t really argue—after all, it was him who had told Yan Wuzhen to be the team’s brakes. If he now chose to ignore that, Yan Wuzhen would definitely leave the team.
Were they really going to give up like this…?
Suddenly, Seth’s eyes locked on the monitor. “Wait… there’s a flight signal approaching!”
Tang Mobai and Yan Wuzhen froze, then rushed to the screen.
They could both see it: a small light dot was rapidly closing in on their location.
Inside the spaceship cockpit, Emmanuel sat alone. Over the comms, Ment’s panicked voice came through:
“Your Highness! What are you doing? Turn the ship around right now! You’ll crash at this rate!”
The autopilot system relied entirely on the Super Intelligence’s network, but the Lost City was a bug zone. Once you got close, autopilot and even some core ship systems would fail—and prolonged exposure could even drive a person insane.
Ment himself had nearly crashed his ship after flying too close. He was still in the hospital, his torso wrapped in bandages. But when he heard that Emmanuel had boarded a ship, he’d tried to get out of bed, only to be pinned down by nurses.
“Your Highness! Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Ment.” Emmanuel smiled bitterly. “But I’ve told you many times—stop calling me ‘Your Highness.’ I’m not a crown prince anymore. I’m just a coward who ran away.”
Ment fell silent for a second, voice thick with emotion. “To me, you’ll always be my prince. You didn’t run away—you just saw through the flaws of the Wise King system. You’re pursuing the truth. You never meant for Opatra to inherit in your place.”
“Yes,” Emmanuel murmured. “So now, I’m going to pursue my own truth.”
He cut the connection and switched the ship’s control to manual as a warning popped up:
[DANGER AHEAD! DANGER AHEAD! SYSTEM FAILURE RISK INCREASING! LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY!]
Emmanuel turned off the warnings. The ship was already close enough that the autopilot was malfunctioning. Gritting his teeth, he flew manually toward the Lost City.
He didn’t know exactly what Tang Mobai needed—but he could at least get closer, closer… until he couldn’t anymore.
That was all a level 0 like him could do for the world.
As the ship neared the Lost City, his vision blurred. Strange, alien memories flashed through his mind—scenes of a world even more advanced than this one, yet in utter chaos. Society had collapsed. Riots, looting, murders—it was the true image of apocalypse.
“We’re all doomed anyway!”
“Down with the Ark Project! It’s just a scheme to save the elites!”
“You want to leave us here to die?!”
[WARNING: YOU ARE OFF COURSE.]
Emmanuel jerked back to awareness, but the despair from those visions lingered. He pressed a knife to his thigh, cutting deep—using pain to stay conscious—and forced the ship back on course.
But the closer he got, the stronger the memories and hallucinations became.
“Emmanuel… which plan is right? I don’t even know anymore.”
“Can we really save this world?”
“Son, have you heard anything from your department? What are we supposed to do now?”
“Don’t stop the upload! Transferring consciousness into the computer is our only chance!”
“But isn’t that just another kind of death?”
“At least we could live happily in the virtual world for a while. If we’re lucky, we might even outlast the AI’s collapse. That’s not such a bad ending, is it?”
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
He had never been a crown prince. In the real world, Emmanuel had been the lead researcher of the “Consciousness Upload Project.” He’d made great achievements in AI development—but personally, he hated that project, believing it to be a voluntary march toward extinction.
If he could, he would’ve joined the rival “Ark Project” led by Dr. Dodge—at least that offered a chance for civilization’s survival.
When his memories returned, so did the agony of his death. A splitting pain exploded in his head. He slammed his fists against his skull, and red warning lights filled the cockpit. The ship shook violently—every system flashing error messages.
[WARNING! CRASH IMMINENT!]
Not yet—not close enough!
Emmanuel gritted his teeth, blood dripping down his face, and dragged himself back into the pilot’s seat. His vision was a blur of red, his mind fading—but he clung to the locked trajectory, forcing the ship onward toward the Lost City.
Distance: 2,000 meters.
Then, another surge of memory struck. Emmanuel stabbed the knife into his thigh again, fighting to stay awake.
“You… are interesting… more broken than anyone else…”
“How about a deal? Call it… a little sliver of hope.”
Who—who was speaking to him?
“Look!” Tang Mobai’s eyes widened as he stared at the screen. “There it is!” He turned sharply toward Seth, who nodded. Blue streams of data flashed across Seth’s eyes.
At that moment, static buzzed from their communicators—the closer distance was restoring their signal.
“Emmanuel? Is that you?!” Tang Mobai grabbed the device, voice trembling with excitement. “You got the code! I knew it! We can finally—”
“…Tang Mobai…” Emmanuel’s voice was broken, strained with unbearable pain. “I’m sorry… the Red Sector… it’s up to you now.”
The line went dead.
Tang Mobai froze for a heartbeat, then whipped his head toward the screen—just in time to see the little light stop rising and begin to fall.
Seth’s voice came calmly: “Distance calculation complete. We can jump now.”
But Tang Mobai didn’t respond. Seth turned to look at him—he was staring intently at the falling light.
“We only have one chance,” Seth said quietly. “Where are we going? I can calculate the ship’s trajectory.”
At that speed, Emmanuel couldn’t possibly survive—unless they used space-folding to reach him instantly.
Tang Mobai took a slow breath, flashes of memory passing through his mind. Yan Wuzhen met his eyes. Seth waited.
Tang Mobai finally said: “We’re going… to the Red Sector.”
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