Chapter 431 Doomsday Fortress

The woman looked like she was showcasing some treasure to them: “This box contains many beings similar to us; we can see them, but we cannot touch them… It’s fascinating; I wonder how it’s done.”

Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan exchanged glances, each seeing the weirdness reflected in the other’s eyes.

At that moment, the television started playing the scene where Guan Yu slays Hua Xiong, and a booming voice came through: “No rush, let me go out and take Hua Xiong’s head; the wine is still warm.”

The woman seemed very interested in this scene. Seeing Guan Yu charging out with his blade, she suddenly asked, “Do you have names?”

Xia Xinyan paused, didn’t answer directly, and instead asked, “Do you… have one?”

“Of course I do,” the woman nodded. “Names are something everyone must have; otherwise, how can anyone be identified? … You don’t know my name? Then let me tell you: my name is… Guan Yu.”

Ling Mo: “…”

Xia Xinyan: “…”

“Isn’t that imposing?” Seeing their reaction, the woman grinned, “That’s the name of the person in this box—he’s strong, and I’m strong too, so he’s called Guan Yu, and I’m also called Guan Yu.”

After a brief pause, she continued, “What are your names?”

Xia Xinyan promptly answered, “Xia Xinyan.”

She could almost predict the next development—if they pretended not to have names, this woman would likely forcefully give them names, and who knows, in a few minutes, they could end up as Lü Bu and Yuan Shao.

Might as well tell her directly; this could lower the risk of exposure slightly.

Seeing this, Ling Mo also spoke up, “I’m Ling Mo, and this is… Monica.”

“…An odd name,” the woman frowned but didn’t dig deeper. “But since you have names, that only proves you and I are the same kind of being, unlike those useless fools outside. We are naturally meant to rise above those imbeciles; we are born to be kings!”

After a moment, she added, “No, only I am born to be a king; you shall be my national generals—you can also choose to challenge me; the victor shall be king. That is your right, but you can’t beat me; if you lose, I will kill you.”

“We won’t do that,” Xia Xinyan shook her head, “You say we’re the national generals; then that’s what we are.”

She remembered their purpose for coming here; since they hadn’t aimed for a fight from the beginning, they should avoid any possible confrontations.

The woman seemed satisfied with their attitude: “Good… your choice is wise.”

Then, she stood up and began to walk out: “I need to manage my city-state and will tell those fools your words. You can stay here—this is my most cherished royal mansion. So far, I’ve only allowed you in; this is my trust in you. Thus, do not damage anything here, or… the consequences will be severe…”

Ling Mo nodded.

The woman didn’t say anything more and left.

Once she was gone, Ling Mo spoke up with a weird expression: “The points of ridicule here are just endless…”

“But it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Monica laughed. “This species is ‘learning’; even though what we see now is only an individual, it represents this species’ evolution entering a new stage. If nothing major impacts it, they will eventually evolve into a new order race and be recognized by the world.”

“What do you mean? Will they remain here in this world for a long time?” Ling Mo pondered.

Monica stroked her chin, not providing a definite answer: “Hard to say—it depends on what you do. After all, I’ve never encountered this situation before, but if we adhere to the rules, this kind of species should be considered malicious invaders that need to be expelled back to their original world—but you know, their original world is here.”

This was the most contradictory part, and even Monica’s work manual didn’t provide solutions for such situations.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons this place became an Experiment Site—a test of a completely new world issue—Monica knew a bit about this testing process. According to the laws of world evolution, when unprecedented world issues arise, the higher-ups first tend to let them naturally evolve into a result. Only if the final result is very poor will they step in to guide things.

And natural evolution… actually includes wars between humans and invading species.

So Monica couldn’t even give suggestions; at best, she could only share some truths. This fell into the realm of interference versus non-interference—put simply, skating around the rules is fine, but she’ll absolutely never cross lines that violate the work code.

However, her words were enough to plunge Ling Mo into contemplation.

Xia Xinyan seemed to have anticipated this problem already and didn’t react too surprisingly: “At least we’ve gained quite a bit from this exploration.”

One could even say that just this current investigation has already surpassed all the information obtained during her last expedition until death; this was excellent news for her.

Regardless of the final outcome, the more information collected now, the more beneficial it would be for the final choices.

Ling Mo surveyed the room, curiously moving over to the desk and pulling open a drawer: “What kind of person constructed this place… Hmm? A diary?”

Upon hearing this, Xia Xinyan rushed over: “A diary? Does it have any records?”

“It does… and the date on the first page…” Ling Mo frowned slightly as he calculated, “It seems to be around the time this world perished.”

Xia Xinyan leaned over to read the diary entry.

This was undoubtedly a critical discovery—because prior to this, not even Monica knew how this world had ultimately been destroyed, and these so-called “replicas” likely didn’t know what despair their original selves underwent in the final stages. Although the real world had been opened, all cities were ruined like this, making it hard to find much useful information.

Until now.

On this diary, they finally found out what happened back then.

It appeared the diary was written by a middle-aged man, who seemed to be excited and grateful when writing the first entry. He mentioned that a terrifying chaos suddenly erupted in the outside world, akin to a zombie crisis, and thus, the Doomsday Fortress he had spent so much time preparing finally came to use, remarking that the money spent to create this fortress wasn’t wasted.

At the end of the first entry, there was one statement—

“Survival madness is awesome!”

   

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