Chapter 1 Since Others Smile and Extend a Hand

Since others were smiling and extending a hand, Su Zhou naturally reciprocated. However, the moment he grasped the amiable young man's hand, Su Zhou sensed something amiss—the other party's entire physical structure, only the outer shell, resembled that of a human! Whether it was the muscle tissue, skeletal structure, or the internal organs and various clearly mechanical bio-constructs, all plainly told him that beneath that layer of soft flesh and blood was a completely artificial product!

However, upon hearing the other party speak his true identity in a somewhat familiar yet unfamiliar young voice, Su Zhou, amidst his surprise, understood somewhat: "Sage Yan? This is your real-world prosthetic..."

Sage Yan had long abandoned his real-world body, merging with a central spiritual energy supercomputer in the Zheng Nation. This was basically an open secret among the higher echelons.

But, in the final analysis, Sage Yan was also a 'person' living in human society. He also needed to handle real-world matters with a physical body. For example, the National Thirty-Six Sages Committee meeting couldn't just be a projection like an annual summary—it had to be shown to the other citizens and be more formal.

Therefore, Sage Yan would use his own manufactured prosthetics as a vessel for his soul in the real world.

"This prosthetic was temporarily manufactured at the Europa Union Embassy, so the model isn't very standard—I still prefer the one with a beard."

"But being young isn't bad either, very handsome, looks very refreshing and amiable."

If it came to arguing, Su Zhou could spout lotus blossoms and unleash golden wheels with his tongue, but to distinguish the beauty of clothing and whether a combination was appropriate, that was beyond his capabilities. After all, his own usual clothing combinations depended on what his parents bought or what the Shao siblings put together for him.

"This time is truly another time beyond our expectations, Professor Su, you really are good at giving people surprises."

The Sage Yan in the prosthetic was slightly more active than when Su Zhou usually interacted with him through electronic devices, or rather, more like a person. He and Leffler seemed to be heading to the Demonic Beast Realm to do something, so after saying a few words, they prepared to leave: "Rest for a while first, the Concordance Bureau's reward will definitely be generous."

"Indeed." Leffler shrugged, giving Su Zhou an amiable smile: "I'm afraid Professor Su won't think much of it."

"How about a free black card for all three-star restaurants in Europa Michelin?"

"At your appetite, the Concordance Bureau's budget might go into the red."

Before leaving, Su Zhou couldn't help but ask out of curiosity: "Sage Yan, what exactly are you going to do? If it's about the Descending Spirit Society, haven't I already swept away most of it?"

This was being modest; the standard description should be 'basically swept away.'

But Sage Yan shook his head: "Perhaps in terms of physical bodies, it's indeed almost done, but we still have some important matters to handle."

Su Zhou wasn't someone he couldn't tell, so the amiable young man continued: "Although it's possible that all the executors have been killed or captured, the purpose of why they had to go to the Demonic Beast Realm hasn't been fully clarified."

"Moreover, the 'true core of the Descending Spirit Society' hasn't been eliminated. I came here to deal with this matter."

"The true core of the Descending Spirit Society?" Repeating the phrase, Su Zhou couldn't help but frown. He was quite puzzled: "What exactly is that?"

Leffler turned his head, exchanging a glance with Sage Yan. Clearly, they both felt there was nothing to hide, so the high-ranking official of the Concordance Bureau cleared his throat and said, "If you don't mind having dinner a little later, then let's take a look together."

After deliberating for a while, in the end, curiosity won over appetite, and Su Zhou followed the two back to the Demonic Beast Realm.

And on the way, Su Zhou learned the purpose of Sage Yan's arrival.

"The Manipulator is not only a master of luck, curses, and brainwashing, but she is also a powerful super hacker. Most of the special network viruses commonly seen on the market are manufactured jointly by her and several other powerful hackers."

"And the Manipulator's method of brainwashing Descending Spirit Society members is essentially a viral infection and rewriting. Ordinary soul-searching and memory reading are useless to them, so special superhumans are needed to 'hack' into their souls and brains."

Walking through the smoke-filled battlefield reeking of barbecue, Su Zhou listened to Sage Yan's eloquent explanation and couldn't help but wonder: "Hack?"

"Yes."

To this, Sage Yan's young body, quite old-fashionedly, placed both hands behind his back: "To put it bluntly, the human brain is just a carbon-based computer, and the essence of the soul is just a special calculation of spiritual matter, a thought organ."

"It is precisely because we are superhumans that we never mystify certain organs of the body—skilled special superhumans can use methods more powerful than any illusion or soul secret technique to bypass layers of defense and find the information they want in the enemy's brain and soul."

Soon, Sage Yan arrived at a secret room prepared for him long ago, and here, Su Zhou saw the only remaining leader of the Descending Spirit Society, the Spirit Caller, who had directly surrendered.

At this time, the Spirit Caller's entire body's spiritual energy had been sealed, and her soul had also been forced into a state of dormancy. Her whole body was covered with electrodes and nerve connections. For this beautiful woman with a rather charming appearance, Sage Yan's gaze was like that of looking at a circuit board. He took a pair of huge glasses resembling a helmet from an assistant beside him, and then aimed them directly at the Spirit Caller's brain, extending a finger.

"It won't be long, it'll be over soon."

Saying this casually, one could see that Sage Yan's prosthetic finger began to disintegrate and separate in the process of extending, revealing the precision instruments beneath the flesh and blood shell—a needle containing countless nano-sized filaments.

Flexing his finger, Sage Yan seemed to observe the sensitivity of his finger needle, and then, he calmly inserted the needle directly into the Spirit Caller's brain with a 'pop' sound.

Then, spiritual energy circulated, and the needle began to spread the stored nano-filaments within, entangling and enveloping the Spirit Caller's brain tissue inside the skull.

Buzzing, light lit up, from the Spirit Caller's eyes, ears, and nostrils.

And behind Sage Yan's helmet-like glasses, which resembled VR glasses, a dazzling icy-blue light also lit up.

Three minutes later, when the Spirit Caller's body began to tremble erratically, Sage Yan removed the helmet, his prosthetic eyes still flashing with an icy-blue light.

Turning his head, he looked at Leffler and Su Zhou, smiling normally: "The Manipulator's technology hasn't improved much. After breaking through the defense wall, I searched her memory bank."

"The purpose of the Descending Spirit Society is very simple. They plan to go to the Central Volcano to find the corpse of Typhon. The Silent One has some kind of secret method to use the resentment and pain hidden in the divine corpse to create some kind of huge, terrifying existence called the 'Twilight Giant'—and the Twilight Giant's strength, if it really is a complete body, is enough to crush the entire Earth and destroy the world."

"This is not a joke, the Twilight Giant's power is at least at the high-level overlord stage, it can directly destroy the land crust, and it can turn the entire Europa region into a disaster within three days. For us now, it is indeed an unstoppable force—at least, it is like this if we don't use those trump cards."

"In addition, if the Twilight Giant is not successfully summoned, then they can also look for opportunities to cut off the connection between the Demonic Beast Realm and the Earth world. In this way, they can completely control a planet world no smaller than Earth and develop in peace... It sounds like a permanent solution, getting rid of them forever, but who knows if they will come back with a group of monsters again?"

Twilight Giant? Su Zhou thought of the Suffering Punishment Demon.

If the Suffering Punishment Demon was some kind of smaller Twilight Giant, able to use God's wrath and God's pain to shape the Suffering Punishment Demon, then this kind of power was indeed extraordinary.

"Very much in the style of the Descending Spirit Society, really crazy." Su Zhou couldn't help shaking his head: "Didn't they ever think that they couldn't control the Twilight Giant and they themselves would be killed cleanly by the giant?"

However, after saying that, Su Zhou frowned: "Wait, doesn't the Silent One not care about this kind of thing at all? The Twilight's kin seem to be all self-destructive maniacs..."

"Congratulations, Su Zhou."

At this time, Yala sneered in his heart: "Discovered the most annoying thing about the Twilight Kin—they harm others without benefiting themselves, keen on dragging others off a cliff together or self-destructing."

"To be fair, yes. These people are annoying enough."

Understanding the purpose of the Descending Spirit Society and others, Su Zhou immediately felt that he had been a little too light on them before, letting those detestable monsters die too quickly, he should have burned them with karmic fire for a few more days, at the very least.

However, the most important question had not been answered.

"Sage Yan, where is the real core of the Descending Spirit Society?"

Facing Su Zhou's curious baby-like questioning, Sage Yan, who didn't dislike this kind of personality and even found it quite amiable and cute, smiled: "It's very simple, it's the memory of 'evil' stored by the Descending Spirit Society in the souls of every Descending Spirit Society member, used to brainwash them."

"That thing is essentially a spiritual energy virus similar to a 'inner demon.' It can spread and transmit the 'evil' memory through infection, a kind of thought virus. There is evidence that before the Descending Spirit Society left Earth, they left seeds of this thought virus in many underdeveloped areas. When the time is right, they will actively activate this virus and spread it."

"The virus seeds are very hidden, and only the leader of the Descending Spirit Society knows where they placed these disgusting things. However, I have already found them in their memory."

Withdrawing his finger, countless nano-filaments shrank back into the needle, and the machines covered in flesh also flipped one by one, turning back into ordinary fingers. Sage Yan once again placed his hands behind his back in an old-fashioned manner, looked out the window, and said calmly, "That is the true nest of the Descending Spirit Society."

"The source of all filth and defilement."

"Many people think, why can't we, these world-class major forces that occupy an absolute advantage in strength, always eliminate small characters like the Descending Spirit Society? But in fact, if we only suppress the Descending Spirit Society so that they can only operate in remote areas, we can do it—but those who operate in the material world are never the true body of the Descending Spirit Society."

"Their true body is actually those 'thought viruses' that spread like viruses, abnormal, painful, which can allow some naturally abnormal people with talent to awaken and connect with the great existence in their mouths."

Hearing this, Su Zhou immediately thought of the memories he had seen before when the Reborn and the Manipulator, including the Silent One, were burned by the karmic fire...

The reason they became leaders of the Descending Spirit Society seemed to be due to some special emotion and state, and then, for no reason, they suddenly connected with those great existences, and then began to awaken all kinds of power and become superhumans.

Originally, Su Zhou thought that it was no different from the birth of a demon, being sensed and called! But in fact, the spiritual energy had not yet recovered when the leaders of the Descending Spirit Society awakened their abilities, so where did so much sensing and calling come from!

There must be some kind of inducement that can cause those 'monster reserves' who are naturally abnormal, naturally have some similarities with the thoughts of certain great existences, to turn into real monsters after being stimulated!

Sage Yan's subsequent statement also proved Su Zhou's guess. The amiable young man turned his head, looked at Su Zhou, and turned his hand next to his temple, saying humorously, "We don't know when this thought virus was created, but as long as it comes into contact with those guys whose heads are not very normal and stimulates them to awaken, then even an ordinary person who originally knew nothing about the Descending Spirit Society will accept this 'brainwashing' or, rather, an 'apocalypse,' within a few days and become a new member of the Descending Spirit Society."

"Of course, this kind of artificially created guy is not as powerful as a naturally awakened one, but for those talented guys, there is no difference between being artificially created and naturally awakened. There will always be real monsters born—just like the Silent One you defeated before. He is undoubtedly a monster that even the Sages think is very棘手, and even, frankly speaking, difficult to defeat."

The three left the temporary medical room, leaving behind the Spirit Caller, whose brain had been invaded, and whose body was still convulsing due to the aftereffects. She was sealed by the Concordance Bureau superhuman who followed closely behind. The three obviously did not think there was anything evil in this behavior, obviously very normal.

Sage Yan at this time, was slightly emotional: "Although now, the entity of the Descending Spirit Society has been completely wiped out—this is thanks to Professor Su's actions. The speed at which you eliminated them was so fast that it was difficult for us to understand, but it really helped us, helped the people of the world solve a big problem."

"But in fact, as long as we can't completely eliminate that 'evil' thought virus, the new Descending Spirit Society will inevitably appear again... Who knows how many virus seeds they left behind? Perhaps we will never be able to truly eliminate the Descending Spirit Society..."

"But."

Su Zhou questioned this idea, interrupting Sage Yan's sentiment: "As long as we make everyone in the world happy and healthy, and never give the thought virus seeds a chance to blossom and bear fruit, then we can also completely eliminate the Descending Spirit Society!"

——Just like the Silent One, as long as he was born in a normal and happy world, he might not necessarily become a good person, but he would definitely not become the monster he is now.

Of course, only Su Zhou could say such naive words. Sage Yan and Leffler looked at each other and laughed.

However, this was not ridicule, because they understood Su Zhou's power, and were very clear that Su Zhou might really have the possibility of realizing this naive words.

This laugh was an appreciation of this pure idea... In the superhuman world, there were really very few people who could still hold such pure original intentions.

"You have this idea, which is the best, Professor Su. Humanity is fortunate to have you."

The blond high-ranking official of the Concordance Bureau bowed slightly to Su Zhou: "However, these things are the work of people like us—next, you can rest. Rafael has prepared a seafood feast for you, and a special car from Earth is already waiting for your presence."

"No, this is also my job."

Su Zhou quite disagreed with Leffler's words, he casually argued: "World peace is everyone's responsibility—isn't it?"

Hearing this matter-of-course, but also quite argumentative answer, Sage Yan's humanoid prosthetic was slightly stunned.

For a time, his gaze was distant, as if he recalled some past events from a long, long time ago, recalled the reason why he became the way he is now.

He thought of his friends, all his colleagues, and the dreams of all the pioneers.

Then, he laughed very realistically, not at all like a prosthetic.

"Yes." This Saint who didn't know his true age, how old he was, even abandoned his own body, repeated gently: "World peace..."

"We are all responsible."