Chapter 132: The Collective Consciousness
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Lin Xu was startled. He raised his hand and ran it through his hair, which just reached his shoulders. In his memory, this hairstyle was something he had roughly hacked at with a dagger—no time to groom it properly. It looked messy, like wild grass tossed by a strong wind.
He was now dressed exactly as he had been for combat at the apocalypse base, even feeling the firm muscles of his biceps under his arms. What was going on? Where was this place?
Just as he was bewildered, a figure slowly emerged through the white mist ahead of him. The figure stepped gently toward Lin Xu, wrapped in a faint glow. Wearing a white robe that looked like clouds under the sunlight, the figure’s smooth black hair fell loosely without adornment. Their gaze was fixed on Lin Xu, eyes filled with wisdom and a divine smile.
Lin Xu stood straight and strong in his sleek black combat suit, poised like a cold, coiled leopard ready to strike. Face to face, their auras were completely opposed, yet their features looked as if cast from the same mold, indistinguishable.
If there was any difference, it was that the Spiritual Monarch was surrounded by a group of multicolored rabbit-cats—fluffy creatures hopping and clawing playfully at the white robe. Before Lin Xu could speak, the Spiritual Monarch bent down, scooped up an orange rabbit-cat, and placed it gently into Lin Xu’s arms.
Lin Xu was momentarily caught off guard. He instinctively raised his hands to receive the large orange fluffball. It was warm and soft, even heavier than Blackie and Snowy, with an incredibly realistic texture.
The Spiritual Monarch showed a pleased expression. Although Lin Xu was gentle with the rabbit-cat in his arms and didn’t toss the little thing away, he remained wary and suspicious of the being before him. The figure claimed to be the Spiritual Monarch.
“What is this place?” Lin Xu asked.
“Spirit Realm,” the Spiritual Monarch answered calmly, without much emotion. Their low, soothing voice resembled Lin Xu’s own.
“Is this… the new Spirit Realm project at the East District base?”
“Yes.”
Lin Xu pursed his lips, scrutinizing the Spiritual Monarch. The figure met his gaze openly, as if willing to tell all it knew. “You’re their creation, not an alien civilization called by humans?”
The Spiritual Monarch paused briefly, then smiled. It hadn’t expected Lin Xu to think this way.
“I don’t know if I qualify as a creation, but I originated from humans. I’m definitely not an alien civilization. Didn’t you discover the presence of Ye waves and Yan particles in my notes? Ika Igor even attempted to upload into the Spirit Realm. I thought you understood.”
“Ika?” Lin Xu remembered having seen two translated and compiled notebooks mentioning Ika, but he hadn’t known that Ika had tried to upload into the Spirit Realm. So…
“He tried to upload his consciousness into the Spirit Realm?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?” the Spiritual Monarch said. “Ah, I seem to have accidentally revealed his little secret. Don’t blame the kid; he didn’t actually do anything.”
“All the survivors in the base uploaded their consciousness into the Spirit Realm?”
“Not exactly. It depends on how you define consciousness. I did abandon the physical body.”
The Marion Empire didn’t have mature consciousness-uploading technology yet. Their so-called holographic gaming pods interfaced with brainwaves but didn’t transfer consciousness into the game itself. Human existence still relied heavily on the physical body. The Snow Mountain base completed that technology three thousand years ago.
“Where are the survivors now?”
“They are all here, right in front of you.”
When the Spiritual Monarch mentioned the two notebooks earlier, Lin Xu had already been confused by the figure’s use of the pronoun “I.” Now, this statement completely shattered the hazy barrier of his understanding.
“You are… a collective consciousness? The survivors’ minds merged into you?”
“Exactly,” the Spiritual Monarch smiled with narrowed eyes.
“But why me? Why do you look exactly like me?”
“Many consciousnesses are difficult to unify. There must be a shared cognitive template as a foundation. Every individual within me revered you. I believed the choices you made would guide us in the right direction.”
Lin Xu furrowed his brow. “I left the base a long time ago.”
“Do you remember the chief medical officer performing a mental scan on you? My cognitive template was built on the results of your scan and supplemented by statistical analysis of your behavior.”
“I am you, Lin Xu.”
“What about the others? What about their consciousness? And Karayan, who left on his own.”
“They are all here. There is no object separate from me—every consciousness is a subject. When I speak, they speak through me. But the individuality of each consciousness remains intact. Karayan wanted to go out and explore, and he was free to do so.”
“If that’s the case, how are you still me?”
The Spiritual Monarch gently stroked the white rabbit-cat nestled in its arms. “A collective consciousness is not simply the sum of all minds. It doesn’t operate purely on statistics or proportions. I am a unique conscious entity. How you think and act, so do I. But we occupy different times and spaces, so if you insist on saying we’re different, that’s also fair.”
The Spiritual Monarch smiled warmly at him. Lin Xu was silent for a moment. An independent consciousness that had never truly experienced the thought processes and actions of a collective consciousness simply could not comprehend it—sometimes not even imagine it.
“Can you tell me what happened on Earth after I left?”
“Sit down and we’ll talk.”
With a wave of the Spiritual Monarch’s hand, a bench appeared before them. After inviting Lin Xu to sit, the number of rabbit-cats hopping around them grew rapidly. They bounced at their feet and even scrambled onto the bench, curling up on Lin Xu’s lap, nearly burying him.
The Spiritual Monarch stroked the rabbit-cats happily and passed a bunch to Lin Xu.
“I’ve got cats at home now.” The conjured rabbit-cats were soft and very well-behaved. Lin Xu’s heart stirred, but he had to decline.
The Spiritual Monarch said, “It’s okay. The scent and fur of these rabbit-cats won’t leave the Spirit Realm. Your rabbit-cats won’t notice.”
After saying this, it waved again, summoning three or five tiny wing-flapping dragons that circled Lin Xu, occasionally nudging his arm with their dragon heads. Lin Xu gasped inwardly. He was not like the Spiritual Monarch—he wasn’t some playboy who used people and discarded them.
“Where would you like to start hearing this history?”
“…The renewed nuclear war between the major bases.”
The Spiritual Monarch pondered, then began. “The cause was Alfred’s Ark Fleet plan. He kept it secret until one month before the Ark Fleet’s departure. Only then did the East, South, and Central Districts learn about it. The Ark Fleet would take two-thirds of Earth’s industrial and agricultural resources at the time. You know, humanity’s industrial and agricultural capacities were severely damaged after the apocalypse, and many things could no longer be produced. Meanwhile, the West and North Districts recruited many top scientists and intellectuals. They believed Earth had no future and chose to leave with the Ark Fleet.”
If the Ark Fleet took away two-thirds of Earth’s resources, almost nothing was left for the remaining humans—zombies, mutated plants and animals had pushed civilization back to the brink of the primitive age.
“We tried negotiating with Alfred. He was too stubborn to alter his plan, and all efforts failed,” the Spiritual Monarch sighed. “When the Ark Fleet launched and left Earth, they couldn’t hide their movements. Those left behind went mad. The South District was the first to fire missiles at the Ark Fleet. Then everything spiraled out of control. The Ark Fleet retaliated with large-scale strikes against potential enemies. The East and Central Districts also joined the fight.”
“The Ark Fleet almost took all remaining human air forces. After they left, the people on the lunar space station and the forward exploration base lost their supply lines. They fired on the Ark Fleet, but the Ark Fleet was faster—they destroyed the lunar base with overwhelming force before the lunar base could attack.”
“Alfred thought this would eradicate the Zerg threat.”
Lin Xu interrupted sharply, “Zerg? There were Zerg on the moon?!”
The Spiritual Monarch pressed their brow. “Oh, I forgot to tell you—Zerg were created by humans. During the nuclear war period before the zombies appeared, the old war factions wanted to develop biological weapons to defeat their enemies. But the weapon leaked and caused a mutation crisis. That’s what the North District’s official records said, right?”
“Yeah.” Lin Xu had read the North District’s explanation later.
“Do you remember Alfred’s background before the war?”
“He came from a family with a long military and political tradition.” Alfred had been a classmate Lin Xu met while studying abroad. They got along well, though they had some ideological differences. The Spiritual Monarch mentioning Alfred’s pre-war identity made Lin Xu think more deeply.
The old war factions were formed from the military and political figures before the war. After the districts formed, there was a purge of the old factions, but Alfred wasn’t affected. Instead, he rose steadily to become the head of the North District.
“He and his family likely got involved in the bioweapons experiments,” the Spiritual Monarch said. “But the information I later got was unclear, so I could only speculate. When the North District released the experimental data publicly, they only mentioned Earth laboratories. The real research and manufacturing of bioweapons happened on the moon. They aimed to create the Zerg, but lost control of the weapon. The virus leaked back to Earth, causing widespread mutation.”
“When the Ark Fleet left, they chose to destroy the lunar outpost—to eliminate the Zerg threat and to cover up evidence. But the Zerg were resilient and some survived. During the Ark Fleet’s voyage, the Zerg began pursuing humans.”
“The humans left on Earth… truly could not survive. After the new bases were established, humanity tried many ways to preserve the species, including merging mutated genes—all failed. At the same time, Yan Yuan and Ye Shanshan discovered the Yan particles and Ye waves, breaking through the key difficulty of the Spirit Realm project. Humanity decided to extend life through consciousness uploading.”
“I rebuilt technology and civilization. At first, adapting to the Spirit Realm consciousness field made of Yan particles and Ye waves was slow. But as time passed, my technical power grew. Because of the special nature of the Spirit Realm, I didn’t need physical carriers from normal human spacetime, so I left Earth.”
“Until I perfected the connection technology between the Spirit Realm field and regular spacetime, I built an artificial planet in a distant star system as a foothold. This all took more than two thousand years.”
“The Ark Fleet developed jump technology after nearly a century of space travel. But it wasn’t fully mature. During a jump, they got trapped in a black hole, missing two thousand years of development. I met them while rescuing the mermaids from Earth and sending them to Thales—and I helped them out of a tight spot.”
Lin Xu asked, “You saved them… don’t you hate them?”
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