Guan Tong and Yelanka ate breakfast in the dining room—bread, jam, and milk.
Yelanka didn't bring up Guan Tong's attack on the energy facility again. Out of absolute trust, she talked about the tense global situation instead.
"Bruce's actions are clearly preparations for war," Yelanka said. "I think even if the Human Consortium countries don't say it, they all understand it clearly."
Guan Tong agreed wholeheartedly.
If not for preparing for war, why would Bruce go through the trouble of creating so many Ascendant cyborgs and building so many war weapons... All of these were meant for maintaining rule and waging external battles, nearly useless against resisting the Doomsday Rules.
"Once war breaks out, no matter how many casualties there are, it will likely cause the complete collapse of human civilization. The world's total population is only a few hundred million now—it can't withstand the devastation of a world war."
Hearing Yelanka say this, Guan Tong could sense how desperately she wanted to avoid the outbreak of war.
But this wasn't something she could decide alone. If Bruce insisted on going his own way, with Suroma's comprehensive national strength, he would inevitably drag the entire world into the flames of war.
Guan Tong thought about what he'd seen and heard these past few days: "Actually, Bruce is completely relying on authoritarian power and technology to coerce the masses. I've met many Suroma Ascendants—none of them approve of Bruce, yet none can escape his control."
"If we could eliminate him with a surprise attack, that would naturally be the best outcome. But I've scouted the Hall of Halls more than once. Bruce takes his personal safety very seriously—the entire palace has barrier protection twenty-four hours a day. A decapitation strike isn't possible."
"Not necessarily," Yelanka suddenly said.
Guan Tong looked at her. She was gently stirring her spoon in the cup, a faint, profound glimmer flickering in her eyes.
"Yelanka, do you have a way?"
"The barrier you mentioned, Teacher—it's used to defend against Mind Power intrusion, meaning it's meant to guard against Ascendants, right?"
"Exactly."
"Then what if we used humanity's own weapons?" Yelanka stared at Guan Tong. "For example, detonating a tactical nuclear bomb inside the Hall of Halls."
Guan Tong froze upon hearing this.
...
Inside the Hall of Halls, underground laboratory.
Bruce stared at the report in his hands, his face dark and gloomy.
Dr. Haisen, standing to the side, felt his heart pound nervously, guessing that something else had probably gone wrong.
"Shadow destroyed another energy hub station—one of the hub stations supplying power to this experimental base."
Bruce finished speaking and handed the report to Dr. Haisen. After reading it, the latter's face showed shock.
"Well, well... that bastard really doesn't know when to quit!"
"This is already the fifth energy station he's destroyed, plus several military factories used to produce war weapons and such. These attacks have already caused severe damage to Suroma."
Dr. Haisen said, "Your Majesty, could this be instigated by the Beixing government? Although the public has always believed 'Shadow' has no affiliation with the Beixing government..."
"No, this approach isn't Beixing's style," Bruce interrupted with certainty. "This is personal revenge. He knows these energy and military facilities are important to me, so he's made them his targets."
"Then... if that's the case, stopping him might be very difficult," Dr. Haisen said with a troubled expression. "At least until the Anti–Mind Power Intrusion Device is successfully developed, we have almost no way to deal with him."
"Just a single Ascendant, relying on his abilities, can leave a world power helpless. Should I find this laughable, or should I praise the Fire Thief's elevation of human potential?"
"This..."
Dr. Haisen looked at Bruce, unable to tell whether the latter was being sarcastic or truly meant it.
Still, he offered his advice.
"Your Majesty, this 'Shadow' is too flexible. Capturing him or preventing his attacks is very difficult. It's best to stabilize him first. Once the device designed to counter him is successfully developed, then we'll settle accounts with him!"
"Stabilize him?"
"I think besides his goal of taking revenge against Your Majesty... ahem, besides wanting to harm Your Majesty, his other goal should be related to Adam's daughter."
Bruce's eyes shifted slightly. "You want me to hand over Gaelid in exchange for stopping the attacks?"
"Of course not." Dr. Haisen quickly denied it. "We can propose to him—copy a copy of Adam's daughter's memory and give it to him."
"What's the point of that? The copied memory is essentially a fake in nature. At least it's a fake as defined by the Fire Thief."
Dr. Haisen smiled. "Shadow doesn't know that. In the entire world, only Your Majesty and I know this secret."
After traversal and upload to the cloud, the memory was indeed the person's own memory. But through memory-loading experiments, Dr. Haisen had obtained one result:
After an Ascendant's memory was copied and transferred to another host body, their original Mind Power did not transfer along with it.
In other words, memories could be copied, uploaded, and downloaded, but everything related to Mind Power was bound to the "original memory" and could not be recreated.
This was also why Bruce had transferred Gaelid's memory into Ai Ya's brain—only then could he preserve the Mind Power ability.
But the Suroma government had never publicly disclosed this fact.
What was publicly stated had always been: After backing up a person's memory, if the original died, Suroma would be responsible for loading the backup memory into a new body to "resurrect" the deceased.
This never mentioned that the "resurrected" person would lose all Mind Power–related abilities.
And the outside world couldn't verify this on their own, because all upstream and downstream technologies in this industry chain were controlled by Bruce. Others only had the right to upload and back up their memories, not to view or personally use them.
The purpose of this concealment was, of course, to get more Ascendants to sign up.
Because now, many Ascendants could no longer accept the Terminal Panel being shut down and returning to being ordinary people.
In the early days of the Doomsday Rules, when Mind Power dropped to zero and Ascendants turned back into ordinary people, they could still accept it—because back then, their bodies weren't yet deeply influenced by Mind Power.
But Ascendants who had survived until now—with Mind Power reaching several hundred points—their overall physical fitness could already win various athletic competitions in peacetime.
If they broke through one thousand points and entered the Second Stage of Ascension, their physical abilities would increase dramatically—covering a hundred meters in a few seconds, delivering punches weighing a thousand jin with ease.
Under this gradual influence, Ascendants had fully adapted to their bodily changes. If they were now forced back to their original form and made into ordinary people again, many simply couldn't accept it.
That was why Bruce deliberately concealed the fact that copied memories couldn't replicate Mind Power. Otherwise, many Ascendants would stop coming to register for backups.
For this reason, Bruce and Dr. Haisen had always privately referred to these copied memories as "fakes."
Now, Dr. Haisen's meaning was to use a copy of Ai Ya's fake memory to make a deal with Guan Tong, in exchange for him stopping his attacks on the factory facilities.
"Do you think he'll accept this condition?" Bruce wasn't sure, because if it were him, he definitely wouldn't.
"He should, Your Majesty. Don't forget—he knows much less about this technology than we do. After receiving the memory, he'll definitely go find someone to analyze and study it... This will buy us time.
By the time he finishes researching and understands the truth, our Anti–Mind Power Intrusion Device will probably be mostly developed. Then, even if he realizes he's been deceived, it'll be too late."