Chapter 693 – The Evil of the Human Circle
Tokyo.
[Pure Land].
An Qingyu sat in the center of the main control room, surrounded by flickering screens everywhere, his gaze gazing at all of them at once, as if he was motionless like a statue.
”Qingyu, you’ve been continuously scrolling for five hours, it’s time to take a break.”
Suddenly, Jiang’er’s figure wordlessly walked to his side and gently waved his hand, plunging all the screens into darkness.
An Qingyu slowly closed his eyes, rubbed his temples with both hands, and let out a long sigh, his gaze complicated:
”It’s still true, knowing something unimaginable ah ……”
”What did you discover?”
An Qingyu didn’t say anything, he silently stood up and walked over to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the neon-bright city at his feet.
”Jiang’er, how many kilowatts of electricity do you think …… a country as big as this uses up every year?” He asked Jiang Er rhetorically.
Jiang’er was stunned, and after hesitating for a moment, he answered, “It should be, around 5,000 trillion watt-hours?”
”It should be far more than that.” An Qingyu shook her head, “Then, how is electricity generated?”
”Nuclear power, natural gas power, oil power, wind power, hydro power? All of these should be there, right?”
”That’s right, but don’t you see a problem?” An Qingyu said calmly, “This country’s own mineral resources are extremely scarce, where did the gas and oil it uses to generate electricity come from?”
Jiang Er froze in place.
”Or, I’ll ask another way.” An Qingyu paused, “In the absence of fossil fuels, the power station here, how did it generate electricity? Relying solely on nuclear power, wind power, and hydroelectric power, there’s no way to support such a huge amount of electricity consumption.”
”What’s going on here?”
”The answer is that the power stations here, are simply for show, they can’t generate electricity at all.” An Qingyu looked at the ground beneath her feet, “The electricity they output, all of it goes out from here, the source of all electricity in this country is the [Pure Land].”
”Here?” Jiang’er frowned slightly, “But again, there is no power generation device here, so where does all the electricity come from?”
An Qingyu stretched out her hand and pointed to the figures below the clouds, densely packed like mole crickets traveling through the streets:
”People …… or rather, dead people.”
”Death is eternal torture?” Caran didn’t seem to be able to comprehend that statement.
”An analogy.” The knight continued to explain, “If humans want to survive, they need water, air, soil, food, energy …… and the artifact itself won’t automatically generate all of these, but it can go ahead and create them out of thin air by absorbing souls.
People living in this ‘human circle’, every drop of water they drink, every breath of air they breathe, and even every degree of electricity they use …… behind them as a driver, are all dead human souls.
Igniting the corpses of living creatures releases a huge amount of heat, and the energy generated by igniting human souls is even more astronomical.”
”That is to say, in order to maintain this ‘human circle’, one must kill a large number of people and use their souls as sustenance?” Wu Xiangnan pondered, “But what if the number of natural deaths within the ‘human circle’ cannot keep up with this rate of consumption? Wouldn’t this cycle be broken?”
”It’s not that easy.” The knight shook his head, “Have you forgotten that in order to preserve themselves, the gods sacrificed the vast majority of their lives, and the number of such lives …… can be calculated in the order of tens or even billions.
These lives that they sacrificed alone are enough to keep the ‘Human Circle’ running for quite a long time.
So, in a way, the reason why the people in the ‘Circle of Man’ are able to live and dedicate their faith is because there are tens of millions or even billions of souls of their ancestors that are burning as fuel for the world they inhabit.”
Calan spoke with a frown on his face, “That’s too deranged.”
”Exactly, so the very existence of the ‘Circle of Man’ is evil.” The knight continued, “And the more humans captive in the ‘Man Circle’, the more massive the energy consumed, and the greater the number of human souls used as fuel, the greater the evil of the city.
And harassing, attacking, and even destroying the ‘Circle of Man’ is one of the core goals of our Upper Evil Society.”
”Destroy?” Wu Xiangnan asked doubtfully, “After destroying the ‘human circle’, what about the captive humans inside?”
”Generally speaking, we rarely carry out ‘destruction’. At most, we will only blow up the temples or idols in them that are used to collect faith and save some of them in passing.
If we do perform ‘destruction’, it depends on the size of this ‘circle of people’.”
The knight shrugged and replied, “If the number of people in the captivity is less than 500,000, we will extradite them into the [Utopia] created by the chairman and continue living there, if it exceeds that number …… we have no other choice but to extradite 500,000 women and children as well as young and old people with special skills of the young and strong can only be extradited, and the rest …… can only be allowed to be destroyed along with the ‘human circle’.”
”That means all the people inside …… will die?” Wu Xiangnan frowned, “Isn’t this indiscriminate killing?”
”‘Indiscriminate killing’?” The knight raised an eyebrow, “It’s fine if you want to interpret it that way, but I hope you’re clear that this is the Mist, and we, the Upper Evil Society, have never been some kind of Madonna organization, we are ‘evil’.
We cannot, and are not obligated to, save everyone, and being able to extradite half a million people to be brought into [Utopia] as kindling is already the greatest degree of respect we have for these countries and their cultural heritage.
Moreover, destroying the ‘Circle of Man’ means saving those tens of millions of souls that are burning in agony, perhaps it’s destruction for those who live in it, but for those miserable souls, it’s salvation!”
The knight’s voice fell, and the entire cabin fell into a dead silence.
The sound of the whistling wind mixed with the humming of the waves lapping against the hull of the ship echoed between the dimly lit cabins, and it was only after a long time that Wu Xiangnan slowly opened his mouth:
”I understand …… Anyway, I will follow the mission and cooperate with your actions.”
”Hurray for understanding.” The knight smiled faintly.
”So, what should we do next?”
”Every time we, the Upper Evil Society, want to strike against a ‘human circle’, we will first carry out a series of infiltration preparations.” The knight spoke unhurriedly, “Of these, the two most important types of people are known as ‘paratroopers’ and ‘sentinels’.
Since the ‘Circle of Man’ is of vital importance to the Divine Kingdom, wanting to enter the interior of the ‘Circle of Man’ is not that easy, and the most crucial point in infiltrating the ‘Circle of Man’ lies in, finding the ‘gap’ where it is connected to the outside world.”