Long Yunxin had heard about the Battle of Karan before.
It was the most critical part on Wuying Qi's path to the peak of power. All the great ambitions and changes that followed were because of it.
In the battle, Wuying Qi 'sacrificed' eight million civilians and wounded soldiers on Karan. He captured the highest command of the Holy League's invaders and took over the military assets of the Holy League. He also controlled more than ten borderland worlds.
Was it worthwhile to sacrifice eight million to save tens of billions? The tricky question was a frequent topic in the debate competitions of Flying Star University.
Long Yunxin had considered it briefly before, too.
But at that time, she was sitting on the couch comfortably, enjoying the comfortable temperature and the delicious food with a couple of her best friends. It was pure nonsense for her to view it from the perspective of the representatives and the Speaker of the Star Ocean Republic, from the perspective of Blackstar the Great, or even from the perspective of the 'latecomers' who were beyond Wuying Qi and the leadership of the Star Ocean Republic.
She had never tried to view the event from the perspective of an ordinary person who had been living on Karan at that time.
No, it was not exactly 'view' but 'feel' the event in person and become an eyewitness of history.
Long Yunxin swallowed hard. She felt that her throat was both bloody and cold. Her soul seemed to have fallen into an ice cave, and her internal organs were completely frozen.
But her body was scorching hot, and her skin was burning in excruciating pain, as if the scourge of electric arcs in the illusionary world was still lingering deep inside her bones to this moment.
She extended her shivering hands and selected the game characters of different identities.
They were the people.
Or they were the miners who had been living on Karan, dedicating their lives in the dark mines of Karan to excavate the raw crystals.
Or the families of the miners and the specialists, or the teachers, doctors, nurses, and waiters who lived in the living quarters.
Or even the soldiers and heroes who had been heavily wounded in the previous phase of the battle and did not have the time to be relocated.
Although they were the most inconspicuous cells in the entire civilization, they had a lot of fascinating stories.
After the invaders of the Holy League occupied Karan, the ordinary young men who had been miners at the bottom level picked up pickaxes and raw ore crushers and became unpredictable guerrillas in the depths of the tunnels that were riddled with spider webs.
The doctors, nurses, and waiters who were originally working in the living area pretended to be obedient. They secretly hid a large number of resources and sent them to the deepest part of the mine.
The heavily-wounded heroes held each other's hands, supported each other, and charged at the overwhelming starships of the Holy League.
The one that left the deepest impression on Long Yunxin was a young female teacher from Karan.
After the flames of war invaded this small planet, she stepped forward bravely and protected more than twenty elementary school students in her class.
She secretly hid a flag of the Star Ocean Republic and taught the children to sing the national anthem of the Star Ocean Republic again and again.
When the deafening noises of the starships echoed outside, the childish voices condensed into the last wall.
As she sang, she would say in tears, "Wherever you wander to the sea of stars, never forget your hometown. Remember, we are from the Star Ocean Republic. We are from Karan. We are all from Karan. We are all from Karan."
But everything —
The stubborn resistance of the guerrillas, the valiance of the disabled soldiers, the persistence of the civilians, and the crisp songs of the teachers and the children were all useless.
It was because no matter what the 'victory condition' of every character in the game was, they could not persist until dawn arrived.
Everybody's ending was the same. They were completely swallowed by the thunderstorm from below the ground and blown into smithereens together with Karan, their home.
There were no miracles, no superheroes, no twists and turns, and no counterattacks. Destruction was their only future.
It was a game that could never be won. It could not even be called a 'game' but some sort of holographic 'cutscene animation' that penetrated into people's hearts.
But there was an indescribable attraction that attracted Long Yunxin to play the game again and again and experience the last feelings, feelings, hopes, and desperation of the residents of Karan when the doom of Karan came.
The last cutscene animation focused on the female teacher.
When the crystal bombs that Wuying Qi had planted deep inside Karan detonated all the resources of Purple Thunder Crystals on the entire planet, raising overwhelming tides of thunder on the horizon, the female teacher was the first to notice it.
She immediately jumped to her feet and opened her arms against the tides of thunder, shouting and protecting all the children behind her.
It was exactly like the game of 'eagle catching chicks' that they used to play, where she played the role of an eagle and protected every 'chick' behind her.
In such a posture, the female teacher was competing with Blackstar the Great, who was about to establish the Imperium of True Human Beings.
Even though the dazzling light blinded her for a moment, glamorous flames were still bouncing deep inside her eyes.
She faced the waves of lightning without moving an inch. She did not give in at all until she and her children were torn into pieces by the electric arcs and turned into smoke. She still maintained this posture, as if she was a statue made of some kind of mysterious material.
Hu! Hu! Hu!
Hu! Hu! Hu! Hu! Long Yunxin covered her face hard, allowing her tears to flow out through her fingers. She shuddered silently inside the game capsule for a long time before she gradually recovered.
It was almost a toxic game.
But she could not wait to try more of the game.
Even though she was not a fan of military strategy games, after everything she had experienced on Karan, she could not wait to play the whole story of the game. She wanted to be a representative of the Star Ocean Republic, a general of the central army, and the Sector Master of the border worlds so that she could do her best to stop Wuying Qi, Blackstar the Great, and the Imperium of True Human Beings.
Taking a long breath in relief, Long Yunxin sensed a vague pain deep inside her brain. She knew that it was the side effect of the severe distortion of her perception of time after staying inside the game capsule for a long time.
She could not play anymore.
She glanced at the time and was about to exit the game capsule.
Huh. Half a day has passed.
Long Yunxin secretly clicked her tongue.
She was a person with strong self-control, and she was not in the habit of indulging herself in the world of games.
However, the game 'Civilization' did boast indescribable magic that made it impossible for her to stop playing.
She left the game capsule in a daze. A lot of students around her had finished the test too, but they were not as chatty and excited as when they arrived. They were all crouching in a corner, thinking in silence. Their faces were now in a trance, now confused, and now enlightened. It could not have been more marvelous.
Some of the more emotional girls were even shedding tears like Long Yunxin did.
Perhaps, they had also played the DLC 'Rise of the Imperium', but what they saw was not 'rise of the Imperium' but the destruction of the nobodies.
"Miss Long!"
Seeing that Long Yunxin was coming close, the few girls all surrounded her as if they had caught a life-saving straw in a torrent.
"This game is too dreadful. Is the continuation of a civilization really so difficult?"
"I — I really don't know what to choose. When I first played the Civilization of Martial Meritocrats, I felt that the Sand Primitive natives were abominable and that the natives of the Martial Meritocrats Sector were too kind. Too kind. But after I changed my role and played a woman from the Sand Primitive Sector who grew old, got sick, and died in a scorching desert, and my children were swallowed by demon beasts and killed by diseases, I felt that I would pay any price, do anything, and believe in any deity as long as my children could live the same life as the natives of the Martial Meritocrats Sector."
"Karan, Karan, Karan, is the destruction of Karan really inevitable? I didn't know what eight million people meant before, but I do now. Maybe …"
The girls were all sobbing.
Normally, at this moment, the hot-blooded boys would've come to 'rescue the damsel in distress' and comforted the girls with a smile.
But today, some of the boys who had just finished the test were also sitting next to the game capsules. Their eyes were hollowed, and they were deep in thought.
Long Yunxin almost couldn't handle it anymore. She managed to find an excuse that she was going to find Li Yao and escaped from the game center under the guidance of the staff.
Li Yao was talking with a kind-looking, fairy-like, white-haired elder in a cottage behind the game center.
Seeing that Long Yunxin was coming in, he immediately greeted her.
"How did you come up with such a magical game?"
Long Yunxin had no time for formalities and cut to the chase. "It is not a game at all, is it? All the civilizations in the game existed in reality and were all destroyed, weren't they?"
"Yes."
Li Yao admitted frankly. "After we took over the war base of the Imperium of True Human Beings, we dismantled and studied all the units. The secret chamber to brainwash the Cultivators and transform them into Immortal Cultivators was the focus of our research.
"We have discovered that the history of the decline of the three civilizations is not just stored in this brainwashing room. Dozens of different civilizations of the Cultivators are stored in it."
"Perhaps, the Immortal Cultivators could choose the brainwashing materials with the highest compatibility according to the features of the targets they brainwashed.
"Based on the brainwashing materials and the materials that the Immortal Cultivators used to boast about Blackstar the Great's magnificent martial arts, we perfected and strengthened the game. Eventually, the game became a civilization and its first DLC, 'Rise of the Imperium'.
"As for whether or not the content of the game was real, of course, it was not entirely real.
"On one hand, there must be a lot of embellishments in the original data of the Imperium of True Human Beings. It was not entirely trustworthy.
"During the adaptation into a game, we hoped to add more diversified content, too, so that the reasons for the destruction of every world would be more abundant and meaningful.
"So, it's not 100% true to history."
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