Chapter 238: Who Is Yang Yi

A known major base of the Divine Punishment Organization was hidden deep within an abandoned Cold War-era nuclear bunker beneath the Arctic permafrost.

Theoretically, it should have been impregnable—five layers of composite outer armor, an independent ecological circulation system, an anti-detection field targeting Awakened abilities, and over three hundred Awakened guards branded with the mental imprint of Wade.

Yang Yi took only five minutes.

In the second minute after the coordinates provided by the Xia Nation's intelligence department were confirmed, Yang Yi had already arrived at the Arctic, gently clenching her fist toward the void before her.

The permafrost trembled; the thick frozen soil and rock layers twisted as if kneaded by an invisible giant hand.

The base's outer armor shattered like brittle biscuits into silent sparks; the Awakened of the Divine Punishment Organization didn't even have time to sound an alarm before they felt everything around them—walls, floors, air, light—compressing wildly, as invisible telekinetic force hurled them into a dark space.

There was no explosion, no fire; a hemispherical crater roughly five hundred meters in diameter appeared in the spot, its walls exhibiting a vitreous texture formed only under extreme heat and pressure, reflecting a cold, eerie hue in the polar twilight.

Yang Yi's figure materialized at the center of the crater's bottom, as if she had always been there.

She wore a simple white shirt and trousers, with a long trench coat over them; the hem swayed slightly in the residual spatial currents.

Her face bore no expression—no relief of victory, no fluctuation of success, only the focused calm of someone executing a task.

Wade's primary consciousness had long since transferred; he never put all his eggs in one basket.

But like the finest hunter always leaving a lingering scent, Wade had left something here—a wisp of divine sense.

Yang Yi detected it.

The divine sense clung to an object on the crater floor that had not vitrified: a half-broken, totem-carved, cyan-black sacrificial stone.

When Yang Yi's gaze fell upon it, the sacrificial stone glowed faintly, and a phantom figure grew forth from within.

"Remarkable efficiency, my loyal master... five minutes, from localization to resolution, one-third faster than I expected. Your power growth rate is impressive... however, this also means you are drawing ever closer to your divine throne..."

Yang Yi looked at the phantom, her eyes utterly unfluctuating, as if gazing at a lifeless object.

"It seems you have learned quite a bit in the human world during this time," she said calmly. "Next time, remember to hide deeper."

"Indeed, humans do have their merits—for instance, their methods of dealing with their own kind are truly varied and astonishing!" Wade's tone brimmed with surprise and admiration.

"I merely scattered some seeds of 'cognition' upon this human land; the fear, selfishness, and delusions of the unknown in human hearts became the finest nourishment for those seeds. And all of this was for you, my loyal master, solely to let you see the true nature of the human race—you will eventually be wounded by the very things you seek to protect."

Yang Yi did not wish to waste words with him; she twitched her fingers, intending to snuff out the phantom.

"Why not talk? Who else in this world can you speak a few heartfelt words to?" Wade's tone was gentle and considerate. "I see your loneliness; on this entire Earth, none of your own kind can understand you. They are so foolish and blind..."

Wade pointed toward the empty void, as if billions of invisible humans stood there.

"Human individuals may occasionally possess flashes of insight, fragile kindness, or negligible rationality. But once they form a group..." his voice was filled with a certain tolerant insight into laws, "intelligence drops exponentially. Fear spreads among them, lies accumulate endlessly, responsibility continuously dissipates, and individuals drown in the collective emotional bubble.

"They do not need complex truths, only simple enemies; they do not need difficult freedom, only certain instructions; they do not need to bear the burden of their own fate, only a master to whom they can entrust everything and thus blame everything.

"You give them data, they seek conspiracies; you give them survival plans, they question motives; you show them the cold truth of the universe, they would rather believe you created the disaster.

"They forge weapons from your deepest pain to attack you, and twist your greatest sacrifices into proof of your ambition. Did you see the protests in Diego City? Those cries and roars, those banners demanding your trial... that is the humanity you risked everything to protect!"

Yang Yi lowered her eyes, concealing the weariness within, her expression indifferent.

"Freedom is poison to them! Yang Yi, freedom means choice, choice means responsibility, and responsibility means inescapable failure and pain. What they crave deep within is a clear path, a powerful shepherd, and a whip that can be cracked on their backs when necessary, so they need not think, only follow. In the past, they sought kings, religions, God, and ideologies; now, they have found you—a being with the power of a god, yet still retaining a trace of laughable responsibility, and thus willing to carry them forward."

Wade's voice lowered, turning into an enticing whisper:

"Do you feel lonely, Yang Yi? Standing among the crowd yet separated by thick glass. Every decision you make is measured by the most malicious scale; every sacrifice you make is viewed as having ulterior motives; your very existence has become the focal point of their fear and hatred.

"You protect them, yet they would sooner drag you down from your divine throne and trample you into the mud. This loneliness... is it not familiar?"

Yang Yi stood silent in the Arctic wind, seemingly listening intently to his words.

"Because this is our loneliness," Wade's voice tinged with a touch of shared desolation. "Standing at a higher dimension, executing laws that are not understood, bearing infamy, maintaining a precarious balance. Evil gods are lonely; their servants are lonely; and what you are becoming is just such a lonely 'shepherd.' Your loneliness is not because you did anything wrong, but because the position you occupy itself dictates isolation from the flock."

"Admit it, Yang Yi. You are no longer one of them. Your battlefield lies among the stars; your opponents are the laws of the universe; your duty is the survival of civilization, not pleasing a group of children who can never be fed enough and never be educated. Return to your rightful place; a shepherd needs no love from the sheep, only their obedience.

"If they do not obey, then they should be... eaten..."

The cold wind seemed to stop; the crater bottom sank into a stagnant silence.

Wade's eyes seemed to reflect the swirling galaxies deep in the universe, waiting for Yang Yi's reply.

Yang Yi stood in place, the hem of her trench coat swaying with the cold wind.

Her face remained expressionless, yet within her pitch-black pupils, a barely perceptible ripple seemed to arise.

She slowly raised her head, looking toward a certain direction in the void.

"Humans are indeed full of flaws; groups are indeed ignorant and easily controlled; freedom and responsibility are often heavy burdens to them." Her voice rose, calmer than before, even carrying a faint smile:

"I am human too; I have the same flaws. I will not eat my own kind; I will transform them, transform the source that produces the flaws." Yang Yi took a step forward; her white sneakers struck the vitrified ground, emitting a crisp sound that carried far in the silence. "Humans are shaped by their environment and concepts; as long as you change their environment, you can change their thoughts and behaviors."

Wade emitted a low sigh, as if from a distant starry sky.

"You have already begun to think of human groups using words like 'transform' and 'source.' Yang Yi, look at yourself. Do you remember our first true conversation? In that sinful Red Tower."

Yang Yi's steps did not pause; she continued walking toward the phantom figure and the remains of the sacrificial stone.

"Back then, you clearly longed for ultimate transcendence, clearly hated human greed and stupidity, yet still refused to lose that laughable humanity to accept greater power."

Wade's voice carried a hint of distant recollection and a touch of faint mockery. "You clung tightly to that pitiful human cognition, the memories, preferences, and moral codes of that tiny individual called 'Yang Yi,' as if it were the only driftwood you could grasp in the flood. You said then, 'Can transcendence purchased at the cost of losing oneself still be called transcendence?'"

Yang Yi stopped three meters from the sacrificial stone. She could have instantly annihilated the stone along with the attached thought, but she did not act; she simply gazed silently at Wade's phantom.

"And now?" Wade asked with a smile. "Where has the Yang Yi who feared losing 'self' gone? You voluntarily suppressed your emotional responses; you stripped away unnecessary feelings and anger; you covered intuition and attachment with reason. You are moving further away from the human definition of 'Yang Yi' and closer to the more ancient, grander 'entity' upon the divine throne.

"Your heart resists alienation, yet your actions are... accelerating toward it, because only thus can you obtain from Him the power to preserve human civilization. This is the mission you voluntarily undertook.

"But is this mission truly that important to you? Is it possible that this is merely a decent excuse you found for the transformation you chose for yourself? Now, how much of your so-called self, your self-proclaimed humanity, remains?

"The bottom line you set for yourself, that principle of not killing one's own kind... how long can you hold to it?"

Wade's voice carried compassion; his brown-black pupils looked gently at Yang Yi, as if an elder looking at a student.

The cold wind swept across the crater bottom, raising fine ice crystals that struck Yang Yi's face; she did not even blink her eyelashes.

"Done speaking?" Yang Yi's voice was utterly unfluctuating. "You may have inherited Wade's psychological knowledge, but like the Divine Punishment Organization, you are all show. Humanity is not some sacred, inviolable totem; it is a set of survival laws riddled with loopholes, evolved under specific conditions. When the environment shifts to survival elimination on a cosmic scale, the laws must change. Stripping away inefficient emotions and strengthening rational decision-making is the most advantageous choice for now. As for betraying oneself..."

She finally raised her eyes, gazing directly at the phantom, as if through it, she saw Wade's true body somewhere far away.

"It may not be very important." She lowered her gaze, her voice as light as a snowflake, sincerely dissecting herself before this extraterrestrial visitor. "The six-year-old Yang Yi did not consider the twenty-year-old Yang Yi to be herself; the sixty-year-old Yang Yi would also find the thirty-year-old Yang Yi very strange. The concept of 'Yang Yi' is not continuous from beginning to end, but stage-based, it is of the present moment.

"'Who is Yang Yi?' A temporary aggregate defined by a specific DNA sequence and twenty-odd years of limited experience. Before gaining power, her goal was to achieve inner transcendence. After gaining power, she was alienated by that power; sometimes she did not even know who she was.

"But the one thing she can be certain of is writing a few valuable strokes on the ledger of life and death for civilization. If this alienation can increase the probability of those strokes existing, then losing oneself, completely transforming into... some entity, might be the greatest value the temporary aggregate called 'Yang Yi' can achieve."

Wei De fell silent for several seconds, as if digesting this declaration of "return." Then, he smiled.

"Magnificent... truly magnificent! You are finally beginning to walk toward your own divine throne... Welcome back, my master. I will 'help' you hasten this journey..."

The instant the words fell, the final trace of divine consciousness left by Wei De vanished silently, like a pencil mark erased by an eraser.

Only Yang Yi remained at the bottom of the pit, standing amidst the polar wind and silence.

She looked up, gazing at the massive shadow above the leaden sky, invisible to the human eye, gradually drawing near.