Chapter 12

To Him, the crimes displayed on the light screen were far too ordinary, bland, and inconsequential.

"Hmm?" Zhou Xuan cast a glance toward Bronya.

"Why... why do those things?" Bronya swallowed hard, gathering her courage to ask.

Zhou Xuan smiled gently, picked up a sugar cube from the table, and dropped it into the black tea.

As the sugar cube slowly dissolved in the black tea, Zhou Xuan's voice sounded in Bronya's ear:

"All great works require sacrifice to forge; creatures like you may not understand..."

"... but you must obey."

17. 【Purification, Processing, and the Untouchables】

"All great works require sacrifice to forge."

"Creatures like you may not understand, but you must obey."

Zhou Xuan gently stirred the black tea with a silver spoon, letting the sugar cube slowly dissolve in the dark red liquid, his tone as gentle as that of an elder to Bronya.

Yet an unbearable chill lingered in Bronya's heart, and she felt her stomach ache even more.

Zhou Xuan lifted the cup of black tea and took a sip, a look of approval appearing on his face.

Bronya leaned forward slightly, intending to speak,

but saw the light screen at the corner of her eye suddenly brighten, hovering in the center of her vision.

Bronya couldn't help but pause in slight bewilderment, for a line of large characters stretched across the light screen.

【The Calamity Empire's Ninth Great Crime: Purifying the Untouchables】

【The Untouchables are a special stratum of the Empire; they are a species whose existence the Calamity Empire's records do not acknowledge, and they are often subjected to purification.】

"Untouchables?" Bronya blankly read the words on the light screen aloud.

"The Empire does not acknowledge the existence of the Untouchables."

Still wearing a gentle smile, Zhou Xuan spoke with a hint of laziness:

"When they actually exist in reality, my Extinction Squads always efficiently terminate this error."

"It is a very time-consuming task, but they always complete it."

Listening to Zhou Xuan's words, Bronya's mind still couldn't quite wrap around it;

Untouchables, Purification, Extinction Squads, terminating errors...

These terms echoed in Bronya's mind, yet they simply wouldn't form a coherent train of thought.

She could only stare somewhat dazedly at the light screen,

whereupon the text on the screen suddenly changed:

【Method of Purifying Untouchables: Processing】

【This species will be processed into nutrient-rich food resources, increasing the Empire's food output until extinction.】

【"This is a sorrowful and unavoidable reality: certain lower species are destined to become fuel, burning for the manifest destiny of superior races."】

Reading this passage, Bronya's eyes widened abruptly.

She instantly understood what "Untouchables" meant, what "Purification" entailed, and what "Processing" truly was...

The scene within the light screen remained a planet inhabited by starfish.

This planet was densely covered with cities, with hardly a trace of greenery visible.

Cities made of steel and concrete interlaced with one another, while complex transportation routes spread out densely like a spider's web.

The starfish lived in narrow houses, crowded together within these massive cities.

Every morning when work began, the starfish would surge forth like a tide.

Any creature in the universe with even a modicum of knowledge could perceive that this planet's population density was extremely high.

"Hmm?"

On a frost-covered, utterly deserted planet,

Ruan Mei, dressed in a form-fitting blue-green qipao with a double-helix hairpin adorning her tresses, watched the light screen with keen interest.

She keenly noticed a faint glimmer streak across the sky, obscured by layers upon layers of towering buildings.

The view in the light screen continuously pulled back; hovering above this city-planet was precisely a Colossus of the Calamity Empire.

This caused Ruan Mei a momentary confusion.

She had already witnessed the power of the Calamity Empire's Colossi:

the Planet Devastator capable of destroying an entire world, the Neutron Scourge that erases all higher lifeforms, and the Angel of Salvation that completely isolates a planet.

These held little interest for Ruan Mei.

What puzzled Ruan Mei now was that none of the three Colossi mentioned above could enable the Calamity Empire to achieve its goal of "processing" the starfish.

Or perhaps...

"A brand new Colossus that does not endanger biological life, causes no trauma to the planet, and does not isolate the world?"

This sparked Ruan Mei's curiosity.

Within the light screen, the starfish also noticed the Colossus streaking across the sky.

They let out wails, cries filled with terror.

They looked at their own kind beside them, only to find eyes full of fright.

They fled in panic, their chaotic footsteps betraying their desperation.

Every movement, every action, every glance of these starfish proved they were genuine sentient life,

higher beings rich in emotion and intelligence, utterly distinct from beasts.

The starfish continued to wail, to weep, to roar.

Some starfish even chose to sing one final time just before the Colossus descended its punishment.

Voices brimming with intense emotion echoed across this city-planet,

until the Colossus released a shallow wave of energy, sweeping a pale gray light over all the starfish before gradually dissipating,

leaving the city undamaged, the planet intact, and the starfish utterly unharmed...

"What is this?" Ruan Mei wore a strange expression,

for the starfish indeed showed no change; could it be that the Disaster Empire's Colossus had failed?

No... Ruan Mei quickly realized her mistake,

for within the sounds emitted by the starfish, panic, fear, anger, sorrow, and terror...

these emotions faded bit by bit, while songs once full of feeling and rhythm gradually turned savage and chaotic....

In the end, only primal, animalistic howls remained in the mouths of the starfish,

and their eyes no longer held the spark of wisdom, retaining only the savagery of beasts.

A line of subtitles slowly scrolled across the light screen...

【Colossus Weapon: Intelligence-Reduction Beam...】

18. 【Delicious and nutritious! Crunchy!】

【Colossus Weapon: Intelligence-Reduction Beam】

【This is a Colossus-level weapon of mental erasure capable of releasing an energy wave that envelops an entire planet, reverting all sentient life to a pre-sentient state.】

【"In the long and arduous evolution of life, wisdom is an absolute treasure beyond price, yet not all life deserves such a gem."】

Gazing upon the starfish on the light screen, now akin to beasts and devoid of any wisdom, all beings across the universe felt a wave of dizziness and bewilderment,

for though many races exist within the universe,

and though distinctions of cleverness and stupidity exist between these races, just as geniuses and mediocrities exist among individuals,

nevertheless, even the geniuses of the Genius Society and the most ordinary illiterates alike possess wisdom, differing only in degree,

wisdom being a treasure shared by all civilizations of the universe... to lose it is more terrifying for a civilization than death itself,

for death at least means destruction as a civilization, whereas losing wisdom means being destroyed as mere beasts,

yet the Disaster Empire could unhesitatingly snatch it away and declare that "not all life deserves such a gem."

All beings across the universe trembled.

Only in Ruan Mei's eyes shone an intense thirst for knowledge,

"To revert the living beings of an entire planet back to beasts; what astonishing life science and technology."

Reducing the wisdom of life and reverting it to a beastly state,

was something Ruan Mei could also accomplish, as could many members of the Genius Society,