Chapter 564 - 351: Mourning in the Sea of Stars

Chapter 564: Chapter 351: Mourning in the Sea of Stars

Among these people, the majority were National Martial Arts Masters, Daoists, High Monks, and Ascetics.

Heat Coins were actually a type of encrypted digital currency. After acquiring helium-3 as an energy source and solving the problem of controlled nuclear fusion, electricity was no longer an issue. With humanity’s current technology, networking wasn’t a problem either.

Especially with the aid of Extraordinary Abilities, Jiang Cai’Er’s team had already developed the world’s most advanced photolithography machine, achieving mass production of a sub-1-nanometer process (0.5 nanometers). In small laboratory batches, they could even reach 0.2 nanometers.

However, a silicon atom has a diameter of 0.117 nanometers. If they wanted to advance further, they would likely need a breakthrough in new materials or novel transistor structures.

Li Xiang had attended a few of Jiang Cai’Er’s team meetings, and, well... he’d nearly dozed off. He genuinely didn’t understand any of it, so he was just there to get the gist of things and couldn’t offer much help.

However, Li Xiang did offer that if they needed any materials, he could go search for them in space.

Although the Solar System’s star, its eight major planets, and various smaller celestial bodies were all occupied by Space Exotic Beasts, with his strength, he was confident he could ensure his own safety.

For one thing, with his speed of Mach 80, even an average Divine Tier being wasn’t that fast. As long as no one at the Divine King Realm or above showed up, he had nothing to fear.

Although Earth Humans had moved to living underground and their productivity had dropped significantly, their technological level hadn’t regressed to that of World War II like in his previous life. Thanks to Li Xiang’s warning several years in advance, humanity’s various laboratories and tech factories had been well-preserved. Furthermore, they had achieved an energy revolution, so their technology had actually advanced.

For example, traditional liquid crystal displays had already been phased out. Now, everyone used holographic projections once only seen in sci-fi movies—the kind that required no medium, could form images in a vacuum, and achieved a glasses-free 3D effect.

With the traditional Chinese New Year approaching, Li Xiang organized an online memorial service to commemorate the humans who had been sacrificed. Many people who had lost friends and family wept bitterly.

In truth, however, even more people had entire families "go to heaven" together. For instance, several Underground Cities had been completely destroyed. Since family and friends usually lived in the same Underground City, or even the same residential block, this led to entire families being wiped out.

When they first relocated, they had chosen to live together to look out for one another. No one could have predicted such an outcome. It just goes to show that everything has its pros and cons.

The memorial service was broadcast globally via holographic projection, hosted on the online platform of the repurposed Eternal Night Media. Participants could join through a quantum-encrypted channel without exposing their Underground City’s coordinates. The visuals were predominantly black and white, with shimmering particles symbolizing the "flame of humanity" emerging from the holographic images, slowly converging to form a massive virtual monument.

The ceremony was announced a week in advance.

On the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, at 8:00 PM, the Eternal Night Media online memorial for the fallen began with three minutes of synchronized, platform-wide silence. The interface for all connected users automatically switched to a dynamic background of a sea of stars. Each twinkling star represented a lost life, with the system generating a corresponding number of light points based on the casualty figures reported by each Underground City.

Many people participated from home using holographic projections from their personal computers or Communication Devices. However, quite a few also gathered in the central squares of their Underground Cities, where the massive, glasses-free 3D holographic projection overhead was even more breathtaking.

Li Xiang’s figure emerged from the virtual sea of stars, his plain white robes billowing as if in a nonexistent wind. Behind him, the inscription on the floating "Library of Civilization" monument flowed with a pale golden light. With a light tap of his finger, the quantum-encrypted channel connected the devices of over nine billion survivors worldwide to the same black-and-white interface. This was the first funeral in the history of human civilization without a physical venue.

"Please, silently call to mind the brightest star in your heart."

The moment the prompt faded, all screens fell into absolute silence. For three minutes, the dynamic sea of stars churned silently before everyone’s eyes, each twinkling point of light corresponding to a life trajectory cut abruptly short.

In Tokyo, an engineer in an Underground City saw one of the stars suddenly burst into the shape of a cherry blossom. It was a personalized tribute generated by the system based on the pattern of his wife’s favorite kimono. His body trembled slightly, his eyes welling up with tears.

In Brazil, a tribal Elder deep in the rainforest watched as the point of light representing his grandson transformed into a hummingbird beating its wings. A cloudy tear dripped onto his touchpad, activating a mourning totem unique to the Amazon Basin.

When the AI-reconstructed images of the deceased, restored by Jiang Cai’Er’s team, began to scroll, the sound of countless glass cups shattering on the floor echoed through a bar in a New York Underground City.

...

After the list of names concluded, it was time for the eulogy.

Li Xiang, in his holographic form, stood before the virtual monument. Dressed in simple robes, he recited the eulogy meticulously written by Jiang Cai’Er, emphasizing that "every single point of starlight is the courage to tear through the darkness."

His voice, amplified by the Spiritual Energy Matrix, produced a resonant, reverberating effect.

"Now, light up your Star Sand."

The virtual flower offering began.

Li Xiang’s voice carried the unique, ethereal echo of the Spiritual Energy Matrix, and purified Extraordinary Particles, filtered by a Black Fog Separator, flowed around him. Billions of hands simultaneously tapped a floating button, and specks of virtual Star Sand transformed into white chrysanthemums, piling up at the monument’s base to form a winding galaxy. A barrage of comments, like an aurora, swept across the sky:

"From all residents of Madrid 02 City: Please give our flowers to the security guard who used his body to jam the gate at subway entrance C."

"From the Cairo University Physics Department: Professor Naji said he hadn’t finished verifying his black hole theory, and now he’s become a real black hole." (Appended with Arabic crying emoji code)

"From the New Delhi Slum Children’s Art Collection: Mama said angels all wear orange-yellow protective suits." (439 crayon drawings uploaded)

"From Liu Xiaoya, Hu District 07: Dad, I survived in Underground Dungeon 09."

"My love was still humming ’Katyusha’ when he detonated the underground passage," a woman in Russia sobbed uncontrollably.

In an Underground City in South America, a young priest led his people in a dance of the dead. Their ancient chant was simultaneously translated by an AI: "May their souls climb onto the Jaguar’s back and leap toward the Fifth Sun."

Almost simultaneously, survivors in a Norwegian Underground City projected a model of a Viking longship onto the public mourning wall, while an Icelandic poet used volcanic ash to write Runes on their screen.

In Underground Dungeon 03 in China, Li Xiang’s main city, children were stuffing paper cranes into ventilation ducts—it was said that the cranes could follow the black fog and drift up to heaven.

Outside the ventilation ducts, several Extraordinary cats stood guard, ensuring they could give a timely warning if any Exotic Beasts attacked during the release of the paper cranes.

Fortunately, their luck held out, and no Exotic Beasts appeared.

The suppressed sobs reached a crescendo when Jiang Cai’Er cut a particular video feed.

It was a tragic scene from a satellite city that had recently been attacked by Exotic Beasts: a seventeen-year-old, newly-ascended Tier Two Transcendent, a prodigiously talented young man who was also the captain of the city’s militia. He pushed his Breathing Technique to its absolute limit, his mangled right arm still pressed firmly against the gate, his roar shattering the compound eyes of the Exotic Beast in front of the camera: "The fuse protocol password is... my sister’s birthday!"

...

As the blinding light of the explosion at the end of the countdown engulfed the entire screen, hundreds of thousands of red comments saying "Humanity is Unyielding" surged like a waterfall of blood. A pianist in an Underground City on the Canadian snowplains suddenly began to furiously play the "March of the Volunteers." Voices from Paris, France, from Siberia, from the Cape of Good Hope, and from the Amazon joined in, layer upon layer, forming a soul-stirring symphony.

When the atmosphere of grief reached its peak, Li Xiang spread his arms, and all the screens bloomed with a virtual dawn created by Jiang Cai’Er herself. The Sun, once shrouded in black fog, leaped above the horizon again. The projection was so realistic that every golden ray of the morning sun seemed to sprinkle across the Underground Cities.

A housewife in Tokyo noticed that the beam of light shining on her daughter’s portrait seemed to have warmed by a few degrees. Her child had loved hot spring baths when she was alive, something she could no longer enjoy.

A miner in South Africa stared at the golden line passing through his palm and, in a daze, saw the glint of his wife’s wedding ring as it melted in the steel furnace.

"Lights out."

As Li Xiang gave the command, the power hubs of every Underground City across the globe reduced their voltage almost in unison.

Humanity collectively sank into a darkness like the deep sea, with only the safety indicator lights flickering on and off like the torches of ancient ancestors.

Thirty seconds later, as the first light came back on, a little boy in Argentina pointed to a new totem on the mourning wall—an image blending cherry blossoms and pyramids—and shouted, "Look! The stars are dancing!"

His mother, however, covered her mouth and stared at a certain spot—the point of light representing her husband was forming a half-finished Spanish love poem at the top of the monument.