Chapter 217 - 214: A Depressing and Heavy Story

Chapter 217: Chapter 214: A Depressing and Heavy Story

After about thirty seconds of silence, the dozens of people in the conference room noticed the central figure among the mysterious group slowly rise to his feet.

"Curiosity is the original source of human progress. I can understand your thirst for knowledge."

"Fear, on the other hand, is both an obstacle in the hearts of all living things and the very force that drives them to become stronger."

Magic Power drifted over the conference table, gradually changing from invisible to visible light. At the same moment, all the lights in the conference room went out.

Only the source of Magic Power on the conference table remained, casting colorful, shifting light on everyone’s faces.

Like a holographic projection, the light formed a series of images, depicting humanity’s journey from a primitive state of eating raw meat and drinking blood, to harnessing fire, and then to the gradual evolution of civilization.

"This is the history recorded in your textbooks today. But as you have begun to suspect, beyond this, there is a hidden history."

The image changed to the entire Earth, and then gradually zoomed out. But what appeared was not the cosmos, but eventually a patch of light—or rather, a sphere of light.

The sphere of light was gradually brought closer again, revealing a color like iridescent, ever-changing glass.

"This is the world we inhabit. And this," he said, gesturing to the surroundings, "is the endless Void."

As soon as his voice fell, outside the sphere of light that was Earth, the surrounding darkness transformed into a vast, gray expanse of flowing matter that nearly filled the entire conference room.

"We are like a lone boat in the Void. Even with the current power of Dawn, it is still difficult to perceive what lies beyond our world."

"But, just as you have guessed, we are not alone."

One by one, shimmering spheres of light appeared in the Void. They bobbed up and down, faded in and out of view, and constantly shifted position, making them impossible to track. It suggested that even the presenter didn’t fully understand them.

"Within this ocean of the Void, there are all sorts of wondrous or dangerous worlds. Some we have a degree of understanding of, while others remain a complete mystery to us!"

Just as everyone present thought the demonstration would continue, all the virtual images vanished, and light returned to the conference room.

"It is not that we intentionally concealed these matters from you before. It’s just that the more we reveal, the more people know, and the deeper their understanding, the faster it would accelerate the arrival of the Dark Tide. Now, however, it seems the coming of the Dark Tide is irreversible. But even so, it is unwise to continue this visual demonstration."

"Within Dawn, one can only gain deeper access to this knowledge when they are able to control Magic Power."

In front of this group, Qin Xiaoxia didn’t dare show off too many flashy things as he did with the reporters last time.

That immersive experience had been effective in evoking resonance with that group and increasing their loyalty, but the target audience was different this time.

By comparison, Qin Xiaoxia still felt the power of his words would be more "impactful."

But to the ears of the Special Security Team and the Guardians, this sentence revealed a key piece of information.

The more people who knew about certain things, the more it could lead to an escalation of anomalous events, or invite even more severe consequences.

Everyone in the conference room frowned in thought.

"You discovered this secret during your fight, which is why there’s so little information about you? Is that the reason Dawn faded from history and hid the truth?"

Huang Jiutian suddenly asked.

The middle-aged mysterious man glanced at him, then looked around at the others waiting for an answer, and suddenly broke into a grin.

"I hate to admit it, but on this point, we really have the rulers of human history to thank."

"In the past, we gave our all. After surviving the outbreak of the Dark Tide, we were still unable to completely eradicate the Demons. By then, Dawn’s ranks had dwindled, and our martyrs had practically bled themselves dry... But while the Dark Tide seemed to have receded, Demons continued to appear."

"Generation after generation, we could only continue to bleed for this cause, but we never gave up searching for a way to root it out completely."

The mysterious man paused, as if reminiscing about the past or reflecting on the efforts of his predecessors.

"But the human rulers of that time had gradually freed themselves from their fear of Demons. It was just that by then, they had a new fear..."

The people present saw the mysterious man suddenly look at them. His gaze was profound, but his smile was tinged with sorrow. They suddenly realized something.

And sure enough, the mysterious man’s next words all but confirmed their suspicions.

"Powerful Demons had become rare. But the heroes of Dawn, who also wielded great power—were they not also a terrifying kind of ’Demon’? Terrifying enough to threaten the ruling order..."

"Humanity is always like this. The old crisis hasn’t even passed, and they’re already plotting against the next one. Leader Tao, you once had a chance encounter with Master Sage in Shen City. Do you still remember his question back then?"

The mysterious man’s smile at this moment made Tao Xingzhi, Lazov, and the others feel a sense of oppression.

During that long, dark age of the past, the people of Dawn had overlooked the human heart.

As heroes, they did indeed slay demons and evil, building a great dam to hold back the darkness for humanity and all living beings of the world.

But at the same time?

Even without the guidance of those in power, ordinary people always harbored a fear of them. Whispered rumors of "human-shaped Demons" would surface from time to time, and the private discrimination never ceased.

And when the real threat diminished, to the point where an ordinary person would rarely even see a single Demon, the conflict with humans who possessed special powers was easily ignited.

Those in power began to turn against them. Anyone with special powers was demonized. The people feared them; they feared their former heroes.

’An egg is always fragile from the inside!’ The phrase rang in everyone’s mind.

"For the Dawn Members, compared to fighting Demons, the period that followed was a second ’Dark Tide.’ Many even fell into depression and took their own lives... Heh, of course, there was no clinical term like ’depression’ back then."

The air conditioning in the conference room was still running, but for some reason, the air felt heavy and stifling. Many people unconsciously loosened their collars.

But for many others in the Special Security Team, a chill ran down their spines.

Unlike the Russians, they were aware of some of the murals at the Dawn ruins. Thinking back on them now—depictions of punishments like being burned at the stake and the persecution of ’Demon Exterminators’—seemed both cruel and tragic. It allowed them to more vividly imagine the despair the Dawn Members must have felt at the time.

To be betrayed by the very people you had given your all to protect—the collapse of faith that would cause is unimaginable.

Everyone present was an elite. Even without experiencing it firsthand, it wasn’t hard for them to understand that kind of pain and helplessness.

"Not every Dawn Member possessed great combat strength, nor could every Dawn Member bring themselves to strike down their own kind..."

The mysterious man’s speaking pace was unhurried, his voice not even loud, but every word carried a heavy weight.

"If you count carefully, during the second ’Dark Tide,’ Dawn’s casualty rate was almost the same as the first. Humanity has always had an extraordinary talent for killing its own!"

No one took that last sentence as a compliment. You could hear a pin drop in the conference room.

As he recounted these events, his words were jarring to everyone in the conference room, yet they felt a desire to speak but were powerless to rebut.

After about ten seconds, the mysterious man let out a long sigh.

"However, it was precisely because of this. Precisely because the rulers of that time worked so hard to eliminate us and to erase Dawn’s existence and the history of our fight against the Demons from public memory. Decades later, the Dawn Members of that era discovered something astonishing: the number of Demons invading the world had actually decreased!"

"Yes. At that time, Dawn was already short on personnel, but the number of Demons they had to face was also decreasing."

"Whether it was to escape persecution or to make one last attempt at eradicating the Demons, it didn’t matter. They could barely hold on as it was, so why not stake everything on one final gamble?"

In his brief narrative, the mysterious man revealed the process by which Dawn went from the light into the shadows.

The people of Dawn were not skilled in political struggles, nor did they stoop to giving others cause for slander.

Not only did the rulers erase Dawn’s records and existence, but Dawn itself also secretly erased all traces of its own history.

Finally, by the Middle Ages, a dramatic result emerged: the rulers around the world at that time had completely forgotten Dawn’s past.

And so the Dawn Association, as the sole keeper of this memory, could finally emerge into the light to finish its undone work: to eliminate the highly intelligent Demons that had already integrated into human society.

Even if the name "Dawn" was occasionally mentioned, no one would recognize them.