Chapter 42 Savior

Without giving Connor any more time to think, Amy raised the silver metal longsword in her hand and stepped in front of him.

Shen Shenghua's pistol was already out of bullets, and even if it had any left, it seemed incapable of posing any threat to the entity before them.

Li Fengyin slid backward a considerable distance, nearly falling over backward.

Shen Liangxin appeared by Shen Shenghua's side at some point, supporting her with anxious concern to help her maintain her footing. The three of them seemed to have run out of ways to stop the Terminator from killing Connor.

Yet, Professor Connor’s eyes held not a trace of despair. He spoke softly, "May I ask a question?"

The silver-white metal longsword, about to be swung down, froze in mid-air. Amy tilted her head once more, her silver-gray eyes seemingly reflecting a flicker of unfamiliar emotion.

A head of black hair swayed slightly in the mountain breeze, as if this question had plunged her into a system freeze.

"Bang!"

The bullet fired instantly the moment Shen Shenghua reloaded her magazine. As the captain of Bureau 739, she was capable of seizing almost any opening.

However, to Shen Shenghua’s utter frustration, Amy closed her fist once again, catching the bullet, while her other hand maintained the posture of holding the longsword aloft.

Li Fengyin closed in once more on the inhuman woman at this moment.

The silver-white metal longsword still did not descend. Amy seemed to be waiting for something—something akin to a combat directive.

A signal from the future, though consisting of just a short snippet of code, was accurately transmitted into Amy's brain at that very moment:

[Inform Ains Connor of the truth and let him make his choice!]

The next instant, Amy slung the silver-white metal longsword across her back, transforming into seemingly harmless existence as her previously formidable aura rapidly receded inward.

Li Fengyin had continuously cast large-scale Mirrorless Spells just moments ago, exhausting a massive amount of energy; right now, he probably could only manage a precarious defense.

Watching the entity standing by the edge of the destroyed driveway crater, Li Fengyin felt a mixture of astonishment and curiosity as to what had prompted her to put away her weapon.

Shen Shenghua also breathed a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Shen Liangxin looked at the bleeding wound on her mother's left arm, tore open her silk qipao, and tied her coat around it for a makeshift bandage.

"Your actions caused the future to lose its balance, steering everything toward a nightmare where even reality could no longer exist. Everyone struggles within a nightmare, an endless nightmare with no sight of an end."

"I come from the future. When you first appeared, everyone regarded you as the savior. But you are not; you merely deceived everything with lies, ultimately culminating in terror."

"The power to decide the direction of the future now rests in your hands."

With those words, Amy stood still, gazing at Professor Connor as he struggled to his feet. The faint emotion that had just welled up in her eyes gradually faded away.

"Is it I who ruined everything?"

Connor’s expression was on the verge of breaking. Previously, he had been straining to live under the near-treasonous burden of potentially being the legendary savior, but now, such an answer was simply too much for him to bear.

A savior—a fake savior—until the moment everything was about to be destroyed, everyone finally realized the truth. This was what had happened in the future.

Professor Connor quietly picked up the gun from the ground. Yet, Shen Shenghua seemed to lack both the reason and the strength to stop him.

Ains Connor pointed the muzzle at his own temple.

Yet, the corners of his mouth curved upward: "Then let me, the fake savior, become a real one!"

"Bang!"

The gunshot echoed through the valley, and Dr. Connor’s body collapsed limply.

Amy remained expressionless, but fluctuations appeared in her eyes once more: "To prevent the future from being destroyed in his own hands, he chose to die in advance? Ironically, this prevents the destruction."

[Self-destruction sequence initiated.]

Upon confirming Dr. Connor's death, Amy received her final string of instructions.

At that exact moment, behind Amy and beside Li Fengyin, a circular silver-white portal materialized, revealing a corridor-like interior within.

A white-haired figure with the appearance of a youth stepped out and stood before them.

"Amy?"

Tianming murmured softly, "Do not initiate the self-destruction sequence yet. The true savior is right before us!"

"?"

Amy seemed to fall into a brief state of stagnation once again; such complex human emotions did not exist within her programming.

Instinctively sensing a terrifying threat emanating from the white-haired youth, she extended her right arm and grasped the hilt of the sword strapped to her back.

At that moment, Amy's form froze in place, stripped of all mobility, losing the capacity for both attack and self-destruction.

Tianming stepped closer and slipped a silver ring onto Amy's right index finger: "This will gradually grant you human emotions. Remember to protect Hufang well."

"Hufang?"

Amy asked with a hint of puzzlement: "Where do all things come from? Which 'where' are we heading toward?"

"That's right."

Tianming spoke softly, his voice gentle: "Though I wanted to play the protagonist, it's far too exhausting. I'd rather leave it to him."

With that, Hetiangming reached out and pointed toward Li Fengyin standing nearby. Only then did Amy realize that everything around them had seemingly fallen into absolute stillness.

The birds in the sky no longer flapped their wings, the falling leaves in the forest hung suspended in mid-air, and she alone remained conscious of the white-haired, youth-like entity before her.

"Be his sword attendant!"

These were Tianming's final words. As time resumed its flow, only the three of them stood surrounding Amy.

"The mission is complete?"

Shen Shenghua looked at Amy, filled with indignation: "The only one who could bear the responsibility of the savior was him!"

"Yet it was indeed he who caused the destruction of the future,"

Amy's voice carried a faint metallic resonance, "And it was his own choice to die."

"Hmph,"

Shen Shenghua retorted, "It was simply because you couldn't kill him immediately that you drove him to his death, nothing more!"

Amy: "........."

Without bothering with the wound on her left arm any longer, Shen Shenghua connected a call: "Ains Connor is dead, killed by something sent by people from the future."

Faced with the utter failure of her mission, a woman of her age finally had her composure shattered.

The scene shifted. In Shangbei City, someone managed to capture footage of the mountainside being obliterated by blue-purple flames and quickly uploaded it to the internet—and they were not the only ones.

Personnel from Bureau 739 quickly moved to control the situation. After all, public opinion was controllable; by shifting the focus and then diluting and covering up the facts, many secrets could be quietly buried.

However, the biggest complication arose when Li Fengyin got into Shen Liangxin’s blue-purple Ferrari, and Amy climbed into the back seat as well.

Her weight of over a hundred kilograms caused the already low-slung chassis to sink even closer to the ground.

Shen Liangxin felt a pang of jealousy, but at least this ordeal was finally over. Perhaps tomorrow she could return to the laboratory; the parameters she had inputted should yield results by then.

Results concerning the past, the present, and the future.