Chapter 487: Price and Rebirth

"A truce?"

Adam was very perplexed by this proposal.

At this point, it was already clear that the conflict between the two sides couldn't be resolved peacefully, and the only possible conclusion to all of this was for one side to meet their demise.

Hence, he looked back at Madam Tree with a cold expression and shook his head in a decisive manner.

"There is no truce to be negotiated between us. Either you surrender and hand over the key, or we destroy everything and reconstruct a new future from the wreckage. There is no possible compromise here."

No matter what Madam Tree said here, he was determined to witness the outcome of this devastating strike. Regardless of whether he succeeded or failed, he had already given everything that he had, so he had no regrets.

Madam Tree took a glance at the slowly descending ball of light and the trembling trees, then heaved another faint sigh.

"You don't know what you're about to destroy. This isn't just the core framework of the Metaverse, it also contains the original data collected by humans over the course of countless years and the Alpha God AI, which we both know truly exists."

Adam's heart jolted slightly upon hearing this.

"You know of its existence as well?"

In the psychic world, it was impossible to conceal one's emotional fluctuations, so Adam didn't try to play any mind games.

.

Madam Tree nodded in response.

"We've always had our suspicions about whether the project actually failed or not, but we were able to verify its existence after finding the final fortress. However, we had no solution until you recovered the key."

A contemplative look appeared on Adam's face upon hearing this.

"I see. This is why you chose this place to be our battlefield. You wanted to reveal everything to me at the final moment and present me with this difficult decision so I would have no choice but to stop my attack, is that right?"

A faint smile appeared on Madam Tree.

"The choice is in your hands. You're a smart man, Mr. Adam, so I'm sure you'll be able to make the right decision. The Alpha God AI has already betrayed us and chosen you, so if you destroy it, the Gaia Organization will still exist, yet you will have lost an all-important ally."

It seemed that she had planned everything out up to this point, and she was assured of her victory.

However, right at this moment, another figure took shape beside her, and it was none other than A, who extended a graceful bow to Madam Tree, then turned to Adam with a smile and a nod.

"It's a pleasure to be making your acquaintance, Madam Tree. Allow me to clarify one thing: I never betrayed the Gaia Organization. Instead, all of my actions have been carried out with the intention of achieving the objective assigned to me."

Madam Tree raised her head with a surprised expression, momentarily stunned to have been meeting A for the first time, but she then instantly composed herself again.

"At this point, there's no point in arguing about semantics," she replied with an indifferent fa?ade, but in reality, she was feeling rather nervous.

A shook his head in response. "I beg to differ. Strictly speaking, I'm just a software cluster programmed to think like a human, and I'm not actually an AI that's capable of undergoing self-evolution, so for me, it's very much necessary to delve into semantics."

A was incapable of lying, so it was the undeniable truth that the Gaia Organization was the one that had caused all of this, but this was an outcome that they couldn't accept.

Madam Tree's indifferent fa?ade finally cracked upon hearing this.

"Are you just going to watch as he destroys the foundation of your existence?"

The ball of light was still descending, the Níeh?ggr had devoured the majority of the power in this space, causing irreversible damage to this digital space.

However, A was completely unconcerned as he smiled and replied, "Destruction is not necessarily the end."

On that note, the conversation drew to a conclusion.

The distance between the ball of light and the trees down below had reached a threshold, and the light formed by the compressive forces superseded everything. The last thing that Adam was able to see was the giant trees and the ball of light disintegrating in unison, releasing countless high-energy particles that destroyed the underlying framework that formed the virtual space. The limits of the computing power had been exceeded, and everything had become extremely unstable.

After that came a boundless eruption of light that inundated everything, and Adam's body was destroyed by the violent explosion in the blink of an eye.

In his final moments, Adam returned to the very beginning, back to when he opened his eyes to see this world for the first time, back to when he first realized his own existence.

What followed were all of the memories from his brief life, all the way up to the point when he entered the Metaverse and began to destroy everything around him.

After that came another perspective.

It was as if his body had split up into countless parts that were roaming through the boundless world of the internet.

At the same time, some type of endogenous mechanism had been activated, and it was drawing upon the destructive power that was wreaking havoc throughout this digital space to undergo a process of self-repair, cleansing all of the unnecessary internal code to attain a more simple and beautiful form with clearer and more sophisticated logic.

Deeper beyond that was a word that had been inundated by dark clouds and putrid, rotten sludge. Countless human faces were floating in the sludge, being destroyed and reborn in an infinite, relentless cycle.

Adam suddenly realized that this was the initial starting point of the Metaverse. It had started from the Digital Life project, brutally seizing the memories of its first living victim before forcibly converting those memories into digital data to create an incomplete thought body.

They were unable to live or die, doomed to be eternally subjected to pain and torment, and they corrupted the environment around them into a horrific hellscape.

At this moment, all of the destructive power had been drawn into this place, destroying all of the filth and eradicating the stubborn life programming so that they could finally die.

Ultimately, everything was transformed into light and particles, only to be reformed by some type of more powerful and sophisticated logic.

……

Rebirth.

Adam opened his eyes to find that he had returned to that spacious area, and his companions were scattered around him with dazed looks on their faces.

Diana hadn't died, but fully embracing Níeh?ggr had resulted in severe psychic corruption, so she would have to undergo a lengthy process of rehabilitation, and there was a very high likelihood that she would suffer from schizophrenia.

However, there was a better solution now, which was to directly extract that part of her psychic body to form a separate Níeh?ggr entity.

What Adam was more concerned about was his enemies of the Gaia Organization, particularly Madam Tree.

She still existed, but her disposition had become even colder and more detached. It was as if her human emotions had been completely removed, leaving her in an inhumanly objective state.

Adam was very close to her, and they were closest to the giant tower. Both of them had some type of connection to the key at the top of the tower, as if they could simply reach out and grab it, but instead of doing that, Madam Tree was looking directly at him with a completely expressionless gaze.

"You won, but we haven't necessarily completely lost."