Hearing this, Zero instinctively held his breath.
While controlling his facial expression, he tried hard to think through what Lan had just said.
'The same choice as me… what did that mean?'
'Did it mean erasing their own achievements?'
'Or did it mean… death?'
Zero murmured, "The same choice as me…"
His voice was so soft it was barely audible. If Lan weren't an Aeon, He probably would have missed it.
Then Lan saw Zero look over at Him and ask, word by word, "What choice... exactly... is the same as mine?"
Lan didn't hesitate and replied, "Just like you, they deleted all of their own data."
Zero half-lowered his eyes, as if thinking about whether those words were true or false.
After a moment, he waved a hand at Lan, signaling Him to leave.
Lan, "..."
Before leaving, He was still uneasy and repeated His words again, "They really only deleted the data."
Zero slowly turned his head and looked at Lan, uncertain. "Only deleted the data?"
He could accept erasing his own achievements, but he absolutely could not accept his subordinates making the same decision.
The way Lan put it… really sounded awful.
What? Was deleting data not enough? Were they supposed to learn from him and go die too?
Zero closed his eyes, forcing himself to control his emotions, suppressing the urge to suddenly jump up and beat Lan.
When he opened his eyes again, he urged Lan, "Drink the wine before you go."
Lan first took a small sip of the red wine in his glass. He paused almost imperceptibly, then tilted his head back and drained it in one go.
He put the empty wine glass back in place and said calmly, "Worthy of being part of your private collection. The taste really is extraordinary."
Zero let out a cold laugh, "I've drunk the special wine with Akivili. This kind of wine needs to breathe for more than an hour. From when you and I met… has it even been fifteen minutes?"
"I was tricked by you before. Do you really think I'd fall for it again?"
He pressed a hand to his forehead and said irritably, "Take the glass with you and deal with it. I was the one who threw out your takeout last time, too."
Lan, "..."
'This completely unprovoked outburst of anger… was it really not a case of mara-struck madness?'
Soon, Lan left.
Zero opened the system backpack he hadn't used in a long time and put away Ruoshui and Fuli's ice lotus from the table.
At a glance, he saw the note with hints written on it, sitting right at the very front of the backpack.
The three sentences on the paper had been checked off, and besides that, there was a rainbow Mobius strip symbol hinting at repeated cycles of reincarnation.
[T/N: ..... Amohoreous flashbacks]
Using the system, Zero added eight more words to the paper.
[Flesh is weak, mechanical ascension]
He closed the system backpack and stared at the items on the stone table.
Only the decanter remained, and that red wine glass that had never been used.
Zero began to let his thoughts wander, rummaging through those tiny details in his memory that he rarely paid attention to.
First, the system.
Did the Aeons know about his system?
Zero was incompatible with this world's power system. Personally, he leaned toward believing that the Aeons did not know the system existed.
But considering what Aha had said to him the first time they met in this life, he wasn't entirely sure about the answer anymore.
But the one thing he could be certain of was that Zero would never tell any person or god about the system, and the Aeons had no way of knowing what he was thinking.
Otherwise, if "Nous" made a move, how could he still be alive now?
The Aeon of "Remembrance" was the same, it could only record things from the side.
And even then, what could be recorded was extremely limited, only able to record the memories of this single cycle of reincarnation.
Otherwise, why would Fuli let him live? Why not just give him all the memories from previous cycles? He would probably rush toward death exactly as Fuli wished.
In his previous life, before leaving the Xianzhou, he would definitely remove the system's "mara-struck" debuff and stop providing buffs to the Xianzhou Alliance.
After removing the debuff, the satisfaction of the various Xianzhou ships would certainly drop.
The entire alliance would need time to transition, to adapt to the Xianzhou without buffs.
If this problem wasn't solved in advance, then after his death, Hua would very likely be facing an alliance where satisfaction plummeted and rebellion could break out at any moment.
Only by preparing ahead of time could he avoid leaving Hua a complete mess after he died.
If conditions allowed, in his previous life, he would definitely try every possible way to shut down the system.
As for the reason… it couldn't be simpler.
Who keeps a study app after the college entrance exam is over?
On top of that, Zero had gone all out to narrow the distance between himself and the "gods." After thousands of years, he no longer needed the system.
Whether it was his past self or his current self, he no longer needed the system to judge people or events. To him, the system was too much of a chicken rib, tasteless to eat, a pity to throw away.
Finally, he would use this to test weapons like the Blazing Sky Divine Armaments, to see whether they could still be used after separating from the system.
The universe was vast, there was always something that could help him, right? There had to be things that used games or code to alter reality, right? Rounding it off, that could help him shut down the system.
Of course, he would definitely leave himself a backup plan and wouldn't let himself fall into a bind when facing powerful enemies.
At some specific moment, the system would reappear again.
That way, Aha's actions could be explained.
There had to be things in the universe where games could change reality.
On every planet, there were storybooks written about systems.
Sorting it all out, no Aeon knew about the system.
As for Aha… it was probably just like in his previous life. In both past and present lives, Aha wanted to see him craving power and making a fool of himself.
Aha simply wanted to watch the fun.
It couldn't be that it was imitating those storybooks, trying to make Zero believe in it the way protagonists believe in systems, right?
Zero let out a breath of relief. His thoughts, uncontrollably, returned once again to what Lan had said.
His subordinates, did they really, as Lan said, do nothing else after deleting their own information?