Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Whispers of Lazarus

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Sublevel seven, top-secret interrogation chamber, a classified National Security base.

Here, even the air seemed to be made of pure coldness and suffocating pressure.

The man codenamed “Beacon” was locked tightly into a special interrogation chair forged from memory alloy, his body connected to dozens of precise monitors tracking his every vital sign.

He sat with his eyes closed, expressionless, his breathing as steady as a metronome—less a prisoner about to face the highest-level interrogation, and more a yoga master deep in meditation.

Behind a massive pane of one-way bulletproof glass, the observation room watched.

Xiao Ran’s face was as grave and unyielding as iron.

Beside her, Professor Liu—the nation’s foremost expert in psychological profiling, his hair snow-white—took off his headset, his face filled with defeat.

“…It’s useless, Team Leader Xiao.”

The despair in Professor Liu’s voice was unmistakable. He pointed at the monitor, at the heart rate line as flat as a horizon, and managed a bitter smile.

“We’ve subjected him to six consecutive hours of ‘Mobius’ cycle psychological pressure. Every method at our disposal has been exhausted. But look—his heart rate, blood pressure, subdermal electrical response… not a flicker of change.”

“This man’s willpower is the most unyielding, the most terrifying I’ve seen in thirty years. His mind is a fortress, forged from the purest belief and discipline… We can’t find a single crack.”

Xiao Ran remained silent.

She knew Professor Liu spoke the truth.

For someone like “Beacon,” a living relic who had crawled out of the most merciless intelligence machines of the Cold War era, conventional interrogation was nothing but a tickle.

While all hope seemed lost, the observation room door creaked open with lazy indifference.

Lin Feng strolled in, cradling a steaming cup of instant coffee.

He glanced at the unmoving lines on the monitor, then at the “statue” behind the glass. Suddenly, he grinned.

“Physical walls aren’t so easy to break.”

As the others watched him, puzzled, he set a device on the table—a silver helmet, resembling the latest in VR tech, but far more complex and sophisticated than anything on the market.

“So… why break it at all?”

A mischievous, dangerous curve played across Lin Feng’s lips.

“Let’s take apart his house in his mental world instead.”

He patted the silver device and, addressing the stunned Xiao Ran and Professor Liu, issued an invitation.

“Welcome to the classified beta of ‘Dreamscape’ 1.0—a joint creation of Singularity Security and the Thirteenth Bureau of National Security.”

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…Thirty minutes later.

When the silver helmet was forcibly placed on “Beacon’s” head, for the first time, a fissure appeared in his iron will.

His eyes flew open.

But what met his gaze was no longer the cold, clinical walls of the interrogation room.

Instead—

Snowflakes swirling through icy air.

A mob of frenzied people, shouting for “freedom.”

And the Berlin Wall itself, battered by countless hammers and chisels, on the verge of thunderous collapse.

Time had been wrenched back—to November 9th, 1989! That fateful night of heavy snow, when an empire met its end.

“Beacon”—no, he was once again Helmut Kohl, a young East German border guard sergeant. Staring in disbelief at the olive drab uniform that history had long since buried, his mind was thrown into unprecedented turmoil.

“Welcome to the ruins of your memory.”

Lin Feng’s voice, cold as the whisper of a god, echoed in his mind.

Then began the most merciless psychological torture.

Under Lin Feng’s godlike control, able to alter parameters at will, Helmut was forced to relive, again and again, the most painful, the most repressed memories of his life.

He saw the iron flood he once swore to defend with his life turned overnight into rusting scrap, a photo spot for Western tourists.

He saw his comrades in faith, those who had believed in “world revolution,” fall apart after their ideals collapsed—some drank themselves to death on the streets of Berlin, some sold everything for a handful of West German marks, others became the most pitiful footnotes of a “red empire” mocked by Western media.

He even saw his mentor—the one who’d rescued him from ruins and led him to join “Specter,” long since “fallen with honor.” There he stood atop the rubble, regarding him with a scornful, mocking gaze, lips silently uttering:

[Your so-called loyalty was nothing but the most useful tool in my hand.]

“No… no!”

Helmut’s mental fortress, bombarded by these negative memories, meticulously edited and amplified by Lin Feng, finally began to crack, rifts appearing from within.

Just as his psyche was about to shatter, to be swallowed by darkness—

A shaft of light appeared.

Xiao Ran descended from the gray sky, her form a “virtual divinity” in pure white uniform, expressionless, a halo of judgment blazing behind her—like a deity come to earth.

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Her voice was devoid of warmth, yet carried a power that pierced the soul, like an oracle’s decree.

“Helmut Kohl, your old world is dead.”

“And your new ‘faith’ is nothing but a greater lie, built upon falsehoods.”

“Now, tell me everything.”

“I can offer you… release.”

…

A crash!

In the real world, the interrogation chamber.

“Beacon”—Helmut Kohl—ripped the silver helmet from his face. His body, as if dredged from the icy depths, was drenched in cold sweat. He knelt on the floor, gulping down air, his once sharp, hawk-like eyes now filled only with utter terror and devastation.

Xiao Ran and Lin Feng stood before him, silent, awaiting the verdict.

“…It’s ‘Specter’…”

Helmut’s voice was harsh, as if two sheets of sandpaper scraped together, barely above a whisper.

“…We… we are ‘Specter’…”

“…The highest echelon of the organization is the Triumvirate—they set strategy… Executors are the ‘Knights’… All technology and logistics are handled by… the ‘Castle’…”

“…Their ultimate plan… is to cleanse this filthy world… That plan is called ‘Revelation’…”

Xiao Ran fixed her gaze on him, and asked the most crucial, final question.

“What is the core of ‘Revelation’?”

Helmut jerked his head up, those hollow, lifeless eyes reflecting a terror so deep, it was as though he had witnessed the world’s end.

With the last shreds of his will, he forced out, from the pit of his throat, a name—a whisper from the abyss.

“—La…”

“—za…”

“—rus…”