Resurrection Empire

Chapter 1573: Chapter 589: Preparations Complete_2

The present-day Red Blade Clan is such a vast civilization.

As for Ren Zhong himself, his situation is far more complex.

He is both the spiritual support and backbone of the Red Blade civilization, with his mind bearing a wealth of memories—from Source Star to the journey, then to the hardships and struggles of the entire tribe when they first arrived at the Nanxiang Star Cluster, followed by each battle large or small, and a major scientific advancement he participated in. In the end, he personally participated and witnessed the rapid rise of the Red Blade Clan.

In a sense, he is not only sharing the fate of the nation, serving as the spiritual totem of civilization, but his memories are a history book belonging to the Red Blade Clan.

Time cannot leave marks on his face, nor scars in his body; he can live forever.

Therefore, he is civilization.

Civilization is him.

But beyond all the halos and identity, he is essentially still a person—a living, emotional person with flesh and blood, joy and sorrow.

He can be angered, moved by emotions, and occasionally joke with others; he falls into memories during leisure, missing the journeys passed, those lost, and even longing for parents from the 21st century he can never return to and a brother he never met, classmates, mentors, "enemies" who doubted his academic honesty but were eventually convinced by him, and the ginkgo trees lining the road home.

Thus, the past ten years of Ren Zhong’s life have been both fast and slow.

Fast because, in appearance, he did not emerge in ten years. People thought he was comfortably enjoying frozen slumber, waiting to reap the fruits of triumph provided by countless subordinates.

Slow because he never took a day off.

He often transforms into a "big villain" within a new virtual reality training system created by Sun Ai, playing an enhanced intelligent Commander of the Ascendant Fleet, sometimes becoming the "virtual supreme leader" assisting trainees, or being labeled with the strongest simulated individual training program, wreaking havoc within the virtual reality system, ruthlessly abusing new recruits of the Red Blade Clan.

He also frequently enters the research system of the Red Blade Science Academy and Source Star under aliases, acting as a bridge and striving tirelessly to find breakthroughs for each project in distress.

He keeps busy, working immediately upon waking, scarcely resting.

When focused on something, time passes quickly.

Essentially, it’s because he dares not rest.

If he takes a break, he instinctively falls into memories, subconsciously trying to foresee the future—to "watch" the inevitable Star Domain-level war, experience the inevitable separations and tragedies, or recall various pasts.

Memories lead to loneliness, and the more he remembers, the more lonely he feels.

Sometimes, he really wishes to awaken Ju Qingmeng and Ma Xiaoling from frozen storage, just to chat casually, even if it’s just about yesterday’s meal.

Other times, he wants to find Xiao Xingyue, to bring her from frozen storage, and reminisce about their moments together at Source Star.

But ultimately, he doesn’t dare.

He can live forever; others cannot.

Every time he awakens someone, it means losing them a day sooner. He cannot expend others’ lives meaninglessly.

So, though there are countless people working for him now, and the Red Blade Clan has grown immensely large, as a supreme leader of civilization, he’s still lonely.

Moreover, he feels that as the Red Blade Clan grows stronger, he becomes lonelier.

On this day, Ren Zhong stood with hands behind his back on the bridge of a brand-new medium-sized spaceship.

The medium-sized ship isn’t considered large at a "mere" five kilometers across. Its shape is plain, just a flat, alien-like flying disc with a dim black sheen, lacking apparent High Rank instruments, only a surface full of bumps and hollows.

If observed with the naked eye in space, the ship would appear as an ordinary space rock.

But in reality, it’s the strongest ship the Red Blade Clan has made so far, accelerating quickly, equipped with a new deep-sea buffer device that activates rapidly, allowing, with Ren Zhong as the pilot, frequent fold jumps at much longer distances than first-generation fold-jump battleships.