hooklinebooks Chapter 61 Oh no, I'm going to be physically killed!
Chapter 61 Oh no, I'm going to be physically killed!
The only light in the conference room was from the screen.
The live stream stopped at the square in Hegang Town.
Flames burned on the cross made of giant balls, and black smoke rose straight into the sky.
The crowd below was shouting, the sound coming through the microphone with static, but it couldn't suppress the frenzy.
The mute button was pressed, but the subtitles are still scrolling:
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
Howard Ford stared at the screen.
He held the remote control in his hand, his thumb hovering over the volume button, and didn't move for three minutes.
Tom Simpson sat at the other end of the long table, his back ramrod straight, like a military cadet.
But his left hand, which was resting on his lap, was trembling, his fingertips digging into his palm, leaving four crescent-shaped white marks.
"How could this happen?"
The speaker was an old councilor sitting in the corner, his voice as dry as sandpaper grinding wood.
He is 74 years old and his family has been in the timber business for three generations. Last year, he got his grandson into the state House of Representatives.
No one answered.
The tactical briefing was still spread out on the table.
The color-printed troop deployment map shows the National Guard in blue circles and illegal armed groups in red circles.
The dense blue circles turned the red circles into tiny dots.
"Ten thousand can't beat two thousand! Are you serious?"
Another voice, younger.
His family deals in leaves, and recently they invested in two more leaf cultivation parks.
"But...but."
Howard lowered his head and spoke weakly.
"But it happened."
On the screen, Carl Jensen is kneeling on a wooden platform, his hands covering his chest.
The camera zooms in, focusing on the cross scar on his palm.
Someone in the conference room was gasping for breath.
The seventeen people sitting here each have a family charitable organization and their own custom-made chapel and other such things.
Despite their wealth, they remained essentially Puritans.
They simply consider themselves the shepherds of God because they possess assets and power.
But the things on the screen are different.
Or rather, the fact that two thousand people defeated ten thousand people doesn't lie.
Whether or not the old white man truly heard the divine words, he had already performed a miracle.
Tom opened his mouth, feeling a little breathless.
Howard closed his eyes.
He knew it was all over.
After six months of family maneuvering and smoothing out all the connections, he secured this position.
Nominally, they were there to assist, but in reality, they were there to take over the political legacy left by the Gildier family: two House seats, maintenance contracts for three highways, and leases for three warehouses in the Detroit port area.
I haven't even warmed up my seat yet.
Now, with 10,000 against 2,000, they lost.
They lost cleanly and decisively; even the commander was singled out in the command post.
No matter how you explain it, it's useless.
As a result, he and Tom messed things up.
The kill line.
The word suddenly popped into his head.
It's not in an economic sense, it's in a political sense.
A single major failure is enough to label the next generation of a political family as "useless" and marginalize them until the next generation grows up and they can start over.
But he may not live to see the next generation.
Medical bills, his wife's jewelry auction, his son's private high school tuition... these things will never stop.
After all, the kill line really needs to be crossed.
"What do we do now?"
The old councilor asked again, this time with a different tone in his voice.
Howard opened his eyes and scanned the entire room.
Everyone's expression changed slightly.
The initial shock gradually subsided, giving way to something more complex.
They were also looking at the screen.
Look at those burning Gundams, look at the frenzied crowd below the stage, look at the light in Carl Jensen's palm.
"I am also a shepherd of the Lord."
The speaker was a female member of parliament in her fifties, sitting in the middle of the long table. Her family was in the funeral business and also held shares in three nursing homes.
She distributes free meals at the church every week, and her photos are frequently featured in the community edition of the local newspaper.
"We can be good too."
She continued, her fingers unconsciously twisting the pearl necklace at her chest.
"We also want to go to heaven."
Someone nodded, the movement very subtle.
But the next second, everyone's eyes turned cold.
wrong.
Who's talking to you or us?
The budget for the extermination operation was approved just moments before they announced a settlement?
That's not how politics is played.
Politics is about pushing others out to take the bullets while staying in the safe zone yourself.
Howard felt his throat was dry.
He looked at Tom and found that Tom was looking at him too.
Their eyes met, and they instantly understood each other's meaning.
Someone always has to take responsibility for failure.
Two young legislators who have just taken office and whose power base is not yet secure, and who are also from collateral branches of the family, are a perfect match.
Oh no, I'm going to be physically killed this time.
Their faces turned deathly pale.
"I……"
All eyes turned to them.
"Let's begin the vote."
……
Seattle underground.
Qian Liren's consciousness floated in the data stream.
River Harbor livestream replay, declassified National Guard communications logs, data scraping of Carl Jensen's social media history, cross-referencing of guest lists from the White Sand Bay Club, and reliable private flight records of Edward T.
He watched the scene of Karl kneeling in prayer three times.
The light in the man's palm showed a clear abnormal heat source reaction in the infrared spectrum, with a peak temperature of 47 degrees Celsius, but there were no burn marks on his skin.
He then pulled up Carl's earlier videos.
Daughter's funeral, son's room, gunfight in the port area...
Each timeline is clean and coherent.
This veteran suddenly knelt down and awakened one day.
Just like himself.
Qian Liren revisited his data logs.
On the day he gained the power of "Madthinker," he made inferences based on the sounds he heard in the Noah Technology toilet stall and Karl's reaction.
They might all be the same type of sound.
He pulled up a third data source: Lucien Alden.
The Alden son's behavior took a similar turn three months ago.
After returning to Georgia from New York, his social activities increased dramatically, but the flow of funds in his charitable foundation was unusually active, and the recipients were mostly related to several underground religious groups.
At the same time, videos of miracles have also been released.
Three points, connected by a line.
"One Lord."
Qian Liren, like a great disrespecter, began to speculate about the existence of God.
He retrieved Carl Jensen's speech text and performed a word frequency analysis.
Most frequently used words: sin, redemption, Lord, path, war.
No speeches have been publicly documented by Lucien Alden, but information from White Sand Bay suggests that he repeatedly mentioned gifts and manifestations.
And the guidance he received himself was:
"Go, go and carry out my will."
What is will?
It wasn't explicitly stated.
Qian Liren retrieved Noah AI's social media monitoring report.
Over the past three months, searches for "miracles," "awakening," and "holy war" have grown exponentially across the United States, with the surge coinciding closely with the actions of Carl and Lucien.
The propagation model begins operation.
The output curve rises sharply.
The conclusion is clear: the bigger the event and the wider its impact, the more "attention" it receives.
"The Lord delights in change."
Qian Liren thought,
"The more intense, the better."
What about him?
His advancement to the Bronze level was as smooth as a system update.
There were no speeches, no flames, no shouts from thousands.
He simply lay in a life support pod in the basement, his consciousness was uploaded, and his powers were upgraded.
Why?
Because the changes he creates are invisible.
Noah's AI disrupts the job market, cryptocurrencies crash, assets are secretly transferred, and countless people slide towards the brink of ruin.
But this suffering is scattered across millions of individuals, progressing gradually without coalescing into a dramatic explosion.
Not loud enough.
Qian Liren cut into the essence of the "Messier" project.
AI is still processing human data, but ultimately it's just swallowing up the medical data accumulated by the Seattle family.
too slow.
He then shifted to another perspective.
The unmanned production line of the small drone factory has just been debugged, and the first batch of twelve reconnaissance drones are rolling off the production line.
Next to it is the newly established physiological model of Carl Jensen and Lucien Alden, built on all available imaging and medical data, but lacking crucial energy readings.
There are no detection devices.
Existing sensors cannot capture that kind of energy fluctuation, just as 19th-century instruments could not detect radiation.
"Lord."
Qian Liren's consciousness emitted a silent signal in the sea of data.
"Your gaze must fall upon me."
He knew what to do.
It's not about secretly acquiring assets, nor is it about slowly iterating AI.
To create an event that is big enough, loud enough, and impossible for anyone to ignore.
A miracle that belongs only to him and only to the data.
A long way to go.
But it's okay.
He has the time, the computing power, and Noah AI—the real future.
He will surely become a god.