Chapter Five: The Truth of the World

Word by word, each phrase echoed with weight and certainty.

The office was plunged into a brief silence, until suddenly—

“How dare you!” One of the think tank members sprang to his feet, glaring at Lin Fan. “Do you even know where you are? Do you understand who sits before you? How can you utter such words as ‘the nation will cease to be’?”

“Gods? How could such things exist? Are you here merely to amuse us?”

“Hmph, the youth of today…”

The members of the think tank eyed the audacious young man coldly, their fists clenched. Each of them possessed rigorous scientific training; how could they ever believe in gods? And yet this boy dared, here and now, in the presence of this elder, to speak of the nation’s demise?

“Old Jin,” Chen Yan’s demeanor remained composed, glancing at Elder Jin. “Did you come all this way just to make a joke?”

Elder Jin stepped forward, his movement deliberate.

“I do not wish to believe it either,” he said. “But what he says may very well be true. I believe him. This will be a war.”

Jin Minsheng’s fists tightened. The old soldier, half a lifetime spent on battlefields, spoke with an unassailable tone.

In that instant, every member of the think tank widened their eyes; Elder Jin’s expression left no room for doubt—he was wholly serious.

“Elder Jin is right,” Lin Fan’s voice grew heavy. “This will be a war beyond all we have ever known, a war which, in the future, we have already lost.”

“Gentlemen, I am a reborn soul from fifteen years hence, one of the future Guardians of Daxia!”

“To you, this war may seem a distant fantasy; to me, it is lived history—fifteen years soaked in blood! I have witnessed the extinction of humanity!”

“This time, our enemies are gods—of every kind!”

“In three months, gods will descend. If we are not prepared, the devastation I have lived through will repeat itself: carnage, and the fall of the nation!”

“State Leader, gentlemen!” Lin Fan clenched his fists, his gaze solemn as he looked at them all. “I know all of this sounds unbelievable, but please—believe me!”

Each word was forced out through gritted teeth, every syllable stained with desperate conviction.

With his current standing, only by winning the trust of these leaders could he prepare Daxia for what was to come.

A think tank member sneered. “Fifteen years…”

“If,” Chen Yan’s eyes held not a trace of mockery, but a grave seriousness, “if what you say is true—how will you prove it?”

A true scientist never shies from bold conjecture, nor avoids considering the worst possibilities. Because of minds like his, Daxia would become humanity’s final hope in the days to come.

Chen Yan—unquestionably a man of the nation.

“Last night, Lin Fan provided a set of coordinates—located east of Ludong, at the junction of the Eurasian and Pacific Plates, within a deep-sea trench.”

Elder Jin stepped respectfully before the nation’s leader, presenting a USB drive with both hands. “At a depth of 5,564 meters, an unmanned submersible captured this peculiar footage.”

Moments later, images flickered onto the projection screen.

The inky sea churned, the crushing sound of water suffocating. Beneath the abyss lay utter darkness, where even the submersible’s searchlight could barely pierce ten meters.

It was an oppressive atmosphere, thick with despair.

Even though nothing had yet appeared, Chen Yan, seated on the sofa, frowned deeply, feeling as if a great stone weighed upon his heart.

The deep sea—forever unknown. Within such darkness, who could say what might dwell there? Humanity could only probe the void with meager beams of light.

Suddenly—

“What is that?”

“What is that thing?”

Two think tank members stared in astonishment.

As the submersible drew closer, the blurry object on the screen grew rapidly in size. The office fell silent as the grave.

Not a sound—only the trembling of breath could be heard.

On the screen, an enormous skull appeared.

A skull so massive that the ten-meter radius of the searchlight failed to illuminate it fully; even the most advanced wide-angle camera captured only half of its head.

Luminous white bone lay motionless on the ocean floor.

The video continued, the submersible probing inch by inch.

Neck.

Torso.

Arms.

Legs.

It was a colossal humanoid skeleton, standing upright.

At last, the image settled on the immense skull, its hollow sockets staring into the camera, as if peering straight through the screen at all present—a grinning, monstrous visage.

Even these highest echelons of Daxia could not escape a creeping sense of insignificance. Like ants before a whale.

To stare into the face of such an unimaginable being—even long dead—was to feel a soul-deep terror and awe.

This was a gaze from a higher order of life.

“This... this is a human form…” Chen Yan’s voice was dry. “But how could a human…”

Another member stammered, “By eye, at least two hundred meters tall.”

“They are not human, but something beyond humanity,” Lin Fan exhaled. “If you wish, you may call them gods.”

“These will be our adversaries.”

“Th-they?” Chen Yan’s hair stood on end. “You mean—”

“Yes,” Lin Fan murmured, as if recalling some distant memory. “More importantly, in three months, some living gods will remember this forgotten plane and descend here.”

The room fell utterly silent.

“No, this is all just your word!” A think tank member stood, meeting Lin Fan’s gaze. “I don’t mean to target you, but for something of this magnitude, every source must be verified!”

“You must provide hard evidence! A single video could be faked!”

“This is about Daxia’s future—about our people’s fate! Do you realize what it would mean if this were true?”

Indeed, with current technology, such a video could conceivably be fabricated.

And the implications were immense.

“The video is genuine,” Elder Jin stood behind Lin Fan, his tone unyielding. “The footage was transmitted directly from my unmanned submersible.”

“But since you demand proof…”

“Chen Yan,” Elder Jin clasped his hands behind his back, turning to Chen Yan, “half an hour ago, I sent someone to deliver a mysterious fragment to your research institute for urgent analysis. Has the result come back?”

Chen Yan recalled the white fragment, then turned in shock to the video. “You mean, that fragment—”

“Yes. It was found near the skeleton on the sea floor,” Elder Jin nodded. “You may consider it a bone of a god—if such beings can be called gods.”

Chen Yan, trembling, fished out his phone. “I’ll call them immediately!”

But—

Before he could dial, there was a knock at the office door.

The head of the Materials Analysis Department from Daxia’s First Research Center, still in his lab coat, strode in holding a thick stack of documents and a white object, his expression grave.

The results were simply too shocking!

Behind him, the heads of the Biology, Historical Artifacts, and Chemical Analysis Departments entered as well, all in lab coats, faces tense with worry.

“Chief Chen, the item you asked us to test…” The Materials Analysis Director’s fingers shook. “Does it truly exist?”

Chen Yan’s face grew stern. “What is it?”

“After multi-department testing, we found that this object’s hardness exceeds anything achievable by current technology! It is absolutely not man-made!”

“And it contains elements we have never seen before—elements not on the periodic table!”

“Most bizarre of all, structural analysis suggests it is biological bone!”

“But the biology department cannot determine what kind of organism it is, and chemical isotope analysis indicates this lifeform… it lived five thousand years ago!”

“Five thousand years ago—when dinosaurs had long vanished, early humans dwelled in the ancient era, and Daxia’s civilization had only just been born… How could a creature exist then, with such formidable bone structure?”

“The discovery of this species is enough to overturn all our previous understanding—of the world itself!”

Each department head reported their findings, disbelief written on every face.

Elder Jin abruptly interjected, “If beings like this exist, how could we possibly confront them?”

The Materials Director wiped a cold sweat from his brow, his face ashen. “If such a creature still lived, then… with bones like these, they would be impervious to any conventional firepower!”

“Unless—nuclear weapons!”

“What!” Even Elder Jin could not suppress a gasp.

Nuclear weapons… the only hope?

Such a lifeform—could it truly be that powerful?

Chen Yan stroked the bone fragment, his expression complex—cold, unyielding.

“Now, I have proven the existence of the gods,” Lin Fan said quietly. “Next, I will show you the truth of this world.”

“Welcome… to the world as seen by the gods.”