Chapter 15: The Most Evil Eden
Upon first entering the garden zone, what met Joshua's eyes was bright light and lush green grass.
Artificial light poured down from the semi-transparent glass dome, illuminating the entire area. The garden was vast, with a faint, sweet fragrance wafting through the air. But what truly caught Joshua's attention were the children—or rather, the young Siberians—scattered across the grass.
They were playing, singing, and dancing, their movements mechanical and stiff, as if following a preset program. Their eyes were hollow, devoid of any spark of life. Some held crude wooden flutes, blowing out simple, repetitive melodies. Others clapped their hands in a monotonous rhythm. A few were hopping in place, their feet landing with the same dull thud every time.
Joshua stood there for a moment, his mechanical gaze sweeping over the scene. Then, he noticed the soul puppets.
Three of them stood at the edges of the garden, their forms humanoid but clearly artificial. They were the ones guiding the children's actions, their hands moving in sync with the music, their heads turning to monitor the young Siberians. They were the shepherds of this flock.
Without hesitation, Joshua strode forward.
The soul puppets detected his approach. Their heads swiveled toward him, their hollow eyes glowing with a faint, eerie light. They opened their mouths, as if to issue a command or a warning, but Joshua didn't give them the chance.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Three crisp sounds rang out in quick succession. With strength at least ten times that of these puppets, Joshua crushed their heads, tearing them off their necks. Following the lines of their bodies, he directly destroyed their soul cores, freeing the enslaved souls that had been trapped within for who knows how long.
At the same moment, the music stopped.
After destroying the three puppets, Joshua turned his gaze to the children—if they could even be called that. The warrior stared at these young Siberians, his mechanized eyes flickering with pure red light. But the unique frequency of that light indicated the complexity of his thoughts.
Without the guidance of the soul puppets, the light in all the children's eyes dimmed. Before, even though their movements were stiff and their play seemed puppet-like, the light in their eyes at least made them seem alive. But now, all the children had stopped playing their instruments. They no longer clapped or danced. The singing abruptly ceased. Those who had been hopping suddenly collapsed. Everyone lay down in unison, or sprawled on the grass, as if their power had been cut off. They remained there, numb and motionless, devoid of any vitality.
Some of the children who had been singing earlier continued to mumble fragments of lyrics, but everything became disjointed, as if a program error had occurred.
"La la la... the future repeats... time pushes forward... tomorrow... yesterday... la, la, la..."
Like malfunctioning machines, these children gradually stopped making sounds. Only sporadic, isolated syllables like "ah," "eh," and "la" escaped from their open mouths, like mere vibrations of their vocal cords, carrying no meaning whatsoever.
These lives... they weren't even alive.
In the first moment he observed this scene, Joshua roughly understood the situation. His mechanical body couldn't sigh, but his spirit took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. He had initially thought this place might just be a mechanized soul factory, but he hadn't expected the puppets—or rather, the existence behind the puppets—to go this far.
"An absurd world..."
His low voice echoed softly through the garden zone. The warrior shook his head. He could see that most of the decorations in the garden zone and other areas were made from human skin and bones. They were white in color, perfectly shaped without any deformities, as if they had been carefully selected. Only now did Joshua belatedly realize why the area outside the garden was called the "Breeding Zone," and what the so-called "Offerings" really meant.
Besides plants, what else was there to breed? Of course, it was humans. In this world that seemed to have experienced an apocalypse, where everything had become barren, what else could humans herd but other humans? Looking at the sheer number of bones and skins, it was astonishing—like harvested grain piled up in autumn. Perhaps, in the eyes of the controllers behind this, the humans in the Breeding Zone were no different from grass or trees, no different from wheat or rice. They were all sustainable resources that would grow back after being harvested.
Stepping forward, Joshua approached a child with vacant eyes. This was a boy of about thirteen, dressed in simple gray-white children's clothing. His eyes were dull and lifeless, devoid of any consciousness. He simply breathed, maintaining his life, with no intention of moving his body at all. Even when Joshua raised his index finger and pressed it against the boy's forehead, there was no reaction.
A flash of silver mixed with purple-blue light flickered.
Joshua used the power of Steel Shards to probe the child's soul. But all he found was emptiness—nothing at all. Everything was blank. There seemed to be something wrong with the child's brain structure and soul composition. His memory appeared to last only seven seconds. Anything beyond seven seconds was forgotten, returning him to a pristine blank slate.
A blank slate knowing nothing.
Knowing neither good nor evil, neither right nor wrong. Without wisdom, without will, and naturally, without courage or faith. In this void, there was no despair, and therefore no hope. In this soul stripped of imagination, association, and even the most basic knowledge, Joshua found nothing. He stood up silently, looking down at the group of children lying on the ground. He wanted to feel sympathy and anger, but his rational mind couldn't perceive these "things" as life.
A young Siberian with no self-will, possessing only a soul and a body, but otherwise identical to a broken doll—what difference was there between them and real puppets or golems? They were just fleshy crops, seedlings waiting to be harvested.
In myths and legends, Adam and Eve walked in the Garden of Eden, knowing neither good nor evil nor shame, living happily under God's guidance. They knew nothing, understood nothing, and thus enjoyed the happiness of ignorance. But the serpent tempted them to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, shattering their happiness and casting them out of Eden into the mortal world.
Now, everything in the garden zone converged, reminding Joshua of the myths from his past life. He stared at the puppet remnants still twitching and leaking oil and fragments of parts, and at the batches of young Siberians sprawled on the ground. The warrior's heart, tempered through thousands of battles, trembled slightly.
If ignorant happiness is Eden.
Then this is the most evil Eden.