Malin felt as if he were walking through a kaleidoscopic corridor, with time forming its walls. From the primitive world in the beginning, to the discovery of fire through friction, time flipped before his eyes like a spinning lantern. Malin stopped in his tracks and saw an old man passing a crown to a middle-aged man, while the people below cheered. It seemed so distant in history that Malin could barely make sense of it and could only move forward. After walking some distance, without knowing why, Malin again came to a halt. This time, he saw a pyramid being constructed and slaves dragging blocks of stone. Passing by them, he walked for an indeterminate stretch of time before once again coming to a pause. It was another high platform. Someone was standing atop it, saying something. Below, soldiers listened intently. It was a silent tableau. Judging from the style of leather armor and the physical traits of the people, could this be the pre-Han Zhou era? But the earlier scenes, were they from an even older age? Carrying these questions, Malin walked and stopped intermittently, witnessing men and women lighting beacons, seeing a newborn child in the Kong family compound, watching an elderly man clad in a Grecian robe holding up a lens, and observing a middle-aged man sitting under a tree contemplating life. He also saw a city built by wolves and boys, slaves casting bronze figures, a warlord who refused to cross a river until his death, and red-robed men standing together in the face of despair. Malin witnessed erupting volcanoes and cities, saw the son of one traitor being dethroned by the offspring of another, and glimpsed a great city at the mouth of a strait with an eagle standard atop its towers. At that moment, history unfurled before Malin like scenery—frame by frame, page by page. In the time that followed, Malin saw tides of destruction. Humanity’s civilizations resembled an endless waltz. Yet the spark of civilization persisted. There were always those who raised the banner of progress in humanity’s darkest hours. "To forget history is to forget all past suffering; but to cling to history, one cannot move toward the future." This was how Malin’s history teacher once commented on the past. Malin had always dismissed it with a scoff. If forgetting history meant being unable to move toward the future, then did abandoning history truly lead to happiness? Watching the city burning before him, bombers in the sky bearing grotesque emblems, Malin’s face revealed a detached smile. And before Malin, history continued its march, the world moving ever closer to that fragment he knew all too well. Look, Malin—in the East, the descendants of perpetrators disguise themselves as victims; in the West, victims transform into oppressors. Human history, in the end, is nothing more than a pitch-black comedy where everyone is manipulated by their station. The saying "one’s stance is shaped by one’s station" is not just a cold truth from novels. As the twentieth year of the New Century arrived, Malin observed it all in silence, his face gradually forming a smile. See, this is why I want to guard this world—because I, too, wish to become such a hero. Fate seemed to take a turn that year. Malin watched as this planet beneath their feet began to improve. From that point on, Malin kept moving forward, witnessing the planet’s inhabitants break free from the constraints of gravity. Sections of a star ring were being cast and joined around the equator. Bases on the Moon and Mars were being established. Humanity had never before advanced toward space with such determination. But Malin had already glimpsed the shape of future destruction. So when The Temple was erected upon moons rearranged into orbit, when the whispers of Chaos were mistaken for revelations, when Nagoth’s plague of the undying was hailed as eternal life, when Sinspawn’s seductions were turned into avant-garde consumer ideologies, and when the pursuit of knowledge under Jianqi’s influence bore the shadow of annihilation, the world grew increasingly chaotic and beyond salvation. Khorne smiled and waited—waited for the day when he would have all the war and destruction he ever desired. Malin sighed and then opened his eyes. The children were gone, and the ceiling overhead had taken on a different appearance. the previously dark room filled with light. The steel blinds on the walls began to open, and the greeting from the AI echoed. "Good morning, Miss Peru. It’s the fifth day of your vacation. You seem a bit restless." Malin smiled and stood in front of the window, gazing at the massive city before him. It radiated the futuristic gleam of metal, and from this height, the streets below appeared insignificant. People bustled to and fro, while floating vehicles passed in the distance, and enormous billboards projected the cheerful image of a snow leopard girl speaking words that delighted Malin. The New Era: three more days until 2023 ends. Citizens of Carterburg, for this year’s Spring Festival, we have invited the Martial Monk Orchestra from our sister city, New Hangzhou, to perform. The orchestra will play multiple classical pieces, so those who enjoy religious-style music, don’t forget to purchase the UltraDream live recordings after the festival. From the timeline, this must have been during Mars’s youth, though Malin still couldn’t discern the exact era. As he put on the clothes handed to him by the mechanical arm, Malin noticed that the pants lacked a hole for a tail. He turned to the mirror and saw a young child staring back at him.