"Could I even stay away? You've already brought this war to our doorstep." The old man smiled gently. "That's not war. That's helping you evolve." "Bullshit evolution!" Theresa's eyes blazed with anger. "Your idea of evolution is turning the entire world into zombies! Billions of lives! How dare you!" "Have you ever looked at the stars?" the old man asked, sidestepping her question. Theresa frowned. Then, in the next moment, the vast starry sky above her stretched endlessly. The black floor beneath her shimmered, projecting a river of stars. The blue Earth appeared beneath her feet. She felt as if she were floating in space, watching the planet spin below her. "If you've ever been to a space station, you'd understand how small the Earth really is," the old man continued. "The universe is vast beyond imagination. Earth is just a tiny speck, and the people living on it... even smaller, fragile, and utterly insignificant." Beneath Theresa, the Earth began to shrink endlessly. That tiny blue speck was quickly swallowed by darkness, replaced by massive, imposing planets. There was Jupiter, Saturn with its rings, the Sun, and the vast stretches of the Milky Way... "But so what?" Theresa said. As her words fell, the old man waved his hand again. The vanished blue light of the Earth returned before her. The planet began to expand endlessly, filling her vision. Every screen around her simulated the scene so perfectly that she felt as if she were actually there—plunging through vast clouds, swooping down toward the continents and islands that slowly came into view. Then came the endless oceans. With a splash, she followed the all-encompassing camera into the deep sea. Below the surface stretched an infinite expanse of blue. All kinds of fish swam past beneath her. The light in front of her dimmed, the water grew darker, and yet she still couldn't see the ocean floor. It wasn't until enormous deep-sea creatures and a sunken ship appeared that she felt a suffocating pressure. The entire scene around her collapsed into endless darkness. "Without even mentioning the vastness of the universe, humans are terrifyingly small in it. We can't study it properly. Even the Earth itself—there's so little of it that humans can actually reach," the old man's voice echoed again."Humans are the most fragile carbon-based life forms. Their basic physical limitations confine them to the very shallow surface of the Earth. The civilizations they create are even more fragile. It doesn't take much cosmic turbulence; even a small shift on Earth could wipe it out. Don't you think that level of civilization is... primitive?" Theresa listened to his cold, mechanical tone. Her eyes hardened. She spoke deliberately, word by word. "I don't know what 'primitive' or 'advanced' means. All I can see are the civilizations humans have built. I haven't seen any of the so-called advanced civilizations you're talking about." One looked at Theresa. His eyes in the hologram were unfathomably deep. "That's because your understanding of civilization is far too shallow." "Civilizations take countless forms—not just human. Every species you can see has its own form of civilization. A colony of ants, a patch of moss—these are civilizations they have created in their own way." "It's just that evolutionary gaps between species make their civilizations worlds apart." "And zombies," he continued, "are humanity's next stage of evolution." "Bullshit! Humans can continue to evolve, but zombies? What can they do? They can't even truly live!" One's eyes gleamed as he stared at Theresa. "That's because you don't understand the true nature of evolution." "Humans are carriers of genes. Through the interaction of genetic material between two individuals, new gene combinations are created, driving evolution. The essence of evolution is information exchange." "Zombies are capable of information exchange as well. They have discarded fragile genes and formed crystal cores. When these cores communicate with each other, new individuals can be created." "For example, a fire-type zombie has fire energy stored in its crystal core, and a water-type zombie has water energy in its core. When their cores exchange information, both zombies acquire each other's traits. This is zombie evolution." "No reproduction is needed to achieve it." "We have already proven this theoretically. The Eclipse Serum is a zombie evolution liquid. It enables information exchange between zombies, allowing evolution to occur." Theresa froze in place, her eyes widening as she processed One's words. Zombies... evolving.That kind of evolution... One waved his hand, and the darkness before Theresa vanished. The black floor beneath her transformed into glass. Beneath the glass lay a series of laboratories. Each lab was filled with countless zombies.