In today's Shadow City, as long as you look up at the sky, you will find that there is a spectacular and mysterious arc-shaped land above the extremely high clouds in the sky. This land hangs high in the city that has expanded to the point that it can no longer be described as a city.
Above the Shadow City, it extends in all directions to the limit of your vision. The slight downward arc in the middle makes people vaguely aware that this land is actually part of a certain sphere, but its hugeness and grandeur make it impossible to glimpse it.
The whole picture.
The sky and the earth are covered with a layer of silvery white and emerald green. The silvery white is a city made of alloy, and the emerald green is a lush jungle with lush plants.[]
It's like another world reflected in the sky.
This wonder in the sky has been the most talked about topic among the residents of Shadow City in the past two days. Its grandeur, mystery and magnificence have attracted more eyeballs than the air fortress of the Military Command. Many people are speculating.
The origin of that reflection world, and many people are busy spreading various versions of the truth because they are well-informed or know some insider information, but in fact there is only one truth, and it is extremely simple: it is the capital planet of the New Empire, the home planet
Gaia.
Okay, I know that the original name of this home planet was not Gaia, but considering that this planet has now become the temporary body of a phantom girl, I decided to name it Gaia.
The cosmic reconstruction work of the original Keprulu sector has been completed, and even the post-adjustment work has been completed. Gaia and the mother star she controls naturally have no mission in that galaxy, so they discussed it with Sandora
After a while, I decided to transfer this planet to the shadow space - and this was a few days ago. At that time, we were still busy with war in the Mobrado universe. I signed the capital star transfer in my spare time.
When we returned in triumph, the old god had been hanging in the sky above the Shadow City for two and a half days.
Although the order was signed quickly after a tense battle, the idea was not hasty.
After a long period of construction, the shadow space has become the safest place in the territory of the New Empire. All our top command centers are concentrated in this artificial universe. The headquarters and the Space-Time Management Bureau are also here. On the contrary, it should have been
As the center of imperial rule, the mother planet has been busy with infrastructure construction and demolition and resettlement in a satellite area of civilization. This is a bit awkward anyway. The work of relocating the mother star should have been on the schedule long ago, and it has only been completed now.
This matter has actually been delayed a bit.
It has to be said that the impact of another world hanging in the sky is very big, especially for some people with depression phobia. Looking up at the sky with a continent hanging upside down is definitely not a comfortable thing.
When Ya just transferred here, the psychological therapy industry in Shadow City flourished greatly for two days. The income growth rate of the psychologist was almost the same as the growth rate of the ideas in Qian Qian's head. In the end, Gaia had to open the mirror image of its home planet itself.
System, the scene of the home star continent projected onto the Shadow City has been visually weakened to solve this psychological panic. Therefore, when we see the continent in the sky now, we feel that it is just a somewhat ethereal picture and we will not think that it is
Mount Tai is about to come to the top. And speaking of the mother star hanging in the sky, it is actually not quite right. Considering the huge difference in size between the mother star and the shadow city, this statement should be the other way around: the current shadow city is hanging upside down in the sky.
The high altitude of the northern hemisphere of the home star is correct. Although it is just a matter of interpretation, Gaia seems to be very concerned about it. She insists that the Shadow City should be regarded as an artificial satellite of the home star and not the other way around. I can only explain this.
This is because Gaia has been integrated with the planet for too long, and she has almost thought of herself as a planet - just like Anweina was particularly friendly when she saw a crow recently...
After Sandora mentioned that the spirit of the Revenge Army could not be integrated with any kind of body, I happened to raise my head and glanced at the sky. This is also important for our mortal IQ to turn the corner faster than Sandora.
The reason is that I immediately thought of a person whose symptoms were exactly the same as those of ancient spirits, and that was Gaia.
It is also the concept of losing the body, it is also impossible to use any type of apostle body, and it can only be stored in the large array machine in the form of data. More importantly, Gaia has personally said that her current
The appearance was caused by a testing disaster.
Although she never said anything explicitly about the disaster in that experiment, by inference, I am almost certain that she was referring to what Sandora just said, the experiment that L-15 mentioned that inspired the Revenge Army.
Disaster. Those revenge armies copied the spirit rewriting method that caused Gaia's situation, thus completely destroying the Xiling spirit network in their region.
Gaia has an advantage after transferring her mother star to the shadow space, that is, we can go and see her at any time. Of course, what we see is just a light blue shadow, but compared to the holographic image, we can see her in the mother star.
The feeling of chatting with Gaia on the star is still different.
The military passage in the Dimensional Hub Square has a portal directly leading to the control hub of the home star. Sandora and I quickly reached our destination through this portal.
"The first time I came here I was sleepwalking here."
Looking at the familiar yet novel steel city around me and the lush jungle in the distance, I smiled and said to Sandora.
This magnificent city is the control hub of the mother star. Although it looks a bit like a prosperous city in the future, it is actually an unmanned autonomous "building complex" and not a place for people to live. It
It is called the mother star control hub. As the name suggests, one of its functions is the dispatch center of the entire planet. Most of the dazzling alloy buildings around it are various computing and processing facilities. Those elevated buildings that look like a three-dimensional transportation network
Roads and bridges are protective troughs for various connecting cables. Gaia's "information" constantly travels through these buildings and cables, so strictly speaking, this control hub is Gaia "itself".
Due to its own ultra-high computing power or comprehensive performance, this special home star has a completely autonomous control hub. This is something I only learned about recently. Originally, I thought that all emperors’ home star control hubs were
In the uninhabited city, when I chatted with Sandora later, I realized that my own was a special case: Sandora's home star hub was much more lively than here, while Gaia's hub only had a small group of regular garrison troops, and the rest
They are all self-discipline machines under her direct control.
This control hub is so huge that it is completely different from the empire's small and powerful processing equipment (such as the Xiling host). This is because in the old empire era, it not only had to manage one planet, but also needed to manage countless worlds at the same time.
, a city-sized computing facility is not that big, but now, 80% of the functions of this hub are in a shutdown state. If you look around, you will find that despite all the silver-white buildings
There are blue energy lines floating in them, but there are only a few buildings with regular lights flashing, and a small part of these buildings are the adjustment devices of the mother star itself - you can see how free Gaia usually is.
Got to panic.
As soon as Sandora and I arrived at the control hub, we immediately attracted Gaia's attention. A small group of autonomous machines floating in the air like octopuses muttered their internal common language and led us not far away.
In a small square in the city, Gaia is waiting for us in the square, surrounded by a large circle of self-discipline machines crawling around - it seems that this is the scene of her life on Jupiter when she is bored.
We had already explained our purpose of coming when we were teleported here, so Gaia didn't ask any more questions after seeing us, but nodded clearly.
"About my current situation?" The light blue translucent image in front of him reached out and gently stroked an autonomous machine swimming around beside him. The latter seemed to feel it and made a comfortable purring sound.
, then turned it over, and the octopus-like multi-purpose mechanical arm opened in the air to form a projection array, and then opened a holographic image about one meter long, "This is the structural diagram of the mother planet, which should be familiar to your two majesties."
Sandora and I nodded.
"This location is the control center, the largest 'city' on the home planet. It is actually a servo array. The port for me to interact with the outside world is on this array. It is also the storage area for 90% of my information."
Gaia spoke calmly. Under her control, many self-discipline machines circled around us like the first machine, belly up, and unfolded many holographic images.
I opened my eyes wide and looked at these pictures I had never seen before in amazement: they seemed like a documentary!
More than a dozen video screens are playing around us, but what is displayed is not the numbers and charts that I am used to seeing on these Xiling equipment. It is the same thing as many live videos, without many complicated and unknown technical symbols.
, but it made it easier for me to understand. There was a busy dispatch center, a large group of imperial technicians rushing through, a reactor bursting with dazzling sparks, and a steady stream of spaceships, but these were not things that stunned me. What really made me stunned.
What makes it difficult for people to calm down at first glance is that familiar faces appear in several pictures for a long time.
Pandora stood on the podium with a blank look on her face, Alaya wore a gentle smile but was obviously wandering away, and Gaia stood in a crystal prism with a calm expression, surrounded by haloes of light—
- Not the light blue shadow she looks like now, but a real girl with beautiful long lavender hair, bright lavender eyes, and wearing a white dress.
In addition to them, there were also some familiar-looking faces that flashed past, but after Pandora's three faces appeared on the screen, my attention stopped focusing on the others. Sando
La looked at the videos playing in a loop around him and said after a long time: "Is this a video from the old empire?"
Gaia nodded: "Yes, this is the image data left when we were conducting a research project, and I lost my body after the failure of that research project."
Although Sandora and I had already made some guesses, we still opened our eyes wide at this time.
Gaia narrated what happened that year. This was the first time I heard the complete story from her: "Gaia, the full name is the distributed array Xiling host mother machine-Gaia type. I
It was once the last mother machine of the distributed array Xiling host of the old empire. As recorded in the video, I used to be the same as Bubble..."
As soon as he opened his mouth, it was bombshell news.
But Gaia didn't give me much time to digest this information, because obviously what she was going to say next were all bombshells. If I had to digest them one by one, I would have to digest them one by one, so I would have to wait until next month, so she continued without pausing.
: "There are many different models of Xiling hosts, such as bubbles. The special name should be 'Honeycomb co-processing Xiling host', but these should not be what you care about." Gaia pointed out tactfully.
My lack of understanding.
"The Gaia-type Xiling host is the last model of the distributed array host, and I am the prototype of it, and I am also the only Xiling host that was put into use in the end. The reasons are very complicated. In the end, Gaia changed from a series code name to
It became my special name. And that experiment was part of a scientific research project on spiritual transformation that was being conducted at that time."
"At that time, the empire was at the end of the era of great expansion. The Xiling Apostles gradually reduced their war of conquest of the new world and instead concentrated on researching technologies to further strengthen their own civilization. Further research on their own souls was one of the many research projects at that time.
As one of the most powerful Xiling hosts at the time, I served as the computing mother node in the sky area. At the same time, I was also the first test subject to undergo transformation. Because of the special life form of the Xiling host, our souls were even more powerful.
It can withstand various modifications and has strong self-repair ability. In addition, I am the Xiling host, so I can record first-hand data better than other subjects..."
"Then...the experiment failed?"
I asked cautiously.
Gaia nodded silently, and an automatic machine with its legs upturned floated over with a holographic projection on its belly. What appeared on the projection were some very messy pictures, as if it had been greatly disturbed during the filming. The picture was
The broken crystal prism, the host slot that kept flashing the alarm light, the girl who was gradually dissipating into light spots, and Pandora who was pressing a group of researchers to the ground and preparing to shoot them one by one - was given to Alaya who seemed dull back then.
Stopped.
"Do you usually watch these things?" I looked at Gaia and the automatic machine that was playing the disaster scene with a strange expression. I felt a little nervous and a little distressed. What a good girl you say, she just let inhumane experiments do it.
It has become a psychological hazard - living alone in this huge empty city and watching the video of one's own death, is this what ordinary people can do?
"I don't usually watch this. This is what Your Majesty wants to watch. I usually watch the Central Ten sets. Those jokes are very interesting." Gaia replied seriously, and I was speechless and choked.
Under Gaia's explanation with pictures and texts, Shandora and I already understood what the original experiment was about. After excluding the parts that I didn't understand... well, there wasn't much left. Anyway, I only knew
One thing, they wanted to transform the souls of the Xiling Apostles to make their souls more immortal, but this transformation ultimately failed. The mutated souls were not strengthened at all, but were inexplicably erased.
"Concept" has become incompatible with any kind of body. If you compare it with an example, it is like you want to optimize your own mother, but the result is that the mother's mechanical layer code jumps directly from binary to three.
Twelve decimal, but all computers in the world are binary mechanical codes, so your mother has become a lonely ghost from now on, and can only be turned into a lingering memory in your mind...
This is the case with Gaia, her soul has been transformed into a completely unreasonable appearance, just like the binary system has programmed the hexadecimal system. From now on, nothing that can be called a body can accommodate this soul.
The only good thing is that although her body is no longer compatible with Linghun, the technology of the Xiling Empire still did not let her die. Those scientists who almost had Pandora lined up to be shot finally found something similar to a translator.
Gaia's soul is transferred to this mother planet in the form of data. Most of her data is stored in the control center, and some conceptual things that are difficult to understand are integrated with the entire planet. This is now
Gaia.
So the question we are most concerned about now is: Is this process reversible?
No one has forgotten the original purpose of our visit to Gaia. We are not here to observe LV's recording work. We plan to arrange for Sandora's old subordinates to borrow their bodies to repay them.
But this idea was actually poured cold water on when Gaia told her experience just now. As she explained the reasons for the incompatibility of souls bit by bit, the cold water gradually transitioned to ice water. It can be said that,
When Shandora and I asked with our last extravagant hope whether this process was reversible, we were already in the same situation as those who had winter swimming in Heilongjiang: it was cold from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet.
Sure enough, just as I had guessed, Gaia shook her head without hesitation: "Of course it's irreversible, otherwise I wouldn't be like this now."
I looked at the light blue translucent shadow of Gaia, and thought that it was difficult to use quality projection because of the different systems. I thought: if this process was reversible, the girl in front of me would still be a movie star here all day long.
What?
"Then there's no way to go."
I drooped the corners of my mouth and shrugged helplessly at Sandora. She lowered her head and remained silent for a long time, and suddenly said quietly: "In this case, I'm afraid they really won't be able to accept it."
For Apostle Xiling, the most difficult situation to accept is this: from now on, he becomes an information segment that can do nothing, spending an amazing amount of energy supply every day to maintain his own existence, and even has a large group of leader bees that can do nothing.
If you don't do it, you'll be responsible for maintaining yourself every day, and live a true life of a waste of money.
The reason Gaia can still perform her duties after losing her body is because she was originally a Xiling host. What she wants to do has nothing to do with combat. As long as there is a powerful enough auxiliary servo array, she can continue to do her previous job.
And what about the veterans of Sandora? They are all warriors. The only thing they know how to do in tens of millions of years is fighting. If you give them a server the size of a star, they will not be able to study things that only Xiling hosts understand. Xiling
The race of apostles is different from that of humans. Their "origin" determines too many things. The future racial role of a newly created apostle is determined. A soldier who is trained to the limit will not know how to do scientific research. A researcher goes there every day.
Even after a thousand years of fighting on the front line, Pandora has only grown one centimeter taller after tens of millions of years. Sister Scorpion said she would rather die than heat her blade. Sicaro is the only weird one. Apart from him,
During the war, I learned to read palms and resell pirated disks...
Thinking of this, I can only sigh together with Sandora.
But - still this lovely word, but Gaia suddenly spoke up and seemed to give us some opportunities.
"Your Majesty, actually...the L-15 Grand Warlord has communicated with me once. He has an idea about the future of 100,000 veterans of the Revenge Army..."