Chapter 877: Portraits of Civilization (please vote for the super large chapter)
Li Cheng stretched out his hand and grabbed it between the hands of the customer who was eating delicious food in front of the air.
His hand passed through the customer's body easily and only caught a piece of nothingness.
"these people,"
Ge Ya raised her head and looked around, "It looks like a 'computer program'."
Moving in a fixed way, all laughter and communication are predetermined, without the ability to discern on their own, just like a computer program that has been fixed from the beginning.
"In fact, in a sense,"
Li Cheng retracted his hand and stared at the skewers in Goya's hand, "It's a bit like the interactive 'holographic movie' in science fiction works."
The actions of all characters in the movie are predetermined, and the audience outside the movie cannot change or influence the behavior of any character.
"Portrait."
He Ao, who had been silent on the side, suddenly spoke.
Hearing these words, the two people standing next to him were stunned, and then they immediately reacted.
The relic civilization has been destroyed long ago, just like people died.
And these phantoms that record the "lifetime" actions of the ruined civilization are like the "posthumous portraits" of the deceased.
It's just that the portrait of ordinary people is a photo, and the 'portrait' in front of them is an entire planet.
This seems to be a more accurate picture of the current state of the area.
But whether you are taking a portrait or carrying a portrait, you need a ‘medium’.
For ordinary people, taking pictures requires a camera, and carrying things requires photos. From an extraordinary perspective, these two things may be the same thing.
"That is to say,"
Li Cheng continued following the train of thought of 'Hao Yi', his eyes quickly scanned the entire street, and finally returned to 'Hao Yi', "This huge 'civilization portrait' has a carrying core similar to the 'photograph' of human portraits.
Is this core in the hands of that person behind the scenes?"
"It's also possible that all of this is the ability that exists behind the scenes,"
He Ao paused and continued, "The core is the existence behind the scenes itself."
Obviously, they are facing an angel now, and it is not surprising what kind of abilities an angel has.
"Um."
Li Cheng nodded.
He has been exposed to angel-level weapons for a long time and has some knowledge of angels' abilities.
"The order here doesn't seem to exclude us?"
At this time, Ge Ya raised her head and looked at 'Hao Yi' thoughtfully, "If all this was created by the being behind the scenes, why did he directly use the rules to 'exclude' us?"
As she asked this question, Li Cheng also turned his head and looked at 'Hao Yi'.
"In a sense, we are now part of the order around us."
He Ao looked at the figures around him, raised his hand, glanced at the black ashes in his hand, and said slowly, "He can only use the rules to deal with us, and cannot directly exclude us from the entire area."
"Is it because of the 'ritual' of making a phone call when we came in?"
Li Cheng raised his head and looked at He Ao.
"Yes."
He Ao nodded slightly.
In fact, there are people behind the scenes who have been using the rules to deal with them.
Outside the transparent planet, the beings behind the scenes once tried to tear apart their lander directly, exposing them to space.
The bubble space that they use to induce the power behind the scenes to enter through rituals is actually special.
The bubble space where Lin Chichi is located has a "stabilization" stage, allowing the souls pulled into the bubble space to better adapt to the bubble space, thereby extracting the maximum value.
The bubble space they faced was basically the most dangerous scene. They didn't even wait for the bubble space to be completely stable before launching the final 'killing move'.
This shows that the people behind the scenes don’t really want to extract their “desperate” emotions in the best way, but try their best to nip them in the bud in advance.
If it were not for He Ao and the maid puppet, Li Cheng and the others would probably be dead if they reached this level.
But in fact, looking back at the operations behind the scenes, it can be clearly discovered that the 'murderous intention' he set up was in line with the entire 'ritual' operating rules.
After He Ao and others entered the bubble space area through the ritual of 'communicating past selves', they all obtained their own 'bubble space' instead of being directly transported into the void.
The manipulations done by the beings behind the scenes simply accelerated the progress of 'extracting despair' inside the bubble space and did not change any of the 'ritual content'.
And this process of extracting despair seems to be part of the 'ritual' for his arrival in the main world.
As the creator of the entire ceremony and all spaces, there is a high probability that the person behind the scenes has the ability to directly end up and 'throw' them out of the space.
But this involves a mystical concept. The stronger the effect and the more complex and sophisticated the ritual, the smaller the tolerance for error.
It's like a huge precision machine running. A small mistake may cause the entire machine to stop.
Obviously, this time's "Blood Sun Incident", the "ritual" behind the scenes trying to come to the main world, is a complex ritual with many links.
At this time, as the core of the entire ceremony exists behind the scenes, any move beyond the rules may lead to major changes in the entire ceremony.
This is one of the reasons why He Ao must find the ‘self-communication ritual’ before and enter the entire main body ritual through this ‘introduction ritual’.
If they enter through the correct ritual, then they are the ones who enter the ritual process openly and openly with the key issued by the being behind the scenes.
They are now considered an integral part of the entire operating ritual, and have a 'legal' identity. The beings behind the scenes cannot expel them through some designed rules to expel outsiders.
And if there are people behind the scenes who forcefully go beyond the rules and take action directly, it will most likely lead to the rapid collapse of the entire ceremony.
Therefore, those who operate behind the scenes are extremely careful and try to use the ritual itself to deal with them.
The core focus of their conflict is not only the physical death of both parties, but also whether the advent ceremony can be completed normally.
After all, for He Ao and others, their purpose is to preserve the main world. As long as the advent ceremony fails, their strategic purpose is almost achieved, and the existence behind the scenes is equivalent to losing.
Now they are equivalent to being in an offensive and defensive chess game. He Ao and others are the attackers, and the being behind the scenes is the defender.
The victory condition that exists behind the scenes is to complete Advent.
The advent ceremony is ongoing. As long as he can keep the ceremony from being destroyed before it is completed, he will be victorious. At that time, he can obtain the coordinates of the main world while taking out his hand to deal with He Ao and others. The main world will be completely exposed.
The victory condition for He Ao and others is to ‘destroy the advent’. To be precise, they want to destroy the advent ceremony before it is completed.
So there were people behind the scenes who took the initiative to expel them, causing the ceremony to be destroyed, but in a sense it was a good thing for them.
Therefore, the people behind the scenes could only endure and watch them reach the deepest part of the ceremony step by step.
In this game, the person behind the scenes is the home court, and the entire ceremony was formulated by him. He can use the venue advantage to deal with He Ao, but he cannot move randomly, as any movement may cause the entire ceremony to collapse.
He Ao was away from home, but he cleverly used the ritual rules to let himself and others blend into the ritual rules.
It limits the actions of the beings behind the scenes, and also limits the targeting of the ritual rules, forcing the beings behind the scenes to be in a passive defensive state subjectively. If He Ao and others act within the ceremony, they can only deal with He Ao and others through methods within the rules.
people.
Of course, when He Ao and others reach the final core of the ceremony, it is very likely that they will still have to face the existence behind the scenes.
To be able to maintain such a huge ceremony, the strength of the beings behind the scenes may not be weak, and the angel-level weapons in Li Cheng's hands may not be able to completely deal with the beings behind the scenes.
But the difficulty of this state is much less than being excluded from the ritual by the ritual rules and trying to break through the layers of defenses from the outside.
As He Ao and Li Cheng chatted, Ge Ya seemed to have come back to her senses.
Although she didn't understand the underlying principle, she could realize that the phone call ceremony when they came in should have played a very important role, and all of this had been arranged before 'Hao Yi' came in.
She rarely goes out in a team and has no experience in finding teammates, but now she seems to have a deep understanding of how important a smart and reliable teammate is.
By the time she reacted, everything had been taken care of.
This is somewhat outrageous.
While Goya was thinking, a lone figure with a backpack passed by her.
She glanced at this figure from the corner of her eye, then naturally withdrew her gaze and continued her thoughts.
Then she suddenly realized something, paused, and looked at the figure with a backpack walking forward.
At this time, 'Hao Yi' standing in front of her had already reached out and grabbed the figure with the backpack.
He Ao's hand passed through the palm of the figure easily. His eyes paused, then he took a step forward and reached out to the figure again.
At the same time, in this very short period of time, he briefly activated his super memory and mobilized his soul power to impact the figure very slightly.
Mental disturbance!
The figure who had been walking forward stopped instantly, and the expression on his face was frozen in the moment he just walked, as if time had been suspended.
At this time, Ge Ya had already quickly caught up and walked in front of the figure.
"What happened?"
Li Cheng, who looked confused, also walked over.
It was Ge Ya who was confused just now, and now it's him.
"You know him?"
He Ao raised his head and looked at Ge Ya.
At this moment, Goya was looking at this phantom with a slightly shocked expression.
"I seem to have seen him before. When I went to the Ika Republic before, I seemed to have been received by him. He is an F-class transcendent from World Tree. How could he appear in the phantoms of these ruins?"
Ge Ya paused, looked up at He Ao, with some doubts in her tone, "Or am I remembering it wrong?"
"I'm afraid you remember correctly,"
He Ao glanced at the backpack phantom and looked at the shadow clinging to the phantom. "This man is different from other 'phantoms'. He has a soul."
"That is to say,"
Ge Ya also retracted her gaze at this moment. She stretched out her hand and still passed through the backpack figure, "Is this 'shadow' a real person?"
She watched the figure carefully, "He seems to have vitality, but it's just covered up by some kind of power."
At this time, the backpack figure trembled and slowly began to move.
Just now, in order to avoid hurting him, He Ao only used a very small amount of soul power, so the confinement time was not long enough. Any greater power would affect the soul integrity of the entire backpack figure.
"etc,"
Hearing this, Li Cheng finally came to his senses. He looked at the figure who was gradually regaining his mobility, "So this person is one of the missing people in the real world? Why is he here?"
"I'm afraid I was drained of my emotions,"
He Ao stared at the expressionless face of the figure with the backpack, and thoughtfully scanned the figures around him.
"This should also be one of the components of the ritual. People who are squeezed dry in the bubble space outside will be put into this 'relic of the past' and be assimilated bit by bit,"
He Ao glanced at the backpack figure. What this backpack figure experienced should be what people who are normally in the ritual process should experience. He Ao and the others were hunted down when they came up, which was a 'special treatment'.
"Their souls have not been squeezed out. The being behind the scenes should want to use their mystical connection with the real world to speed up their arrival."
He Ao paused slightly, staggered his body, and let the backpack figure leave, "But this is just because they are still useful during the descending process. Once the descending is completed, their 'use' will be gone."
Upon hearing this, the other two people's expressions slightly condensed.
There is more than one 'missing person' in this ceremony. When the ceremony is completed, there is a high probability that these missing people will directly become some kind of 'food'.
"If what we are experiencing now is indeed the deepest level of this ritual,"
Li Cheng raised his head and looked at the surrounding streets, "Then as long as we find the core clues that created this 'phantom ruins', we may be able to find a way to destroy this advent ceremony?"
Then he frowned slightly and looked forward, "But where can we find clues about this 'core'?"
The place where they are now is a complete replica of the ruined planet, which is a dwarf planet with a surface area of three million square kilometers. If they search area by area, they probably won't have to go very far before the advent ceremony is completed.
"Jian,"
He Ao on the side withdrew his gaze from the backpack figure and said quickly, "No matter what the purpose behind the scenes was in kidnapping Jie An, he must have had 'contact' with the beings behind the scenes. If we find him, maybe we can get some clues."
.”
There are two clues to Jian's 'disappearance'. One is the word 'star' he left behind, and the other is the research facility around the lava in his bubble space.
These two clues are obviously related.
The being behind the scenes wants to take Ji An away, most likely through the connection between the 'relics of the past' where they are now and the research facility.
And if this 'relic of the past' is really a complete replica of the real ruins, there should also be a 'research facility' next to the lava, which may be the 'connection point' between the 'relic of the past' and the bubble space.
"We need to find the research facility next to the lava in this 'relic of the past'. It is very likely that Jian has been there, or even right there."
Seeing the contemplative expressions of the two people, He Ao quickly said, "Even though the research facility may be confidential, there shouldn't be many areas with lava in the ruins. It's either a volcano or some kind of special area. We can find one."
Find out if there are any maps or other documents that can identify such areas."
"Can I use the network here?"
Ge Ya turned her head and looked around in thought, and then she saw a floating computer with its back to them on a table at the entrance of a shop similar to a cafe behind her.
A young man appears to be using the computer.
Although they cannot touch people, they can touch dead objects.
She quickly passed through the illusory figures and walked around to the computer, looking at the computer screen.
At this time, He Ao and Li Cheng also walked over.
Then they saw Ge Ya, who was looking at the screen, straighten up and shake her head at them walking towards them.
With some doubts, He Ao and Li Cheng walked to Ge Ya and looked at the computer screen.
The young people using the computer seemed to be happily browsing something, but the content on the computer screen appeared to everyone's eyes as just a bunch of twisted lines that could not be recognized at all.
After thinking about it, Li Cheng reached out and took the computer in front of the young man.
He quickly tapped the virtual keyboard on the computer, but the distorted lines on the computer screen did not change at all.
He turned to look at He Ao and shook his head slightly.
Then he lowered his head and looked at the young man beside him. The young man faced the empty air and was still browsing the web, as if there was really a computer being browsed in his field of vision.
Li Cheng put the computer back where it was.
The business of this 'cafe' seems to be quite good, and the seats at the door are full of people.
He Ao's eyes glanced at a dozing man next to him. A long silver-white strip was placed on the table in front of this man.
Among the phantoms walking around, many people have such long silver-white strips on their ears.
After being worn by the phantom, He Ao cannot touch the strip, but he can get it when it is placed on the table.
He Ao glanced at the strip on the table, reached out to pick it up, and put it on his ear.
With a flash of light, the end of the strip close to the eye lit up slightly, casting some 'pictures' into He Ao's field of vision.
These pictures are still distorted lines.
"This is?"
Ge Ya looked at the silver-white strips on He Ao's ears with some curiosity.
"It should be the mobile smart device of the people in the ruins."
He Ao handed the long strip to Ge Ya.
There are similar devices in the replica world, but they are not as popular as smart bracelets.
Ge Ya also put the long strip on her ears. After seeing those twisted lines, her eyes gradually dropped expectantly, and then she gave the long strip to Li Cheng.
Li Cheng also tried it on, and finally sighed softly and handed the strip back to He Ao, "It seems there is no real network here."
"Um,"
He Ao nodded slightly and placed the silver-white strip back in front of the man.
Then he glanced around.
Many of the customers sitting at the door were gesturing in the air as if they were ordering, but there were also some customers who were holding paper menus in their hands.
He Ao walked behind a customer holding a paper menu and looked at the paper menu in his hand.
Some simply arranged words appeared in his field of vision.
"What's wrong?"
Ge Ya walked behind her and looked at the menu.
He Ao withdrew his gaze, glanced at the signs of the surrounding shops, and said slowly, "Books can be read."
Ge Ya was stunned for a moment, then reacted instantly, "The ruins use a lot of paper. Maybe we can find a bookstore to see if there are maps or anything like that."
"Um."
He Ao nodded slightly.
This is what he thinks too.
"But how do we determine where the bookstore is?"
Ge Ya looked at the densely packed snack bars around her and fell into silence.
"Look in the direction the person came from,"
He Ao looked at a young man holding a new book in the crowd and said slowly, "If the remains are similar to our habits, there will most likely be bookstores in large commercial streets, schools, and nearby."
"good."
The three of them looked at each other and quickly walked in the direction where the man with the book came from.
And not long after they left, in the corner of the door of the 'café', a thin, gentle, middle-aged man with a menu in his hand, like a professor, slowly put down the menu in his hand.
He looked up and looked in the direction where everyone was leaving.
I have been sorting out the plot recently, and the real-life part is about to be finished. The update may be a little later. After the sorting is completed, I will see if I can fix the update at 5 pm. (Confirmed)
