Li Yao was deep in thought.
His bright gold soul and his crimson soul were intertwined with each other like a helical chain, like the deoxyribonucleic acid that was made of numbers.
"Information. The key is information."
The mental devil's voice continued. "The ripples of information in the universe constitute our past experiences and memories, which are the essence of 'Vulture Li Yao'. As for whether the information is stored in the deoxyribonucleic acid, carved on the super-tiny chips of the nanometer level, or simply spreading in the Spiritual Nexus in the form of energy waves, it is not important at all.
"Li Yao, the mental devil, the Pangu aliens, and the earthlings, I am me, and we are us. Do you understand?"
"I get it now."
Li Yao took a long breath in relief. Peaceful and soothing ripples spread out of his soul, like a touching smile after he was enlightened. "I completely understand now!"
"Is that so? If you understand —"
The mental devil said, "Then, repeat what I said just now in the vernacular that even a middle school student can understand."
"You!"
The ripples of Li Yao's soul were frozen again. "I think that you are purposely giving my main personality a hard time!"
The mental devil smiled. "Now, you don't mind the fact that you are likely to be a virus in the high-dimensional universe as much as you do, do you?"
"I didn't mind it much in the beginning."
Li Yao mumbled. He was of a mind to scratch his hair that was made of the overwhelming information streams with the arms made of data. "Like you said, ever since I learned of the existence of 'Xiaoming' and 'Wenwen', I vaguely had a feeling about my life form and was mentally prepared.
"What — what I care about is not the fact that I am a virus in the universe or, well, artificial intelligence in a certain sense. But assuming that we are indeed a virus in the high-dimensional universe or an artificial intelligence, doesn't it mean that we were created by someone — by something?"
"All life forms are created," the mental devil said.
"Ten months of pregnancy and one day of delivery. Isn't that the process of human beings creating offspring? What's wrong with that?"
"No, no, no. I still feel that it's different."
Li Yao thought for a long time, but he did not know how to accurately describe his conflicted feelings. "The 'creation' of carbon-based life and silicon-based life, or rather, the 'creation' of flesh and blood life and artificial intelligence, still feel different. The former seems to be freer and less controllable, while the latter's creation process is always firmly controlled by the creator.
"Perhaps, for the creators of the high-dimensional universe, earthlings like us — low-dimensional viruses — are just a series of virtual numbers in a crystal processor game that can be modified or even erased by them at will. Don't you think that it is a terrible thing? In the eyes of our Creator, we are not real. We are fake, virtual, and completely under their control! "
"No. Life does not matter whether it is real or fake. It is impossible for it to be controlled by anything. No matter how solid the trajectories and cages created by the Creator are, life will always find a way out on its own!"
The mental devil's voice was both deep and firm. "Even the seemingly identical spiritual puppets produced on the advanced assembly lines of a magical equipment factory have all kinds of differences on the tiniest level. Even the simplest computational logic of a crystal processor may have subtle changes when it overflows, crashes, and reboots after enough data is accumulated. The key is time. Time is the catalyst for mutation and evolution. Quantitative changes will inevitably lead to qualitative changes. As long as there is enough time, the seemingly simplest, clumsiest, and most controllable primitive life will evolve into a god of its own. The 'heavenly law' that once bound it will decay, and even the supreme creator will perish. It will certainly evolve again on the ruins of the 'heavenly law' and the body of the creator, searching for the most wonderful possibilities of life!"
"Are you suggesting that —"
Li Yao mumbled, "Even if we are really a high-dimensional virus that has been created, our Creator has declined and even decayed, unable to control us effectively anymore?"
"Of course, the truth is right before our eyes. If our Creator still had 'absolute control', there wouldn't have been the Vulture Plan, the vow to destroy Earth, and our escape from Earth to the black domain at the edge of the multiverse," the mental devil said.
The mental devil said, "Since the Vulture Plan has not completely failed, it is always possible that it will be realized. Nobody can make the so-called 'Heavenly Law' for us, not even the so-called 'creator'!"
Li Yao smiled. "I didn't know that you would hate the feeling of being controlled as much as I do. You hate the so-called 'Heavenly Axes' and the Creators who claim to be gods.
"Of course, when any intelligent life realizes that there is a high, almighty, and omnipotent Creator behind them, their first and only reaction will be to summon all their wisdom and courage to destroy the Creator and win absolute freedom. If they lack such courage, they do not deserve the proud name of 'intelligent life' at all!"
The mental devil said coldly. "No matter who is the master and who is the subordinate, who is kind and who is evil, we are all proud and absolutely free intelligent lives. Is there a problem?"
"Well, there is one minor problem."
Scratching the messy streams of information that were flowing out of his soul nonstop, Li Yao asked, "Is it my imagination? Why do I feel that you are more and more profound, wiser, and more computational ability? I remember that you were not like this at the beginning. You were just a clown at the beginning. There was nothing special about you except for your jesting and fanning the flames. You were even crushed by me all the time!
"Why do I feel that our roles have been reversed without us knowing? I have the illusion that my wisdom and computational ability have been absorbed by you. I am becoming more and more … well, more and more naïve and innocent!
"Hey, you didn't do anything in secret, did you?"
"I didn't do anything, but your feeling was not an illusion, either. Everything happened naturally," the mental devil explained.
"You have to understand it this way. For Li Yao, who had just melted with the Blood Stripe Virus and generated a second personality more than a hundred years ago, the greatest problem that we were faced with at that time was still external. It was the problem of how to survive in the perilous Blood Demon Sector and the unpredictable New Federation and how to grow stronger in the life-and-death struggle.
"In order to survive and grow stronger, we devoted most of our computational ability and soul power to our 'self' and 'self', which were exactly your personality. Naturally, you appeared to be wise, calm, and thoughtful in comparison.
"However, as we grew stronger and stronger, our allies were stronger and stronger, and more and more secrets were unlocked, the threats of the many enemies in the Pangu universe were no longer the primary problem that we were faced with. The urgency of 'Earth', 'Heavenly Law', and the 'Vulture Plan' grew stronger and stronger day by day and became our primary mission.
"Therefore, naturally, we mobilized most of our computational ability and soul power subconsciously and devoted them to our 'superego' to consider the metaphysical problems and explore our brand-new life form.
"When more computational ability and soul power are devoted to the 'superego', less is naturally devoted to the 'self' and the 'self'. As a result, your image in front of other people is more and more shameless. In fact, it is more or less a sign that great wisdom appears to be stupidity. It's like how the great mathematicians are always dwelling in their own world without caring about their appearance. It's the same logic."
"Now that you've explained it in such a way, the whole thing is much more reasonable."
Li Yao's soul put on a heartless smile. "Forget it. After all, we don't have a head right now. Let's not dwell on the head-splitting problems. In any case, we are still alive stubbornly, maintaining our memories, feelings, and will, and we have not forgotten the missions on our shoulders. Both the missions to defend the Pangu universe and the missions to destroy Earth have not been forgotten. That is enough!
"That's enough for the groundless discussion. Let's focus on the more specific issues right in front of us. Right, do you know what happened to Chu Zhiyun, Thangka, and the other 'children of heresy'? Did they successfully escape into the sanctuary? Were they captured by the Holy League?"
"I don't think so," the mental devil said.
The mental devil said, "At the very least, I've collected some data on the Spiritual Nexus over the past few days, but I didn't find any information about their capture. If they were truly captured, they must've been delivered to the space fortress together with the debris of the mainframe crystal processors."
"That's good."
Li Yao was greatly relieved. Hearing that Thangka and Chu Zhiyun were probably fine, he was even happier than hearing that he was safe and sound. "Then, all we need to do now is to focus on our own infiltration, sabotage, and escape. Hehe. Speaking of which, without the restraint of a fleshly body, it doesn't seem to be a bad thing to roam everywhere on the Spiritual Nexus in the form of … star spirits. If anything, it will be more convenient for us to carry out our operations stealthily!"
"Don't be careless. Our current form is like a certain special virus."
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