In the brilliant sunlight, a planet was quickly ushering in its demise.
The sunny side of Zorm was exploding like fireworks under the sun. The thick rock layers melted, burst, and vaporized under the sun. They were torn down by gravity and splashed into space. The planet spilled hundreds of millions of tons of celestial matter as it rotated. It was the end of the planet in the most spectacular way. On the dark side of Zorm, a bridge of life was trying its best to save the civilization that once lived on the planet in the last six hours before the end of the world.
The stratum near the equator bloomed like a flower bud. Countless huge tentacles, between plants and animals, stretched between the crust and pushed the rock layers that were taller than mountains aside. A structure of flesh, plants, and machinery was trembling in the center of this huge 'flower bud'. The red light it emitted was now the most striking light on the dark side of Zorm.
The whole structure was like a huge flower of life, blooming in this hellish world that was about to fall into the scorching sun.
The Petrachelys was like a silver-white bird. It dexterously hovered in the core of the 'flower of life', connecting a large number of cables and pipes to the heart of the planet and extracting the 1.6 billion souls of Zorm like a hummingbird collecting honey.
A probe drone flying over the planet captured this spectacular and rare scene and quickly sent it to the inspectors' communication platform.
The inspectors often posted the video of their mission on this platform, and Hao Ren had gradually developed this habit. It was not to show off his achievements — there was no need to show off in front of his colleagues. He recorded and posted these just to remember every step he took, and also to record every civilization and every scenery he encountered. Because these scenery were always easy to disappear.
Just like Zorm.
"Progress is good, the bandwidth is just enough," the MDT had been monitoring the transmission of the souls. "Thanks to the technology of the Empire, we have known how to transcode the souls since tens of thousands of years ago. Otherwise, it would not be so easy to upload and download the souls."
Hao Ren patted his chest in fear. "I really don't know what I would have done if I hadn't set up these drones …"
"If you want to show off your foresight, just say so." Lily gave him a sideways glance and wagged her tail. "But then again … Mr. Landlord, you were really far-sighted at that time. I can't see it usually."
Vivian chuckled when she heard that. "Normally, we wouldn't have expected you to graduate from Peking University four times."
As things progressed smoothly, the atmosphere in the spaceship seemed to lighten up, and everyone started joking again. However, Hao Ren never took his eyes off the control panel. At this critical moment, he didn't want anything to go wrong.
Time passed quietly, unbearably slow. Hao Ren did not know how long he had been staring at the control panel. He only knew that Vivian brought him a cup of tea and let him rest for a while. Soon, he returned to the captain's seat. 1.6 billion human souls plus the soul of the First Born. The amount of data was staggering. Even if the drone cluster had optimized the transmission structure as much as possible, it was impossible to transmit all the souls in a short time. As time went on, the six-hour night on this side of the planet was coming to an end, and the transmission progress bar on the control panel was still nearly one-tenth full. The atmosphere on the bridge immediately tensed up again. Lily stared at the image on the external monitor, and a flame appeared in her eyes.
"The sun is rising!"
Throughout the transmission process, the Petrachelys had been hovering over the data release point of Zorm, rotating slowly with the planet. Now, it had finally rotated to the position where the sun was rising, and a glaring wall of fire appeared in front of the spaceship.
The MDT screamed, "The last five percent!"
The magnificent sun had already appeared on the horizon, and under the high temperature, the horizon was ignited with a raging "fire". It was not a real fire, but a curtain of light produced by the refraction of the sunlight when the steam from the rocks was ejected into the sky. However, its temperature was even more terrifying than ordinary flames. The wall of fire began to move toward the data release point in an unwavering manner, incinerating the entire world along the way!
Along with the wall of fire, there was the more deadly gravitational pull of the star. On the image from the external monitor, the distant horizon seemed to be rolled up strangely, and countless fine black matter seemed to float up and fly toward the sun. The huge tremor had even begun to destroy the structure of the data release point in advance. Around the Flower of Life, the earth was collapsing, and huge sinkholes appeared one after another. The tentacles of the First Born inside the data release point were quickly stained with a layer of grayish-black of death. The sun finally burned through all the protective layers, and the tissues of this ancient creature were dying in large numbers.
But its central nervous system was still working tenaciously, and the console still showed the connection progress. The progress was slow, but there was no doubt that it was advancing!
"Three percent!"
The sun continued to move forward, and the shell of the Petrachelys was finally stained with a layer of golden-red light, and the fragile tissues inside the data release point were completely exposed to the burning of the star. Without the protection of the stratum, everything began to ignite into a raging fire.
"One percent!"
The tentacles of the First Born had been ignited. Due to the thin oxygen, the burning process was strange and shocking. The tentacles, hundreds of kilometers long, glowed under the sun, and then directly turned into coke. The process was so fast that almost in the blink of an eye, it had threatened the "heart" at the core of the data release point. But the "heart" itself was still alive, and the remaining energy of the entire planet had been transported to this location. It was sending the last bit of data to the host of the Petrachelys!
But at this moment, the MDT suddenly exclaimed, "It's stuck!"
Hao Ren did not know what it meant. "What's stuck?"
A bunch of messy data flashed on the holographic projection of the console, and finally locked on to one item. The MDT shouted, "Nolan! Nolan's data and communication link are incompatible! "
At this moment, the sun had spread to the base of the "heart", and the latter quickly entered the process of collapse under the high temperature. The surface of the indescribable tissue suddenly became covered with veins, and then large pieces of material exploded, a mixture of lifeblood, electrolytes, industrial oil, and flesh and blood fragments erupted everywhere. Looking at this scene, Vivian was more anxious than Hao Ren. "What's going on?"
"The data link of the drone cluster is set to a special mode for soul transmission, but we only have the soul codes of the Zorm people and the First Born," the MDT explained quickly. "Nolan — she is an AI!"
Hao Ren suddenly understood.
Although Nolan lived in the virtual world, she was not a member of that world at all. Or more accurately, she was not a member of the "creatures."
Her soul belonged to the machines that kept the First Born alive.
The data link established by the drone cluster in a hurry could only be used to transmit the souls of carbon-based creatures. The system had forgotten to leave a way for Nolan!
This was equivalent to forcibly sending data through the network when the protocol was incompatible. In any case, when the data arrived at the destination, there would only be messy code.
And even if the forced transmission was successful and Nolan's data was sent to the Crapple Research Station, the best case scenario would be a compressed file containing all of Nolan's memories. But without a soul, it was equivalent to losing the executive program, and the data would never run again. Others might be able to see all of Nolan's life experiences from the data, but no matter how you read them, the girl named Nolan would never respond again.
Hao Ren looked at the data release point that was rapidly collapsing, but his brain did not freeze. He squeezed out his last bit of wisdom and suddenly asked the MDT loudly, "The only problem is that the transmission protocol is incompatible, right? There's no problem in preserving it, right? "
"Yes …" The MDT was startled. "What do you want to do?"
Hao Ren did not say anything, but quickly entered the last command on the console.
At this moment, he was very glad that he had worked hard every day and figured out most of the operation of these high-tech equipment.
When the last command began to be executed, the sun finally completely shrouded the data release point, and the brilliant flame engulfed the last surviving tissue of the First Born. A few seconds later, a huge explosion broke out from the lower part of the data release point.
All the parameters on the console were reset at the same time — it was finally over.
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