Schilling may look a little silly, but don't think that she's a natural slow-witted girl. Anyone who thinks like that will be fooled by Schilling's real logical ability and thinking speed. Schilling's usual performance is a little slow, even clumsy, which is completely determined by her life form. Even though she can stand in front of us, her true form is still the spiritual network. The place where she truly exists at all times is actually on the network. The Xi Ling in the physical world is just an interface used to communicate with us at a high level. She can upload and download this interface to any place covered by the Empire network at any time. In other words, she has not really focused on the outside world until now.
Therefore, such an interface's response to the real world will always be a little problematic. Schilling is still not used to the various kinds of logic in the real world, and she has not much interest in the real world. She focuses most of her energy on the vast amount of information on the network. For her, the spiritual network is the real world, and the real world is a "virtual space" that needs to be translated many times before it can be understood by her.
So if you see Schilling wandering somewhere in a daze, or see her casually changing into other forms because she has forgotten what she looks like, don't think that she is stupid. In a place that we, the creatures in the real world, cannot see, the logical thinking that this girl carries out every minute and every second is unimaginable.
The reason why I suddenly thought of all this was because she suddenly mentioned the great rift in the mental network that no one had noticed, but she had noticed it.
The fact that she was able to notice such an anomaly and proceed to explore it cautiously, even coming up with her own follow-up observation plans (although these plans have now been denied) was enough to show that Xi Ling was not as naive as she appeared. In the world of the spiritual network, she is as steady, cautious, and full of action as the mature Shiring Apostles. Before today's conversation, I have always regarded Schilling as a little sister that needs to be slowly taught, but now I suddenly feel that maybe our teaching is not that important. The place where she should really mature is in the network, and in that place, no one can help her, and she may not need help …
"Hey, Your Majesty, why are you daydreaming?" Just as I was thinking about the Boundary and the Great Rift Valley, and about Schilling's future education, the latter's voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts. "Oh." I quickly looked up and saw a petite, cute girl with short, lilac, shoulder-length hair sitting in front of me. She was wearing the military uniform that Schilling often wore.
"... Why did you change again?"
"Yes, I was in a daze just now. When I came back to my senses, it was already like this. I can't remember what it looked like before. Because it wasn't important information, it wasn't saved in the cache … "
"…" I suddenly felt that I couldn't slack off on Schilling's teaching!
I quickly informed Sandora of what Schilling had told me. She immediately took this issue seriously and arranged for Bubble and a group of experts to prepare for the screening of the mental network. This process, of course, required Schilling's assistance, so the latter quickly returned to the research institute. I felt that this screening work would not be completed in a short time. After all, according to the regulations, our work on the mental network is done daily, and it has never stopped. But so far, we have not found any abnormal boundary in the New Empire's mental network, nor did we find a Great Rift Valley without an address in the network. This means that the experts may need to research a new translation algorithm to understand what Schilling was talking about.
Schilling mentioned a network node that has no termination signal, but these nodes are obviously not real connections — in other words, nodes that clearly correspond to a certain Shiring Apostles. They should be virtual nodes that only Schilling knows how to identify, just like the virtual storage spaces on the human Internet that rely on public resources. They do not clearly exist on a computer in the real world, but something that relies on the coordination of all the resources of the entire network to put together. Due to the dynamic nature of the network, these virtual nodes are not fixed, but no matter how they move, they always maintain an abnormal Rift Valley. It is as if there is a virtual space on the Internet that has no website, but there is always traffic disappearing in it — this is very thought-provoking.
Because such a Rift Valley would not appear naturally, and in theory, it should not have been accidentally formed when the concept of the Fifteenth Heaven was split. The probability is too low, so we do not consider it. Then, the only thing we can think of is that our own network has been tampered with.
The biggest suspect is the Fallen Apostle.
But can the Fallen Apostle have the opportunity to tamper with the New Empire's mental network?
The probability of this is even lower than when the concept of the Fifteenth Heaven was split. Even though the Fallen Apostle has always had unfathomable strength, and they also have a supreme ruler that may be even stronger than Schilling and has taken root in the network, the other party and the New Empire's mental network are now in a completely incompatible state. Unless they completely take over the Empire's network and then concentrate on modifying it for a year and a half, then they will not be able to create such a high-end Rift Valley in the network. Otherwise, they will definitely not have the opportunity to cause damage on our network. Also, according to Sandora, the Empire's mental network still has the highest level of firewall — although I do not want to admit it, that firewall is me. The Void Creatures are on the network, fundamentally eliminating the possibility of the Fallen Apostles from the Lawless Faction making a move on the Empire's network. They will be purified at the same time when they enter the network. This is a process that cannot be defended against.
So, how did the Rift Valley on the network come about?
I am afraid that we will need a very long time to understand this question. Of course, another question that we need to understand is — what is the purpose of such a large Rift Valley?
From the looks of it, its only purpose is to scare Schilling. Other than that, this Rift Valley does not seem to affect the efficiency of the Empire's network at all, nor does it cause any hidden dangers such as accidental disconnection of personnel. It is also not a spy interface. It exists so harmlessly that before it was discovered by Schilling, it has never appeared in our sight. Also, even if it scared Schilling, after the latter raised his vigilance and marked it, the Rift Valley is basically harmless. As long as one does not come into contact with it, it cannot affect Schilling.
However, no one will be so confident and bold as to think that this Rift Valley is a plaything that acts cute. Regardless of whether it had any effect in the past or not, we now know that it exists. So, we must find out what is going on.
Of course, before the issue of the Rift Valley is investigated, the mental network will continue to be used. After all, it has never malfunctioned, and the mother and daughter at home did not give any warning because of this annoying Rift Valley, so there is no need to be too worried for the time being. Perhaps this was merely a malfunction of the spiritual network, or perhaps it was simply a normal phenomenon. After all, before the appearance of Xi Ling, no one had ever been able to observe the spiritual network of the apostles through such a special perspective. It was not impossible for it to have some kind of loophole that only affected virtual personalities online and had no meaning in the real world. But considering the significance of the mental network, which is almost one of the foundations of the Empire, even if Lin Xue and her daughter did not give any warning, Bubble still took a series of preparatory measures. She added a large number of monitoring nodes in two days, and installed her newly split hundreds of mass produced mainframes on the main network. Those mass produced mainframes do nothing but act as "disaster servers". If the network collapses due to a catastrophic outage, these mainframes will open a low-bandwidth emergency network through the Garden System of the Departed to maintain the most basic mental communication within the Empire. It can be said that we have imagined the worst-case scenario.
Hopefully, it will not really happen.
"Why does it feel … a little unreal." On the third day after Anu Lili left, which was also the afternoon of the third day of the investigation into the network "rift", Miss Lin finished her routine "scan" of the territory of the Imperium. She rubbed her shoulders and mumbled.
… We will not discuss the logic of her rubbing her shoulders with her eyes.
"What is unreal about it?" I replied casually, plucking the two little crows that kept climbing up my clothes and placing them on the table. Dingdang was currently holding a banquet on the table. She spread out a handkerchief as a tablecloth and placed a large pile of sweets and biscuits on it. Xiao Budian was using these things to entertain her little crow friends. In this small banquet, there were a dozen or so goddesses the size of figurines. My task was to watch over them and prevent them from disappearing.
"That whatever rift valley." Miss Lin stretched lazily, and Xiaoxue immediately came over with a fawning expression and began to rub Miss Lin's shoulders in a seemingly obedient and sensible manner. I felt that this child had probably used up all of her pocket money again. Although she was royalty, all the children in my family had a limited amount of pocket money. "In the past, no one knew about it, so everything was fine. There were no problems for so many years, but now that someone suddenly revealed the existence of the rift valley, a large group of people are panicking … It just feels so unreal. Such a theoretically dangerous thing has been hiding harmlessly in the mental network for more than four years. What is it planning to do? Who did it? "
"Maybe it wasn't four years," Sandora's voice came from a seat near the window. It was currently the Queen's unshakable afternoon tea time, and she liked to bask in the sun at this time. "What if this loophole existed in the Old Empire? Or did it only appear when the Empire collapsed? Although the Fifteenth Sky Zone escaped the contamination of the Abyss, it is hard to say if its mental network has not been damaged at all. If the rift valley appeared when the Empire collapsed, then this thing has been hiding for more than 70,000 years … Tsk, it is better to translate Schilling's senses into something that can be understood in the real world as soon as possible. I am also interested in that rift valley now. I really want to see what it is with my own eyes. "
I shrugged my shoulders in a noncommittal manner. This rift valley gave off a rather strange feeling. I didn't feel any sense of danger from this type of abnormal phenomenon like I usually did. However, my other intuition told me that this thing was related to the Fallen Apostle or 'that great one'. This was a rather contradictory situation. Perhaps I should find some time to talk to Schilling again. The more she interacted with the real world, the better she knew how to express herself. Perhaps next time, she would be able to explain more clearly about the rift valley …
Just as I was thinking about this, an emergency communication from the Shadow City interrupted my thoughts.
"Your Majesty, this is the Space Administration's Macro World Warning Center. A warning message has appeared."
Sandora, Lin Xue, and my sister were stunned at the same time. It seemed that this message was of a high degree of urgency, so it was sent to them at the same time. A moment later, the sound of bare feet stomping on the floor came from the second floor. Shallow Shallow's little head popped out from the corner of the stairs. "Ah Jun, Ah Jun! There's a situation! Macro World Warning! "
"Specific situation? Warning level? Is it the Abyss or something else? "
I quickly replied as I opened the teleportation door to the Shadow City.
This wasn't the first time the Macro World Warning System had sent out an alert. However, it was usually a routine alert when a subordinate world discovered an Abyss reaction. Sometimes, the alert level didn't even need to be notified to Sandora, as the military could resolve it themselves. They just needed to send an expeditionary force to deal with the Abyss reaction. This was a daily activity of the Imperial Army. Even if it was a smaller alert, they only needed to send a few elite soldiers and the local Macro World Inspectors to deal with it. An alert like this, which was directly transmitted to all the leaders of the Empire … It was rare in the Macro World.
"Currently, the scale of the threat is maintained at an extremely small level, but the expected strength of the threat is extremely high," the person in charge of the Space Administration replied hurriedly. "It's not a normal Abyss reaction. It's highly likely to be the Fallen Apostle's spaceship. If they directly head towards one of the member worlds of the Macro World, the threat level will rise to A or even S! It's listed as an invasion level! "
What the heck?! The Fallen Apostle?! If they weren't loitering around the borders of the Empire's direct jurisdiction, why would they come to the Macro World?!
The Early Warning Department of the Shadow City's Space Administration was rarely as busy as it was today. Usually, they dealt with routine alerts from the Macro World, such as the Abyss or a race war that could endanger the stability of the universe. Incidents that were lower than this level would usually be handled by the local inspectors and wouldn't be reported to the Space Administration. Incidents that were higher than this level had only happened once. It was last year when an Abyss Gate appeared in a certain Macro World. Back then, we mobilized a third of the army to suppress it. However, even then, it didn't alarm this many leader-level Apostles.
This was due to the difference in nature.
The few spaceships of the Fallen Apostles might not be as destructive as an Abyss Gate, but their potential threat was far greater than the latter. Even if an Abyss Gate were to erupt, the damage it could cause would always be limited and controllable. On the other hand, the Fallen Apostles were an enemy that had initiative and variables. Their appearance in the Macro World could be a coincidence, but it could also be a sign of a large-scale invasion. This variable was too great. No matter what, they had to be dealt with at the highest level possible.
When we arrived at the Space Administration's Early Warning Department, Sylvie was already waiting for us. She was examining more reports that had just been sent over. When she saw us come out of the teleportation gate, the responsible female officer immediately stood up and saluted. "Your Majesty, officers!"
Sandora waved her hand. "What's the situation now? Is it confirmed that it's an invasion? Or is it just passing by? "
"We are still unable to determine the enemy's motive, but we are one hundred percent sure that it's the spaceships of the Fallen Apostles. They first appeared outside the barrier of Universe ER-335-K15. Based on the amount of information that was detected at that time, they could already observe that universe. However, for some unknown reason, they didn't launch an attack. Instead, they left that place without causing any harm. After that, they appeared outside the barrier of Universe ER-335-K12 and Universe ER-336-K35, and they are frequently active in these few coordinates. "
"How many are there?" As I spoke, I looked at the network diagram of the Space Administration's Macro World. On it, points and lines were used to roughly represent the various universes and the jump relationships between them. The structure of the dot matrices was arranged according to the 'distance' between each world, or more accurately, the amount of information shift. Most of the universes were currently colored white or light orange, which represented safety. However, at the edge of the Macro World, three universes were marked in a shocking blood-red color, indicating that they were under extreme threat of the end of the world at any time. All the jump pathways that were directly connected to these three universes were displayed with the words' Temporarily Sealed. 'In the neighboring universes, there were also yellow warning symbols flashing. This meant that the source of the threat could be transferred to these universes within a single jump.
"For now, it's unclear because the Fallen Apostles' spaceships have been constantly changing locations. Furthermore, the number of spaceships that appear every time is different. We can't be sure if they are a team or a few independent small troops. Right now, we can only be sure that the scale of these troops isn't considered large. There are no spaceships above the mothership level. Most of the spaceships that have been observed are small, heavy firepower warships or void reconnaissance ships. "
"Void reconnaissance ships and high-speed warships … Logically speaking, this is the most common configuration used to quickly launch a surprise attack on the enemy's weak rear. Moreover, it's also relatively unfamiliar to oneself." Sandora furrowed her eyebrows. "They haven't launched an attack yet, right?"
"Yes. This is also the strangest part. They have been flashing back and forth in those places, but they haven't attacked any of the worlds. It's as though they don't have the desire to attack at all. This is completely inconsistent with the Fallen Apostles' usual behavior."
"They have been lingering there for such a long time. It doesn't seem like they are just passing by. However, the raiding troops haven't attacked anyone, and it doesn't seem like they are preparing to invade." I twitched the corner of my lips. "It seems like they are looking for something … Forget it. In any case, immediately send reinforcements over. However, pay attention to not let the local inspectors act rashly before the reinforcements arrive. This is to prevent the Fallen Apostles from making a move ahead of time … The local defense in that place isn't used to deal with the Fallen Apostles' army."
"Yes, your will!"
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