That was the end of Pandora's story. But I knew that the story was far from that simple.
The puppet substitute created by the "Immortal" project was a shell without consciousness. Before their parent died, these shells would be in a state of eternal hibernation. The Visca that I met had not only awakened, but he also had his own consciousness. Even though his consciousness was very crazy. This meant that something had happened after the project was terminated that led to the appearance of Visca.
Pandora didn't let my doubts linger for too long. She sorted out the memories that were quite old and difficult to recall. Then, she told me the regrettable second half of the story.
"Fifty years after the project was forced to stop, the colonial star system that I was stationed in experienced the largest invasion of the Abyss in history. Hundreds of stars became extremely dangerous critical stars under the disturbance of the Abyss. Thousands of large asteroids rampaged in the sky. The power of the Abyss even invaded the mother planet of the colony, causing the originally stable planet to become violent and on the verge of collapse. Tens of millions of Shiring Apostles participated in the battle against the planet's rampage. We destroyed dozens of stars that were completely out of control. However, an accident happened when we destroyed a giant critical star. Due to the violent interference caused by the critical star, we fell into the trap of the Abyss. All the troops that I led were sacrificed in the intersecting energy field between the entrance of the Abyss and the cosmic black hole. I was the only one who survived …"
I was completely shocked by the grand battle that Pandora described. What scale of battle was that! It was actually a battle against a rampage planet!
I looked at the obedient little Pandora in my arms in disbelief. I couldn't believe that this little girl had actually led such a terrifying battle to destroy a star system. Compared to the planetary-scale battles during the Empire's heyday, the crisis that the World of Azeroth was facing now was as insignificant as a soldier's gun jamming on the battlefield. No wonder Sandora and the others didn't show any signs of worry about the situation. In the eyes of those big shots who had already seen the ultimate war, this small regional disturbance was really nothing to worry about …
However, there was still one thing to take note of. Although the crisis in the World of Azeroth seemed like nothing to Sandora and Pandora, the military strength that we had now was incomparable to that of the Empire's heyday …
Pandora's narration continued. The little iceberg's storytelling ability was truly unflattering. Her plain and simple account description definitely had unprecedented hypnotic magic, but due to the shocking content of the story, I was still deeply attracted. "… In that ambush, we lost most of the high-ranking Schilling generals. Fortunately, due to the soul preservation technology, most of the generals had a chance to be reborn. However, something unexpected happened to me. I was seriously injured and even lost my spiritual connection with the base. Under such circumstances, the 'Immortal' system was activated."
"According to the system's settings, when the main body dies, a random stand-in puppet will be activated at the same time, and then my soul data will be transferred to the stand-in puppet through the hyperspace teleportation device. However, I was still alive at that time, so the stand-in puppet that was activated was still in a static state. The system made the wrong judgment, thinking that the first activation was unsuccessful, so it activated a second body … Just like that, in a short period of time, all my spare bodies were activated, and chaos ensued at the same time. This is because the 'Immortal' system had such a setting at the beginning: only one Pandora can maintain an active state at any time. This was originally to prevent multiple spare bodies from awakening at the same time, which would cause my soul to be unable to accurately reach its destination. However, since my soul was not transferred at all, all the duplicates produced a serious system error, and they actually began to actively implement the original setting: only one Pandora can exist at any time …"
"Thousands of duplicates began to kill each other in a frenzy. They didn't have any intelligence, but the program made them believe that the sisters beside them were bugs that broke the rules of the system. What they needed to do was to destroy every dungeon they saw with the symbol of Pandora, until there was only one left. When I woke up in the base and sensed the chaos among my duplicates, it was already too late. The death star that was used as a testing ground had already been torn apart in the battle between the duplicates. Scattered remains were floating everywhere in the universe, and none of the duplicates who were used as backup bodies were left …"
"Now, it seems that there's only one left …"
I forced myself to suppress the chaos in my mind, and then shook my head helplessly with a bitter smile.
This was a very depressing story. I didn't think that Pandora would actually experience such a thing. Even though those duplicates were puppets without any consciousness, thousands of duplicates that could be called her "sisters" were slaughtered by a program error. Such a thing was not something an ordinary person could accept, especially now that she knew that one of the duplicates had developed her own personality and escaped. The psychological impact that this brought to her was definitely not something that Pandora's calm expression could cover.
"Brother, the duplicates of Pandora that you mentioned should have developed their own intelligence during the battle." Pandora lowered her head and calmly explained her analysis. "Possessing an innate body that is more outstanding than ordinary apostles, it is more likely for them to develop their own consciousness in the future. To us Shiring Apostles, the most suitable condition for evolution is naturally battle. The possibility of thousands of high-level puppets developing an independent personality in the intense slaughter of each other is very high. Visca's awakening should have happened during that battle."
So that was how it was. Since Pandora had analyzed it this way, then the truth of this matter shouldn't be too far off. After all, no one could understand their backup bodies better than Pandora. Thus, Visca's madness also had a certain degree of explanation.
A consciousness that was born from the cruel slaughter of each other, this kind of consciousness in and of itself couldn't be normal. I couldn't imagine what kind of impact a newborn girl would receive when she opened her eyes in a daze and discovered that she was standing in a field of corpses, her hands covered in the blood of countless "sisters" who looked exactly like her. Back then, Visca might have already gone mad. When she escaped from the dying star experimental site that was on the verge of collapse and wandered the universe for millions of years, this madness only worsened. Moreover, I was now certain that during the wandering process, Visca had already been corroded by the power of the Abyss. This also made her mind even more chaotic. From the messy words she spoke, I could also deduce that the system setting of 'only one Pandora' back then didn't disappear from her mind, but instead completely turned into a fatal loop. This was also why Visca, who already possessed her own consciousness, still believed that she was only a backup duplicate, and that her only mission was to eliminate Pandora.
However, I still had a question in my heart. This question was far more confusing than any other mystery.
"Why does Visca treat me as her older brother?"
This was what I was curious about. It seemed that it wasn't just me. Visca even called Shallow Shallow "older sister". In fact, I was guessing that apart from Pandora, Visca treated all of us as her "original" family. It was precisely because of this thought that she had the idea of "taking back" everything that belonged to her from Pandora's hands.
"Because she can share my memories to a certain extent."
Pandora raised her petite face, her eyes filled with guilt.
"I thought that all the duplicates had already disappeared, so I never scanned my own mind upload port. However, Visca actually used this port to scan my memories without my knowledge …"
So that was how it was!
In an instant, many things that had been bothering us became clear. There was finally an explanation for how our whereabouts had been exposed all this while. It was also easy to understand why Pandora and Sandora had been attacked when we were in the dragon tribe's hideout. All the secrets had been stolen by Visca through Pandora as a springboard.
"It's not your fault."
Seeing Pandora's self-blaming expression, I revealed a gentle smile. Then, I rubbed the little fellow's head twice. "You were just used. Besides, you also helped me find the channel through which my information was leaked, didn't you? At the very least, we can prevent similar situations from happening again. Oh right, you've already turned off that upload port, right? "
Pandora nodded. "I've already turned it off earlier. I've also checked the data records of that port. Ever since Big Brother met with Visca, there hasn't been any leakage of data."
"That's good. However, even if Visca can share your memories, she wouldn't go so far as to treat me as her older brother, right? She has already gone mad … Err, perhaps going mad is a good explanation … "
Although I said that, there was actually a possible explanation in my heart. That was, even though Visca had gone mad, there might still be a pure land in the depths of her heart.
I couldn't imagine what I would become after experiencing what Visca had gone through. However, I knew that as a pitiful girl who was born as a vessel for other people's souls, Visca's heart must be extremely lonely and lost. She didn't know what she was living for, nor did she know who she should entrust her future to. Her mission to eliminate Pandora wasn't just because of the program's lock, but also because of some sort of self-hypnosis. Eliminating Pandora was her purpose. It was the best method to prove her own existence. Only by eliminating Pandora, would she be able to regain her true self. This was the method that Visca used to hypnotize herself.
Having read so many novels and movies, I was very familiar with this kind of example.
However, now that Visca suddenly shared Pandora's memories, everything changed. She began to be jealous. Jealous of Pandora's happiness. However, more than that, she yearned for Pandora's happy life. To her, what Pandora had experienced was already a happiness that far exceeded her imagination.
Thus, under the influence of her chaotic thoughts, she treated us as her family and treated Pandora as the culprit who took everything away from her …
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