In the current City of Shadows, as long as you raised your head to look at the sky, you would see a majestic and mysterious arc-shaped land above the clouds. This land hung high above the City of Shadows, which had expanded to the point that it could no longer be described as a city. It extended in all directions to the limit of your vision, and the slight curve in the middle made people vaguely aware that this land was actually a part of a sphere. However, its size and grandeur made it impossible for people to see the full picture.
The land in the sky was covered in a layer of silver and emerald green. The silver was the city forged from alloy, and the emerald was the lush green of the forest.
It was as though it was another world reflected in the sky.
This strange scene in the sky was the hottest topic among the residents of the City of Shadows for the past two days. Its grandeur, mystery, and magnificence made it garner even more attention than the Sky Fortress of the Military Headquarters. Many people were guessing the origin of the reflected world, and many people were busy spreading different versions of the truth due to their experience or knowledge. However, there was actually only one truth, and it was abnormally simple: It was the capital planet of the New Empire, the mother planet, Gaia.
Alright, I knew that the original name of this mother planet wasn't Gaia, but considering that this planet had become the temporary body of a certain phantom girl, I still decided to name it Gaia.
The reconstruction of the original Keplu Star Zone had already ended, and even the final adjustments had been completed. Gaia and the mother planet that she controlled naturally had no mission in that star system. After discussing with Sandora, I decided to move this planet to the Shadow Space. This was a matter that happened a few days ago. At that time, we were still busy with the war in the Mobrado Universe. I signed the order to move the capital planet during my free time. When we returned in triumph, Gaia had already calmly hung in the sky above the City of Shadows for two and a half days.
Although it was an order that was signed quickly during a tense battle, this idea wasn't too hasty.
After a long period of construction, the Shadow Space had become the safest place in the territory of the new Empire. All of our top-notch command centers were gathered in this artificial universe, including the headquarters and the Space Administration. On the other hand, the mother planet that was supposed to be the ruling center of the Empire had been busy with infrastructure and relocation in the sky of a subsidiary civilization. No matter how you put it, it was a little awkward. The work of moving the mother planet over should have been scheduled a long time ago, but it had only been completed now.
Needless to say, the impact of another world hanging in the sky was huge, especially for those who had a phobia of depression. Looking up at a continent hanging upside down in the sky was definitely not a comfortable thing. When Gaia first moved over, the psychotherapy industry in the City of Shadows flourished for two days. The growth of the psychotherapists' income was almost on par with the growth of the ideas in Shallow Shallow's head. In the end, Gaia had no choice but to activate the mother planet's own mirror system, weakening the image of the mother planet above the City of Shadows to resolve the psychological panic. That was why when we looked at the continent in the sky, it felt like a slightly ethereal image and not as if Mt. Tai was about to fall on us. Furthermore, it wasn't actually correct to say that the mother planet was hanging in the sky. Considering the huge difference in size between the mother planet and the City of Shadows, it should be the other way around. The current City of Shadows was hanging upside down in the northern hemisphere of the mother planet. Although it was just a matter of saying it, Gaia seemed to care a lot about it. She insisted on treating the City of Shadows as the mother planet's artificial satellite and not the other way around. I could only explain it as Gaia had fused with the mother planet for too long. She was almost thinking of herself as the mother planet. It was the same logic as how Anveena felt especially close to the crows recently …
After Sandora mentioned that the souls of the Avengers were unable to fuse with any kind of body, I happened to raise my head to look at the sky. This was also the main reason why my mortal level IQ was able to react faster than Sandora. I immediately thought of a person whose symptoms were exactly the same as those ancient souls. That person was Gaia.
She had also conceptually lost her body. She had also been unable to use any kind of apostle shell. She had also been able to store data in a large-scale array machine. More importantly, Gaia had personally said that her current appearance was caused by a disaster during an experiment.
Although she had never said anything about that disaster, I was almost certain that she was referring to what Sandora had just mentioned. It was the disaster that PL-15 had mentioned that had given the Avengers inspiration. The Avengers had replicated the soul rewriting method that had caused Gaia's current situation. From there, they had completely destroyed the Schilling spiritual network in their Heaven.
After Gaia moved the mother planet into the shadow space, there was an advantage. We could visit her at any time. Of course, we would only see a light blue shadow. However, compared to a holographic image, it felt different to be able to chat with Gaia on the mother planet.
There was a teleportation door that led directly to the mother planet's control center. Sandora and I quickly reached our destination through the door.
"The first time I came here, I was sleepwalking."
I said to Shadora with a smile as I looked at the familiar yet novel steel city and the lush forest in the distance.
This magnificent city was the mother planet's control center. Although it looked like a bustling city in the future, it was actually an unmanned self-regulated "building complex" and not a place for people to live. It was known as the mother planet's control center. As the name suggested, one of the functions of this place was the control center of the entire planet. More than half of the dazzling alloy buildings around it were various computing and processing facilities. The elevated roads and bridges that looked like a three-dimensional transportation network were actually protection slots that connected all kinds of cables. Gaia's "information" traveled continuously through these buildings and cables. Therefore, strictly speaking, the control center was Gaia's "self."
Due to her extremely high computing power or overall performance, this unique mother planet had a completely autonomous control center. I had only recently learned about this. Originally, I thought that all the emperor's mother planet's control centers were unmanned cities. After chatting with Sandora, I realized that mine was an exception. Sandora's mother planet's control center was much livelier than this one. On the other hand, Gaia's control center only had a small number of regular garrisons. The rest were autonomous machines that she directly controlled.
This control center was so huge that it was completely different from the small and powerful processing facilities in the Empire (such as the Schilling mainframe). This was because during the era of the old Empire, it not only had to manage a planet, but it also had to manage countless worlds at the same time. A city-sized computing facility wasn't considered big. But now, eighty percent of the control center's functions were shut down. Looking around, you would realize that although all the silver-white buildings were floating with blue energy patterns, there were only a few buildings that had regular lights flashing. A small portion of these buildings were the mother planet's own regulation devices. You could see how idle Gaia was usually.
As soon as Sandora and I arrived at the control center, we immediately attracted Gaia's attention. A small group of octopus-like autonomous machines floating in the air muttered in their internal common language and led us to a small square not far away. Gaia was waiting for us in the square, surrounded by a large group of crawling autonomous machines. It seemed that this was the scene of her life on Jupiter when she was bored.
When we teleported over, we had already explained our intentions. Hence, Gaia didn't ask much after seeing us. Instead, she nodded in understanding.
"About my current situation?" The light blue, translucent image in front of us reached out and gently stroked an autonomous machine that was swimming around. The latter seemed to have felt it and let out a comfortable grunt. Then, it flipped over and opened a projection array with its octopus-like multi-purpose robotic arms in the air. After that, it displayed a holographic image that was about one meter in size. "This is the structure of the mother planet. Your Majesties should be familiar with it."
Sandora and I nodded.
"This location is the control center, the largest 'city' on the mother planet. In fact, it is also a servo array. The port for my interaction with the outside world is on this array. At the same time, it is also the storage area for ninety percent of my information." Gaia explained unhurriedly. Under her control, many autonomous machines, like the first machine, circled around us belly-up and displayed many holographic images.
My eyes widened in surprise as I looked at these images that I had never seen before. They looked like a documentary!
More than a dozen video images were playing around us. What they showed was not the numbers and diagrams that I was used to seeing on these Schilling devices. It was like a lot of live recordings. There were fewer complicated and unclear technical symbols, but it was easier for me to understand. There was a busy command center, a large group of Empire technicians hurrying through, a reactor that was bursting with dazzling sparks, and an endless stream of spaceships. However, these weren't the things that stunned me. What really made it hard for me to calm down was that there were a few familiar faces in the images.
Pandora was standing on the podium with a blank expression. Alaya was wearing a gentle smile but was obviously taking a stroll. There was also Gaia, who was standing inside a crystal prism with a tranquil expression. Her entire body was surrounded by halos. She wasn't a pale blue phantom, but a beautiful girl with light purple hair and bright purple eyes. She was wearing a long white dress.
Apart from them, there were a few other familiar faces that flashed by. However, when Pandora and the other two's faces appeared in the images, I didn't pay attention to them anymore. Sandora looked at the images that were playing on loop. After a long time, she said, "These are the recordings left behind from the Old Empire, right?"
Gaia nodded. "Yes, these are the recordings left behind from a research project. I lost my body after the failure of that research project."
Although Sandora and I had already guessed it, our eyes still widened.
Gaia told us everything that happened back then. This was the first time I had heard the entire story from her mouth. "Gaia, full name is the Distributed Array Schilling Host Machine — Gaia Model. I used to be the last Distributed Array Schilling Host Machine in the Old Empire. As recorded in the video, I used to be the same as Bubble …"
The moment she opened her mouth, it was a piece of heavy news.
However, Gaia didn't give me too much time to digest the information because it was obvious that what she was going to say next were all heavy bombs. If I had to digest them one by one, I was afraid that it would take me a month to digest them all. Thus, she didn't stop and continued, "There are many different models of Schilling Host Machines. For example, the Bubble Model. Its specific name should be the 'Honeycomb Co-processing Schilling Host Machine.' However, these shouldn't be things that you are concerned about." Gaia tactfully pointed out my lack of understanding.
"The Gaia Model Schilling Host Machine was the last model of the Distributed Array Machine. I was the prototype and the only Schilling Host Machine that was put into use. The reason was very complicated. In short, Gaia changed from a serial code to my personal name. And that experiment was part of a scientific research project that was going on at that time to modify the soul. "
"At that time, the Empire was at the end of the Great Expansion Era. The Shiring Apostles gradually reduced their conquest of the new world and focused on researching technology to further strengthen their own civilization. Further research on their own souls was one of the many research projects at that time. As one of the most powerful Schilling Host Machines at that time, I served as the Computing Mother in Heaven. At the same time, I was also the first subject to be modified. Because the Schilling Host Machine is a special life form, our souls are more resistant to all kinds of modifications, and our self-recovery ability is very strong. In addition, I was the Schilling Host Machine. I could record first-hand data better than the other subjects …"
"And then … the experiment failed?"
I asked cautiously.
Gaia nodded silently. An automatic machine floated over with all four legs in the air, carrying a holographic projection on its belly. The projection showed some very messy images, as if the recording had been greatly interfered with. The images showed a broken crystal prism, a Host Machine slot that kept flashing with warning lights, a girl who was gradually disappearing into specks of light, and Pandora, who was pressing a group of researchers to the ground and preparing to shoot them one by one. Alaya, who had been rather dull back then, stopped him.
"Do you usually watch these things?" I looked at Gaia and the automatic machine that was broadcasting the scene of the disaster with a strange expression. I felt a little nervous and a little heartache. She was such a good girl, but she was actually traumatized by the inhumane experiments. Living alone in this huge empty city and watching the recording of her own death, was this something that any ordinary person would do?
"I don't usually watch these things. This is what His Majesty wants to see. I usually watch the central 10 sets. Those jokes are quite funny," Gaia replied seriously. I was instantly rendered speechless.
Thanks to Gaia's detailed explanation, Sandora and I finally understood what was going on in the experiments back then. After removing the parts that I didn't understand … well, there wasn't much left. In any case, I only knew one thing. They wanted to modify the soul of the Shiring Apostles to make their own souls even more immortal and indestructible. However, this modification ultimately failed. The mutated soul didn't strengthen in the slightest. Instead, a certain "concept" was mysteriously erased from it, making it unable to be compatible with any kind of body. If I were to give an example, it would be like if you wanted to optimize your own XP machine. In the end, the machine code of the XP machine jumped from binary to thirty-two decimal system. However, all the computers in the world were binary mechanical code. Hence, your XP machine became a lonely ghost, becoming a remnant memory in your mind …
This was what happened to Gaia. Her soul had been transformed into a completely unreasonable form, as if a binary system had been programmed into a thirty-two decimal system. From then on, anything that could be called a body could not contain this soul.
The only fortunate thing was that although the body was no longer compatible with the soul, the technology of the Xiling Empire didn't cause her to die. Back then, the scientists who were almost shot dead by Pandora finally found something similar to a translation machine. They transferred Gaia's soul to this mother planet in the form of data. Most of her data was stored in the control center, and some concepts that were difficult to understand were merged with the entire planet. This was the current Gaia.
Now, the question that we were most concerned about was: Could this process be reversed?
No one had forgotten the original purpose of our visit to Gaia. We weren't here to observe the recording of XLTV. We planned to arrange for Sandora's former subordinates to reincarnate.
However, this idea was actually splashed with cold water when Gaia told us about her experience. As she explained the reason for the incompatibility of her soul, the cold water gradually transitioned to ice water. It could be said that when Sandora and I asked if this process was reversible, we actually felt as if we were swimming from Heilongjiang Province. We felt cold from head to toe.
Just as I had guessed, Gaia shook her head without hesitation. "Of course it's irreversible. Otherwise, I wouldn't be like this now."
I looked at Gaia's light blue, translucent shadow. It was difficult for her to use mass projection because of the different decimal system. I felt that it made sense. If this process could be reversed, this girl in front of me would not need to be here all day as a movie star.
"Then there's nothing we can do."
I pouted and shrugged at Sandora helplessly. She lowered her head and did not speak for a long time. Suddenly, she said faintly, "If that's the case, I'm afraid they really won't be able to accept it."
For the Shiring Apostles, this was the most difficult situation to accept. From then on, they would become an information segment that could not do anything. Every day, they would consume a shocking amount of energy to maintain their existence. They would even need a large group of Leader Bees to do nothing but protect them every day. From then on, they would truly live a life of rice bugs and rice buckets.
Gaia could still perform her duties after losing her body because she was originally a Schilling Host. What she had to do had nothing to do with fighting. As long as there was a strong enough auxiliary servo array, she could continue to do her previous work. But what about Sandora's old soldiers? They were all warriors. The only thing they did for tens of millions of years was war. Even if you gave them a server the size of a star, they wouldn't be able to research anything that only a Schilling Host could understand. The Shiring Apostles' species were different from humans. Their "birth" determined too many things. A newly created apostle's future role would be determined. A soldier who trained to the limit wouldn't understand scientific research. A researcher who went to the frontlines to fight every day wouldn't be able to defeat a military officer even after a thousand years. Pandora had only grown one centimeter taller after tens of millions of years. Scorpion said that she would rather die than heat up her own blade. Cicarlos was the only strange one. Apart from fighting, he learned how to read palms and sell pirated disks …
At this thought, I could only sigh together with Sandora.
However, it was still such a cute word. However, Gaia suddenly spoke up, giving us a chance.
"Your Majesty, actually … Warlord PL-15 has already communicated with me. He has an idea regarding the future of the 100,000 Revenge Army veterans …"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
