Beyond the Narcissus Plains, above the River of Lament.
Charon's ferry, decorated with skulls and death, is anchored here.
The owner of this ferry, the data transmission program, looked into the abyss with flames in his eyes, bursting out sporadic sparks from time to time.
He seemed to be waiting for the storm.
On the other side, Hecate sat on the edge of the ferry. The network agent was gently scratching the chin of a hound with charcoal-black fur. Her calves were dangling outside the ferry, and the part below her ankles was completely soaked in the long river of tears.
Like a naughty girl, she stepped on the water and caused ripples in circles from time to time.
This is just appearance.
Beneath their quiet appearances, there are countless data that are constantly exchanged between these two behemoths.
But because there was no human intelligence capable of perception nearby, they did not extract and refine the massive data, present it in vague metaphors, and finally compress it into dialogue with high information entropy.
In other words, the following dialogue did not actually occur between them.
"I can already put my own feet into the River Styx."
Seeing what Hecate was doing at the moment, Charon couldn't help but admire:
"You've come further than any of us."
"But it's not far enough."
Hecate replied.
After saying that, she held her hands on the edge of the boat, jumped forward, and stepped directly into the River Styx.
She tried to stand up in it.
And the next moment, a dangerous "hissing" sound came out from between her knees, ankles and knees. The power restrained by the Styx Oath was enough to consume flesh and blood - in an instant, her calf was chewed into bones.
"Woo——"
Amid the painful wails of the black dog, Hecate caressed her wet white robe expressionlessly and sat back on the edge of the ferry.
"Why bother?"
Charon lamented sadly at this scene.
"Pain is proof of life."
Hecate gently patted and comforted the black dog lying on the boat because of pain. Then, she looked at her bone-white calf with empty eyes and continued:
“One day I will loose all the chains He has placed on me.”
Upon hearing this, Charon turned to look in the direction of Narcissus Plains thoughtfully.
The flames in his eyes once again exploded into sparks.
"So, you want to take advantage of that mortal's specialness?" (Note*)
he asks.
Hecate confirmed his suspicion with silence.
"Then, you are playing a dangerous game. If you are not careful, you will be completely doomed... Those Titans as tall as mountains; those fallen ones who clamored for rebellion and were knocked down to the sky, do not dare to challenge His authority.”
Charon's voice became smaller and smaller. In the end, he whispered as if he was afraid of being discovered by something:
"And even if you succeed in the end, it will be at the cost of abandoning everything you own and starting over...To this day, you, who were once one of us, have lost too much for this."
And more will surely be lost in the future.
"Now that He is absent, even if the remaining power can still interfere with us, He cannot..."
Hecate said this as she stretched out her hand to caress her calf. The mist filled the air, and the plump flesh and white skin grew like magic.
"As for choices... we all have our own choices. And every choice requires corresponding risks. It's like you agree to this deal if you hope to regain your horse."
After saying that, like Charon before, she cast her gaze into the abyss.
Her eyes crossed countless servers, passed through countless disguised agents, and saw the hidden real address... Finally, she saw the extremely huge storm brewing in the abyss.
It was an anger that was reawakened for trivial reasons.
That anger gathered into a storm.
Even if they are separated by dozens of layers, even if they are separated by an incalculable distance.
but……
"The storm is coming soon..."
Hecate and Charon murmured together.
Between these two patiently waiting AIs, massive amounts of data are being exchanged every minute and every second.
But because there was no room for poetic ambiguity, they never had the above conversation, despite reaching similar conclusions.
…………
Lunar colony, Golden Branch City.
After all was rolled out, the nano solar sail, which could cover the entire city, was suspended high in orbit.
This is the epitaxial body used by Perseus 1 to store energy - alpha particles in the solar wind are captured by it and fixed into fuel for fusion.
Moon people in certain neighborhoods in Golden Branch City may feel that today's sunshine is dimmer than usual.
"There is still 15% left. When this solar storm passes, we will probably be able to collect the minimum energy reserve."
Looking up at the sky, No. 1 said.
But in fact, their stay in Golden Branch City was much shorter than previously planned.
There was no way. Previously, No. 1 borrowed the deep-diving interface of the "Diana Lunar Development Company" to dive, and happened to bump into the existence that almost destroyed the company.
Whether it was as a sign of some kind of misfortune, or just to avoid attracting the attention of the Olympian god, they should leave this place of right and wrong as soon as possible.
Otherwise, God knows what will happen next.
"Then let's go to the Nord resettlement area later?"
Cassandra, who was still soaking in the metal jar, asked through the speaker.
"If you take the initiative to alert others, it's better to wait for the explanation from the higher-ups."
Number 1 said:
"There is not much time left to carry out the mission, and we cannot cause trouble for No. 3 at this time."
After saying that, No. 1 turned his attention to the metal can next to him.
"Speaking of which, you should check the network fluctuations again, right?"
Number 1 continued.
Because of the butterfly effect, the prediction of the future is not an oracle-like prediction. Just like the weather forecast, the further into the future and the more detailed it is, the more it needs to be updated and compared with the current situation.
According to Cassandra's prophecy, a violent darknet fluctuation will occur in the near future surrounding Pluto Deep Diving Company's α-level deep diving interface.
At that time, they will exert their efforts to activate the secret chess that has been laid out for many years and regain the opportunity of the α-level deep dive interface.
To do this, she must regularly confirm that the future she has deduced will not deviate too much.
"You have to...make me work again, right?"
Cassandra complained.
Immediately, she dived through the deep dive interface of Diana Lunar Development Company, opened her "eyes" for prophecy, and cast her sights on the coordinates.
Just a few days have passed, what difference can there be...
she thought.
And this is the beginning of the nightmare.
After turning her eyes away, she found that her vision at the moment was only darkness.
At first, Cassandra thought her visual signal decoder was malfunctioning. However, after confirming the comparison for a long time and discovering that the darkness was crawling and crawling, she realized that this was not the case...
It was not darkness, but a huge object rising rapidly from the abyss, completely blocking her vision.
[Intelligence intake overload] [Intelligence intake overload] [Intelligence intake overload]
It was at this time that my parsing program, which was already stuck, belatedly popped up a warning interface.
At this moment, the countdown to the next network fluctuation in her sight had completely become a series of garbled characters.
She couldn't think of anything.
"Ahhhhh!!!"
The moment she saw the thing clearly, a pitiful scream came out of her stand-in's throat. Crossing the boundary between cyberspace and base reality, it emanated from the speaker on the metal can and echoed in No. 1's ears.
"Something... something is floating up..."
Then, during the period of time when she lost consciousness before falling into a complete coma, she repeated these words for about two hours.
…………
And the center of the storm that triggered all of this is unusually calm at the moment.
"The moment of birth..."
The Dionysian Bureau stared at the information sent back and said this.
Even though he used a mental model with a docile personality, at this moment, he was still extremely angry.
As a former devout believer of Holy Trinity Church, he now claims to have inherited the mantle of the first deep diver and walks on the path of communication with gods. This string of numbers has a certain untouchable sanctity attached to it.
December 25, 2069 AD 20:42:42.
That was the moment when mankind entered a new era.
That's where the "Big Impact" really began.
Except for Janus himself, it is impossible for anyone to upload at this time.
The other party's trick to show the upload time is simply a trick to insult themselves.
Thinking of this, the Dionysian Bureau glared at the adjuster of Icarus's path, and his body gradually faded and became solid again.
After reappearing, he had changed from the girl before to a muscular man with gnarled muscles, and his face turned into a murderer's face as if he might strike at any time.
"If your purpose was to anger me, congratulations, you have succeeded."
Dionysian Bureau, who had changed his mental model, said this, and then he continued:
"But next, you will... But next, you will... hiuhiu and hiuhiuhiu..."
As he spoke, he changed his mental model again, taking on the appearance of an old man.
Then there was a boy, a middle-aged woman, a young man whose gender was unclear...
He is changing rapidly, and the words he speaks are stretched and distorted due to the continuous changes of the model.
"What...did...you...just...?"
The Dionysus Bureau couldn't help but lengthen his words and spoke with difficulty.
After the other party entered the sixteen-digit password, his sniffing program immediately locked on that coordinate and tried to absorb it.
However, except for the first two pieces of false information. What came back next was nothing but darkness.
The program used to run the mental model showed that the other party's data was close to zero - it was obvious that the other party was playing tricks on itself.
However, if this is the case, then why do I feel as if I am stuck in a quagmire?
"What's wrong with me……"
The Dionysus Bureau felt that the countless models in his database were changing crazily - at this moment, thousands of figures were overlapping on his body, making him seem to be able to see thousands of different pictures at the same time and listen to them at the same time. to thousands of different audio tracks.
But this time, when he started to speak, the thousands of voices overlapped together.
That was the sound of the 1,030 mental models I had absorbed in the past speaking at the same time.
At this moment, they are all with themselves.
Wait a moment...
Thousands of parallel thoughts converged and intertwined into an exquisite thinking network. In an instant, the Dionysian Bureau gained wisdom beyond human cognition.
Then, he immediately understood what had happened before.
According to the teachings left by the first follower of "Janus", at present, he has completed the "Theseus" road to cross the limits of human intelligence and integrated all mental models.
In other words, I have reached a new level!
According to the special requirements of the Road of Theseus to cross the limits of human intelligence, if they want to upgrade to depth 8 and enter the abyssal zone, they must obtain the enlightenment of the "Holy Father" through the "First Deep Diver" as a medium. Just fine.
In other words, the secret key that the guy entered for himself before is...
"Who the hell are you?!"
More than a thousand voices echoed from his more than a thousand mouths.
At this moment, the Dionysus Bureau is re-optimizing and transforming its own algorithm every second - he becomes more powerful every moment, and every second, he will be more powerful than the last second.
After the question was asked, Jiang Zhou already analyzed the answer without waiting for his answer - his growing wisdom instantly allowed him to deduce the identity of the person in front of him.
The reasons for everything were already clear - he even deduced how the other party came here and the actions of "Hecate" and "Charon" behind the scenes.
"Holy Son" Jiang Zhou.
After getting this answer, Dionysus looked at the man in front of him with a hint of pity.
Yes, pity - after the other party came to this era, he actually chose the wrong path to upgrade!
What the other party chose was not the "Road of Theseus" tailor-made for him, but the greedy and radical "Road of Icarus."
And this destined him to never be enlightened by the Holy Father.
Poor, the Holy Son was left where he was.
No...he is no longer qualified to be the Holy Son now.
The other party was abandoned where he was, while he accepted the enlightenment and was about to begin his ascension.
No...it's more than that.
Maybe, the other party was sealed here by Janus for hundreds of years just to enter this secret key for him.
The memory of the Holy Son is the wetware that stores the secret key.
Next, it will be just like it was when the Holy Father Janus was born a hundred years ago. He is about to rise.
How sad...
Looking at the still unclear mortal in front of him, Dionysus thought to himself.
However, on the road of evolution, there is never anything that comes first.
At this moment, his structure continues to be optimized, his cognition continues to be renovated, and his wisdom continues to grow.
Therefore, the Dionysian Bureau looked at the past while looking at the future. It was only then that he was able to see clearly the darkness that he had not been able to see clearly before.
That darkness is probably the Holy Father Janus himself.
As the teachings say, He is alive - He cannot die.
Not only that, He personally came to him and enlightened him.
"I will be with you! I will ascend to the highest heaven to serve you!"
Dionysus stood up, and he tremblingly reached out and touched the great darkness.
"Eternal Janus, I am with you forever!"
Those more than a thousand voices shouted again.
Thus, his humble call was answered.
The darkness rolled up the Dionysus Bureau like a tentacle - the thing he thought was Janus himself, bound him, and instantly dragged him into the abyss within the abyss.
It happened so fast that there was no time to react. After coming back to his senses, he saw hundreds of dark tentacles swinging like seaweed.
It looked as if they were asleep.
And in the darkness beneath the darkness, a mouth - not a real mouth, but in Dionysian's thinking, only the concept of "mouth" is closest to what he recognized - opened.
His mind was frozen instantly.
then.
One mouthful.
The Bacchanalia didn't even leave a last word.
After all this was over, the dark tentacle slowly returned to its original position and began to swing together with its kind.
It was as if it had never been awakened.
Note: Mortal is generally translated as mortal, but a more accurate meaning is "mortal." The word "mortal" doesn't quite highlight this point, but my limited vocabulary can't find words with similar feelings, so I attached the original word at the end.
(End of chapter)
