Xyrin Empire
Chapter 583: The Mutated War Tools

Chapter 583: Chapter 583: The Mutated War Tools

"You are my only hope."

Reflecting on it, it seems whenever this phrase or something similar appears, nothing good comes of it—especially when uttered by a beautiful woman. It’s almost like a lawful curse, leading countless heroes into treacherous paths, the implied meaning being: brave soul, go forth and die for us!

Translated into plain text, that’s what it means.

The queen before me boldly spoke these overwhelming words, not even hesitating or showing embarrassment, not even blinking—an observation made more notable by the fact that in this last hour of conversation, the excessively lengthy-named Queen hasn’t blinked as much as Qianqian has calmed down.

"You really flatter us, usually deciding on major state affairs with such a rash attitude, Your Majesty..."

Wearing an expression of intolerance, I massaged my temples and thought, can’t you come up with something more creative? And to say such an ambiguous line that can easily set the wrong impression, especially in front of someone else’s girlfriend—even though that girl is just a silly goose, what if she suddenly becomes sharp and turns hostile?

"My judgment is not mistaken," the young Queen said, completely missing the irony in my words, "Sixty-seven thousand logic terminals have for the first time reached a unanimous conclusion that you represent the strongest, most likely force to change the course of this battle. You possess the power to match the Shepherd on your own, possess high-tech warships that rival or even surpass the Queen’s Fleet, and shield technology capable of resisting the Shepherd’s destructive weapons. Your arrival might just be the miracle the kingdom has long hoped for. If anyone still wishes to leave this abyss-like universe, you would be the only guides. What I just shared isn’t exactly top secret; sooner or later, you could have discovered all this on your own. I’m merely showing my sincerity."

"Defeating the Shepherd," said Big Sister, noncommittally, "do you really think it’s possible?"

Two hundred Xyrin mother ships had almost led to the annihilation of the Queen’s Fleet, consisting of thousands of warships. To harbor such a wish under these circumstances seemed incredible.

"Escaping the cage has been both the initial and ultimate goal of the Gotaque Free Kingdom. We do not aspire to defeat the Shepherd; we simply wish to escape this universe. For this, we need any possible technology that can enable world traversal, both from the new Navigators’ extraterrestrial technology and the Shepherd’s mystic technology, both of which we desire. To obtain the latter, substantial power is necessary... We have studied the Shepherd for centuries, paying a price other nations can’t comprehend, and finally, using their ultra-advanced technology acquired through espionage, we have become one of the strongest nations in this star domain. Yet, it’s still insufficient. The Shepherd might tolerate the existence of the Free Kingdom for centuries but could also decide to erase the entire kingdom one morning. Their unpredictable behavior constantly hangs over the kingdom like a guillotine. Therefore, I seek your help; this is the conclusion of sixty-seven thousand logic terminals."

"You’ve become a little too accustomed to letting those logic terminals think for you," I sighed, standing up, "Of course, that might just be a trait of your race... I will help, of course, though my reasons might differ from what you imagine (to eliminate the Imperial ’Rebel Army’). Let’s head back first and discuss this... Wait, I almost forgot."

As I was about to leave the room, I remembered a question that had been nagging at me. I stopped, turned, and gazed at the always unemotive Queen, who sat on her throne like a statue, and stroked my chin: "During the battle with those Imperial forces, or the Shepherds as you call them, I noticed they never attacked your flagship with full intent. You must know, without our joint shield technology, your fleet’s force field devices wouldn’t possibly withstand their two hundred main cannons firing simultaneously, right?"

"Sorry, I cannot answer that. The Shepherd’s behavior cannot be logically determined."

...Never mind, no use talking about it when it’s just going to cause friction, considering I am the Imperial Leader.

Suddenly, a door leading outside appeared in the completely sealed room, just as it had when we entered. Along with several high-ranking officials of the Empire—except perhaps Qianqian—I left this strange throne room. Though unseen, my intuition told me the Queen’s "gaze" followed us until obstructed by the closing of the great door.

Bieberu, the gleaming spherical Prime Minister, awaited outside. Without asking what the Queen had discussed with us on his fully reflective mirror surface, I could see that none of us looked very pleased—each with a brooding expression.

Well, Qianqian, once again, was the exception.

With countless thoughts in my mind, we returned to the Light of El.

"Really, it was terrible."

In the officers’ lounge, Big Sister lounged lazily on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling and muttering to herself.

"Lin Xue seemed to have known something already, appearing in front of the natives of this world as the Imperial Army was indeed not a good idea," I rubbed my temples. "What on earth is going on with the Imperial Army here? Although there are no signs of Abyss contamination, they are acting like they’ve gone mad... Pandora, do you think the Xyrin Apostle Association could have a collective mental illness?"

Her response was a huge eye roll.

"My Queen, I apologize for the sudden intrusion, but perhaps you would be interested in our research findings."

Just as I was considering how to begin addressing the bizarre situations in this universe, a window suddenly popped up in the air, and Taville’s blurry mass projection sprang forth. "Please come to the lower Gnaku, we’ve made a significant discovery about the Xyrin power in this world."

In the lower Gnaku of the Light of El, this area, originally used to store Protos Spiritual Crystals, had been partially abandoned after the switch to the Ghost Energy Reactor and was now converted into Taville’s research facility. When I arrived at the Gnaku with Qianqian, who was there purely for amusement, a large mechanical component was being sliced up. Taville’s mass projection hovered in mid-air, directing a group of Xyrin Technicians who had just been teleported from the Imperial Admiral, to further disassemble some mechanical fragments scattered on the ground.

At first glance, it looked like a junkyard.

"What is this thing?" It was my first time seeing such a research scene, and I struggled to hop forward amidst the metal parts scattered all over the floor, careful not to step on any unfortunate researchers. Xyrin Technicians, once in work mode, were the kind of people who went crazy with their tasks; I reckoned I could even walk over them and they’d only react after their shift ended. "Taville, have you switched to junk collection?"

"These are a few Xyrin Single Soldier Fighters we’ve captured, and the core section of an Assault Ship we’ve recovered. They have now been completely disassembled. My technicians are manually separating the control devices that have mutated."

"Captured?" I was startled and then overjoyed. "That wasn’t easy; I thought they all self-destructed after our main forces retreated."

"Where are those traitorous Imperial soldiers?"

Visca was concerned about something else. The little guy whizzed out a bunch of large cannons (notice this quantifier: a bunch!), his face alight with excitement, ready for interrogation and torture. Next to him, Pandora was almost the same, except what she threw was a Floating Cannon from a ceiling tile.

Since we had captured Single Soldier Fighters, it meant we had caught the pilots inside. Even if the opponents were Combat Puppets with little independent consciousness, we could still pry intelligence about the rebel forces from their memory cores; it was simple logic.

But Taville’s reply surprised everyone: "There were no pilots. There were none in the Single Soldier Fighters, nor in the cockpit of the Assault Ship. These Imperial vehicles had no drivers at all; their control systems were just theoretical."

Taville adjusted his glasses and stretched out his hand, pointing to a pile of parts on the ground that were barely recognizable.

"It’s all these bizarre terminals that cannot accept external control; these war machines are controlling themselves, but they are not artificial intelligence, rather a more peculiar automatic device that can react almost identically to artificial intelligence, yet they lack an independent consciousness," Taville said, picking up a curved part from the ground. The moment this part made contact with a mass projection made entirely of energy, it burst into intense sparks, then dimmed down, "They repel any form of energy contact, which makes it quite difficult for us to analyze these fragments with conventional instruments. You could say that these imperial vehicles, aside from their external appearance, have entirely mutated into something else—this is the theory."

Qianqian slowly bent down, picked up a disc-shaped part labeled with a yellow mark, and looked at it over and over while frequently frowning in thought.

Just when I thought the girl had found something, with a "whoosh" sound, Qianqian threw the object away, and two seconds later, there was an outcry from a researcher who was knocked over in the distance.

"Wow! Sorry, I thought it would fly back like a boomerang!"

...could you be any more boring?

"Cough, cough," Taville almost habitually ignored his mistress’s foolish act and continued reporting, "We detached a complete control core from a virtually undamaged single soldier fighter jet, which has fully mutated but still retains a basic, Xyrin technology-compatible storage device. Before it self-destructed due to stimulation by foreign energy, we retrieved some strange codes from it. These codes are very peculiar—they do not match any known or coherent language structure and are filled with redundancies, which should make them extremely inefficient and disorganized strings of characters, but when executed as a whole, they possess a high degree of coherence..."

"Can you pick something I can understand to talk about?"

Stiffly holding on for a long time, I finally realized that the words coming out of Taville’s mouth had turned into something from another dimension in my ears.

"...In summary, these abnormal imperial vehicles have formed their own language system and have their own self-regulation rules. The possibility of communicating with their controllers and seeking a solution has been absolutely excluded—theoretically speaking."

"Vehicles, their own language system, it’s like the typical clichés of science fiction horror, Enha," I looked around at the analysis platforms and dismantling areas strewn with war machines, "Could it be that Xyrin-made high-intelligence weapons could experience a sort of dog-blooded fault like an artificial intelligence revolution?"

"No, they are not faulty, and Imperial technology wouldn’t produce such Matrix-like glitches," Taville clearly knew about The Matrix, probably a result of Bubbles continuously uploading various movies and shows to the entire information chain, "All of these mutated vehicles have not shown any signs of intelligence, at least these low-level units do not possess thinking capability. As I mentioned earlier, their control systems are not artificial intelligence. All of the abnormal vehicles are under a complex behavioral pattern control, which might just be some kind of rule defined by their common language. If we could decode this illogical language, maybe we could find the cause of this loss of control of the Cosmic Empire Army—theoretically speaking."

Looking at this busy and dedicated big sister in front of me, I suddenly felt a bit guilty, "Is that so? Looks like you’re in for another tough job, and I can’t help much with that—by the way, what does Sandora say? You should have uploaded the situation here to the Shadow Fortress, right?"

"Yes," the eye-commanding sister nodded, "Highness Sandora thinks that these mutations might be related to some kind of infection, similar to the Abyss Infection. It causes the normal Imperial war machines to malfunction, spontaneously producing these contradictory control modules. This conjecture is also one of our research directions, hopefully, that’s not the case."

I nodded in agreement.

An Abyss Infection was already a headache enough; if another Xyrin-catching viral flu emerged, we might as well prepare to suffer immensely in terms of sanitary and epidemic prevention.

"Let’s go, girl, stop playing around, we’re heading back to the Upper Zone," seeing Taville and her researchers about to plunge into another round of busyness, I called back a certain lively girl who had vanished somewhere. Before we left, a thought suddenly occurred to me, and I turned back to Taville to remind him, "Taville, remind the researchers to be cautious, try to expose Xyrin traits as little as possible in front of the natives of this world. Although it seems they can only identify ’Shepherds’ through Imperial warships, it’s still better to be careful to avoid trouble."

"Of course, I’m aware," Taville nodded, "All these researchers had undergone special training from Commander Sicaro before coming here. They are very adept at covert operations and camouflage."

Me: "..."

I finally realized what Sicaro meant when he muttered "there’s someone to take over" while I had assigned him to duty on the Imperial Admiral.

I don’t know if everyone related to me just has a knack for attracting trouble, or if Lilina is naturally a disaster magnet. I thought I’d fix everything by just taking her back to our world, but instead, I found unprecedented complex situations here. Even Sandora admitted she was at a loss with the matters here. While leading Qianqian and the Pandora Sisters back to the upper levels of the Light of El, the words of Fina and Taville kept swirling in my mind. Sometimes they were about the savage "Shepherds" wantonly playing with and slaughtering innocent Lost Navigators, sometimes about the Imperial vehicles mutating like a virus, as if an AI revolution was unfolding. I can’t even imagine what else I might encounter in the future. It’s really time to get in touch with Lilina. In this bizarre and dangerous world, she had vanished soon after arriving, and I hope nothing bad has happened to her.

Such chaotic thoughts troubled me all along the way, and then abruptly stopped when I arrived at the Spirit Net Square.

"Cheers!!! Long live Avalon!!! Long live the crystals!!!"

The moment I stepped out of the elevator, the roaring cheers that greeted me practically pushed me back.

What a sight! It was a whirlwind of chaos, a tumult beyond measure. If you didn’t know the truth, you’d think you’d stumbled into some demon’s lair!

The entire Crystal Square was packed with emperors and generals from various eras. It looked like an open-air banquet with grounds covered with cigarettes, alcohol, tea, and sugar, and rivers of food and drinks from every era, culture, and region stretching almost two miles. Heroes were drinking, playing cards, chatting, boasting—lying down, sitting, standing, shouting commands, and calling friends, making the notorious bandits of Liangshan from the 108 professional mobsters look utterly tame in comparison. Are you guys planning to dismantle the ship or what?

"Celebrate, celebrate, after such a victorious battle, morale is high. It’s only right to celebrate grandly to show the might of our Imperial Army. Come on, stop keeping such a straight face. Today, I am happy enough to graciously share a couple of drinks with you~~~"

I looked down expressionlessly and saw the Heroic King, all of one meter fifty including his spiky hair, trying hard to reach up and pat my shoulder like a grown man. Instantly, my eyes hardened as I grabbed him by his collar and lifted him up.

"Put me down! You commoner! Put me down! Wuuuh, I’m still injured, you know!"

When you were guzzling that half a liter of Moutai straight from the bottle, why didn’t you mention you were injured?

"Zeratul, if you want to cry, just cry."

I casually tossed the dancing Sister Jier aside, letting her go play drinking games with Sasaki, when I suddenly noticed a lonely figure in the corner. Going closer, it turned out to be Zeratul.

He quietly looked up, met my gaze, and whispered, "As you can see, not having a mouth can indeed be quite troublesome..."

Me: "..."

Has even you suffered the corruption, Uncle Z from the old days? Come on, get serious! Your sacred land is turning into a marketplace at Erli Bridge, isn’t it?(To be continued. For further details, please visit www.qidian.com. More Chapters are available, support the author, support genuine reading!)