Xyrin Empire
Chapter 737 Their Actions

Chapter 737: Chapter 737 Their Actions

"They stole a facility from the Divine Race?"

I said incredulously, and Qianqian also clicked her tongue in wonder, "Have the Fallen Apostles really fallen on such hard times recently?"

"There’s no copper in the storage area; even if they stole it, it would be useless," Bingdisi fidgeted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with having to sit still and listen, "Besides, that thing isn’t even rare. Stack systems are not only cheap tools in the Divine Realm, but even you Xyrin Apostles can make them. And functionally speaking, you have similar technologies."

I noticed a subtle change in Sandora’s expression and quickly understood: It was embarrassing enough that their former comrades had turned into terrorists, and now they were also moonlighting as petty thieves, sneaking around the Divine Race territory to pilfer parts. The awkwardness was beyond frustrating.

"To be honest, I have no idea why they’d want to steal a stack system."

Father God toyed with a black disk in his hand, "As Bingdisi said, it is not valuable, although its function may be crucial for a world. The stack system has a very specific use; aside from buffering law loopholes, it is useless. And Divine Race items are not useful to you either; from what I know, Xyrin Technology has its own research and mature devices for handling law loopholes. It’s bizarre that they’d risk exposing their identities to steal an auxiliary stack zone."

Big Sister speculated, "Could it be that the Fallen Apostles have lost the technologies from the Old Empire and desperately need to adjust the law conflicts within their own territories, so they stole one from you as a quick fix?"

Before Father God could respond, Sandora preemptively dismissed that guess, "Impossible. Not to mention why the Fallen Apostles, affiliated with the Abyss Camp, would want to do something beneficial for the world by adjusting law conflicts, even if they still rely on orderly laws to survive, Divine Race creations can’t possibly be forcibly applied in an Empire technology environment. The more advanced the civilization’s achievements, the more severe their dependency on underlying technologies and the entire technological system, making technological isolation irreconcilable."

I understood Sandora’s point, much like when breaking things, an iron hammer can easily replace a steel hammer’s function, but in higher-end fields, a fusion reactor core can’t simply be placed into a fission reactor—it requires a completely different set of cooling, isolation, and control systems. Going further, like our modifications to the New Eden Federation ship, the requirements for subsidiary technologies become even more evident. To enable a battlecruiser to use a Ghost Energy Reactor, we nearly had to alter sixty percent of the ship’s mechanical structure. The technological isolation between Divine Race technology and Xyrin Technology is even more extreme than the previous three examples; resolving the same issue, the Empire People and the Divine Race might even approach from completely opposite aspects.

Under such isolation conditions, a stack system would be utterly useless for an Imperial Technology System. If the Fallen Apostles wanted that thing to work, they’d have to steal a full set of World Management Terminals and a licensed software too.

Uh... wait, it seems they actually did steal a set of World Management Terminals!

"I just remembered something."

I interrupted the low discussion between Big Sister and the others and then brought up an incident from the past: in the world where Artemis once lived, the half-plane that was found completely robbed.

"They stole a complete set of World Management Terminals, and it might even come with a functional operating system. Now, add a plugin..." I spread my hands, "Perhaps the Fallen Apostles are trying to assemble them? If they stole other plugins too, putting together a complete World Management System shouldn’t be a problem, right?"

"But what would be the point of that?"

Sitting behind Father God, a member of the Divine Race shook his head in confusion: "It’s useless, even if they assemble a world, it’s useless. The Xyrin People have their own technology for creating worlds and also have their own means to manage them. I remember it’s called the World Arbitration Agency. Although it’s a bit more troublesome than ours, that method is mature and feasible. In this situation, stealing our stuff doesn’t make much sense, and compared to the risks involved, the gains completely do not justify the costs. It’s not a wise move."

"You’re right, this is definitely not the goal of the Fallen Apostle," Sandora said, her eyes intently fixed on the black disc in Father God’s hand, her expression extraordinarily serious. "You may already know, we’ve had several direct confrontations with the Fallen Apostle, including large-scale battles and high-level power clashes, and have gained a preliminary understanding of their situation. Unlike the typical cases of Abyss Infection, the Fallen Apostles have completely retained their original rationality. In this situation, they would not make foolish decisions. Stealing the world management system and stack system right under your noses... These actions involve huge risks and only by meticulously planning every minute detail could success be possible. With so much effort put in, the benefit they seek must be something beyond our imagination."

What do the Fallen Apostles want? Regarding this question, we actually already have a broad answer, which essentially narrows down to two points. The first is following the Abyss’s instinct, causing destruction everywhere. The second is "revival" of the Empire. Given the collapse of the Literature Hall, the second objective seems to be indefinitely delayed. In the short term, they seem to have no other starting point, unless, of course, one considers killing me as one of their objectives—though that clearly doesn’t relate to their theft of Divine Race’s belongings.

Besides these reasons, I recalled some additional intelligence I had: from Bellavilla’s confession and Lin Xue’s predictions, we know that the Fallen Apostles are destroying worlds one by one following a certain pattern and ritual, collecting certain items from some worlds in the process. They searched Azeroth for a certain "artifact" but ultimately did not find it. In Artemis’s homeland, they stole a world management system; in a world detected by the Divine Race Vanguard, they stole a stack system. These actions obviously have a great purpose behind them, but for now, they can only serve as clues, with no discernible pattern derived from them.

Sandora relayed these complex pieces of information in detail to Father God who, after listening intently, slowly said, "These pieces of information have no pattern, and conventional reasoning cannot derive any conclusion. Rather, it might lead us astray—Zoram, you’ve been investigating this matter, you must have some thoughts, right?"

Father God spoke to a majestic-looking member of the Divine Race, the same uncle who had just burned off his beard—if he hadn’t moved so quickly back then, he might have looked even more majestic now.

"Zoram is a councilman of the Osiris Council, reputedly one of the smartest people in the Divine Realm. His specialty is deriving the truth of matters from tiny, seemingly insignificant incidents," Bingdisi whispered to me, "When I was young, he gave me a tough time. Every day I used to fight with this uncle, and his windows and my ears frequently suffered mutual injuries."

"But Dingdang successfully destroyed all his beards and seemed to have left him with a severe psychological shadow," I reasoned seriously, "Dingdang won."

Zoram ignored mine and Bingdisi’s whispering and showed a contemplative expression. In a deep voice, he said, "Perhaps I have some vague guesses... Great Father God, please give me a little time to reorganize the recent intelligence." After saying this, the dignified uncle closed his eyes, sinking into deep thought. The atmosphere became immediately solemn, and everyone else immediately quieted down, quietly waiting for him to discern the true intentions of the Fallen from his meditation.

Five minutes later, he fell asleep.

I almost slid off my chair, but everyone else seemed unfazed by it. Bingdisi even tugged at my arm, "Don’t worry, Zoram is thinking."

I almost wanted to pinch this female hooligan’s ears and shout, "Do you snore when you think?"

"He really is thinking," Bingdisi shot me a look, "Uncle Zoram thinks like that; he has flashes of brilliance while pretending to sleep. This is why he is one of the smartest people in the Divine Realm and not the only one: he’s never clear-headed when he’s smart."

I was somewhat surprised as I looked at the uncle in front of me with his eyes tightly shut, completely unresponsive to the outside world, thinking to myself how wonderful it would have been to have this talent in school—I could have slept my way to national champion!

However, after a long time, I still couldn’t help it and poked Bingdisi’s arm, whispering, "Why do I feel like he’s genuinely asleep?"

Bingdisi leaned in to observe for a while, then suddenly pulled out a firecracker, stuffed it into Zoram’s ear, and lit it, "Indeed, he’s dead to the world!"

"Bang!"

With a loud noise, Zoram leaped up and elegantly posed "White Crane Spreading Wings" on the table. His body was enveloped in Holy Light, and his expression was majestic, "Who dares to release thunder in the Father God’s hall!?"

At the scene, about twenty people solemnly watched the uncle whose ears were still smoking. Father God gently tapped the table, "Zoram, I hope you have reached a conclusion."

"Oh, oh," the uncle quickly jumped down from the table, "My deepest apologies, my Lord, I overate and felt sleepy... cough cough, I mean, I have seen part of the truth."

Bingdisi, who was about to pull out a Brick from his bosom, and Father God, whose eyebrows were twitching, instantly showed an expression of granting the other a reprieve. The others also pricked up their ears.

"The Fallen might be trying to change the final Order."

Despite the smoke coming out of his ears, the uncle looked as though he did not care in the slightest. His tone was solemn as he spoke a word I could not understand at all.

"Final Order? What is that?" Lin Xue poked my arm from behind and muttered softly.

"It’s... It’s the Void," Bingdisi gasped, "Uncle, are you... sure?"

"No, nothing is certain," Zoram shook his head slightly, "but intuition and some clues tell me this possibility exists and it’s the closest to our enemy’s goal. They are collecting certain things, but those things actually have no connection; they have no special use and cannot be combined. The vanguard has noticed similar intelligence, that the Fallen have also stolen other items—in Gunnar, they took the World Pillar; in EN65294, they took the Origin Crown; and in Shadur, the vanguard discovered that one element was missing from the list of World’s material, although there’s no concrete evidence, it is highly possible that it was also the doing of the Fallen."

"The stolen items range from some being worth half a world to just an inconspicuous stone; it seems completely illogical, but they have one common point: they all belong to the Heart of the World, or are part of the Heart of the World."

Father God’s fingers were gently tapping on the table when suddenly they stopped, "So, their goal is not to destroy the world but to collect the core characteristics?"

"Even the Divine Race has not been able to control the entire Void, so I dare not assert they haven’t collected anything else in other worlds unseen by us, but at least the current intelligence points to this possibility. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the worlds the Fallen targeted seem to be random; the vanguard has found several world remnants, none of which shared a ’system’ with the others, so we cannot use logical reasoning to defensively anticipate their moves on some worlds..."

"Hold on, hold on. Can someone first tell me what exactly the Heart of the World is?"

I spoke up, feeling incredibly perplexed. This was yet another new term—couldn’t these all-knowing elders take into account my limited knowledge?

"The Heart of the World is not a specific object," answered not Father God, but Bingdisi beside him. "It is a broad definition; under this definition, anything that meets the criteria can be called the Heart of the World. It refers to, in a complete world, the key item that serves as various information entanglement points. Let me first explain to you what information entanglement points are: Whether it’s a world born from the Void itself, or a world created by the Divine Race, they share a common characteristic during Genesis. They experience an information explosion. For a closed world, the moment it changes from a complete ’zero’ to a content-containing ’origin’ is unimaginable. The unprecedented information expansion forms information entanglements. In this tangled mass, all information from the moment of the world’s birth is recorded and will continue to affect the evolution of the universe as the core of the world’s information, until the Doomsday arrives. We usually see the world as an increasingly complex, eventually returning to a zero point in a closed model. The Heart of the World is the explosion point for all of a universe’s information; then, during the evolution of the universe, every piece of information extends from this point, gradually evolving, becoming complex and expanding. When Doomsday arrives, this information will return to that point, completing a cycle. This process is called the World Breath—For a world, it breathes only once.

And the Heart of the World is the tangible product of this entanglement point. Generally, ’information’ and matter are absolutely inequivalent; they are two concepts, but at the inception of a world, this information is not limited by this restriction because at the moment of creation nothing exists, and all matter is born from an information explosion. As residuals from this original explosion, information entanglement points can naturally transcend material limits. Usually, when a world evolves to fifty percent of its predefined material list, the information entanglement point will become a physical entity or attach to some entity—that item is called the Heart of the World. However, the Heart of the World is not fixed; it is merely a piece of matter that has carried an information entanglement point. It could be a planet, a stone, or even a butterfly, and the tangled information can jump to other things at any time—I will explain this later.

The physical Heart of the World can ensure a more stable evolution of the universe, but it itself cannot be directly used to interfere with the cosmic process. Therefore, we, the Divine Race, have created the World Management Systems—The one you are most familiar with is the World Tree. The World Management Systems can directly control the information entanglement points, controlling the world from the universe’s origin. Because the Divine Race’s creations are at the pinnacle in the hierarchy of the world, once this system is activated, it will automatically replace the original Heart of the World, becoming the new carrier for the information entanglement point. That’s what I meant when I said that the Heart of the World is not fixed."

At that moment, Sandora nudged my arm. "This highlights the difference in how the Divine Race and the Xyrin Empire control the world. Our World Arbitration Agency can only revise cosmic parameters through existing laws, but we can never control that information entanglement point at the origin. The Divine Race, on the other hand, changes the world from the source, which is a fundamental difference. That’s why the Xyrin Apostles can only possess part of the Divine Race’s powers, but they can never be as powerful."

I tried hard to comprehend this abstract knowledge. I could understand every word spoken by Bingdisi, but why was it so complicated when put together?

"It’s really a pity," Bingdisi suddenly said. "Actually, you people had already commenced research on how to directly control information entanglement points. If you had focused on this normal research instead of delving into higher-level Void knowledge... uh, Father God, I’ll stop talking now..."

A female hooligan who was too quick with her words got hit in the forehead by a flying confectionary and immediately shut her mouth. However, Sandora didn’t seem to care but raised her own question: "So, back to the old issue, what are they collecting these ’symbolic items’ for? The Heart of the World records only the information within its own world and is useless in another universe. Moreover, after the destruction of its world, they would be nothing more than a tombstone. Beyond symbolic significance, the Heart of the World is worthless once disconnected from its original universe."

"It is about symbolic items, indeed," Zoram explained carefully. "Although I’m not certain, it’s very likely that the Fallen ones are using those Hearts of the World to create some sort of symbol, then using a ritual-like method to destroy the world—this could be a code or some other guide that amplifies this symbolic significance. For instance... instantly destroying all Hearts of the World, creating the illusion of countless worlds collapsing simultaneously in the Void, or gathering them together to recreate Genesis, properly managed which could result in stacking hundreds or thousands of worlds in one space. If they’ve really discovered some rule in the Void and manipulate это rule through that sacrificial ceremony, then such a thing is completely possible."

Zoram’s explanation was half-clear to me, but at least I understood that the Fallen Apostles intended to obtain some incredible results through a vast amount of stolen "Hearts of the World" and a highly complex sacrificial ceremony. These results could even change the structure of the Void—this was indeed in line with the behavior of the Xyrin Apostles, sparing no costs and seizing any slight possibility to create unthinkable miracles.

"If you stack hundreds or thousands of worlds in the same space..." Father God leaned back in his chair, tone wafting, seemingly speaking to himself, "They’d create another Divine Realm."

The room fell silent for a moment.

"They want to be gods? To clone another Star Domain Divine Race?" Bingdisi’s expression was incredulous before she suddenly burst out laughing. "Psh, is that even possible? Just creating an artificial Divine Realm, beyond providing a large residential area, they would achieve nothing else. The Divine Realm, apart from being the residence of gods, has no significance at all!"

"This should be the first possibility to rule out," Father God suddenly stood up, a carefree smile on his face. "Whatever they want to do, we just need to stop them. Let Sovare make a trip to the Huron Divine Realm, borrow their Void Map for a bit; I need to further confirm that the Fallen haven’t stolen anything else. Feier, it’s a tough job, but organize people to strengthen defense of all controlled worlds in the Divine Realm, first ensuring the absolute security of the World Management Systems. Zoram, keep up your work, search tirelessly for the enemies. And then—"

Father God had arranged his tasks, then turned his gaze to me, but don’t think I was always just a bystander; at critical moments, I too could command with eloquence, right on the spot patting Sandora’s shoulder: "Lass, you handle the arrangements."

Queen Her Highness bit me! (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to recommend and vote monthly at Qidian [qidian.com], your support is my greatest motivation.)