Star Empire

The boundless darkness can block any perception, and everything here seems to be still. Time no longer flows, changes no longer occur...as if it had always been the case.

I don't know when or where...a faint light shone quietly in, breaking the tranquility in the boundless darkness.

"Um……"

"...Where - is this?" Vidoville struggled to stand up in confusion. He felt as if he was trapped in a bubble. Not to mention sensing everything around him, his own consciousness and soul seemed to be separated from his body. There was a barrier. In a daze, the struggle from the bottom of his heart seemed to be gradually effective. He began to see the surrounding environment. At first, it was a small piece of white flat ground around him. They seemed to be able to continue to extend, and eventually they spread. To the infinite distance, connecting with the sky that is somewhat tinged with black and red

".There is something familiar here. I should have seen this place before."

".Vidoville, you wake up."

"This voice is" is a very familiar voice. Its level of connection with me is no lower than that of the soul and all sensory memories. I have begun to have some ideas, but fear and worry are fighting deep in my heart to stop myself. Retrieve more memories from consciousness.

"The blazing sun of the void, pink light, continent. Lil?!"

"Yes, it's me, and at the same time, all our former partners, colleagues, survivors, the entire empire and souls are here now." Not far from Vidoville, the figure of Vesrifan From a small spark on the sun's calm surface, "Welcome back."

"Lil, what happened before? I remember I was going to intercept an attack. After that, I completely lost consciousness. What happened after that? What changes happened?"

"A lot of changes have taken place and I'm afraid I can only name some of them. I may have been in a coma for a period of time. I can't be sure if there are other variables that would affect all of this during this period."

Weisrifan shook her head and waved her arms. The dark nothingness in the sky suddenly turned into a very strange filter - originally, the void was dark and unobservable, and it would have blocked most of the information. There is no protective "element transmission" in it, but now, this filter seems to filter out the obstruction of the void, allowing Victorville and other people with souls to know what is happening in the void:

In front of them, the continent is "crashing". Its extremely huge body and its powerful rank and material level determine that it can persist for a long time even if it is directly faced with the pouring of the void, billowing clouds and countless mist. The fragments of the plan fell one after another from the main body of the continent, forming a torrential rain composed of debris that had no landing point or end.

Deep in the molten wreckage, red rays of light would flash from time to time, and after those rays of light flashed, everything around the "Explosive Heart" would become different, at least all phenomena there would change to a considerable extent.

"Those explosive cores may be nodes that still have residual energy in the entire continent's leylines and have not been completely damaged." There was not much emotion or tone in Weisruifan's tone.

"Whether it is crystal energy arcana, or other first forces, it may even be direct void energy, or other direct means that can induce changes. They essentially rely on stimulating the emergence of information fluctuations to promote The original information changes to achieve omnidirectional drive at the information level. I hope you can still remember that they may produce random changes, and most of them will be swallowed by the void. We don’t have the energy and ability to study them now. ”

After being prompted, Victorville discovered that near the focal points of violent changes, under the overlapping fog and the torrential rain caused by the splashing of debris, there were some relatively familiar light spots - they seemed to be some Drone swarms, or small scientific research fleets, their shields flash wildly, fighting against invisible threats and "attacks" from all possible directions around them.

They are very, very rare, they can only study a small portion of similar foci on the continent, and the vast majority of foci and debris fields have no vitality properties at all.

"What happened?" Vidoville looked at Weisrifan next to him with some confusion: "I have a vague impression that at a certain time in the past, the empire was very, very large, and after that, it should be And I remember."

"You remember correctly, everything is correct, indeed." Weisrifan's expression became very serious, and the surrounding environment seemed to become heavier the moment the question was raised. "I have seen those scenes, and I have seen how huge and unimaginable the "Empire" reached before attacking this continent, and what kind of power it had." When Vesrifan spoke, Victorville paid attention. Suddenly, around her, some familiar figures appeared from nowhere. They also had serious faces and said nothing.

Behind them, far away from the territory, there seemed to be something like cliffs and gravel inserted diagonally on the surface of the blazing sun. Their fractures were very rough and ferocious. They pointed towards the dark and lightless sky, as if they had been completely broken. But it still maintains the last strength and stubbornness of its ribs.

And further away from the unidentified wreckage, after leaving the earth's sight and entering the sky, Victorville discovered that the order field there did not seem to have become a "filter", and it could not allow him to see directly through the void, but that The boundary of the order field, which should have been dark and lightless, is constantly filled with streams of golden light. Countless golden lightnings seem to flash and shuttle outside the glass, leaving unclear blurs to the people "indoors". Blurred light and shadow.

Wait - when did you check the events in the void yourself and possibly need the power of others to help?

"That was a dead light. It attacked us and caused everything that is happening now." Weisrifan said softly, "The broken remains on the surface in the distance are part of your former body. They are the former arcana. The throne and the void matrix. And the lights and shadows constantly flashing at the boundary of the order field... I hope you are mentally prepared."

Weisruifan waved his hand, and that part of the order field also turned into a "filter"...

"...How could this happen?!" Balls of fire appeared in Victorville's eyes, balls of golden fire, the blazing sea of ​​fire was boundless, and the void seemed to have been ignited.

Empires are burning, empires are collapsing.

World Branches is the most complex and single-structured united world system the Empire has ever created. They are rooted in a focal point of creation born out of the void, the core of the probabilistic lightning chain.

They are closely connected and extremely complex. There are countless secondary structures in a world branch. They are separated from the main trunk and extend outward. They themselves form many branches. They are called worlds. Veins... they are large-scale filamentous fiber structures floating in the void. In a sense, these branches may even be regarded as the epitome of the changes and unity of countless worlds in a quadrant...

The Empire once created countless such terrifying giant branches of the world, and used powerful facilities to control them. Countless warships were placed in them, and the Void Fortress Group of Sacred Music was anchored, which was enough to guard the safety of the branches.

But now, the once-glorious countless worlds and countless creations are undergoing continuous explosions. They are self-destructing in batches. With their own destruction, they bloom in the void and bloom into huge "layers of information structures". "Fireworks", this firework can be said to be made of countless imperial bodies.

And the information released with the end of the world and the spontaneous destruction of battleships are also constantly pushing each other in the void, like waves that are constantly stacking and strengthening. They continue to overlap and superimpose, and such a powerful flow of information seems to wrap them in a thick shell of order field, which makes the intensity of the wave of destruction almost undiminished even across the void.

They finally arrived here and collided head-on with the order field shell of the Vishrifan-Void Fierce Sun system. While establishing the final connection between the worlds and the doomsday inheritance, they also performed the extremely cruel scene.

"——Why don't you stop this from happening?!" Vidoville's voice suddenly became hysterical. He looked at Weisrifan and his tone became anxious, "Why didn't you stop——"

"Remember that moment when everything was enveloped in pink light?"

Weisrifan spoke, "That light, that dead light, killed everything here that could still be saved. In fact, including you, and all existences that may be called souls. I picked out the relevant parts from the endless information fragments and reorganized them. In my opinion, this can still be regarded as the same person. I don’t know what you will think..."

"Vidoville, you are lucky. The remaining part of your soul is strong enough, and you are a member of the weight. But others are not so lucky - they still need time to recast their own. Soul, reorganize your own knowledge system and personality model... I accelerated the catalysis of some of the possibilities. For a long time, they may still be the walking dead... What to do needs to be done as soon as possible. The fall has not completely stopped. .”

"This-this...what happened..."

"That pink light...that "thing" called the dead light by Σ has too many possibilities that we cannot decipher. Judging from the existing data, it is most likely that it is the same nine layers of red sky that Σ civilization unfolds It is buried deep in the continent together with the "system" that activates the "bell". It is used when civilization encounters an irreversible and irresistible foreign enemy. We use all possible means to perish with our strength, but it affects us. .”

"It kills all the simple information control codes in our bodies - that code is the direct factor that allows our bodies and souls, and the environment we live in, to be compatible with and integrate the first force of the void. The dead light burned it, It has experienced a grand obliteration of overlapping pan-macro narrative structures, and most of the futures and possibilities related to it have died as a result. For us, everything we create while alive is probably Built upon that which lies at the foundation of life..."

"There are many factors that caused the endless destruction. Each of them is profound and tragic. I have seen part of it, but I can't undo it." The girl closed her eyes. "There is no other way. Moreover, it is not directly Attacking our own inherent existence attributes, it can even be said that if we really understand it from the perspective of a weapon... it just grazes a part of us. Otherwise, everything about us condenses into a cone-shaped spear in that weird sun At that moment, it should have ceased to exist on all levels."

"From the perspective of life and connection, we may now be considered to have gained freedom; from the perspective of our own existence, including strength and technology... we may be called "collapsed". Sigh..." As Wei Ruifan finished speaking, a complex sigh escaped him.

"Gifts on the life level will bring too strong connections and influences, which is dangerous..." Victorville pulled this sentence from the depths of his memory and chewed it carefully, "I know some of the content... Lil , are you really not talking to me in those words?"

"No, I had to concentrate on facing the mainland's firepower on the battlefield, and at that time I could only find bodies or fragments of information related to you. At that time, the entire empire was in a whirlpool, and you didn't even exist."

Wei Ruifan shook his head, "When I had time, I read some of the past data and possibilities. I think that it is more likely to be the impact of the weight effect itself - the weight effect pulls the deviated reality Returning to stability, that information may be the phenomenon produced when the weight effect is pulled back, or...that information comes directly from Σ."

"I know everything that happened in the past... Now, there is no need to avoid these real problems that have been determined." Vesrifan "flashed" in front of Victorville, and the two pairs of eyes reflected each other.

"Σ does not install any backdoor programs or exploitable vulnerabilities in these devices. Rather, we, our experiences, what we do and think are ourselves vulnerabilities and controllable programs of Σ - and can even I believe that all the steps we took to get here, whether it was our initiative or the various measures we were forced to take... they are all the true essence of the object we once worried about."

"At that time, after our souls and the fate of the entire empire "passed" these facilities and creations, we already had such power, and we were given such possibilities."

"This is the deus ex machina..."

"Perhaps, according to part of the explanation of Σ, the "weight effect" is to bring the deviated information back on track, but in this process, the path of the information being pulled back and the resulting phenomenon may not be exactly the same. In this process The variables and intuitive phenomena that may occur at each possible stage will not be exactly the same, and the things we may see are not all the same.”

"All of this now is just a partial outline of the irreversible disaster that is happening. I think there is no need to look at it any further. You must also know that there were countless people surrounding this continent. The huge war star cluster is more powerful than the foreign enemies that once overthrew our empire... I don't know where the name "National Destruction Fleet" comes from. But in fact, when the dead light hits us, they are the first to be affected. Destroy and strike.”

"Perhaps due to the influence of "Death Knell", a considerable part of them may have been completely deleted, along with their own history and our memory of them. In fact, a considerable part of what we say now is actually "Inferences" made."

"It also killed our strength - or in other words, the "power" itself that was intercepted and ejected by Σ in our past history and destiny was all killed."

"Lil, if there are more situations, please explain them as simply as possible. I need time to think about these contents." Vidoville's face became more twisted, struggling and helpless. "I'm sorry I said that... I've been confused for too long."

"Yes." Weisrifan nodded, "I think when I was away, many of you should have thought about why we can survive, why we can achieve so much, and why we can do so in such a short period of time. We have made various breakthroughs over time and have not destroyed ourselves because of the emergence of these "breakthroughs". The answer behind these thoughts is that we have always been a civilization, a civilization related to Σ, and we have attracted the "power" and "goodness" of Σ itself. transport"."

"The information that affects the entire civilization is not limited to the real level. False information also affects the fate of the entire empire. I think you have already considered this when you tried to build a life."

"Too many parts of our civilization are based on the "power" ejected by Σ, and after the first war, our intervention greatly increased the speed at which the empire became stronger. We have indeed brought great benefits to the empire. We have made progress, and these huge progress are not all because of ourselves. In the endless towering towers of the former empire, countless bricks came from Σ, but these cornerstones that maintained our strength have all been destroyed."

"The death knell ringing in the nine heavens killed the stability and resistance to change of most of the empire's fleets and most of the empire's important territories, and that pink light killed our people who were related to Σ's direct powerful attributes. Direct part. The first thing that happened was the fleet, and they all crashed in a short period of time. The empire itself may have been delayed because of the need to spread the influence or for other reasons that we can't consider yet. They have arrived now It just started to collapse and blow up.”

"Li'er, in your and my memory, how long has it been since the beginning of all this, and the last time the empire was almost completely destroyed?"

"The first era was 1.07 million years old, and the second era was 33,291,260,000 years ago. The entire past was very chaotic. In many stages, time may even flow in more than one direction. , and in many cases time does not necessarily show a comprehensive linear flow in the void. This is the "accuracy" I can achieve at the moment."

"How long ago was the last war over?"

"No more than fifty years, all changes, to put it bluntly, all collapses have occurred in these fifty years." Weisrifan replied, his tone softened as if it were an AI, "There is a part of me. I can’t see it, but I used the later phenomena to make some deductions - it may be that within thirteen years at most, all the fleets surrounding the mainland will collapse and crash."

"Millions, Tens of Billions and Tens" Although I know that the super units and super iteration algorithms I have experienced in research and various projects have long been far beyond imagination, but they often do not necessarily correspond to the real level. . Vidovel struggled to look into Weisrifan's eyes, trying to find a trace of uncertainty or other content that might be hidden, but there was none. The eyes of the girl who met again after tens of billions of years were so pure, as if it were just a pool of water that could be seen through at a glance.

"Are we... still ourselves?"

“It’s worth thinking about forever, and it’s worth thinking about for everyone.”

"Can it still be repaired?" Looking at the dark mountains stretching from the sky to the ground in the distance, Weisruifan looked at the tall figure beside him with concern.

"If it's just the hull structure and directly used equipment, that's totally fine." Vidoville checked "himself" in detail and then replied, "The connection between the self-consistent laws and armors has not been directly cut off, and the lost It is just the projection of itself after mapping has built a complex structure. What was destroyed was only the mapping connection entity, but every node and pier that can build the mapping connection is there. As long as the conditions are suitable, they should be repaired and restarted soon. So do other devices."

"But Lil, as you said, the light of Σ killed their own power, and also killed the power we had taken away that once belonged to them." Victorville's expression changed. Very seriously, "The technical extreme deduction module has been completely destroyed, and it is impossible to make any repairs."

"Once upon a time, in order to win the war, the empire drew out all the logic and possibilities inside the ultimate technological deduction module regardless of the cost. The empire drew out a large number of black box technologies inside the module and created countless technical black boxes based on them. These technological black boxes were layered on top of each other, eventually paving the way to the vast empire itself.”

“But now, both the creations that were built using those technological black boxes and the black box technologies themselves have actually lost their origins—we are very likely to have a major recession.”

"Not only will the loss of black box technology bring about a great recession, we may also encounter more difficulties for a long time. It is even possible that as an empire, we can still be said to be the most powerful for a long time. A powerful individual, we must charge the entire empire so that the empire will not "starve" itself." Weisrifan added.

"Σ collapses. After the huge void continent collapses, the void environment we are in may undergo huge changes. The most direct concrete manifestation may be that no matter what we do, we need to consider a very high degree of reduction coefficient , from making all kinds of things, maybe even all the way to walking, to us commanding our bodies."

"."

"Don't be so surprised. If you have real feelings, you can stay in the center of that ritual for tens of billions of years and you will be able to absolutely believe me - it was once in order to make me, or let's make the blazing sun itself appear to be in the void. In the center, the empire turned countless branches of the world into arrows pointing at me, and endless information continued to converge towards me to form a huge vortex. According to the better memories, it probably tied up the me from a long time ago and placed it in the quasar. Bake it in the jet.”

"sorry"

"We still have a lot to do, but" Vesrifan flashed to Vidoville and hugged him tightly.

"We haven't seen each other for a long time. Now, we have some time - they have already said it, and all that's missing is your words."

"Yeah." During the conversation, Vidoville stretched out his arms and took the girl into his arms - very soft, very warm, and very "real".

"Welcome back."