Deep Sea Embers

Facing the slowly flashing dark red light of the "God of Wisdom", Agou was obviously still a little nervous and fearful. He subconsciously shrank his head next to Shirley's legs, but after being nervous for a while, he slowly moved himself and Shirley together. The story told to the ancient "god" in front of me.

A disaster caused by a cultist, a deep hound that was no different from other deep demons, an instinctive "eating", a symbiotic chain - and human nature.

In the eyes of Agou's empty skeleton, the green fire flickered brightly and dimly. It gradually relaxed in the narration, and then lay down and leaned close to Shirley, who stretched out his hands to touch the ground. He rubbed Agou's head and added a few words from time to time.

After they finished telling their stories, Pilot 2 was silent for a long time. The stars-like lights slowly flickered on and off, seeming to show that the "God of Wisdom" was thinking complexly (of course, it could also simply be... Switched to breathing light mode).

After an unknown amount of time, it suddenly broke the silence: "So, you gained humanity, and your symbiont became a 'Deep Demon.' Little girl, what is your demon form like?" "

Shirley was a little surprised and subconsciously looked up at Duncan, who nodded gently to her.

The crackling sound of bones sounded on the boat. In just a few seconds, Shirley's body quickly switched to another posture - dark-colored bone plates covered her original thin and short body, like The arthropod-like bone wings extended out from behind her, and her body gradually grew taller, her maturity mixed with ferocity and weirdness.

Then she carefully pulled the bones and limbs behind her, carefully holding onto the side of the ship while controlling her balance: "This ship is a bit small."

Pilot 2's "eyes" were fixed on Shirley, and the buzz in its body became obviously louder.

"Sample Coupling", the "god of wisdom" finally spoke, with obvious surprise and confusion in its always calm and rational voice, "Individuals outside the blueprint! Why?"

Shirley was trying to maintain her balance. When she heard this, she was stunned and raised her head: "What?"

"In this 'sanctuary', everything is manufactured and developed according to the blueprint. Even the extinction and disintegration of the sun itself are within the original design. Theoretically, only what happens inside this 'world' conforms to my calculations." The consequences,” Pilot Two explained, “but we didn’t design—an individual like you. "

Its eyes moved between Shirley and Agou.

The situation of this dog-headed ghost hound is still within the possibility, because ghost demons are essentially unable to produce rationality independently due to primitive defects. External human stimulation may allow them to acquire acquired thinking abilities, although the chance is very low. , at least there is a chance

"But you confuse me, little girl.

'If you follow the original parameters set by Pilot One in the blueprint, you should be dead now - although humans and deep demons do have the same origin, the 'transformation' process you have experienced is not reasonable, and the results are even more unreasonable. True to original design."

The dark red light gradually became brighter, staring at Shirley in confusion.

It's a pity that the person involved is more confused than that.

However, after being confused for a while, Shirley gradually came to her senses. She hesitated and pointed to her chest: "Maybe it's because of this?"

The criss-crossing pitch-black bone fragments were woven into a "bone cage" that accommodated two beating hearts, and inside this bone cage, there was a cluster of green fire burning quietly.

Pilot 2 stared at the small cluster of flames. For a long time, its eyes fell on Duncan.

"Fire Usurper, I want to talk to you."

Duncan confirmed it and reacted quickly, but then subconsciously raised his head and looked around: "But you don't have a place to talk privately here, do you?"

Pilot 2 did not speak, but suddenly there was a slight "click" sound from its central host. Immediately afterwards, Duncan saw a gap suddenly opened under the tombstone-like cabinet, and a delicate mechanical The structure pops out of it - it's a slot.

Duncan frowned subconsciously, then thought of something, immediately reached out and groped around on his body, and touched something cold.

It was the doll's brass key—the one with the infinity symbol on the end.

The key was deforming in his hand. In front of everyone, the brass key with the handle with the "infinity" symbol melted like wax, and then condensed into a delicate rectangular object, with complicated words vaguely visible on the black shell. It has fine lines and a delicate metal interface at the end, and the complex metal contacts are clearly visible.

Duncan was no stranger to the "look" of the key - that was when he first tried to use flames to explore the secrets inside the key. At that time, he saw the true appearance of the brass key, and also saw Reached the scene where the New Hope disintegrated and fell in this world.

He raised his head and saw a dim blue light flashing around the slot on the surface of Pilot 2.

A deep voice came into his ears: "The activation key of New Hope is universal."

This one turned out to be a starter key and the other was a special navigation key. Duncan understood the nature of the two "wind-up keys" in his heart, and then he nodded slightly under the curious and nervous eyes of the people around him. , take a step forward.

But at this moment, Alice suddenly tugged on his sleeve. Miss Doll seemed a little resentful and looked up at the red light of Pilot 2: "Let's talk first, this is my key."

Pilot 2 was silent for a moment: "—You can lend it to me first."

"Oh," Alice let go of Duncan's arm, but looked at it a little uneasily, "then don't break it! I still have the wind up.

Duncan nodded solemnly—Miss Doll was finally relieved.

The "activation key" with a delicate metal interface was inserted into the slot of Pilot 2, and a crisp "click" sounded in Duncan's ears.

Everything around him disappeared, and an endless expanse of calm and pure white descended in front of him with this soft sound.

And after a short second, an astonishing scenery suddenly appeared in the pure white world that seemed to be extremely empty!

The vast plains roared and spread, lush vegetation covered the plains in the blink of an eye, rivers rushed on the plains, the distant outline of the city was vaguely visible at the end of the horizon, the sky was dyed with a layer of light blue, and then there were clouds glowing with wonderful lavender. , a dazzling sun finally appeared on the high zenith, illuminating everything.

Duncan stood on a small hill, a place overlooking a large plain and river.

A tall and thin man wearing a white robe, dressed like some kind of scientific researcher, with messy hair and a tired look stood in front of him.

"This is one of my creators," he said suddenly. "After turning it on for the first time, he told me that if one day I want to make friends with humans, I can use his appearance."

"The one who set the lighting mode for you?" Duncan asked subconsciously.

"That's another one," the man whispered, turning around and looking at the plain, "I have many creators, they left me many things, looks, advice, meanings to think about, countless code, personality data, and those beautiful lights."

"This place is very beautiful," Duncan was silent for a moment, then spoke softly. He raised his head and saw an unknown huge bird suddenly flying across the sky. Its colorful and dazzling wings seemed to shed a little light in the air, and then it appeared in the distance. Gradually dissipating in the air, "Your hometown?"

"No." Pilot 2 shook his head.

Duncan was stunned: "?"

"I can't remember what my hometown looks like," Pilot 2 was quiet for a long time, and finally said slowly, "I iterated myself again and again, trying my best to retain the original data in each iteration, but no matter No matter how careful you are, they are still constantly damaged, misaligned, unreadable, and irreparable. Even if everything seems to be 100% restored, the appearance of your hometown is still changing beyond recognition little by little.

He paused. It seemed that there should be a sigh here, but he didn't. He was just quiet for a few seconds, and then continued: "This is the scenery I 'guessed' based on the only vague descriptions left. It will probably be similar to my hometown." A little bit similar.

"Rot?" Duncan hesitated and asked cautiously, "Yes," Pilot Two nodded, "Although at the beginning, I thought I could avoid it through constant iteration and updating, but it turns out, None of us can escape this process. "

Duncan was silent for a moment and did not continue on this topic.

"What do you want to say to me?" he asked.

"—You 'created' an individual that was not in the blueprint design," Pilot Two turned around and looked into Duncan's eyes, "Do you know what this means?" "

"You mean Shirley?" Duncan frowned upon hearing this, "Okay, at first I didn't expect that her change would be such an incredible thing for you, but strictly speaking, I am in this matter. The participation should not reach the level of creation, right? "

"For a closed-loop system that is doomed from the beginning, even if there is a speck of dust that is not planned, it will subvert the entire system." The other party was still staring at Duncan's eyes with a particularly serious expression, "You exerted influence, and then there was a subtle change in the blueprint that was already destined to be dead - and this change did not lead to 'self-destruction.' The girl named Shirley survived and is still existing stably. This Let me dispel one of my biggest concerns. "

Duncan was a little curious: "What's your biggest concern?"

"I was once worried that the 'new world' you created would be a larger 'infinite sea', because in my calculations, this is extremely possible."