Star Empire

"What? Who to ask?"

The other three people did not hear the last two words of Kriz's words clearly, and the latter's figure had already appeared far away from the workbench.

"Stop the surveying and mapping process first and wait for the next step." lhjl1864343 raised his arms and hugged himself: "Suddenly I felt... a little uneasy."

…

"Is there any problem?" ui65312 noticed Kriz suddenly appearing next to him, "Have you experienced any new abnormality or any new abnormal feeling?"

"It's not that something is wrong with me, it's that there seems to be something abnormal in our mapping process. Our mapping results show that the world is very fragile... I feel like something is wrong with the surrounding environment."

"I understand - xs4028 remember, when communicating like this in the future, report the situation to the person directly responsible for the incident first. The content of cross-level reports is very likely to lead to misjudgment." ui65312 nodded, Kriz Notice that when your information is passed to the chief, the chief will not read it immediately. The information seems to go through a series of screening processes similar to "quarantine" before it can actually be contacted by the chief.

"...I will communicate the situation with the person in charge of your operation. Please continue to determine the corresponding situation. If you have any questions, please tell me immediately." ui65312 just quickly scanned the observation content provided by Kriz. His expression became visibly serious.

"...Chief, is the situation serious?"

"It is impossible to directly say whether it is serious or not - this special distortion of the world environment caused by this form of observation is very rare. We are not yet directly clear what the consequences of this phenomenon will be. However, the world is affected by external disturbances Such distortion suddenly appears under the influence...its appearance often does not correspond to very good results."

"Is that so..." Faced with such a situation again, Kriz subconsciously looked around. His eyes passed through the dim space "above" the ship and fell on the fleet surrounding the outer layer. He noticed that the inner activities of the two most conspicuous behemoths in the fleet, the powerful entity called the "Holy Purity of Qingming" by his headmaster who used a quick overview of the history of imperial ships in just one minute, had begun to intensify.

"Is it so serious...?" Seeing that the most powerful core in the fleet has activated a higher level of alert, the seriousness of the problem seems to have formed an actual hammer since then, hitting itself again and again. Deep in his heart, but soon, Kryz saw new things approaching the spacecraft - they were some entities emitting golden light, which were very conspicuous compared to the dim sea of ​​​​stars.

"Recall the landing ship?!" Almost at the same time, Kriz received a message from the person in charge - stop this world mapping activity, and all personnel will evacuate here after the quarantine is completed.

"quarantine?!"

"There may be a Death Tide Gate appearing in this world, so quarantine is required to ensure that everyone is not contaminated by the Death Tide. But the current situation in this world... is not typical." The Chief responded, but Kryz could see that the Chief's His main attention is not on this "clone" at the moment. He may be observing something else now.

During the conversation, Kriz noticed that the manta rays that were about to return home had clung to the outer surface of the joint shield, and they were slowly passing through the joint shield - the joint shield was not open to them, but Scanned the insides of those manta rays. This may be what the chief calls the “quarantine” process. However, their appearance in his eyes seemed to become a little blurry - it was only then that Kriz noticed that the heavy hull structure of the surveying ship that had been completely open before was now completely closed.

Is this hull structure blocking his view? No, that shouldn't be wrong - this layer of ship structure does not have such a powerful capability. So what is covering your eyes?

The power is released subconsciously. However, these powers did not help him see clearly what was blurred. On the contrary, wherever his gaze, which contained his own will, passed, the space-time structure spread like an explosion, and the suddenly proliferated structure was like a normal tissue. A huge malignant tumor suddenly appeared. The huge impact of this sudden change shocked Kriz.

"Chief, what happened...?" Kriz turned around and asked with some confusion, but he saw something strange again - the ui65312 beside him seemed to be "disconnected" at this moment.

"...The situation is not good." After waiting nervously for a long time, Kriz waited for a response, but this response also made people feel nervous: "This is the spiral world maze." ui65312 whispered Said, his eyes seemed to be avoiding - avoiding any interaction with the outside world.

"Order the fleet to activate all protection systems, stop retrieval detection of the surrounding environment, and change the collection method of relevant information to passive reception! Take off immediately after the recovery and quarantine operation is completed!"

"The fleet early warning system has been fully integrated with the joint monitoring and early warning system, and an emergency non-delay information exchange channel has been activated."

"Forced jumping may cause the integrity of the information body to tear - go back to your seat and bind safety measures. It is not suitable to stay here for a long time..."

"Yes, I understand..."

When he heard these words and made these responses, Kriz felt as if he was a little far away from himself - although his perspective was still synchronized with the movement of his body, the stimulation from the outside world was transmitted to him, and he then gave feedback to the outside world. During the process, I always felt a strange sense of emptiness... There seemed to be a layer of darkness between my inner body and my body. It was precisely because of this layer of darkness that I didn't know how long it took to realize that I was responding. , is a broadcast from the spacecraft.

"No, no, now is not the time to think about it too much." Kriz took three steps at a time and flew back to his original position. The looks of his roommates looking at him seemed to become complicated, but Just when I was about to tell the difference, once again, the broadcast that sounded directly from the depths of everyone's hearts interrupted everyone's actions.

Immediately afterwards, a violent tremor struck the entire ship—no, possibly the entire fleet. Obviously, this is not a normal jump.

In a daze, Kriz saw that everything outside was "retreating" rapidly, but Kriz had already discovered the problem: Under normal circumstances, the empire's spaceships with the ability to cross the void would not have trouble jumping into the void from the inside of the world, and it could even be said that That should be a matter of seconds. But now, the fleet seems to have some kind of inextricable "adhesion" phenomenon with the original world, which makes it difficult for the fleet to separate from the world normally.

"Alert, the intensity of disturbances in the void has increased, the original reference system has undergone large-scale distortion, the conversion relationship between the calculated coordinate points and the actual coordinate points has failed to be recalibrated, the virtual information environment activities have further intensified, and the conventional void navigation system has suffered strong interference. , the conventional joint navigation system and the order field generation system are difficult to operate normally."

"The preset jump point has expired. The current situation is being analyzed and waiting for feedback from the joint monitoring and early warning system. The fleet joint shield changes mode to a self-consistent and self-explanatory protective layer. If the joint monitoring and early warning system still does not respond after the third threshold time, the fleet A temporary world gate with powerful destructive disturbance will be built during the next escape attempt or the jumping method will be changed to virtual point jumping..."

"The Joint Monitoring and Early Warning System reported that it was found that the intensity of false information activities around the narrative singularity corresponding to the unique identification number xs4028 has increased significantly, and a range-wide entity similar to the "Fire Sun Cloud Field" has been detected in the void."

"It is confirmed that the whirlpool of false information triggered by the narrative singularity "xs4028" individual will soon condense and become materialized. All units should pay attention and check the corresponding plans again!"

"A large number of unsystematic genesis activities have been detected in the cloud field. Accordingly, the xs4028 individual is about to undergo its final "mature evolution". Within this range, it is no longer recommended to move the individual."

"Stop the escape calculation process and determine the next specific action."

…

"...So, the focus of this series...is still me?" Looking at the empty surveying ship, Kriz found that his feelings became a little complicated - even though all the readings were there, But I can't figure out what's wrong with me now from the data outlined by the precise rulers as usual - afraid? Guilt? Worried? calm? Or something else?

"Although we predicted this, the development process is indeed too fast - the model believes that it will take at least more than a month before you can accumulate enough information to generate a "total explosion". Now, It seems that our model is not accurate enough... It is also possible that some factors that have not been accurately calculated are catalyzing this process."

"Chief, they - I mean those beings who left here, will they not be in danger?"

"Theoretically, it's not a big problem - jumping out of the spiral world requires a strong enough and large enough void jump, but such a void jump often has a strong impact on the surrounding environment. We didn't do this before mainly because some Security protocols prevented this from happening as it relates to your safety. Now that the reason is clear and your emotional response to it is within the threshold limits, they can proceed with the security check Get out of here. Our focus right now is you, and we're here to wait for you until you get through this."

"Thank you, chief, and friends."

"Hey, saying thank you at this time is a bit shallow - there is no need, Kriz. These are all choices we have made." In this small figure pulling a huge whirlpool that is invisible with most means All around, four pairs of eyes could still look directly at the "core point" standing in the storm.

"Chief, can I ask, what is the "Spiral World Maze"?"

"That is a phenomenon, a phenomenon that we are currently only sure of its existence, but know nothing about other aspects of it. Come and listen together. Now, you also have temporary authority." ui65312 stood up and sat down on Ke Ritz stood beside him and called the three people who decided to stay to come over too.

"The Spiral World Maze is a dangerous and mysterious phenomenon. It was first recorded by the Empire when it faced the "Expedition Annals No. 1 Fault Zone" more than one trillion years ago. This is a mirror-like anomaly. If To simply describe this phenomenon, we can say this: when acting in the world, we need to constantly scan the structure of the world, and these results can assist us and provide meaningful reference materials for subsequent actions.” But.

"It should be noted here that our observations carry our purposes and guesses, and so do the scanning waves we emit. They carry information with subjective thoughts. If these scanning waves occur at the same time as the "Spiral World Maze" When the world structure collides, the world structure will be distorted by the subjective will contained in the scanning wave, and their shape and structure will be changed accordingly. They will be "distorted" into what we guess and think."

“In the earliest days, because the nature of the spiral world maze was unclear and the environment was extremely severe, the trouble caused by these phenomena would be much greater. Since all the fleets at that time were tasked with tasks, they were in trouble. , their subjective will to try to escape is very strong."

"But, as I said before, the more they want to get out of trouble, the more they will think that the world is unstable and complex, and they will be eager to figure out the situation. These subjective thoughts will be mixed into the detection scan wave, and then broadcast out, And the world will suffer more serious distortions as a result. This process is constantly alternating, like a spiral that continues to deepen, eventually trapping the existence trapped in it."

"This phenomenon... we can only confirm that it exists, but we can't be sure why it exists. At the same time, we don't know more about other issues. Chief, is that true?"

"Yes. Because the probability of the Spiral World Maze phenomenon is very low, and the Spiral World Maze phenomenon occurs randomly, we cannot determine the conditions and duration of the Spiral World Maze phenomenon. At the same time, in the Empire In this history of more than 110 billion years, 85.6% of the spiral world maze phenomenon appeared as an accompanying phenomenon of the fault zone. The remaining exceptions show that it is not an appendage of the death tide. Therefore, we The generation and evolution model of the death tide derivative phenomenon cannot be directly applied to the spiral world maze."

"Can't you lock in some special sign or background activity?"

"Unfortunately, there is currently no solid recorded evidence that the Spiral World Maze is indeed linked to some kind of sign or background activity. Take the skyquakes you have experienced recently as an example. Skyquakes often occur in void areas where false information is active. In In such an interval, both the Void Sky Survey Radar and the World Barrier Drilling Team can capture tangible evidence. We can use this evidence to determine the connection between phenomena. But we have no "evidence" about the Spiral World Maze in this regard."

"I'm sorry. What are you talking about?" As a slightly apologetic voice sounded, Kriz suddenly realized that the three people who were with him and who were willing to help him maintain stability as friends were trapped in a maze - —The confusion of “unable to understand” formed due to these vague discussions.

A worrying person will not only consider one possibility, nor will he have only one thought or idea when faced with complex reality.

This is especially true for a civilization. No matter how close and united a civilization is, there will never be just one trend of thought, one idea, and one voice.

Billions of years ago, the majestic and majestic black palace that stood in the void had collapsed, and its ruins are still burning slowly to this day. The giant eyes that can overlook the world and look down on all living beings have long been wrapped in fog. They have almost lost all their vision. All they can see and hear is reluctance and regret and the endless howling they bring. They cannot be smoothed or diluted by time, because the time to interact with them has no longer passed by them.

However, among these howls and wailings that have nowhere to vent and no one can hear, the worries and hopes for the future that have been left behind are also still there. Just like in the last crazy time before destruction, even if the madness has almost annexed all the attributes of existence in the entire civilization, there will still be wisdom at the last moment to desperately push away those creations that may allow the achievements of civilization to continue to be passed on. Far from the center of the mad whirlpool.

The struggle never stops. However, there is one situation that cannot be questioned, let alone denied - for the deceased overlord of the void and the top civilization in the void, uncontrollable anxiety, madness, regret and unwillingness still account for the majority of the weight. part. Although the rational part has not been wiped out, they can still only survive in the cracks.

But, why are these former order beings trapped in the cracks that should have completely dissipated long ago, still not completely dead to this day?

Perhaps it's because the former "most powerful" has touched some parts outside the scope of order. The "death" of the past, both in terms of its meaning and its effects, no longer fits this distorted and unrecognizable group. It may also be because the obsession left behind by that group was so strong that they really transcended life and death in all current senses in that extremely special environment. However, they have also been expelled outside the boundary by order, and can only roar one after another in the gap between the void, with the help of their burning wreckage that is being blown away by nothingness and caught between the lines of fire.

Who knows?

"Scope" is really important. Once the range of the measurement scale is exceeded, it is meaningless to use the original view to understand the parts that spread out. No matter how you say it, no matter how you say it, it won't be wrong, and of course it won't be right. There may still be some ideas that apply, but at present, there is no yardstick by which to measure whether they are right or wrong.

"So that's what I said, the past period was really thrilling." lhjl1864343 found that after listening to the increasingly mysterious stories of the two people, the values ​​of various parameters that measured the details of his senses had fluctuated. Like a lone boat in the roaring waves.

"That's true. In the process of implementing these plans, everyone involved takes responsibility and risks, including us and others who know these things."

"So, now, can I ask for the details of a question I asked before?" Kriz summoned the courage to ask, "What are the specific considerations for not isolating me? Or why not prepare a deliberate What about the “natural environment” to help me get through this special time?”

"Your consideration is based on the premise that "isolation is the use of practical means to block and restrict the activities of information bodies" and "isolation can bring security." However, first of all, "isolation" is not the only way you think. . We did not lock you up, but that doesn't mean we didn't do everything we could to take measures. Then, the premise you are tacitly assuming is not necessarily true - locking you up may not bring about the same Safety and benefits that match purpose and action.”

"Finally, it's because your birth was very sudden - your precursor, that is, the narrative singularity, is free and unstable. No one can accurately predict its future changes, so you suddenly have such a reality. His body appears in the empire in the form of a humanoid life form. We cannot predict such a thing."

"So, by the time the empire notices you and begins to study you, the best time to isolate you in the way you think has passed. If we isolate you again in the future, then we will be relying on external force Twisting an ongoing story, the story is not unchangeable, but this change requires the cooperation of multiple factors. We don’t have the time and opportunity to create them.”

"Ah, I really haven't thought too much in this direction."

"So are we."

"It doesn't matter. In fact, you don't have to think about this. This is not something you need to deal with, but ours. It's just that now we have such an opportunity to communicate, and we can open up our default trust to each other. This is also beneficial. ."

"Default trust" As ui65312 said such a phrase, the four of them invariably felt a kind but unfamiliar "sense of familiarity".

"Is it because of the Emergence Ceremony?"

"Yes, this is exactly the function of the emergence ceremony." ui65312 said seriously, "The direct purpose of launching the emergence ceremony is not to create a perfect living environment with no problems and no errors. This is wrong. The function of the emergence ceremony is Change the atmosphere so that the atmosphere can continue to develop in a good direction, and gradually suppress it while this development process is going on. In the end, it may even be possible to eliminate all the "soil" that breeds negative content and dark sides. This is the accurate meaning of the emergence ceremony. Purpose"

"Wait, Chief, I want to ask." Kriz suddenly interrupted ui65312, "Soon after a new world is born, will there be something complicated that I can't see through?"

"This cannot be generalized, but if something appears in a new world that you cannot see through, then... wait, there is something that you cannot see through?!"

"Alert! Unidentified vesicles are emerging!"