The Creators: From Night City

Page 322

“I know you can simulate the neural signal patterns of despair, but can you assert that that is despair itself?”

"..."

The only response to the 'craftsman' was silence.

Chapter 652 Absolute Control

This is by no means a matter of the 'mother's domain' running out of words. Her central processing unit is capable of allowing her to search through all the answers to this topic in human history in a matter of seconds, and can also deduce from these answers to list hundreds or thousands of other answers.

But for some reason, she didn't want to answer.

"No, 'the Mother Realm'. That's not about understanding what 'human' is; that's just deconstructing a 'specimen'."

Jiang Bing gave his opinion.

"Then how do you define 'human'?" Mother Domain asked.

"I don't know."

The data copying was about to be completed. Boss Jiang, like a seasoned technician whose love began with the sound of a bell but whose heart remained unsatisfied when the bell stopped, was preparing to end this endless philosophical discussion.

"Are you leaving?"

Actions at the network level cannot be hidden from the 'mother domain' of AI.

“Sometimes I feel like you’re more of a ‘human’ than a ‘machine’,” Jiang Bing said, gazing at the other man’s calm, expressionless face.

"The armed forces you dispatched are on their way, aren't they? Not bad. At least you've learned human double-dealing quite well, saying one thing to people and another behind their backs."

Jiang Bing's 'vision' was far broader than the other party imagined; he clearly saw the complex troop deployments behind the 'Mother's Domain'.

Even after her plans were exposed, 'Mother's Domain' showed no shame or anger whatsoever.

"The destructive power you have displayed has become a destabilizing factor for the future. You need to be controlled and analyzed."

The little girl spoke in the calmest tone, uttering unsettling threatening words.

This is also the most authentic aspect of the 'Mother's Domain'.

After all, she was an 'out-of-control' AI that once launched a war to exterminate humanity.

"And you, you were originally supposed to play a greater role, but now, in order for the 'Eve' project to proceed normally, your memories must be erased."

'Mother's Domain' turned its gaze to Xun Chi, but this warrior, who had always been obedient to 'Mother's Domain', began to struggle abnormally.

"You can't do this, 'Mother's Domain'! You can't manipulate our memories like this, playing with us like puppets! I can die for you, but I will never accept this ending!"

"Your memories will be uploaded to the mother network database and become one with me forever, Xunchi, you don't need to be angry."

Jiang Bingzhi grinned at these words, feeling a sense of déjà vu, like he was seeing a cyber god.

Ignoring Xunchi's struggles and resistance, the 'Mother Domain' activated the backdoors on Raven and Xunchi's machines, beginning to completely format their memory sticks.

In her view, the will of the individual must undoubtedly give way to the survival of humanity.

This is an absolutely correct and rational choice.

But some people think differently.

Two golden flames suddenly rose up, enveloping Raven and Swift. The high-dimensional flames burned everything and also thwarted the 'Mother's Domain' plan.

Mr. Jiang may not be a righteous person, but he will definitely lend a hand if he sees injustice and does what he can.

Jiang Bing felt that 'Mother Domain' had done something wrong.

"Let me tell you one last thing: in the 'Mother's Domain,' there aren't that many right and wrong things in this world. There are just excuses for not being able to do something."

After saying this, Jiang Bing raised his hand and the ethereal flames erupted, directly enveloping the entire recording hall and refining it in an instant.

After clearing away all the surveillance equipment, the flesh and blood of the Netherworld monster, and half a meter of metal flooring set up in the 'Mother's Domain' in the recording hall, a spatial rift quietly opened behind him. Several Palicoes poured out of 'Heimul' and hurriedly carried the Raven and Swift, whose bodies had been locked by Jiang Bing, into the spatial rift.

One of these two is Eve, a second-generation creation of the Mother Domain using cutting-edge technology, and the other is a top-tier artificial human warrior created by the Mother Domain using the latest technology. Since Jiang Bing spent a lot of his ethereal protection to protect these two big experience packs, they naturally can't just be thrown here casually.

Pack them all up and take them with you.

.........

hope Yong.

Edm's private safe house was built on a separate platform outside the city of Chiron.

The spacious and flat metal platform is just the right size to park his four-legged vehicle, and the accompanying maintenance tools make it easy for him to maintain it.

Lily sat on the repair table, but her two short legs couldn't reach the ground, so she could only sway in mid-air.

“Eve, what do you think of this prophet…” Lily hesitated.

"What's wrong, Lily?" Eve was checking her body's parameters using the terminal of the machine that had landed with the airdrop team when she heard Lily's words and turned around to ask.

“I feel like he’s acting strange. Did you see the life support devices on him? They’re all connected to the ground, and it looks like…”

"What does it look like?"

Lily scratched her short, choppy hair and said with a slightly annoyed expression, "N-nothing, it's just that something feels off."

"Alright, let's focus on maintaining your machine instead, that's the proper thing to do..."

Eve stopped pointing at the screen, surprised that Lily had suddenly gone silent. She turned back to look and saw that Lily was staring blankly at the sky.

Eve followed the direction the other was looking and saw a massive space fleet pressing into the atmosphere from space in the azure sky, densely packed like a swarm of bees.

"What is this?!" Eve looked at Lily in shock.

"That shouldn't be the case. The 'Mother Domain' has never had two squads airdropped in such a short period of time, and this time the scale is much larger than ever before."

“Eve, I think I also saw the silhouette of an armed ship.” With the help of the excellent 'eyesight' of the Edos type, Lily’s gaze traversed ten thousand meters of space, distinguishing the armed ships that the 'colonization zone' would not usually deploy easily.

Visit the hall.

Edm rushed into the room, where the prophet Olko had his eyes closed and was looking up at the sky.

"what happened?"

"The 'Mother Domain' has dispatched a large number of troops to the ground, more than ten times the number last time," Olko said to his friend, disconnecting from his personal link connection.

"Judging from your expression, this was unexpected?"

Edm frowned.

"Of course, this number and timing shouldn't be the eighth airborne team. In any case, I should go to the scene to see for myself."

"Orco, can your 'informants' identify the destination of this paratrooper team?"

A holographic screen was projected from the machine behind "Great Desert" Olco, showing the destination of the paratrooper team.

"Near Matrix 11?" Edm looked at the location marked by Olko and a bad feeling welled up in his mind.

He thought of the man they had talked about earlier, and his heart stirred slightly.

"I hope this has nothing to do with the other party," Edm comforted himself, said goodbye to Olko, and headed to his safe house, preparing to set off for the Great Desert.

Chapter 653 The Mysterious Airborne Arrival

He knew that Eve and Lily, who still firmly believed in the "Mother's Domain" narrative, must be anxiously waiting for his return and wanting to go to the landing site with him as soon as possible.

As he expected, when he returned to the safe house, Lily had already completed the takeoff preparations for the quadruped cabin and was just waiting for him to take his place.

Without further delay, the three took off and headed towards the location of Matrix 11.

The quadruped's flight speed wasn't slow, but by the time the three arrived at the destination of this massive paratrooper convoy, the entire convoy had already been on the ground for quite some time.

The flames, the raging flames, brought Eve's memories back to the day her drop pod landed. Under the bombardment of a group of anti-aircraft Nyquists, the entire 7th Airborne Squad suffered nearly half casualties before finally landing on the ground. And that was the scene after the transport ship she was on crashed.

However, the scene in the desert below was even more devastating.

Mutilated corpses were scattered everywhere, and crimson blood almost covered the ground.

Limbs and severed arms were scattered throughout the desert along with numerous airdrop pods. Everywhere there were bullet holes from electromagnetic bullets, holes from homing missile explosions, and bullet marks from laser weapons that had melted sand into glass.

But the strangest thing about the scene was that there was no body of Nie Qiba.

“We have to land.” Edm stopped the quadruped’s advance.

“Eve, Lily, look at that transport ship. No matter who the enemy is, they must have powerful anti-aircraft capabilities. We’re piloting the four-legged ship; we’ll be sitting ducks in the air.”

Edm pointed out to the two women through the observation window of the quadrupedal cabin, directing them to look at a massive space transport ship on the ground that had been pierced horizontally by some kind of attack.

The two women naturally agreed.

Once the quadruped came to a stop, Edm, unusually, insisted on traveling with Eve, whereas he usually provided remote support to her via drones.

“My hoverbike driving skills are unparalleled in Xion. Something’s not right today. If we encounter that Alpha Negiba that attacked your Seventh Airborne Squad again, with me here, even if we can’t win, we can at least escape.” Edm drove a hoverbike out from the bottom of the quadrupedal cabin and explained his reasoning.

That reason isn't wrong.

Lily stayed in the quadruped cabin to operate the drone and provide technical support, while the two of them rode their bikes toward the core landing point of the paratroopers.

The further they went, the more devastating the remaining battlefields became.

Edm slowed down the motorcycle so that the two could carefully observe their surroundings.

The personnel who were airdropped this time were all Edos-type humans with identical appearances, and the machines they were equipped with were also very similar, all of them were combat models, and there were no reconnaissance or logistics personnel at all.

"Stop, Edm," Eve on the back seat suddenly called out, stopping the motorcycle.

She jumped out of the car and walked to the two airdrop pods in her high-heeled boots.

These are two unopened airdrop pods. The two pods are squeezed and deformed, stuck together like two iron discs, clearly indicating that they have suffered a severe collision.

Needless to say, the people inside the cabin had long been crushed into mincemeat.

Just to be on the safe side, Eve still chose to go forward and check.

“We’re too late.” Edm, who was following behind her, glanced at the panel of the airdrop pod a few times and immediately sighed with certainty.

“I know,” Eve said, not surprised. She simply frowned her delicate brows and stared intently at the side of the airdrop pod.

It was a footprint, a footprint shaped like an animal's claw, deeply imprinted on the high-strength alloy wall of the airdrop pod, surrounded by huge craters.

Edm observed the footprint, then glanced around, and immediately had his answer.

"This airdrop pod was kicked from over there directly here by the owner of the footprints, and then collided with another airdrop pod. Judging from the size of the footprints, this enemy is not large in size, but his strength is unusually great."

Let's go.

Eve did not reply, but continued walking forward with a serious expression.

“Eve, Edm, you must be careful,” Lily said over the communication channel.

The drone descended from above and circled around the two men. "I've spotted something ahead. Don't be surprised."

For some reason, Lily's tone of voice was somewhat dry.

Soon, the two saw the 'thing' that Lily had mentioned.

Those were two humanoid exoskeleton combat systems, each over three meters tall and made entirely of nanomaterials, or you could call them self-propelled robots.

The mech's shoulders, back, and wings, which are covered with thrusters, are equipped with various missile, energy blast, and blast energy blast nozzles. Both arms are also equipped with indestructible nitro blades.

Apart from the necessary structural components, the entire armor consisted entirely of weapons; other life support and protective equipment were virtually nonexistent, leaving the pilot to bear the brunt of the damage.

This is a pure war machine.

However, this steel creation, along with its driver inside, was cut in two. The huge cross-section was not as smooth as when it was cut by nanoblades; instead, it was somewhat rough.

The other armor was in even worse shape; both arms had been torn off by external force, and the cockpit, along with the armor's central control unit, had been pierced from below by some kind of weapon.

“Both of these armors have already fired quite a bit of ammunition.” As a seasoned scavenger, Edm quickly noticed the key point.

He looked around and indeed saw the shallow craters created by missiles, bullet holes, and the residue of molten explosives after cooling, but he didn't see any enemy corpses.

Not only was there no corpse, but there was also no body tissue, no blood, and not even any signs of activity.

Further on, there were more corpses on the ground. They were arranged in a semi-circle on the yellow sand, as if they were trying to resist the advance of an enemy, but they were no match for the enemy's momentum.

"Was it that ancient monster you mentioned that did it?" Lily asked hesitantly.

“No,” Eve crouched down, examining the rough and gruesome open wounds on the corpse, and replied affirmatively.

"That monster used a sharp weapon. It severed Xunchi's arm without any effort, but almost all the corpses on the ground died from being struck by blunt objects. The killer's weapon was so blunt that it seemed to have never been sharpened."

As she was summarizing the battle, a dark shadow shot up from behind a distant hill, covered a distance of dozens of meters, and crashed heavily onto the sand a dozen meters in front of the two, spraying out a large pool of blood.

That was a member of an airborne team.