Sword of Dawn

Page 437

Only other nodes in the empire that are still in a state of interruption are reminding everyone that the previous mutation is by no means an illusion.

Rebecca looked nervously at the center of the hall. A silver-white metal pillar stood there, as if running through the entire facility. Kamel, who was shining with arcane brilliance, was floating beside the pillar. It swelled nearly twice, and stood there like a radiant giant. Countless streams of arcane light shot out from the gaps in his rune armor, connecting a large number of runes and guides on the metal pillars. The magic node - this arcane master from 1000 years ago is using his own way to perceive the energy noise remaining in the magic net. There are certain risks in doing so, but it is the most efficient and most reliable method now.

After a while, Kamel finally ended the connection, his body slowly recovered, and floated to the commander's seat at the front of the hall.

"Master Kamel," Gawain asked before Rebecca could speak, "How is the situation? Have you found out the reason?"

"It is certain that a very powerful energy body has entered our network - the traces left by the neural network show that the scale of this energy body is beyond our imagination. If it runs out of control, it can almost burn the entire magic net!" With a tone of lingering fear, what Meier said made everyone on the scene have the urge to gasp, "However, this energy body has cleverly carried out countless times of 'self-splitting' when passing through the network— —it amortized itself, flowed through those nodes in pieces, without causing any damage, like flowing water... 'penetrated' into the lowest layers of our network, and disappeared there."

Gao Wen felt that he was listening to the Arabian Nights, even with the "world view of this world", it was difficult for a while to understand what Kamel described. Even Rebecca, who was always big-hearted, was stunned: "Oh my god... what is that thing... how did I hear you mean that thing seems to be... some kind of living thing?!"

"This is somewhat beyond common sense, but it seems... that is really alive, and even sane," Kamel said in a deep voice, "I tried to trace its traces just now, but all traces were skillfully erased, this It is not a phenomenon that can be caused by unconscious energy turbulence at all."

Gao Wen's brows were furrowed, and various speculations were surging in his mind. He felt that he seemed to have some ideas, and subconsciously asked: "...Is that energy body 'divided' among itself in order to avoid damaging the network?"

"Not sure, if ta is really something with intelligence, then ta's diversion behavior may also be to avoid self-destruction-although that thing can indeed burn the magic net, it will definitely be severely damaged in the process, It may even be annihilated directly - that is the magical energy that spans the entire empire, and its power is far beyond the imagination of mortals. I don't think even the gods will take the initiative to attack such a powerful energy..."

The scene Kamel described made Gawain more serious. The accident that happened today exceeded any of his previous plans, and even made him feel a long-lost sense of powerlessness. However, when he just wanted to ask more During the details, a technician in a nearby monitoring seat suddenly yelled, interrupting the conversation of everyone on the podium:

"A signal from Shilin City has been received!"

Rebecca, Gao Wen and Kamel almost said in unison: "Connect!"

In the next second, the information from Shilin City was presented through the holographic projection at the front of the hall. Gawain saw Grand Consul Baldwin Franklin standing there, with the busy hub control hall in the background behind him. There was obviously a serious chaos in Shilin City, but everything seemed to have calmed down.

"Your Majesty," Baldwin Franklin said hastily as soon as the communication was connected, "We have just experienced an abnormal accident here. The communication has been completely cut off, the energy source has failed, and..."

"It's the same here, but the situation here seems to have calmed down," Gao Wen interrupted, "How is the situation over there?"

"Ah...it's back to normal here too," Patwin was stunned for a moment, and quickly reacted, "We are restarting each node, and now we have reconnected to the main hub of San Sunil and the imperial capital..."

While the Duke of the Western Territory was speaking, Gawain saw the image of the map of the whole territory reappeared above the largest projection device at the end of the hall, and some bright lights were gradually emerging from the magic net nodes that had been completely dimmed above. During several jumps and fluctuations, the nodes within the radiation range of Ten Forest City and San Sunil lit up one after another.

Soon, reports from technicians came from other listening seats: "Received a signal from Fort Winter!" "Communications with Longwind Fortress have been restored!" "The channel for Solinburg is clear!"

"It seems...everything is recovering," Gao Wen heaved a sigh of relief, but the strong doubt and uneasiness in his heart did not dissipate at all, "but we still haven't figured out the reason..."

"What is that energy body that suddenly invaded the network..." Rebecca also muttered subconsciously, "It's a pity that I didn't catch it and let it run away..."

Just as Rebecca muttered halfway, a small magic net terminal on the podium suddenly lit up, and a slightly old voice came out of it: "No, Your Royal Highness, that thing hasn't escaped yet—we caught it ta's tail."

"Duarter?" Rebecca immediately looked over the terminal, and Duarte in black has emerged from the holographic projection, "You said you caught it?"

"Catching," Duvalte nodded, "that thing is not completely out of the network, it is moving rapidly along the 'unconscious area' of the neural network, and Naritil is tracking in the border area-we need more computing nodes Support, this can strengthen Naritel's perception range and action speed."

"Notify the computing center," Gawain immediately looked up at Kamel, "all standby personnel who have no missions to enter the immersion chamber!"

……

Neural Networks, "The Unconscious Zone".

A vast and chaotic thick fog enveloped the whole world, the sky light of unknown origin floated high in the sky, passing through the dense fog and casting weird and distorted beams of light, illuminating the gray-white water surface at the bottom of the world, countless strange-shaped clouds and whirlpools were constantly floating in the sky. The fog condenses and dissipates in the depths, making the whole world in an unstable state of change all the time, and hollow wind sounds come from afar from time to time, making this place look even more weird and desolate.

This is the boundary area of ​​this huge and complex network, and it is the symbolic state presented by the "chaos" in the deepest part of the neural network. It is the lawless area generated by the interlaced mapping, interference, and iteration of a large number of mental nodes that make up the network.

Here, any orderly calculation eventually leads to disordered results, where useless data is destroyed every second, and unformed "ideas" and "memories" are reduced to nothing here—those thoughts And memory is formed by the interaction of the network connectors in sleep talk, and it is the result of countless brains roaming together. They are continuously formed and broken down in this boundary area, and what they present are those clouds and vortexes.

A mind that is normally connected to the neural network will never visit this area-a dozen layers of security protocols protect the user's brain to prevent reckless Internet roamers from being swallowed up by the "unconscious area", but today, this should be The "border" that no one visits ushers in uninvited guests.

A huge lavender phantom flashed in the depths of the mist. The shadow was projected on the gray water surface at the bottom of the mist, but it reflected countless grotesque runes and colorful light balls. Around this phantom that flashed quickly, The fine spider silk and illusory spider limbs are constantly growing and extending like a lingering dream.

A huge snow-white spider is moving fast above the mist. A huge spider web is rapidly forming and spreading around her. Her long limbs are stirring the thick mist below while running wildly. The spider mobilized, constantly forming disturbing barriers and false paths, while the aimless head of the white spider was always looking in one direction——

Although the lavender phantom is very fast, it has already fallen into the spider's web. For the predator, any escape of the prey in the spider web is just a sideshow before closing the web.

Naritil is an impatient predator.

So after determining that the timing was right, she immediately put an end to all information flow in the border area.

The lavender phantom was instantly restrained by the invisible force in the mist. Countless runes and chaotic lines of light and shadow burst out from its surface, like an out-of-control spell model showing a posture on the verge of collapse. However, In the next second, this "out-of-control spell model" quickly stabilized itself and began to collapse inwards—a large number of colorful light balls and runes first diffused outwards, and then condensed inwards. In just a few seconds, This chaotic and strange shadow has a definite "appearance".

It was a woman - at least some of the features looked like women.

Her figure is as huge as a clock tower, her face is beautiful but there is a sense of strangeness that is not human, her pupils are like broken stars showing dots of dots, there is no boundary between the white of the eyes and the pupils, and they are black Her long hair poured down from the back of her head, and there were a lot of wandering radiance and fine lightning flashing on the hair. However, from the head down, her entire upper body presented an illusory state, as if a cloud had condensed. It is vaguely seen that there is a black short robe draped over the body. Under the short robe is the outline of a female body. The lower body is only a thin cloud of mist. The cloud and mist continue to disperse and gather. , faint runes and balls of light emerged and revolved there.

The "lady" as huge as a clock tower finally stopped. She raised her head and saw a huge white spider descending from the mist. A dense web emerged around the spider, and the spider silk extended into the surrounding space, forming a fine and dense pattern. encirclement net.

She finally yelled out in exasperation: "Why do you keep chasing me?!"

The white spider stopped steadily on the gray-white water, and she seemed to be startled when she heard the oncoming shout, and then a small figure with white hair hanging down slowly emerged from the fine fluff on the top of the spider's head, Na Rui Tyrping looked at the "huge lady" not far away, with a serious face: "You broke the magic net, you pay for it."

"I didn't break anything!" The lady as huge as a clock tower seemed to become even more annoyed, she stared at the little girl on the spider in front of her - in her eyes, the girl and the spider were an obvious whole, "I passed by I have made exact calculations, since last year - nothing is broken! There is no way I could be wrong!"

Naritil blinked, and then nodded as if confirming with someone far away: "It seems that there is really no damage..."

"So you made a mistake—I don't argue with you, but I have to..."

"But I still can't let you go," Naritil shook his head, "You delayed the project, this is called 'economic loss'..."

"...Damn!"

After a moment of astonishment, the clock tower-like lady couldn't help cursing, and then the whole figure suddenly became unreal. In the short-term astonishment of the white spider, she broke free from the shackles of those spider webs and the surrounding fog, and became a ghost again. The phantom disappeared instantly!

However, this sudden escape that seemed to have a high success rate was not successful. She had just moved a short distance when the white spider's limbs blocked all her way like a teleport—she failed.

After several unsuccessful breakthroughs, the clock tower-like lady once again condensed into shape, and looked at Naritil with a shocked expression: "This is impossible...how can you be so fast!?"

Naritil thought about it seriously, and looked down at his own spider body, then looked up at the other side: "I have many legs."

Then she took a serious look at the "huge lady" for a few more times, and her eyes fell on the mist that was continuously gathering and separating from the lower body of the other party. She shook her head with some regret: "You don't even have legs."

"???"

Chapter 0921 The Escaped God

many legs...

In this brief moment, the gods who don't need to rely on breathing to maintain their lives feel suffocated for a while.

Mirmina stared at Naritil, and she felt that there must be something wrong with this huge, spider-like "similar" in front of her - this may be a disordered individual born based on a wrong trend of thought, or it may be a person who has reached the point of madness. A "near-dead person" at the critical point, no matter what the possibility is, it is best for her not to have any further contact with this spider.

The reason for being unable to escape from the spider's pursuit is of course impossible to be a childish reason like "legs are shorter than others". Milmina is very clear about this, she is just too weak now and is at a disadvantage in the field——

In order to plan this bold action today, she has disassembled and reorganized herself too many times, and has been consciously controlling her "growth" since thousands of years ago, just like a woman who relied on starving herself to get out The prisoner in the cage, her plan succeeded, but she also made herself weak, and this weakness, coupled with the disadvantages on the field, made it impossible for her to get away from the spider unscathed.

But she has to leave, and as soon as possible—this is a weird "border of thoughts", and the chaotic and shapeless waves of consciousness can be used to "grind off" the chains, but they can also cause great harm to herself. I can clearly feel that my remaining power is being lost, and the rate of loss is getting faster and faster.

"Listen, little spider, I have to get out of here," Mirmina tried to divert Naritil's attention with dialogue while stabilizing her form, "If it's a different environment and a different time, I'd be more interested in talking with you." Talk a little more, but not today—please step aside."

Naritil's attitude was very stubborn: "I want to take you to see His Majesty, he told you to go, so you can go."

"...That can't be done," the corner of the mist-like lady's mouth suddenly turned up a little, and she said with a smile, "I can't contact any mortals now...I cut off the contact with them with great difficulty... "

Nari Til frowned suddenly, and wanted to reason with the other party half a step forward, but in the next second, the lady as huge as a clock tower in front of her suddenly changed—the swelling and shrinking The ever-changing shadows and mist are suddenly elongated into countless ribbon-like structures. Between the grids formed by the ribbons, countless mirrors emerge from nothingness, reflecting chaotic balls of light and distant The thick fog, and then those balls of light and the dense fog disappeared again, and the image in the mirror turned into twinkling starlight, and the starlight was stretched and distorted into weird symbols, which interfered with Naritil's judgment...

Mirrors, threads, balls of light, smoke, starlight, symbols—these are all props or symbols commonly used by mortal mages to cast spells.

Naritil was stunned for a moment in the sudden chaos, but soon she realized that the long jointed limbs slid across the gray-white water surface, and the reflections corresponding to those mirrors appeared on the water surface—the upper layer The narrator weaves wrong facts, and reversely pollutes the battlefield created by the opponent through the relationship between the reflection and the ontology. Lady's body.

Naritil rushed up immediately—the white spider leaped high in the posture of a predator, and its long jointed limbs covered her head and face, but she immediately felt something was wrong: the jointed limbs hugged a ball without any resistance The latter quickly disintegrated into a large number of flying fragments, and gradually melted into the surrounding air.

Is it an illusion?

Naritil reacted, and immediately began to catch the other party's real traces through the ubiquitous spider silk, but the next second she received a chaotic and huge feedback: there were breaths all around, and everywhere the energy body collapsed. Fragments, those seemingly phantom fragments are actually torn from the main body—the other party sacrificed more than [-]% of his "body" to arrange this layer of "smoke" in order to escape his own perception!

The long legs of the white spider paddled wildly on the gray-white water several times, but after all, she failed to catch the trace of the other party. She stopped in frustration, and had to accept the fact that the prey had escaped.After a few seconds of frustration, she slowly moved again, and began to collect the "ashes" that remained after the fragments dissipated.

Those gray and black things are the only remaining evidence and clues after the intruders escaped. Although they are not considered useful results, they are at least somewhat rewarding.

When collecting a relatively large piece of debris, Naritil "heard" a somewhat distorted voice from inside: "...I borrowed your magic net, although this is not the original reason for you to build it Purpose... I owe you a favor. Tell your 'Your Majesty' that this favor will be repaid someday in the future."

This is the message left by the intruder.

Naritil was stunned for a while after hearing this message, and then silently put it together with other fragments, then she raised her head and looked at the "unconscious area" that had gradually returned to its usual state. Shaking his head in confusion, he muttered: "Why can you run so fast without legs..."

……

Eleven Franklin sat with the senior students of the Department of Magic and Magic, and waited anxiously for further news in the lounge of the computing center.

The door to the lounge was closed, and the corridor outside was quiet.

Eleven, who has been to the computing center several times, knows that next door to this room is a large immersion cabin computer room, where there are neat and brand-new immersion cabins, which can connect the brains of ordinary people to incredible neural networks—— He has connected several times himself, and the convenience of that thing in consulting materials and transferring information is impressive.

Today, he and the senior students are here for the Internet - but not for Internet entertainment or remedial classes, but the Imperial Computing Center needs a batch of additional computing power.

For Eleven, responding to the call of the empire is his unshirkable responsibility as a member of the nobles, but there are still many common people among his classmates who also volunteered to sign up... This was something he hadn't thought of before.

Although he has already adapted to the rule that he must get along with the children of common people on an equal footing, he has no "noble arrogance" in himself, and even has several commoner friends, but this kind of thing... is the first time he has encountered it.

He couldn't help but look at the classmate closest to him. The big boy named Storm sitting next to him was one of the civilian students who volunteered to sign up.

"Is there... is there any problem?" Storm quickly noticed the gaze from beside him, this young man who was always a little nervous adjusted his sitting posture immediately, and asked in a low voice.

"Uh...it's nothing," Eleven coughed lightly. He felt that the thought that came to him just now was a bit inappropriate, and it might even be part of aristocratic arrogance, so he immediately threw it out of his mind, "I'm just a little Worried, the teachers have been following the first batch of people in for a long time..."

"The teachers are more experienced than us, and didn't they say it before? It just needs some extra computing power, and there is no risk in itself," Storm said in a low voice, "The really tricky things are handled by stronger experts. "

"A really tricky thing..." Eleven suddenly thought of something, his face became a little gloomy, and his fingers clenched together nervously.

Ordinary students may not be able to figure out the situation until now, but he can vaguely guess something.

Today is the day when the magic net of the entire empire is connected to the network, and the incident that can make the teachers in the academy nervous is probably related to this "connection"-after all, those teachers are not the same as teachers in ordinary schools. Similarly, they are all leaders in the academic field, even in various research departments directly under the Supreme Government Affairs Office.

Not long ago, he had heard a strange, faint whistling sound coming from the direction of the Institute of Magic Technology. When he was walking through the college square with his classmates, he had seen the biggest magic machine on the square. There seemed to be a breakdown in the network terminal, and several teachers were checking the equipment there nervously. When he was leaving the college to go to the North Shore Development Zone, he glanced at the direction of the Magic Technology Research Institute. He saw the newly built The hub tower seems to be restarting, and several mages are casting flying spells, checking the magic device on the top of the tower...

This could point to a terrible accident, and his father, Baldwin Franklin, Duke of the Westlands... was one of the leaders of this "connection" project.

The more Eleven thought about it, the more nervous he became. He even wished he could run to find a usable magic net terminal and contact Shilin City to confirm the situation. However, he himself knew how unrealistic such an idea was, so he He could only sigh quietly, and grabbed the hem of the academy uniform with some force.

At this moment, a voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting his cranky thoughts: "Don't worry, nothing will happen."

Eleven raised his head, and unexpectedly saw that Storm, who was always nervous and introverted, was talking to him. He shook his head, trying to say that he was worried about something else, but the other party immediately added: " I'm talking about the magic net... I know your father is the Duke of the West, and I think he'll be fine."

Eleven's eyes widened suddenly: "Why do you..."

He didn't expect the other party to be able to break his own mind—although the connection of the magic net itself is not confidential, but as ordinary students who have nothing to do with this matter, they should not think of it at this time. As for this Stowe Hum, he is usually taciturn and even a little dull, not to mention the type who has a particularly keen observation and association ability... How did he think of the magic net?

Storm looked at the Duke's son in front of him. Two seconds later, he smiled cautiously: "My father is the tower guard of the Luan Junction..."

Eleven froze.

Before he could speak again, a short figure suddenly appeared in the room, and after startling the students, the signature loud voice rang out: "Students, go back! The matter is over !"

Eleven and the other senior students suddenly looked at each other, and someone stood up in astonishment: "It's over... what's over?"

"The incident has subsided ahead of time, and no more computing power is needed," Magnum waved his hand, "Go back, there is no class for half a day in the afternoon, everyone is free to rest."

Then he seemed to suddenly think of something, and added: "By the way, although the incident has subsided in advance, your active registration is still worthy of encouragement and rewards—I will personally give you two points for comprehensive evaluation at the end of the term."

The students were at a loss and surprised, but the teacher's last sentence was understood by everyone. The two-point score quickly calmed down the confusion of all the students. The students in the lounge expressed loudly as if they were afraid of Magnum's remorse. Thank you, and then quickly left here without hesitation.

Eleven also stood up, ready to leave with the others, and planned to quickly find an opportunity to check the situation on his father's side, but just as he was about to go out, he heard the mentor who is known for being strict and angry behind him. cried out loudly:

"Eleven, Storm, you two stop."

Eleven and Storm stayed, confused and slightly nervous.

Magnum floated in front of them like a ghost. After looking up and down at the two students, he waved his hands and said in a somewhat impatient tone, "Your family is fine—go back quickly."

……

On the large-scale holographic projection at the front of the hall, the surface of the map of the entire empire shimmers, and the white dots representing effective nodes and the lines connected between the dots are criss-crossed, interconnected and intertwined, forming a not dense, but already A network covering roughly the entire territory of the Empire.

Thorin Castle, Ten Forest City, Winter Castle...the main hubs appeared on the map in the form of miniature projections, and they were running quietly.

All communication is restored and all networks are connected.

"The hubs at all levels have been successfully launched and connected to the grid...successful?"

Rebecca stood on her podium and reported the current situation to Gao Wen, but when the report came to the end, she couldn't help scratching her head and dragging out a long voice of doubt.

Gao Wen still looked solemn, he looked at the holographic map in front of him, and didn't say a word for a long time.

The grid connection was indeed successful, at least all the data and evidence so far had achieved the expected results, however... this inexplicable success did not make him feel at ease.

He is waiting for further news from the neural network.

This time he didn't wait too long - not long after Rebecca's report was over, the small magic net terminal placed on the podium suddenly lit up, and Duvalt's figure appeared above the terminal.

This "humanity of God" bowed to him: "Your Majesty."

"How is the situation at Naritil?" Gawain immediately stepped forward and asked, "Have you caught the intruder?"

"The intruder was severely injured, but still ran away," Duvalt said with a look of regret and frustration on his face, "Naritel only brought back some difficult-to-analyze 'remnants'..."

"Run away?" Gao Wen immediately frowned, and subconsciously asked while his heart sank, "Then what is the intruder? Can you see the body and origin?"