Chapter 499: Chapter 430: History of the Past (Double-Length Chapter) (Part 2)
But this feeling only lasted for a moment.
Jeming’s eyes regained clarity and sharpness.
Now was not the time to lament. The most critical weapon at hand was the massive technical information he had acquired from the information flow—about this civilization’s history, as well as the spherical object’s structure, energy circuits, firewall nodes, and operational protocols!
He immediately took action.
His consciousness controlled his spiritual power, and using the method he had just "learned," he precisely injected streams of energy signals with specific frequencies and codes into several key energy flow nodes on the surface of the sphere.
Buzz...
The sphere’s surface rapidly flashed with flowing light, and then, before Jeming, a virtual operation interface composed of complex three-dimensional patterns and energy lines was projected out of thin air.
The interface style was entirely different from the Wizard Rune, filled with a geometric aesthetic and a flowing sense akin to biological circuits, yet its basic input, output, control, and storage logic were the same.
Jeming’s hands flew like the wind, and his consciousness and actions synchronized as he swiftly input commands into the interface.
The technical information he had just acquired turned into a sharp blade of decryption.
The progress of conquering the internal system firewall of the sphere advanced rapidly under Jeming’s flying fingers.
With the sphere’s defense system having lost its "active defense" capability and facing targeted breaches of its internal protocols, it faltered step by step.
"No!!!"
At this moment, a massive will mixed with anger, terror, and despair erupted from the depths of the sphere, directly impacting Jeming’s consciousness.
This time, it was not a chaotic flood of information but a spirit roar filled with emotions.
"Stop! Invader! Stop!" the will howled, "We just want to survive! We’ve given up our physical bodies, given up freedom, just to continue existing in this cruel void! Spare us! We can negotiate! We can hand over some technology! Stop the decryption!"
The wails and pleas were completely different from the previous cold and grand will, appearing humble and sorrowful.
Jeming, shaken by the spiritual power’s turmoil under this roar, showed no change in his expression.
His hands did not stop at all, and the decryption progress bar continued to rise.
However, to prevent constant interference from the other party, he diverted a strand of consciousness with a hint of sarcasm and directly "returned" a message:
"You say you want to survive? But hasn’t your civilization long been extinct?"
The will inside the sphere suddenly froze, as if pierced by the truth it least wished to face, resulting in a brief "system crash."
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Jeming accelerated his actions and broke through two layers of encryption protocols while continuing to convey information, his tone cold as a blade:
"Now occupying this plane, serving as the main force of the war, possessing social forms, and struggling for survival through the constant cycle of death and rebirth, is the Reaper Race."
"They are the bodies you once ’abandoned,’ new life reborn under the influence of the laws of time and cycle, possessing their own simple yet resilient collective consciousness."
"And you," Jeming’s consciousness "voice" continued its ruthless dissection, "proclaim to be the masters and continuators of civilization, yet in the observation and definition by us Wizards, you are merely a composite of lingering consciousnesses imprisoned by your own fear, parasitically existing within this machine. You are a withered branch that imagines itself still as the trunk on the evolutionary tree of civilization. You are the cast-off scraps of a civilization."
"Nonsense! Outrageous! Bastard! We are the essence of civilization! The ascension form!" The sphere’s consciousness was thoroughly enraged.
Perhaps because its sore spot was hit, the roar became even more frantic and piercing: "It was you! You invaders! You destroyed our homeland! Interrupted our path of ascension! You are the Destructors!"
Facing this accusation, Jeming’s expression remained unchanged, and his decryption actions, on the contrary, sped up as he exploited the logical loopholes revealed by the opponent’s emotional upheaval.
"Invaders? I admit, indeed, the Wizard Civilization came here with purposes of conquest and knowledge seeking, and there’s nothing to deny about it," Jeming responded calmly, "but the destruction of this world was never by us."
Saying this, Jeming, not only in his spirit will mixed with sarcasm, even his face could not help but reveal a slight sarcastic smile:
"The ones who destroyed this world were yourselves. Or rather, it was you—this part of the consciousness that chose escape, fear, and self-imprisonment."
"What...What are you saying?!" In the anger of the sphere’s consciousness, for the first time, uncontrollable trembling mixed in, fear born from having its deepest secret exposed.
"That historical record is beautiful, tragic, yet full of holes," Jeming continued to perform the final firewall disengagement while calmly stating his reasoning.
"For a high-level civilization with independent consciousness for each individual, did social chaos really naturally subside through ’insect-like discipline’ after the damage to the plane? When it became apparent that the superweapon project essentially failed and could only create a time prison, did the entire civilization truly ’unanimously’ and ’selflessly’ agree to the ’spiritual ascension’ ritual?"
"Furthermore, according to our actual research, the Low-Tier Reaper Race mainly relies on the instinctive transmission of information through pheromones and Soul level. They resemble independent newborn life forms. Only a few High Tier individuals display characteristics similar to ’remote control’ or ’memory implantation.’ And if your so-called ’spiritual connection manipulation of bodies’ is truly perfect, why are there so many uncontrolled emotions of ’war-weariness’ and ’fear’ spreading among the Reaper Race, even in contradiction to your will?"
Jeming’s conjecture was like assembling a puzzle, piecing together scattered clues into a brutal truth:
"So I speculate that the original civilization of the Reaper Race faced severe division in the face of disaster and despair. One faction, possibly called the ’Exploratory Faction’ or ’Resistance Faction,’ insisted on continuing research and repairing the plane, believing that ultimately they still had to march into the stars, even if faced with unknown dangers."
"The other faction is you—the ’Locking Faction’ or ’Fear Faction,’ completely terrified by the disaster, believing that only by sealing off the entire plane and transforming it into an impenetrable fortress...even if merely a time prison, could they achieve ’safety.’
"The so-called ’spiritual ascension’ and ’body modification’ was never a voluntary grand act of the whole civilization, but very likely the brutal suppression and transformation implemented by the ’Locking Faction’ upon winning their struggle against the defeated!"
"You shattered or imprisoned their consciousness, transformed their bodies into the original, foundational Reaper Race war machines, as cannon fodder and consumables for defending your ’shell’!"
"And as for you," Jeming gazed at the mechanical sphere whose light was gradually dimming and seemed to be trembling, "the so-called ’ascension’ is probably just transferring the fear-driven collective consciousness into this relatively safe control core, dragging out an ignoble existence in another form while deluding yourselves into believing that you are still the masters of civilization, still engaged in a grand ’survival defense war.’"
"Those High-Tier Reaper Race members, perhaps some indeed are your reserved ’control terminals,’ but more likely are grotesque products evolved over long cycles from those modified bodies, bearing partial imprints of original memory.
"No... it’s not true... you’re lying! We are the saviors of civilization! We saved..." The roar of the sphere’s consciousness became chaotic, fragmented, filled with frantic denial and rage at having its most unsavory truth exposed.
But its reaction precisely validated Jeming’s hypothesis.
Beep!
A crisp system notification indicating a change of authority rang in Jeming’s ears.
The last core firewall was disengaged.
(One more Chapter.)
The datastream and operational authority representing the highest control over the "Time Paradox Generator" opened up to Jeming like an unguarded treasure.
