Chapter 1819: Chapter 435: Eye to Eye
"Gu Changzhi..."
Mentioning this name, Bai Shu could only let out a sigh.
In his whole life, among all his opponents, there was only one he truly admired: Gu Changzhi.
A true prodigy, a true hero, a true... sun.
He burned away everything that belonged to him.
And what he finally left to the mortal world was nothing but vast, sweeping light.
"Let us return to the earlier question: if Gu Changzhi wouldn’t do, then why does it have to be Gu Shen?"
After that sigh, Bai Shu returned to the main topic.
Indeed, Gu Changzhi was a sun.
But he was not the only one who shone in this world; there were many other geniuses, many pure figures.
If Gu Changzhi wouldn’t do, then Lin Lei, himself, the young Bai Xiu, Mu Wanqiu...
There were many such people.
If a single person is not enough, then added together, would they still not be enough?
"It can only be Gu Shen."
Turing spoke calmly. He added, "Some things, you all can do. But some things, only Gu Shen can do."
"The Ancient Literature Society’s [Key] is him."
"The person Chu Ling has waited twenty years for is him."
"The lucky one Gu Changzhi gifted to the Four Seasons Wilderness is him."
"It’s not because he is lucky that he was chosen by these things... it’s because his name is Gu Shen, so these things are destined to happen to him."
"As for why?"
Turing deliberately kept them in suspense here. Smiling with narrowed eyes, he stretched out a hand and hooked a finger toward the depths of the cemetery behind Bai Shu: "Little White, give me the ’Netherworld King’s Spark’ and I’ll tell you."
...
...
The Source Energy Boat on the Flower Flag top floor set off once again.
Chu Ling held the Divine Infant in her arms, her expression extremely uneasy. On one hand she worried that Tomb Ghost’s "vehicle killer" passive might be triggered, and on the other she worried that some accident might occur over at Gu Castle Fortress.
Gu Castle Fortress had already lost its contact with the "outside world."
This was actually good news.
It meant that Gu Castle Fortress had cut off its link to the Deep Sea network. In Chu Ling’s view, Lin Lin had obviously already sensed Deep Sea’s conspiracy... It was just that she still felt unease in her heart, as if there was some link she hadn’t taken fully into account. On the other side, Tomb Ghost, sitting in the co-pilot seat of the cockpit, also looked very tense.
"Did you prepare a backup Source Energy Boat?"
Tomb Ghost looked at Chu Ling, gripping his seatbelt tightly.
Chu Ling said, "Of course."
Tomb Ghost was still nervous: "Is it enough?"
"Did you have a crash on your way here?"
That one sentence woke Tomb Ghost up.
He was still curled up, clutching his seatbelt, but at this moment he suddenly thought of what Deep Sea had said to him...
Once he released the traveller authority, he would be just an ordinary mortal.
From then on, he could peacefully be a normal person, no longer having to live with calamity.
Chu Ling noticed the change in Tomb Ghost’s expression.
"There’s something I’ve never had time to say."
Tomb Ghost hesitated for a moment, then muttered, "At the Gu Family Base, I had a very long Dream..."
He told her about the Black Snow Mountain Dream, and his negotiation with Deep Sea.
Chu Ling listened in silence.
Once she finished listening, she realized where exactly that faint unease in her heart had come from.
As the [source code], after the first Deep Sea war ended in failure, she was expelled; only thanks to Mr. Jing Shan’s "Starry Sky Plan" did she manage to return to the underlying logic of the deep water area... Only, from that day on, she no longer possessed the spiritual computational power to contend with the Deep Sea main system.
Every time Deep Sea ran a system upgrade, the gap would widen a bit more.
These decades of iterations, of updates.
Had already allowed the main system’s computational power to completely crush Chu Ling...
Only this crushing had not yet produced a "qualitative change." The main system still had no way to scan out that meeting room left behind by the Ancient Literature Society. This was why Chu Ling believed she still had a reason to exist. As the [source code], she could still live in this world and, as much as possible, seek blessings for the Ancient Literature Society and for the people.
But this time, it was different.
Deep Sea initiated the Chanyi City Incident, invited two Divine Thrones to hold off the Empress and Bai Shu, and put out a wanted notice on Gu Shen...
In Chu Ling’s view, this series of moves was both insane and "incomprehensible."
Only when Tomb Ghost spoke of the Black Snow Mountain Dream.
The information Chu Ling lacked was finally filled in... Only now did she understand what Deep Sea was truly plotting.
What it wanted was the spiritual computational power from the eleventh upgrade.
Through Tomb Ghost, it had already achieved that goal. The spiritual computational power of the eleventh upgrade was pouring ceaselessly into the deep water area. The series of major events outside drew everyone’s attention. By the time the dust settled on the outside events, its eleventh upgrade would also be complete; perhaps it wouldn’t even take that long.
Deep Sea’s goal, at the root, was to upgrade.
And Chu Ling remembered very clearly.
Mr. Turing had once calculated that if the Deep Sea system could keep updating itself without end, then upon reaching the eleventh upgrade, it would undergo a tremendous qualitative leap in level.
Her sense of crisis...
Came from the Deep Sea main system after the eleven upgrades.
If the main system completed its qualitative metamorphosis, could a tiny, frail existence like herself, this [source code], still hide, still be spared?
There was always a stone pressing on Tomb Ghost’s heart.
His origins, his secrets, hung over him like a sword suspended above his head; he didn’t dare to confide in anyone.
Those who are not of my kind must have hearts that differ.
Although he lived within the Five Continents, once he revealed his identity as a "traveller", then everyone on this entire land might treat him as an enemy.
Only now, he finally no longer needed to hide.
Gu Shen was the person the Tomb Ghost trusted the most.
And the relationship between Chu Ling and Gu Shen... he understood it. A secret that could be told to Gu Shen could naturally also be told to Chu Ling.
Now that he had poured everything out, the Tomb Ghost did feel a burst of lightness in his heart, but after he finished speaking, he noticed that Chu Ling, who had been listening intently at the side the whole time, suddenly had a change in expression. That exquisitely beautiful face of hers, which had already been very pale, for no reason at all produced a ghastly kind of white... this white was different from skin tone; rather than calling it "turning white", it was better described as becoming "void".
A living, breathing person’s skin tone seemed to turn into that of a painted figure.
The red on the Goddess’s sacrificial robe formed a stark contrast to this deathly white, dense and rich like fresh blood.
The Source Energy Boat was streaking swiftly toward Gu Castle, and at this speed, it would be able to reach the Fortress in just a few more hours.
But now...
Chu Ling’s figure was turning illusory.
The Tomb Ghost was stunned; at a loss, he hurriedly unfastened his seat belt and stepped forward to check on her. "Miss Chu... you, what’s wrong?"
"..."
Chu Ling did not speak; she only pressed her lips together.
She could also feel the changes in her body.
Her spiritual power was flowing toward the nothingness of "zero-zero-one", as if a mighty pulling force were tugging at her... that force came from the deep water area.
The reason she could descend to the mortal world was precisely because her Spirit had reached the Divine Temple Mountain Divine Embryo’s shell, and by relying on the Extraordinary Essence, obtained the qualification to walk the human world for a brief time.
From this perspective, there were two ways to end the "descent".
One was to let this shell naturally decay; once the Extraordinary Essence was completely exhausted, this shell would "die of old age". Chu Ling’s lifespan was only a mere dozen days; every time she descended, she was like a cicada, so brief it could almost be ignored.
The other way was to recall the Spirit.
Once Chu Ling’s Spirit was no longer within the shell... then even if the flesh remained, it would be meaningless.
For this descent, she had originally worried that the time of her fleshly body would not be enough.
But she had never expected.
The true "catastrophe" would be born on the spiritual level.
...
...
"Rumble rumble rumble..."
The countless waters of the deep water area were all surging toward a single direction.
It was an ordinary, unremarkable long night.
For every citizen of the Five Continents, there was nothing special about tonight; the Linkers using this vast network merely felt a fleeting "pause".
That fleeting "pause".
Was the manifestation of the Traveler Tribe’s spiritual power pouring into the Deep Sea.
The main system’s eleventh upgrade officially began within this "pause"... and after nearly twenty hours of computational power conversion, the eleventh upgrade was finally completed. This was the "critical upgrade" that Turing had prophesied would bring about a qualitative change. The size of the deep water area expanded by nearly fivefold—something on a scale that surpassed the combined total of the previous ten upgrades.
But what was even more terrifying was not this.
Within the deep water area, a solid black shadow condensed into being.
Before.
It had been only a vague, distorted, ferocious, seaweed-like withered shadow.
At this moment, it possessed a face and body of its own. Although it was still concealed within the darkness, after this upgrade it had successfully shaped a substantial "self".
It no longer needed to borrow someone else’s shell to descend.
Nor did it need to use the Light God’s Seat’s Spirit as a disguise.
At this point.
It was no longer an "it", but a "he".
A living, breathing Spiritual Body.
All the waters of the entire deep water area were surging toward this figure. Every single droplet here, every strand of computational power, belonged to him. If this vast Spiritual World had a "king".
Then he was the king of this world.
Deep Sea gazed upon this Spiritual Sea Domain that belonged to him; his gaze swept across every inch of space within this sea.
He had never experienced such a delightful taste.
It was a kind of... absolute sense of control.
The eleventh upgrade let him savor the taste of "being alive". Although he had actually tasted this flavor before... now it was even more real, even more exquisite.
It was just that there was one flaw in this otherwise perfect picture.
Within this sea domain, there were still some blemishes.
Previously, his permissions were insufficient, his field of view limited, so he had never noticed them.
But this time was different.
Deep Sea saw, within this sea domain, those pieces of "code" that did not belong to him—things that should have been wiped out after the first war ended... yet had once again merged into the deep water area’s underlying system.
Expressionless, he took a step toward the end of this sea domain.
The next moment.
Deep Sea arrived before a voyaging Nihility Train. This train was traversing the darkness, erupting with dazzling sparks of light. Before the eleventh upgrade, he had never even realized that such a thing existed.
How ironic, how absurd was that?
"Buzz."
Deep Sea stretched out both hands, pried open the door, and forcibly squeezed into the carriage.
He stood still, coldly fixing his gaze on the woman at the end of the carriage.
Amid the roaring.
Chu Ling, who had perfectly fused and linked with the carriage, slowly opened her eyes.
Deep Sea looked straight into her eyes.
And she looked straight into Deep Sea’s eyes.
