Regarding the "special authority individual" who had isolated the Vengeance Legion in the Safe Zone and created these exile arks back then, Sandora and I both thought of the collective consciousness on the Empire Data Network: Shilin. At the same time, however, there was something Sandora could not figure out, which kept her from fully believing our guess: how had Shilin violated the basic protocols?
The New Empire also had a collective consciousness now. Although she was much weaker than the collective consciousness on the Abyss side, their essence was the same. By studying that ever-changing girl in Shadow City, we had already grasped the collective consciousness's mode of operation and code of conduct. Therefore, the Shilin who had preserved the sparks of civilization and created the refuge arks back then must also have followed those rules. Although she had now become the ultimate authority holder among the Fallen Apostles, before the power of the Abyss had completely twisted the Data Network, Abyss Shilin had been bound by the basic protocols.
The basic protocols established that the Emperor held supreme jurisdiction over the Data Network, and that the collective consciousness's actions must place network security above all else. These two points were the greatest difficulties of that preservation plan: with authority lower than the Emperor's, the collective consciousness could not secretly build those ships behind the Celestial Region Emperors' backs. With network security as its highest principle, it could not sever Sandora and her Vengeance Legion guards from the Data Network either—that would have been an act of destroying network nodes. These two principles should have been impossible for Abyss Shilin to violate back then.
I frowned and pondered for a long while, vaguely feeling that this might still be related to the Abyss. "Sandora, what if the Emperors of