After the two Autonomous Mechanical Units had worked feverishly for a while, "Heart of Darkness" and most of its nerve fiber bundles were finally completely separated from the brain core cavity. Aside from the neural base, which remained connected to certain key tissues inside the brain core cavity, most of the strange organ's structure was now exposed before everyone's eyes. As for the neural base—in the absence of a clear understanding of Heart of Darkness's nature and operating mechanism, removing it rashly would be extremely risky, so Hao Ren decided to leave it as it was for the time being.
Galadriel stood before Heart of Darkness with Hao Ren, her arms crossed. "What do you think?"
"It looks like a diseased brain core, but it's connected to a normal brain core... This probably isn't merely a disease. Look at the shape of these nerve fiber bundles, and the condition of those tentacles around them. It feels like this thing is trying to seize control of Yggdrasil."
An Autonomous Mechanical Unit floated over from the side and drove one of its polymorphic needles into Heart of Darkness's outer layer, while inserting another needle into the normal brain core. After reading part of the surface-level neural impulses, Hao Ren's guess was confirmed.
The diseased brain core was indeed devouring the healthy brain core's strength, and it wasn't merely suppressing its nerves. It was releasing a pollutant similar to source blood, constantly damaging the healthy brain core's tissues. The battle between the two had clearly been going on for many years.
"This phenomenon is unheard of," the Data Terminal couldn't help exclaiming. "The Firstborn never get sick—or at least, none of the Firstborn discovered so far have shown any disease. Even those who went mad and became World Enders only suffered mental problems;