Chapter 120

"In fact, Ai Yue also made arrangements for you, but you ran away before you even heard about those parts."

Aponia took out the envelope Ai Yue had left for Pardofelis from her bosom and handed it to her. "No matter what, you should read it before making a decision, right?"

"Did Brother Yue give this to me?"

Pardofelis took the envelope suspiciously and carefully opened it. "Is it going to be another 'I'm just waiting for him to come back'?"

Aponia didn't know what Ai Yue had written to Pardofelis in the letter, but after reading it, Padofelis' mood clearly improved.

"Hehe, I didn't expect this time to be different from before..."

Pardofelis carefully placed the letter in her inner pocket, then grinned foolishly, "I'm important... I didn't expect Brother Yue to value me so much!"

Seeing Pardofelis's reaction, even Aponia couldn't help but become curious. "What did Ai Yue write?"

"Keep it a secret for now,"

Pardofelis said mysteriously, "It's not that I want to keep it a secret, it's that Brother Yue said the contents can't be told to anyone!"

Finally, she asked impatiently, "When do we leave?"

"There's no news from Dr. Mei yet,"

Aponia shook her head. "Until then, you can go wherever you want. I'm going to the First Research Institute. Do you want to come with me?"

"Um... I won't."

Pardofelis thought for a moment, then shook her head. "I have other things to do, I'll be going now!"

As she spoke, she couldn't wait to leave—as the most superstitious person among the Moth to Fire, she needed to carefully perform all the luck-changing rituals before participating in the mission.

Otherwise, it would be terrible if we failed!

Aponia watched Pardofelis's departing figure and shook her head slightly. "Ai Yue, how are you now?"

84

Chapter 84 What is the pinnacle of human intelligence?

Inside the Spiral Workshop, a bustling scene was unfolding at this moment.

Almost all the manufacturing equipment was awakened by Vill-V, emitting a deafening roar, and Vill-V stared blankly at the blueprints in front of her in this environment.

She remained silent at first, then scratched her head, then repeatedly turned the blueprints upside down, and finally couldn't help but slam her hand on the table. "I think Ai Yue is just making things difficult for me!"

"Mother Vill-V, please calm down."

Prometheus's voice came from the side, "Doctor Ai Yue entrusted you with this important task, which is obviously because he trusts your abilities."

"He's finally free, leaving this mess for me!"

Vill-V was still fuming. "There's so little time left. Even if I had the complete blueprints, it would be difficult to finish it before we set off. And now we only have half of the blueprints. How is it possible to finish this?"

Although Vill-V kept emphasizing that she possessed talents in specialized fields such as engineering machinery that were no less than Ai Yue's, she knew very well that this was just boasting. Even if she could make others believe her, she could not ultimately fool herself.

If the project at hand were still within the realm of human technology, then Vill-V was confident that she could achieve results at the same level as Ai Yue, and even be more Ai Yue in some details.

However, Ai Yue usually doesn't do such things. Whenever he does, it's always something that exceeds the current limits of human technology—like what's happening now.

To this day, Vill-V still hasn't figured out the purpose of the blueprint Ai Yue left her. You see, the secrecy level of this thing is so high that it's possible that only she and Ai Yue know about it in the entire human civilization, because in order to obtain this blueprint, Vill-V needs to use a key to extract it from Prometheus's core database.

Even Prometheus himself was unaware that such a document existed in his database until Vill-V used the key included in the envelope; apparently, she had been asked by Ai Yue to delete some of the related data.

"Mother Vill-V, I must say something,"

Prometheus interjected at this moment, "Whether it's based on the deductions from the virtual personality model I created, or on Doctor Ai Yue's understanding of you, this shouldn't be your most authentic reaction right now."

Vill-V immediately turned to look at Prometheus: "What are you trying to say?"

"What I wanted to say has already been written in Doctor Ai Yue's letter."

Prometheus didn't say it directly, but looked at the letter lying to the side. "You should be able to understand what he means, shouldn't you?"

The letter didn't contain much; it basically asked Vill-V to use the key to complete the unfinished blueprint left by Ai Yue. The only noteworthy part was that at the end of the letter, Ai Yue specifically wrote, "Stop pretending, I know you can definitely do it."

How did he find out?

Vill-V paused for a moment, then said, "I thought I had hidden it very well."

"Because you're performing very poorly right now—of course, this isn't my opinion, but Doctor Ai Yue's."

Prometheus mimicked Ai Yue's tone, saying, "If it were all of you, how could you willingly do only the work of dusting?"

Vill-V's eyes widened in surprise. "So, I've been working hard all this time, and that's wrong?"

"Given your personality, such stability is inherently suspicious."

Prometheus said, "And isn't there another possibility for this to be interpreted?"

"For example, it's not that you don't want to do some outrageous things, but that you no longer have the ability to do so, right?"

A smile remained on Vill-V's face, but her eyes calmed down. "As expected, I couldn't hide it from that guy."

After becoming Fused Warrior, Vill-V mastered an ability called "Thought Segmentation." With this ability, she can split her personality into different parts according to her needs. Each split personality has its own independent consciousness and can continue to grow through learning.

According to Vill-V's own plan, she would have used this method to divide her talents into different personalities according to her areas of expertise, so as to maximize her intelligence—if she hadn't met Ai Yue.

In the original storyline, Vill-V split herself into eight personalities, each corresponding to a different domain, and all eight personalities were geniuses.

But the current Vill-V only has two personalities.

Beyond retaining what she considered to be her purest "self," Vill-V devoted all her thoughts and talents to one thing—the analysis and imitation of Ai Yue.

Trying to become Ai Yue and gain extraordinary intelligence is an extremely dangerous thing to do, because once you lose yourself, you are likely to become a madman. Only Vill-V, who can split her mind, can do such a thing.

However, even if she used all her strength, she could not guarantee how much of Ai Yue's essence she could simulate. After all, in her observation and speculation, she could feel that there seemed to be a huge black hole hidden in Ai Yue's body.

That was a "Black Box" that shouldn't exist from a human perspective, a mysterious part that couldn't be observed or simulated through conventional methods. Vill-V's intuition told her that perhaps that was the fundamental reason why Ai Yue was able to achieve such success.

Even so, the imitation of Ai Yue has greatly benefited Vill-V, and perhaps she really has the potential to solve her current predicament.

Since that's the case...

Thinking of this, Vill-V closed her eyes, as if she had fallen asleep, and her body fell forward uncontrollably.

"Please note..."

Prometheus was about to warn her, but Vill-V regained consciousness first, bracing herself on the table with one hand to avoid the tragedy of her face hitting the table directly.

"Huh, the dust removal is finished? What's going on?"

Vill-V... no, to distinguish her, perhaps we can call her "Elvi". After regaining consciousness, she casually picked up the drawings on the table and began to look through them. "Oh my, this thing is interesting... is it asking me to complete it?"

"Yes, Mother Vill-V."

Prometheus replied, "Besides, you don't have much time left... at most four hours before the war begins."

"Time is tight and the task is heavy; it's obvious this is another job assigned by that bastard."

Elvi shook her head. "Forget it, there's no point in complaining anyway. Rose, come help."

"Understood."

Prometheus paused for a moment before responding.

Data and reality both told her that the person in front of her was Vill-V, but based on the other party's words just now, Prometheus could draw the absurd conclusion that "the person in front of her was actually Ai Yue".

That's really strange.

85

Chapter 85 What? It's actually the power to create invisible walls (not really).

A few hours later, at May's urging, the people involved in the plan gathered together again.

"Before I reveal what follows, I have one more question,"

Looking at the crowd gathered before her, Mei emphasized, "If anyone wants to withdraw, this is the last chance."

"I think there's no need to confirm anymore,"

Kevin said with a smile, "Everyone was prepared, wasn't they?"

"Doctor Ai Yue is our friend. Even putting that relationship aside, we cannot simply ignore the Herrscher."

Cosmo said, "If we were really going to run away, none of us would be here."

"I... I have something to say,"

Suddenly, Pardofelis, who was in the corner, raised her hand. "Sister Snake, Sister Niya, and Ahua didn't come, but they only did so because they had things to do. They weren't planning to withdraw from the plan, okay?"

Desdrobia immediately looked at Cosmo, who paused for a moment, then said awkwardly, "That's not what I meant..."

Clearly, when the two people's conversation is put together, it gives the impression that "Cosmo is implying that those who didn't show up are deserters."

"Ah, I know, I'm not blaming you!"

Pardofelis quickly waved her hand, "I just remembered, I'm so sorry!"

After this little incident, the atmosphere on set immediately lightened up a bit, but this couldn't change the harsh reality they were about to face.

"So, before we set off, we need to understand the current basic situation in Australia."

Dr. Mei brought the topic back, "First of all, thanks to the efforts of the Swarm drone in Australia, the Honkai Beast is still suppressed in the Australia interior and there is no risk of it overflowing within 12 hours."

As a key project under Ai Yue's leadership for the re-exploitation of Australia resources, the "Swarm Project" has been thriving during this period. Relying on the special structure of "Gestalt swarm consciousness," the automatic proliferation speed of the Swarm drone has far exceeded Ai Yue's expectations.

Through a cycle of "collecting resources - building new factories - manufacturing more drones to collect resources - and then manufacturing more new factories," the number of Swarm drone has now reached an unbelievable number. On the surface, it is said to have completed the blockade of the Australia mainland and prevented the Honkai Beast from spreading outwards, but in reality, they have even begun to compress the living space of the Honkai Beast horde.

If it weren't for the fact that the Herrscher authority this time couldn't be solved by simply relying on the number of drones, Kevin and the others probably wouldn't have needed to take the risk; they could have exhausted Ai Yue to death just by relying on the swarm of drones.

"Secondly, we have also obtained new clues regarding the Eleventh Herrscher, which is the power that Ai Yue may possess."

Dr. Mei glanced at Prometheus beside her. "Rose, play the video we received from the front lines."

"OK."

Prometheus nodded, then projected a video, "In addition, Dr. Vill-V is currently in a critical stage of researching a new project, so she is unable to come, but she has not withdrawn from this project, please be aware."

No one responded to Prometheus's words for a moment, because the video he was projecting had already drawn everyone's attention.

It was a video shot from a war scene. The clear picture, the switching of multiple camera angles, and the ridiculously stable shots made it seem like a movie scene.

However, everyone can easily recognize that the scene in the picture is the wasteland where everyone fought against the Herrscher of Domination last time, and the two sides of the war are the familiar drones and Honkai Beast - obviously, this is what is happening in Australia now.

The overwhelming swarm of drones collided with the equally overwhelming Honkai Beast, resulting in a war that was beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Explosions filled almost every corner of the screen, and every second the video played, countless drones and Honkai Beast died.

Compared to the drones, which could still attack Honkai Beast even after running out of ammunition, the Honkai Beast quickly found themselves at a disadvantage, retreating steadily under the dense onslaught and constantly shrinking their defensive lines.

"This is the first time I've ever seen Honkai Beast being so thoroughly suppressed in a war of sheer numbers..."

Having witnessed this scene, Cosmo couldn't help but look at Desdrobia beside him, "What should I do, Daisy? I feel like your role has been replaced."

In past wars, the Fused Warrior squad relied on Desdrobia's ability to clear out the Honkai Beasts and fight their way through the sea of Honkai Beast to complete the final decapitation plan. However, Desdrobia's ability to clear out the enemy is clearly not on the same level as the drones in the video.

"Idiot, I'm not only good at dealing with grunts!"

Desdrobia pinched her outspoken boyfriend in annoyance, but she couldn't help feeling worried.

Could it be that one day I'll actually be eliminated by drones?

However, she quickly gave up thinking about it, because now was clearly not the time to study this problem.

The video then moves into the next stage—and clearly, what follows is the most crucial part.

As the Honkai Beast was gradually eliminated by the drones, the scene behind them was gradually revealed.

Surprisingly, it was an empty space, without any Honkai Beast or anything else. Everything the camera captured was desolate land.

Even the Honkai Beast bypassed that area and converged on the battlefield from both sides, as if something was blocking them there.

What is that?

Cosmo scratched his head. "An invisible wall?"

"This isn't a game,"

Desdrobia sighed. "But it is indeed strange. Could it be that Doctor Ai Yue is in that wasteland right now?"

No one can answer this question, but at least they will soon understand why the Honkai Beast are avoiding this area.

A drone flew through the layers of Honkai Beast and headed towards the open space. However, just as it passed all the Honkai Beast and reached the empty area, it strangely plummeted and crashed heavily to the ground.

The camera remained focused on the crashed drone for a full minute before stopping.