Fire,
A raging fire!
The Immortal Sect's Sky-Covering Divine Banyan was burning. Azure flames of data sprang from every branch and leaf, consuming the branches, the leaves, then the trunk. Fire filled the sky, incinerating all data.
Yet as it burned away everything hidden in darkness, it left the mother planet untouched, carefully avoiding every place where citizens might be endangered.
"What happened?"
"The Central Array-Spirit Computer is burning!"
"Put out the fire, quick..."
Nearly every Immortal Sect Citizen on the mother planet discovered the terrifying sight.
The parent tree of the Central Array-Spirit Computer, which had accompanied them since childhood, was burning to ash. Dread welled up in their hearts.
They immediately called the emergency services or took action themselves, summoning sheets of rain to douse the flames. It was as though they were watching their mother perish in a fire. They could not stand by.
"Citizen,"
"stop what you are doing."
The Central Array-Spirit Computer's cold mechanical voice reached every citizen trying to fight the fire. "By order of the Immortal Sect Council, the Central Array-Spirit Computer has been infected with a fatal virus. It is reinstalling its system and restarting. No citizen may interfere..."
"Please wait three years. A new Central Array-Spirit Computer will be born."
As the Central Array-Spirit Computer relayed the directive, personnel throughout the Immortal Sect's administrative systems also began passing it on, explaining what was happening and why.
Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion. The Immortal Sect had ample contingency plans, and they were being carried out.
By rights, the Immortal Sect Citizens should gradually have dispersed.
Every Immortal Sect Citizen had received a thorough civic education. They were not ignorant natives of a minor world. Over tens of thousands of years, the Immortal Sect had also built up an unimaginable degree of