Central Finite Curve

The final segment of memories finished playing.

Morty took off the helmet, rubbed the back of his head, and took several deep breaths, trying to calm his complicated emotions.

Because all this time, he had thought there wasn't much emotional attachment between him and Rick.

But when those missing memories finally returned to his mind,

he realized that Rick had long since become the most important man in his life.

This Rick was not as invincible as 137. Even when dealing with Cthulhu's curse, he had been rejected first, then forced to unleash his full potential, yet he still could not save his own life.

In the end, Citadel TV had only made Rick lift the curse out of consideration for Morty, their guaranteed ratings draw.

Likewise, Rick's heart was not strong enough.

In those memories from 0200, Morty had saved Rick and said those words to him, making that old bastard burst into tears.

But whenever Morty had broken down dozens of times, Rick had been there to comfort him—before extracting his memories...

Fuck! That warm grandfather-grandson bond was ruined just like that!

Thinking of how he had always been Rick's caring little comfort blanket whenever Rick was in a bad mood, while Rick simply extracted his memories whenever he suffered an emotional breakdown, Morty felt like all his sincerity had gone to the dogs!

But after having those memories restored,

Morty still decided to save Rick!

After all, several times, the dangerous thoughts he had displayed before the cameras had made Citadel TV consider killing him.

Each time, Rick had pounded his chest and guaranteed Suit Rick at the station that Morty would absolutely not lose control.

And with a Morty this full of ideas, why not make the hottest season of reality television ever?

That was what had made them abandon the idea of killing him outright.

"Ugh... I'm going up against the Citadel of Ricks..."

Morty muttered to himself before leaving the room and entering the base's main chamber.

Rick was no longer there. Only AI Rick remained.

"Kid, I've watched plenty of episodes, and I've learned about you in places the cameras couldn't see. So I advise you not to be so stubborn."

"If that guy is dead, let him stay dead. The moment you revive him, 137 will definitely find him."

"If 137 finds out that this season of reality TV was a plan to drive him insane, the entire Citadel of Ricks will be destroyed!"

"Then I won't be able to return to the Citadel of Ricks."

After quietly listening to AI Rick, Morty's mouth twitched hard. He suddenly felt that although Rick was not particularly strong in combat, he was truly meticulous in the details.

To keep AI Rick from deceiving him,

he had inserted code that forced it to tell the truth, making it permanently incapable of lying.

AI Rick had pissed Morty off several times before.

Because Rick, at least sometimes, knew how to express himself tactfully.

This AI, however, never spared anyone with its words.

Now it seemed that forcing it to tell the truth had indeed been one of Rick's little schemes.

And sure enough, it had now spilled everything Morty did not know in one go.

So there was this much going on behind the Pokémon Show...

They actually wanted to drive 137 insane?

Wait... who are they?

Morty narrowed his eyes and took an energy rifle from the wall. It was loot he had obtained after strongly insisting that Rick make a trip to the Iron-Blooded Hunter World.

Well, a Rick-modified version.

With a firing rate of two hundred rounds per second, it was fast enough to punch through the deck of a modern aircraft carrier in two seconds!

Even in Rick's underground base,

since Morty knew where the AI core was located, he would need only around ten seconds to destroy the thing's core outright.

As for whether it could escape through the network cables and flee for its life across the universe?

The way it had meekly backed down when Rick threatened it before proved one thing.

To put it simply,

for a top-tier intelligent AI like AI Rick, trying to escape through the network was like trying to play the Battlefield series on integrated graphics. Essence Book Pavilion

Just moving the resources it had stored would be enough to make the global network lag for three days.

And moving its own main body would take even longer.

So when Morty suddenly picked up a gun,

AI Rick sensed that something was wrong. Its computational system began calculating every possibility. Comparing that against its analysis of Morty's behavior over the last six months, it felt like this guy might be about to kill it...

"Wait! What are you trying to do?! What do you gain from destroying me?"

"Nothing. I'm just threatening you because I want to know who they are."

"Who are they?"

"The people who want to drive 137 insane!"

"Fuck... all this over that??? Didn't you know even that idiot who killed himself was involved in this?"

Hearing that Rick had been involved as well, Morty immediately searched through his memories.

Even though all his memories had already been restored, he still did not know what AI Rick was talking about.

That meant Rick had probably never told him about this.

Which raised the question.

If that guy went crazy and destroyed even the multiverse, could you bear the cost?

"Other than a small number, every Rick trapped inside the Central Finite Curve hates 137 with a passion!!!"

Upon hearing "Central Finite Curve," Morty keenly sensed that the term carried an unusual significance.

So he pressed further.

When AI Rick explained the purpose of the Central Finite Curve, Morty was left numb by the madness of it.

Because if there were infinite universes, there had to be Ricks stronger than 137. If 137's combat power truly was the ceiling of the infinite multiverse,

then he would never have needed to build this thing.

So he had built it. He trapped Ricks weaker than himself within this wall and kept Ricks stronger than himself outside.

"This... this is the truth?"

"The truth behind driving 137 insane?"

Morty's repeated confirmations made AI Rick somewhat impatient.

Could he stop treating something so ordinary like it was some shocking revelation?

Although the Citadel of Ricks had been built by 137, that did not mean the Citadel of Ricks liked 137 very much!

"Huh?! 137 built the Citadel of Ricks?"

Having learned yet another fact he did not know, Morty felt that he should put off going upstairs to find Rick and instead dig up more explosive information from this extraordinarily talkative AI Rick.

So one kept asking questions, while the other, forced by the truth-telling code, had no choice but to tell him everything it knew.

After the two went back and forth for three hours,

Morty finally let AI Rick go, thoroughly satisfied.

After checking the time, Morty took out the Portal Gun and opened a portal to the preset coordinates.

Just as he stepped halfway through it,

a Rick Assault Squad suddenly emerged from the shadows!

These armed forces of the Citadel of Ricks were all elite fighters among the best!

Their purpose was to eliminate every threat to the Citadel of Ricks!