Within the boundless data space, torrents of flowing numbers filled every direction.
Enormous firewalls and digital scans covered every node of the network. The closer one came to the regions surrounding the three Light Banquet Terminals, the stronger the information defenses became. Numerous squads formed from Machine Intelligence consciousnesses even patrolled the data network around the clock.
It could be said.
These defenses were virtually impregnable.
But to her, any defense was meaningless. Unless the Seven Gods themselves stood guard, every measure within this world of network passages might as well not have existed.
Almost there.
After transferring and warping through node after node, she was drawing ever closer to the nearest High-Rank Light Banquet Terminal.
The next moment.
She leaped down, landing on a virtual network passage at an information node.
But just as she was about to use this node for another spatial leap and transfer, a wisp of anomalous data brushed across her azure eyes like a breeze. Like rootless duckweed, it passed over her shoulder and drifted aimlessly toward the data network passage behind her.
Yet.
She stopped.
The anomaly in that wisp of data made her turn back despite herself, looking toward the dark network passage filled with jumbled data.
It felt like some kind of summons, yet also carried a familiarity she seemed to have long forgotten.
The Mechanical Church's entire virtual network had already undergone a comprehensive overhaul by the Seven Gods. Apart from the few virtual worlds, including the hive city, that they had yet to dismantle, all of the Mechanical Church's computing power had been mobilized. Chaotic, meaningless data no longer existed in the network passages.
Then what was that?
She could have ignored it.
But for some reason, she still stopped, turned, and swept like the wind in the direction