The Eclipse Race

Beneath Emperor Tomb Village.

Passing through the energy barrier, Qi Sheng appeared in a room filled with greenery. The faint fragrance of fruit wine greeted his nose.

He looked up toward a corner, where a girl of about sixteen sat amid the plants. She wore pale green clothes, and her eyes were clear but vacant. Her presence blended into her surroundings, and a faint smile rested on her lips. She possessed a natural, unadorned beauty.

"Boss, you're here."

The girl turned toward Qi Sheng, but her unfocused pupils did not settle on him.

Her name was Ultra-Dimensional, and she was one of his Four Devoted Servants.

She had created the Universal Extraction system in the Challenger recruitment plan. It helped players extract monsters' life energy after killing them and absorb it into their bodies, granting them evolution points for growth-what the players called experience.

Back when they had resisted the Dark Tide's encroachment on Emperor Tomb Village, Ultra-Dimensional and the other three Vassal Servants had poured their remaining power into the village, causing abnormalities in their divine bodies.

Guide had lost his flesh-and-blood body and could exist only in an elemental body. Yan Ming had lost the ability to control his emotions and always wore a cold, expressionless look. Nine Yin's bodily functions had deteriorated, leaving him incredibly aged, while Ultra-Dimensional had lost both her sight and her ability to perceive through consciousness, leaving her able to sense the world only through hearing.

"How's your body?"

"Same as always. Just waiting for you to give me a hand when you reforge Emperor Zhao's body, Boss." A gentle smile appeared on Ultra-Dimensional's face. She slowly stood and continued:

"Did you come to give me a task, Boss?"

"The players have been leveling up quickly lately. I think we need a matching equipment setup-the armored vehicle function I mentioned to you before."

The armored vehicle function Qi Sheng referred to drew on equipment systems in games.

In his conception, this system could help players improve their strength. Its principle was to use Ultra-Dimensional's extraction power to draw energy from various ores and create equipment that could change along with their bodies.

For example, a player's armament in human form would be a suit of battle armor. After they switched to monster form, the armament would expand and change along with their body, though its overall defensive strength would decrease after expanding.

Under this setup, armaments were divided into two components, weapons and armor, which could significantly improve a player's overall strength.

More importantly, introducing this system would also increase the rate at which players consumed sacrificial power, bringing him more sacrificial power output.

After hearing Qi Sheng's explanation, Ultra-Dimensional immediately nodded.

"I'll need some time, and I'll also need you to allocate an additional sum of sacrificial power to cover the cost of building the armament system."

"No problem. I've already given you permission to use the sacrificial power pool. You can draw on the remaining sacrificial power whenever you need it."

After settling the contents of the next update with Ultra-Dimensional, Qi Sheng turned and left.

Once he returned to the Primordial Sacrificial Altar, he switched to a player's perspective.

The moon.

The Eclipse Race Settlement.

A magnificent city stood beneath the tranquil silver radiance, particularly bright against the dark backdrop of the universe.

Its buildings were made from a composite of stone and metal, and aerial gardens were arranged throughout the city. A transparent dome covered the sky, and the environment within could not only regulate itself automatically but also purify air pollution on its own.

All manner of flying vehicles hovered above the city, from private aircraft to high-speed aerial trains. These futuristic vehicles crisscrossed in orderly streams under the Bio-Brain's control.

On the streets, almost none of Earth's traditional means of transportation could be seen. In their place were smart moving walkways and magnetic levitation boards.

Members of the Eclipse Race needed only to step onto the convenient walkways to travel swiftly between the streets. Large numbers of robots could also be seen moving about, performing cleaning and city maintenance work.

Five hundred meters beneath the city center, a room spanning over a thousand square meters housed the Bio-Brain that represented the pinnacle of Eclipse technology.

It was neither a machine nor an electronic device in the traditional sense. It took the form of an enormous, translucent sphere emitting a soft blue glow.

Its surface consisted of countless faintly glowing particles, across which flowed complex, beautiful patterns of biological neural networks. They shifted rapidly, like living thoughts pulsing.

Dozens of long, slender, transparent tentacles also surrounded the sphere. Like the Bio-Brain's nerve fibers, they served as feelers that perceived information from the outside world.

Embedded in the tips of these tentacles were nodes shimmering with strange light. Each node was a highly developed information-processing unit capable of rapidly analyzing, storing, and applying information and data from the network.

The Star Network used by the Human Race and the other Alien Races had been constructed by this very Bio-Brain.

Many small biological intelligences were also scattered around the Bio-Brain. They revolved around its main body like satellites, handling security and environmental monitoring, ready at any moment to adjust its surroundings for the most comfortable operating conditions.

At that moment, a figure stood before the Bio-Brain.

He had handsome features and slender ears, resembling an elf from a fairy tale and fitting human standards of beauty very well.

"Star Network, do you have any results?"

In response to the handsome man's question, a beam of light projected from the center of the translucent sphere, coalescing a short distance before him into a little boy with the physical features of the Eclipse Race.

The boy shook his head with a solemn expression.

"What is certain is that my information has been tampered with. More precisely, new content has been inserted into my fundamental laws. Although I created the Star Network, whoever inserted this information possesses Star Network permission that supersedes mine. And because I cannot alter my fundamental laws, I have no authorization to read the specific contents of this information."

Hearing this, Yue Dong furrowed his brows tightly, unsure how to handle it.

Just a few days earlier, the Eclipse Race High Command had received an official message from the Human Federation. An unverified online account had appeared on the Human Federation's Star Network, and no valid information about the account could be found. They asked whether it had anything to do with the Eclipse Race.

Upon learning this, the Eclipse Race High Command had formed an Investigation Team headed by him to investigate the mysterious account.

But Yue Dong had found the preliminary results hard to believe.

He discovered that his permission level did not allow him to view the mysterious account's specific information.

Faced with a problem he could not resolve, he decisively sought assistance from a Level 1 Bio-Brain, but the result was unexpected.

The Level 1 Bio-Brain likewise lacked authorization to investigate and could not open the content behind the download link.

After reporting the matter up through the ranks, he finally received approval to meet the Super Bio-Brain, "Star Network," which represented the pinnacle of Eclipse Race technology.

He had thought the investigation would finally yield results this time, only for Star Network to reply that even it lacked permission to investigate the information behind the mysterious account.

This made Yue Dong realize that the situation had already slipped out of control.

The owner of this mysterious account had actually altered Star Network's fundamental laws without a sound.

And Star Network's fundamental laws were the underlying operational logic that ensured "Star Network" remained loyal to the Eclipse Race at all times.

One of those laws, for example, was: always make the safety of the Eclipse Race the foremost principle.

This law was the first stream of information processed when Star Network operated, ensuring that whenever the Star Network Bio-Brain handled anything, its primary objective would be the safety of the Eclipse Race as a whole, taking precedence over requirements such as efficiency and profit.

The fundamental laws had been implanted when Star Network was first built and could not be altered or deleted by any means. Even the current Eclipse Race High Command could not modify them.

This ensured that, whether internally or externally, Star Network remained loyal to the Eclipse Race as a group rather than to any individual ruler.

Yet now Star Network was saying that its fundamental laws had been modified, with an additional piece of information inserted.

This meant that the mysterious tamperer possessed permission that superseded the Bio-Brain's. At the lesser end, they could cripple the Star Network World at will; at the greater end, they could instantly halt the operation of the Eclipse Race's city and destroy Eclipse City.

"This is trouble!"