Chapter 252
The next moment, he suddenly fell straight down, lifeless.
"Ah! What's going on?!"
Seeing the person who was perfectly fine just moments before suddenly die, Xie Ming was startled again and instinctively released his supernatural power to try and save him.
"No need, mentor, he's not dead. His life form is different from what you understand."
Wen Jing touched Xu Yuan's 'corpse', and it instantly transformed into an invisible flame that disappeared from her fingertips.
She hadn't considered what the Mastermind's backup plan might be because she also had the means to confirm and track it.
The Information Exchange within the Xu Yuan can only reveal the survival status of humans, but cannot confirm whether the Mastermind has truly disappeared.
Since the start of the war, she had kept Xu Yuan waiting as an Imperial Awakened, at most secretly using her Information Touch to assist the Emperor's Clone in protecting the habitable planet. This was the reason she deliberately did not reveal Xu Yuan's true relationship to the Mastermind.
Wen Jing had been waiting for this moment, not letting him use his abilities to join the Mastermind Civilization.
If the Xu Yuan cannot join the Mastermind Civilization, it means the Mastermind has disappeared; if it can join, then we can tell it the current location of the Mastermind.
Whatever tricks the Mastermind has up their sleeve, they can all be verified through this underlying logic.
As for the current 'death' of the Xu Yuan, it is because the Imperial human civilization did not disappear like the Alaya Civilization. It is transforming its civilization, and its current human identity will naturally die.
The Dominant Will within the Mind Palace awaits the other party's response.
However, she soon felt a pang of anxiety.
Because she felt nothing... she couldn't even confirm whether the Xu Yuan still existed.
The moment Wen Jing's emotions changed, the entire Federation star system, now under her control, suddenly tensed up, like a taut rubber band.
"No, the disappearance of the Xu Yuan means it has succeeded."
"This means the Mastermind's 'plan' really exists?"
Within the Mind Palace, Personality Network rapidly circulate and exchange information.
There must be some reason why he can't even contact me directly.
"I could contact him through the Mind Palace back in the Ancient Wilderness, what will it be now?"
"Since the Mastermind cannot enter the Ancient Wilderness, it must be somewhere in the material universe that I cannot reach—"
In the void where the Tenth Star disappeared, the War Personality suddenly stared at a spot in the void before him.
An inconspicuous photon appeared out of nowhere there.
With Wen Jing's perception, he could clearly confirm that there was no matter here before, and the photons appeared out of nowhere.
She can do it using [Entropy Change], but it requires a lot of energy.
And the information from this photon before us...
The next moment, her Information Perception spread over.
Beyond the information about the size and energy level of this single photon, there lies an additional piece of information.
The law of cause and effect...
The moment the information was deciphered, Wen Jing's crisis alarm went off like a bang.
In a time so brief as to be barely 'instantaneous,' the entire material universe collapsed from the outside in to a single point.
Wen Jing is this 'point'.
At the same moment the collapse occurred, the material universe expanded again.
Wen Jing opened his eyes with some difficulty, feeling confused as he experienced an unprecedentedly low-resolution view.
Soon, a robotic arm brought the pacifier to her lips.
"La la... la..."
Under the holographic projection, Gaia hummed the standard nursery rhyme of the population factory, showing her a gentle smile.
Chapter 252
Upon seeing Gaia's standardized smiling face, Wen Jing instinctively threw a punch.
"Bang!!"
The projection screen in the incubation pod shattered with a crash, and Gaia on it vanished.
Sparks flew from the shattered screen, and alarms blared around them.
Then Wen Jing saw his own hand.
A tiny, delicate ball, so fragile it could be broken at a touch—that's a baby's hand.
Because she was reborn into this world, she remembered all her memories from her infancy, and could even immediately recognize that it was her own hand from when she was three months old, and not someone else's.
The Mastermind was destroyed, the plan was broken, the Xu Yuan disappeared and communication was impossible... all the memories Wen Jing before the world collapsed are still there.
"Spacetime has changed? Is this the Mastermind's backup plan?"
Wen Jing immediately thought of the 'causality' information obtained from that point of light.
Without a doubt, it must have been Xu Yuan who passed it on to her in some way.
The baby's still faint brows furrowed as it quickly assessed the situation.
The next moment, Wen Jing was uncontrollably stunned.
Nowadays, things that can elicit such a reaction from her are extremely rare.
The 'golden finger' Evolution Panel, which has existed since the beginning of her life and has saved her countless lives...
It vanished at that moment.
"..."
Wen Jing had never imagined what life would be like without the control panel, and now that the control panel had truly disappeared, she found that she didn't feel anything particularly strong.
Perhaps she would have had more complex feelings before she developed Gestalt Consciousness.
But at this moment, she had transcended her previous state of mind and would not waste her thoughts on meaningless things. After confirming that the panel had disappeared, she immediately began to use her own instinctive perception to understand her current power.
"The panel's recording capabilities, aside from Gestalt Consciousness, lack all other characteristics; it's like reverting to my infancy."
"Furthermore, my Gestalt Consciousness is also restricted. The anchoring of my Constant Self ' allows me to retain my original memories, and my Personality Network still exists, enabling me to Analysis and think. However, it is all 'locked' within my current body, preventing me from acting as Clone entity."
"But... at the same time, my current body also possesses powers I'm unaware of."
Sparks were still flying from the shattered window of the nursery pod in front of me.
As the Federation's main source of population, the Population Factory's equipment is of excellent quality; it wouldn't be damaged even if a truck hit it. Yet, it was smashed to pieces by Wen Jing, who was still an infant, with a single punch.
Although the panel and attributes had disappeared, she could feel an indescribable power within her body.
Similar to the extraordinary energy within Awakened, but unable to be actively released to allow her to use various energy combat techniques, it is a more restrained and essential power.
When she wants to do something specific, she can confirm the existence and boundaries of this power.
No, calling it a boundary isn't quite right, because she could sense that this boundary could continue to expand according to her will.
Amidst the alarm and flashing lights, Wen Jing reached out her soft little hand and pried open the hatch.
The glass was very sharp and sparked with electricity.
But no marks were left on her hands; instead, she stumbled while standing up.
Because my legs are too weak to support my body weight.
However, as she resolved to stand up, her body quickly stabilized.
Thump!
Wen Jing braced himself against the broken hatch and jumped out.
What comes into view are rows of neat nursery pods, their transparent shells gleaming softly, each containing a baby.
The alarm echoed throughout the workshop, and in the adjacent nursery, the babies were awakened, their cries rising and falling, muffled by the bulkheads.
The mechanical guards deployed at the population factory stormed into the workshop. Their sensors locked onto Wen Jing, who had already jumped out of the incubation pod, and the processor instantly completed a threat assessment.
[Target: Human Infant]
[Age: 0 years old]
[Threat Level: Zero]
[Standard procedure: Return the infant to the nursery]
The mechanical guard at the forefront had green eyes and extended its mechanical arm to pick up Wen Jing.
Wen Jing looked up at it.
Instantly, the processors of the mechanical guards received the highest-level instructions that even humans were unaware of.
"Click!"
All the mechanical guards stopped abruptly.
Nothing has changed...
Wen Jing confirmed it in his heart.
She had cracked the control cores that the Mastermind had set up on four habitable planets during the great war. Now, by releasing the power within her body as the electromagnetic signals she had obtained at that time, she could also complete the control.
"The Mastermind's ultimate weapon is a causal weapon that can reverse time, so it can kill me when I'm weak?"
"Then why isn't it taking any action now?"
The moment this question arose, the mechanical guard that had stopped ahead lit up again.
As if receiving some signal, their eyes turned a bright red.
[Kill abnormal targets]
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh!"
Several laser beams shot out from the guards' eyes, all landing on Wen Jing.
She immediately leaped away, dodging a barrage of concentrated fire.
However, it wasn't fast enough, and the laser struck her fair calf, leaving a dark scorch mark.
A sharp pain shot through her, and tears welled up in Wen Jing's eyes, yet a smile still graced her lips.
Her current consciousness was sufficient to Digestion the pain, and while she was in pain, she could see the flesh beneath the scorch wound wriggling and growing. There was no 'waste' of body cells like scabbing and peeling; instead, it disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if she had never been injured.
Furthermore, she felt the restrained power within her body being directly activated when she was attacked.
So she charged straight at the mechanical guard.
The laser struck again, but this time she neither dodged nor avoided it, letting it fall on her.
"Sizzle!"
After this attack, her skin remained smooth and unchanged, as if all the energy carried by the laser had been absorbed by her.
The Myriad Transformation Furnace.