The second matter: information retrieval.
While disrupting the signals, Ming Xin's divine sense became the most precise probe, forcing its way through the resistance of the Node Sovereigns along the silver data chains and deep into the core database of this Beacon Array.
He avoided those heavily encrypted core control protocols that might trigger self-destruction.
Instead, he searched for relatively peripheral logs, mission records, energy analysis data, and... fragments concerning the Shadow civilization's own designation.
Massive streams of data with varying encryption levels poured into Ming Xin's sea of consciousness, where he rapidly parsed and filtered them.
Most of it consisted of technical parameters, energy monitoring records, real-time status reports on the Jieyin Process—dull and cold. But soon, several valuable pieces of information emerged:
· The Shadow's self-designation and objective: an internal codename appeared repeatedly in the data—"Purification Protocol Union."
Their declared ultimate goal was to "correct the fallacy of universal entropy increase and establish a new era of absolute Order."
The Gate of Finality and its derivatives were regarded by them as "the greatest source of entropy increase and instability left over from the old era," but also as "the key bridge and energy source leading to the new Order."
Their plan appeared to be this: use the power of the "Gate" to receive or awaken an extradimensional existence that aligned with their concept of "Order," codenamed "Law Sovereign."
With its power, they would forcibly "purify" the universe and eliminate all "disorder."
The reason for attacking the Observer Civilization: as the ancient watchers of the "Gate," the Observer Civilization possessed part of the Key of the Gate.
Moreover, its very existence had been deemed by the Purification Protocol to be "a potential high-entropy variable" and "an obstacle possessing key authority."
The attack was intended to seize or destroy the