Overturned Tower

After most of the body is missing, the gender and age characteristics of the deer head portrait become blurred.

"He" looks like a beautiful girl, but he has huge antlers that only a stag has. The quiet and heavy temperament on his body is full of the reliability of an elder, but "his" face is immature like a child.

Even from this point of view, the antlers, which shone like silver and shone like tinfoil, could not be judged as the spiritual relatives of the deer head.Because it is entirely possible that the characteristics of the deer head portrait's spiritual relatives are also damaged, and the antlers are completely mechanical external extensions instead of ordinary antlers coated with a layer of metal... This is all possible.

Like a Venus with a broken arm, it is beautiful because of its incompleteness.

And at this moment, the head portrait of the deer is not so beautiful...it is more like a kind of divinity.

"'Hello, Russell.'"

The overlapping voice sounded again.

The mouth of the deer head did not move, and the eyes remained closed.Because there is no chest that can rise and fall with breathing, it is not even possible to be sure that "he" is really alive.

Several old-fashioned synthetic sound devices sounded simultaneously in the corner of the space: "'You can call me 'mentor', 'sage', 'leader'...Of course, I prefer people to call me 'Deer Head' directly. '"

"...Hello, Head Deer."

Russell put away his intimidated mood and responded seriously.

And at the moment when they form a dialogue.

A soft, whisper-like voice sounded in Russell's heart:

【I will always watch you】

[If you need my help, just call my name... I will open the 'door' for you]

Is this... telepathy?

Russell was a little confused for a moment, what is the spiritual power possessed by the deer head statue.

But he soon realized the essence of this ability: "This is... a cyber ghost?"

This is not using psychic energy to talk to himself, but quietly hacking his own chip, causing him to have such auditory hallucinations.

It's like the sound that sounds directly in the brain when playing videos, movies, and games in the chip.

The deer head is like a cyber ghost... Said such words to himself in Russell's chip.

The so-called cyber ghost means that when psionic hackers and cyber detectives dive into the network matrix, if the main body dies suddenly or the network is disconnected, and they do not wake up in time, they will always wander in the matrix world and become homeless.

Ordinary psychic detectives only dare to use the script on the disc to attack other people's prosthetic bodies, but usually dare not directly attack the opponent's chips.

The chip itself is a one-way firewall. It is easy for consciousness to enter, but difficult to exit.If you are not the top psychic detective, you will basically become a vegetable if you dare to enter the body.

However, Cyberghost doesn't have such a taboo-it's a big deal to change the body to live.

Better than wandering the Matrix.

【almost】

The soft whispering voice continued.

[My consciousness has long been divided into countless parts, each of which resonates with each other.Based on different uses, there are different restrictions]

[For example, when we were talking, the 'impression' you formed on me was a shadow]

【As long as you still remember my appearance and my voice, then when you call me and talk to me, the 'I' here can hear you】

Hearing this, Russell suddenly realized something.

"Could it be that the strange virus in the Tower of Babel..."

【Yes, that's me too】

The head of the deer replied without concealment.

No wonder it has an irresistible, but invisible and intangible medium... So far, Russell still doesn't know through which medium the virus spread by the mercenaries entered the first-class cabin.

But it would be reasonable to say that this "virus" was alive from the very beginning.

Russell also understands why the virus can only be used once and then self-destruct... It is the deer head itself that makes it self-destruct.

It is also very simple that it cannot be disassembled and cannot be analyzed.Because the virus itself is only an intermediary, allowing the consciousness of the deer head to enter the target.This is actually tantamount to putting an elite psychic hacker in, and the hacker will directly destroy himself after completing the task.

And soon, Russell also meant, what exactly does this mean——

If we were talking about elite psychic hackers, they could go deep into every level of the network and learn different secrets through different boards.

So if the head of the deer can be split infinitely, it can also mean that he is "everywhere".

It's almost like a runaway artificial intelligence...

"You are doubting whether the head portrait of the deer is out of control, right?"

Bad Day guessed what Russell was thinking at a glance.

He found a tube at random, sat on it and crossed his legs: "Actually, the deer head is much older than us. When I entered the Tower of Babel, when your father and mother entered the Tower of Babel, she That's it.

"And in the older past, she was also a member of the Tower of Babel. She was a living person."

Russell notes that Bad Day uses "she".

"You said it used to be? Could it be that the current leader... is an undead?"

"That's not too much, but do you think——does the leader's current posture be called alive?"

Bad Day asked back.

Russell shook his head.

He couldn't even judge whether the person hanging on the wall just closed his eyes or had lost his life.

"Before she became like this, she was only 14 years old. At that time, she was already an elite, fighting on the front line of the war between the Holy See and the Mage Tower."

"...Mage Tower?"

Russell repeated.

He replied uncertainly: "Mage...is that what I understand?"

He even thought that the words "mage" and "magic" were all legends... or ancient names for psykers.

【Yes】

The deer head then replied.

[Mage not only existed, but still exists now.It’s just that they are all on the ground, living alone and in pain]

"On a land polluted by radiation and curses?"

[Yes, because the mages were defeated - in the battle with the Holy See]

[That was January 1100, [-], the second wizard war, the war between the wizard and the Holy See.It can also be called the war of teaching law. It is a war that has been fought so far. No one knows why it happened, but neither side backed down. In the end, it almost destroyed the world.]

With the soft voice of the deer head sounded.

The history Russell had never heard of emerged out of thin air with knowledge and slowly poured into his mind.

——Everyone in this world is born with the ability to contact the collective subconscious, the difference is whether they can realize it.

This ability can be awakened only after the "most unforgettable day" that can completely change a person.

"...Wait, isn't this the spiritual awakening?"

Russell's ears trembled suddenly, and he couldn't help blurting out.

【--yes】

The deer head figure affirmed.

But it's different from psionics, which is different for everyone... If psionics is a stand-alone simulation construction game, then spells are an open world game.

After each mage awakens, he will arrive at the "Primary Wasteland" in his dream.It is the collective subconscious of all people in the world intertwined, a dream with countless possibilities.

They can travel in any direction, through the woodland, or the snow field, or the maze of countless doors, or the endless fall, or the candy house in fairy tales... After any dream travel, Consciousness will stay where it is and gain "spells".

Spells are far less powerful than psionics.But spells can be taught and inherited--just follow the same trail of adventures and get the same spells.

From making flames icy, bending steel for no reason, to shattering the eyes of those who stare at them from thousands of miles away, making people living in a certain land sterile for life...or making people who have been cut into pieces rejuvenate , or walking on the clouds... or, building a floating tower reaching the sky.The nature of the spell is related to the experience in the dream; and the dreams of all people are related to the "common consciousness" of all people.

"The sky-reaching tower..."

Russell murmured again.

He vaguely realized something.

【Yes, it is the predecessor of the floating island】

[Today's floating island is a rebuilt mage tower that can float in the air]

The head of the deer gently tells the truth of the world——

[And the Holy See also has a special power, they call it "Holy Order"]

[As the name suggests, only by following the teachings and morals can one gradually obtain mysterious power.The purpose of this power is to enable them to do good deeds better]

[This was originally quite good, the Holy See has been doing its best to do good.But since the mid-term of the War of Teaching and Law, when it was completely unable to resist mages, the Holy See began to try to pursue the principle of holy orders—after all, mages have long understood the nature of their own power, but the Holy See has no idea about it]

[Unfortunately, someone really got the answer.The essence of the power of the Holy Order is actually "personal subconsciousness"; and the god they believe in is "the sum of consciousness of humans, elves and even dragons"]

[You can think of it this way, Russell.Assuming that there is an ignorant mechanical god, whose thinking is the sum of all intelligent creatures, and whose greatest desire is to make as many individuals as possible to survive... then if he cannot directly interfere with the world Next, I will support my agent]

[That is, the special individual recognized by him that is beneficial to the survival of the group]

[Either be upright enough, or have divine wisdom, or be merciful enough, or have enough leadership and kindness...]

[The person who makes "as many people as possible happy" will be given a gift.These are the so-called saints.And the mage's dream is actually the dream of this "god"]

[However, the scholars of the Holy See realized through further research...their "god" does not have individual consciousness.His standards for judging saints are very rigid, they can use technological means to bypass the judging mechanism, and then deceive God]

[It is like extracting active ingredients from herbal medicine, maximizing the efficacy of the medicine while reducing meaningless side effects.If the Holy See can directly edit the will that most conforms to the judgment of 'God', it will be able to obtain the most power of holy orders—even the purity of the power of holy orders obtained by true saints is far inferior to them]

Hearing this, Russell only felt his scalp go numb.

[So the Holy See decomposed the consciousness of some real saints, extracted the "active ingredients" that can obtain the power of the holy order, and confirmed 45 kinds of power that can obtain the highest purity of the holy order under the condition that the mutual components do not conflict as much as possible. "Personality models" with different functions and uses, and store them in a server named "Holy Code"]

[At that time, embedded chip technology was not yet popular, so the church used special wireless technology]

[One thousand selected experimenters wear a floating ring to receive the wireless signal sent by the "Holy Code" server, and artificially add "divine will"...]

【——Then, the "angel" descended】

Chapter 40 The Secret to Ensuring Mutual Destruction

It is still very difficult to select those qualified to carry the divine will and become "angels"...but they can be mass-produced after all.

The legion composed of a thousand mechanical angels easily broke through the defense line set up by the mages.

The previous battle situation was instantly reversed——

Although the upper limit of mages is still much higher than that of the Holy See, powerful mages need hundreds of years of continuous training, but the Angel Legion can copy them with one click as long as they find qualified ones.

It's almost like a craftsman's fine workshop, struggling against the cold and ruthless factory assembly line.

The mages lost their ability to resist in an instant...but the war was not over.

As the war becomes more anxious, as the hearts of the people are filled with more and more despair, pain, resentment, and fear, the spells used by the mages who gain power from the subconscious of the group become more and more vicious .The mages whose links are too deep have gradually changed their personalities—like one after another resentful souls who only exist for war and revenge.

In order to completely defeat the resistance of the mages, the Holy See began to use a forbidden weapon.

【That is a death-level weapon that can instantly burn a city-state... I also suffered a fatal injury at that time】

The head portrait of the deer describes it like this.

The more Russell listened, the more something was wrong: I always feel that the Holy See is probably starting to grow mushrooms...

[At that time, the land was cracked, the vegetation was dry, resources were exhausted, and even clean water became a luxury... The old trade routes were completely cut off, the country and city-states were completely disintegrated, and those civilians who did not participate in the war at all, only in the presence of mages and In the aftermath of the war in the Holy See, more than half of them were killed or injured]

【It can be said that the world has already been destroyed once at that time】

The earth is full of deadly curses, which can turn people into wolf-like monsters within seven days.

Almost all of the original landforms have been turned into deserts and wastelands—the destructive hot winds and extremely cold ice fields span the world from south to north, and almost all land spaces are no longer inhabitable.

——However, even so, the mage towers that lined the desert were still unable to be captured.

The mages who have been impregnated with the curse in the subconscious of the group are still unwilling to surrender...or, in other words, they are all crazy.

[Because the dawn of complete victory has not been seen for a long time, the only group of mages who maintained their sobriety did not know what kind of negotiations they reached... Maybe it was the pressure from the dragon, in short, they suddenly rebelled collectively]

【They are those elf mages】

The head of the deer said a fact that did not surprise Russell.