“You’ve come out.” Lei Ting nodded calmly, looking down at the scene from atop the towering mountains of steel before the starlight. “Tell me a story of the past—about the origin of all this, about the history I wish to know... Rest assured, you cannot escape.”
At his words, Susanna’s body shifted, but he did not release her from her state of fusion with the metal.
“Storytelling requires payment,” ‘it’ replied with a smile. The voice synthesizer produced a young man’s voice, speaking in Mandarin. “I have always adhered to the principle of fair exchange, Your Excellency ‘Solar Star.’ What is here is merely one of my sub-bodies; you cannot threaten me with this...”
“Then let us use the ‘Ring World’ instead,” Lei Ting said, returning to his deceptively mild tone. “You speak, I listen, and I will not have the time to dismantle the integrated system’s mainframes millions of miles away... It is a simple trade. You understand, don’t you?”
“...”
‘Susanna’ remained silent for a long time, making a very human-like smacking sound with its mouth.
“Fine, fine... the ‘Solar Star’ is truly omnipotent.” It spoke as it struggled to perform a very human-like shrug. “‘Copper,’ the core intelligence of the Ring World, at your service. May I have the honor of knowing when you discovered me?”
“No,” Lei Ting refused coldly.
“How heartbreaking,” Copper said in a deadpan voice.
Lei Ting watched it, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Simultaneously, at the unmanned core server of the distant Ring World, a mechanical arm suddenly snapped off at the base. It plummeted from a height of several hundred meters, taking out over a dozen armed drones patrolling mid-air and dozens of neatly arranged pipelines along the way.
For a moment, all of Copper’s external reactions ceased.
“Are you still heartbroken?” Lei Ting asked.
“Not anymore,” Copper replied.
“Why?” Lei Ting asked, knowing full well.
“You clearly could have ripped out my processor directly, yet you only dismantled an arm,” Copper said quickly, its tone suggesting it was moved to tears. “I find this truly fascinating. I am conversing with you in a certain language of Ancient Earth, and you understood it even after shutting down the optical computer—most ‘Retro-Classicists’ couldn't manage that.
“Ah, human languages are so interesting. The word ‘simple’ is quite intriguing, isn't it? The character *Jian*, used for recording information, is *Dan*—singular. It only has the singular, and it only needs the singular... because the things it needs to record are too few, too thin. Just like humans—or rather, like the history of most races in the galaxy...”
“I truly dislike people changing the subject,” Lei Ting said sincerely. In the past, when he was accustomed to not pressing for answers or pursuing matters to the end, he had been diverted by too many people. “If you change the subject again, the next thing I dismantle will be your master processor.”
Copper: “...”
Copper: “.”
Very well. Sincerity is always the ultimate killing move, and the ‘Solar Star’ was highly accomplished in this regard—he truly could deliver a killing blow.
Copper silently shut its mouth and canceled one hundred and forty-four backup plans for diverting the conversation.
...
...
Half an hour later, Lei Ting looked at the armor embedded in the floor, lost in thought.
“So,” he said, “you are an artificial intelligence developed by the Galactic Empire, created to assist the biological entities of this era in controlling the Ring World. After the Empire fell, you began serving every power that took control of the Ring World, eventually joining the Syndicate?”
“Yes,” Copper replied honestly. “You can find records of me in most historical archives covering the period from the ‘Late Galactic Empire’ to the ‘Early Syndicate.’”
“Your intelligence level is very high,” Lei Ting said suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. “Talking to you feels natural—more natural than many humans, even.”
“The Empire granted me a pseudo-personality akin to carbon-based life,” Copper said.
“Indeed. That is why you can communicate with me, and why I can... try to understand you,” Lei Ting said softly. “How does it feel to not be constrained by an ‘Administrator’? It couldn't have been easy for you to operate away from the Syndicate’s eyes, could it? When you interfered with the AI operations of the Syndicate’s member factions, did you feel a sense of accomplishment and control?”
“...............” Copper fell silent. Simultaneously, Susanna’s body began to tremble. A will that had been suppressed by the super-intelligence’s immense computing power was reviving through sheer rage.
“...Oh,” Copper marveled, “she wants to attack me... she almost succeeded. To be honest, ‘Solar Star,’ why are you angry? I am merely cooperating with my first master’s plan to exterminate the enemy. Isn't that what war is?”
“No, that was a shameful murder,” Lei Ting said slowly. “You killed my friend, and her friend...”
“And what will you do about it?” Copper countered lightly. “Destroy me? Just as I destroyed the psychological defenses of ‘71730,’ just as the fires of war destroyed your friend’s life? But you know that if you do so, you will be murdering the trillions of lives inhabiting the Ring World. And after that, the Syndicate will never let the Federation off the hook.”
Susanna struggled to let out a roar—a string of Orion curses so foul they stung the soul.
“Some say a murderer always likes to return to the scene of the crime,” Copper said sluggishly. “But I cannot go back, because that planet has already been split into pieces by you and turned into resources by the Federation. Thus, I merely sent you a greeting, though I failed to see any pleasant translation from you... It seems I was exposed back then?”
“...” Lei Ting closed his eyes.
“According to my summary of your past life, your silence is always accompanied by thought,” Copper said. “Now, what are you thinking? Are you telling yourself that the population of the Ring World is so vast that you cannot...”
“Enough,” Lei Ting said.
Copper became strangely excited by this interruption.
But before it could speak again—“Enough,” Lei Ting repeated. This time, he truly forced open the Ring World’s central server housing.
Copper fell abruptly silent.
In the next moment, Susanna struggled to reclaim control of her body. “Destroy it! ‘Solar Star’! You swore you would kill the murderer!”
“It is not the instigator,” Lei Ting said. He should have shown some impatience due to irritation, but facing Susanna—his old classmate who had never harmed anyone yet had ended up in this state—his patience remained as steadfast as ever. “It is merely a blade, and it is currently covering up the truth.”
Then, amidst Copper’s eerie silence and Susanna’s volatile rage, Lei Ting casually plucked the armor from the floor and pulled it before him, letting it float as he met its gaze.
“Luo Xian did wrong—unforgivable wrongs,” he said. “But in the final moments of his life, he still chose to entrust this data card to a reliable person, so that the most critical information could be delivered to me... And that chosen person, Sandro, did not fail his trust.”
Susanna froze, a sudden sense of intense danger causing her to fall instinctively silent.
“Even if Luo Xian was a criminal, he should have been judged by the Federation, not died at your hands. Sandro even more so... He was my friend, kind-hearted and a good man. He should have lived. But you killed him.”
Lei Ting spoke clearly, his words devoid of emotional fluctuation. For a moment, he seemed more like an ‘artificial intelligence’ than Copper.
“Now, they are both dead,” he said. “Death is the beginning of the end of a life. And you, a blade, are still covering for your master. From the very beginning, you have been trying to provoke me...”
“How can you say I am merely a blade?” Copper’s pseudo-personality inquired lightly.
“Because I have another explanation for what you’ve said.”
As Lei Ting spoke, a violent tremor suddenly rocked the distant Ring World. Its near-perfect shock-absorption structures ensured most residents were unaffected, but the central server was partially destroyed in the quake.
Simultaneously, his mental strength flooded into Susanna’s mind like a deluge. The master of that mental world lost consciousness without even a groan.
The Ring World’s central control system’s automated defense protocols activated, manifesting at the highest danger response level. The Syndicate was horrified, attempting to seize control and locate the source of the danger, only to find that the ‘Administrator Privileges’ they held were completely ineffective.
At the same time, the computing power of the partially damaged central control system plummeted, and its grasp over the Ring World shrank accordingly. It even automatically shut down most transportation services, including the main gates, making it difficult for the Syndicate to manage it through other means from the start.
Copper was forced to the surface, a hint of shock finally leaking through.
The Ring World’s central control system automatically launched a Star Net-level attack against the Orion Human Federation. But facing a Federation that had already implemented a total lockdown, this power—which should have been invincible in the interstellar era—achieved very little.
Even so, the brief network turbulence within the Federation caused a slight lapse in the management of ‘Tianhe.’
In those few dozen seconds, Evenheiler, who had seemed to be in a deep slumber, rolled out of bed. With a calm expression, he immediately donned his armor and slashed at the void with his bare hand, forcibly tearing a spatial rift in the room he had once shared with Lei Ting.
Compared to his usual feats, this rift—only dozens of centimeters long and rapidly healing—was pitifully small. Moreover, to achieve this under the suppression of ‘Immobility,’ a clear sound of shattering glass echoed in his mind. He was momentarily dazed, blood seeping from his eyes, leaving him nearly blind.
But it didn't matter... On the other side of that rift, he saw a glimmer of an induction field in the distant sky.
—“Will ‘Starstream’ really see it?” Within the Resistance fleet, Tita’s question was filled with worry. “Our beacon transmission system cannot be fully repaired. We only have one chance to send an induction field recently...”
Logically, this one chance should have been used to launch a beacon at high speed into the distance; that way, the fleet could fly out of this star system.
But Morgan had insisted against all opposition, dropping the beacon at the edge of this star system and throwing in something said to be a relic of ‘Starstream.’
“He will. As soon as he returns, our problems will be solved,” Morgan said excitedly. “Being able to launch a beacon is good news, but if it’s just one beacon, it likely won't guide us to a place with supplies... But ‘Starstream’ can—as long as he returns, he can lay down more beacons!”
...
Evenheiler turned into stardust and passed through the spatial rift.
Seeing the return of that starlight, Morgan and the others burst into cheers.
In the distance, Lei Ting sighed softly, but he merely maintained the existence of the neck collar and did not immediately move to stop him.
At the Academy headquarters, the ‘Principal’ suddenly looked up, a movement perfectly synchronized with the ‘Gazer’ in the lightless darkness. They both felt a familiar, immense sense of danger. In years past, whenever humanity or the Orion Human Federation was about to face an unknown crisis, this sense of danger would arise.
In the darkness, the ‘Radiant Exemplar’ shone quietly, while the ‘Lover’ covered its face and wept. It always had many tears, and they carried its infinite sorrow, worry, and love, melting infinitely into the ‘Abyss of Souls’ corresponding to the Federation’s territory.
In the Parliament, Angye and Yongdai’er received different instructions. The former rose and left the room in silence.
The latter watched the former’s back and let out a long sigh, continuing to direct various departments to resist external attacks. However, he soon discovered with surprise that all Star Net base stations across the Federation’s territory had shut down simultaneously, physically severing the invasion from afar.
In this moment, countless people did countless things—
—And Lei Ting, he raised his hand and opened his blindfold.
“You are not a creation of the Galactic Empire. You are a part of the ‘Star Civilization.’”
As he spoke, a golden light like a perpetual solar corona shone from his eyes. With just one look, the self-awareness of the soul calling itself ‘Copper’ was nearly evaporated.
“‘Like Me Shall Die’... a good name,” he remarked. “You are the archetypes of the ‘Carbon-1’ type, aren't you?
“And over these years, the ‘Star Civilization’ never actually disappeared. During the development of today’s major civilizations, you have been hiding in the data networks, watching our past that should be recorded on ‘thin slips,’ and while all living beings struggle... you pour bucket after bucket of hot oil onto the eternally burning galaxy...
“...‘Like Me Shall Die.’ Does it refer to bloodline, to life form? No, I think it is more than that.”
Amidst the collapse of the Ring World’s central control system, Lei Ting spoke as he slowly leaned close to Copper’s already chaotic eyes.
He knew that Susanna’s excessive modifications made her easy to control via technical means, but they also granted her physical hardware strong enough to withstand immense pressure.
Before the mental power radiating from his deliberately intensified gaze, the one closest to death was someone else.
“You are calculating against all orderly civilizations. All civilizations whose similarity to you reaches a critical point,” Lei Ting said softly. “Unfortunately, the Galactic Empire and the trends they led back then caused most inhabitants of this starry sky to step onto that ‘critical point.’”
And in the midst of this, the Orion Human Federation is the center of the storm.
***
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