Renji knew about Zero’s intention to transform him into a mechanical giant at the Sea Sand Bar, but from Lena’s recent words, it was clear she was not referring to that.
The succubus didn’t play any tricks and simply waved her hand, the lights and shadows shifting around them. The dream’s scenery rapidly reconstructed, and when Renji came back to his senses, he found himself floating high in the air above the Blackhole Plains, the place he had first arrived in this world.
Lena didn’t explain much but just accompanied Renji, signaling him to quietly observe below.
Soon, in the pitch-black night sky above the Blackhole Plains, a meteor-like light appeared, its trajectory so conspicuous, trailing a long white tail.
It seemed slow at first, as if merely wriggling in the sky, but within just a minute or two, the meteor transformed into a blazing fireball, filling Renji’s entire field of vision and finally… crashing into the southeastern corner of the Blackhole Plains.
A fraction of a second later, the powerful shockwave from the explosion, like a tsunami’s roaring waves, destroyed every building in the Blackhole Plains. Beneath the hellish sea of fire, a gigantic mushroom cloud rose and expanded.
Even from a god-like perspective high in the sky, Renji’s vision was filled with blinding light. After several seconds of temporary blindness, when he looked down again, the Blackhole Plains were almost leveled to the ground, a description like “ruins” being too generous.
“TS-283 medium tactical nuclear bomb, produced by Kael Technology. There are at least five digits worth of nuclear bombs with this kind of power within the Mechanical Alliance… Well, countless more of the smaller ones.” Lena’s voice resounded again after everything ended.
“The Observer you encountered in the Blackhole Plains had a relatively low level of pollution, and the world’s deviation value wasn’t that significant at the time. That’s why she stopped just in time. Otherwise, she would have dropped a nuclear bomb just to eliminate a small gang group like Callewa.”
“But if we consider now, with the Observers around the world waking up, I’m sure you can imagine what this world would become, right?”
With another wave of her hand, the inferno below and the ghastly scene dissipated, and the scenery within the dream transformed again.
This time, they were at the top of a high tower. Looking up, the glittering galaxy seemed within reach, while below was the noisy, brightly lit Sin City.
A delicately crafted private courtyard was built at the top of the tower, surrounded by exotic night-blooming Yulan flowers, emitting a fragrant aroma. In a cage-style pavilion, two people sat opposite each other. Lena, now dressed in a familiar dark purple gown known to Renji, elegantly poured a cup of aromatic red tea for the young man opposite her.
Renji, who accepted the tea, looked at the tempting assortment of tea snacks on the table and the stunning night view from their high vantage point. Evidently, this was the place the succubus had designed for a real face-to-face conversation with him.
Though it was his dream, and there should be a monitoring mode from 86, it now seemed as if Lena was the master of this place, freely controlling everything in the dream.
After sipping her tea, the succubus continued speaking to Renji:
“In the first two hundred years, the ‘Observers’ deployed by Zero functioned normally. However, in the following three hundred years, as time went on and the contract became more and more worn out, the contamination within Zero could no longer be suppressed, becoming uncontrollable. All the ‘Observers’ connected to Zero, being her copies, couldn’t escape either. They started to malfunction frequently, with increasingly severe data errors.”
“If things continued like this, the world would be destroyed by these out-of-control machines before they could even ‘observe’ you. Hence, the subsequent ‘Dream Entry’ plan was conceived. In short, Zero herself was in peril and no longer had the ability to recall or destroy these ‘Observers.’ So, the only option was to lock ‘them’ away, into… her ‘dream.'”
Hearing this, Renji finally unraveled a mystery that had perplexed him for a long time.
Previously, he was unaware of these details, but with the emergence of 86, he became familiar with the concept of the ‘Observers.’
Following this logic, his obscurity in the Holy Kingdom could be explained, but as his actions grew more conspicuous and he successfully contracted Suthia again, causing a miraculous event and light rain throughout the Holy Kingdom, the existence of ‘Observers’ should have been evident. With the current ‘Dream’s’ demonstrated computational power, it surely could have deduced much.
If that wasn’t enough, then the declaration of war by Dragon Nation, the blood sacrifice in the Sealed City, the spirit of oblivion, and the chain of events he triggered in the southern lands should have definitely caused a reaction from the ‘Observers.’ But in reality, throughout his time in Dragon Nation, there seemed to be no reaction from the Mechanical Alliance, let alone from Zero.
Therefore, Renji had previously guessed that perhaps 86 was a very “special” Observer, while most of the other ‘Observers’ had likely become ineffective or scrapped over the long five hundred years.
Now it seems he was half right in his guess.
They are not scrapped. On the contrary, it is because they are still functional and retain most of their capabilities that they have become a significant threat after going out of control and have been forcibly “put to sleep.”
“So the deviation value you mentioned earlier refers to the impact I have on this world after my return”
“From my experiences using the Dream these past few days, given the computing power of the ‘Observers,’ even if they are not as powerful as 86, they should still be able to project scenarios for the next few years, or even a decade. And if the actual events in the world significantly deviate from their calculated future scenarios, it would trigger some kind of error-
correction mechanism, causing them to awaken forcibly from their sleep?”
Even when a person is asleep and dreaming, it’s not that all the neurons in the brain are resting. Some are still active, what is often referred to as the subconscious. 𝘪.𝑐ℴ𝘮
So, if there are footsteps at night, or if someone approaches, anything that the brain deems as “abnormal” will trigger the subconscious to pull the person out of sleep, effectively waking them up.
After the succubus across from him nodded in confirmation, Renji fully understood the initial question of why Lena didn’t meet him. It had nothing to do with superficial reasons like being tsundere.
For an entity like Lena, any movement she makes would cause a far greater deviation value than others. So, this would mean…
‘Wait a minute…’
Renji suddenly realized a serious issue. If Lena couldn’t move, then by the same logic, were Nova and Suthia also…
He quickly asked, “Lena, how close are we to the critical deviation value now?”
“Unfortunately after my calculations, we are nearly at the critical value. The concept here is that whether I come to find you, or you actively bring Nova and Suthia to find me, especially the latter, the deviation value it brings, due to the cumulative effect, is equivalent to more than twice the former. It will immediately trigger a widespread awakening of the ‘Observers’ around the world.”
“By then, even if Zero, as the mother body, can re-establish a contract with you, but as you can see from Suthia, pollution is not so easily resolved. Before Zero can regain control of these ‘Observers,’ the world might have already been… annihilated by them, right?”
This content is taken from 𝘳𝑎.𝒸ℴ