Chapter 1 According to n-4's Account

It's not hard to judge from n-4's account that the planet's First Born lost his mind after that strange meteor shower.

However, could a mere meteor shower so easily deal with a First Born who had already reached maturity?

The robot girl mentioned that during the late stages of the war, which could be called the "turning point," the First Born had opened the crust and mantle, exposing its "core." But it would be a big mistake to assume that the First Born's defenses were weakened at that time. First, the First Born didn't have a core that could be called a "weakness." The so-called exposed core was just its deeper organizational organs. These organs had a large number of backups, so even if they were damaged, it would only be a minor problem. Second, the First Born's defense didn't entirely depend on its physical body. Its more powerful protection was its control over various force fields. Its tentacles could open repulsive force fields strong enough to withstand celestial impacts. This force field was enough to protect its body from strikes from outer space – just like when Izhaks summoned meteorites over Beinz and they were intercepted in mid-air. And back then, it was just an immature First Born who intercepted the meteorites.

Compared to the First Born's force field protection and strong physique, the planetary crust was just an unimportant "additional armor." It didn't matter whether it was there or not.

So, the meteor shower at that time ignored the First Born's repulsive force field directly – or easily penetrated that force field, causing devastating damage to the First Born's thought organs? What kind of awesome meteorites were those?

"Speaking of which, why did the First Born open the crust for no reason?" Nangong Wuyue, who was watching the show not far away, thought of another direction. "Just to suddenly open its belly and scare people?"

Nangong Sanba leaned over and muttered, "I guess it was a preparatory action for a big move. Maybe it wanted to unleash a *shayi bodong quan* (killing intent surge fist)..."

Although the Nangong siblings lowered their voices, Hao Ren heard them word for word. However, he wasn't interested in the reason why the First Born opened the crust back then. The latter might have been planning to discard the cumbersome planetary shell on its body, or it might have been preparing to deploy a more powerful strategic weapon, or it might have simply been stretching. For a mature First Born who had grown to the planetary level, any casual action could cause such a result. And this planet's First Born was already crazy. There was no point in guessing the actions of a madman.

"Did that meteor shower directly penetrate the Devourer's defenses back then?" Hao Ren rubbed his brow and asked about the details of the event three thousand years ago. "Didn't the Devourer take any countermeasures?"

"The specific details cannot be confirmed," n-4 shook her head. "The Great Library has been damaged and rebuilt many times, and nearly 60% of the data was lost in hundreds of disaster emergency backups. And the history before the 'Turning Point Battle' was the most severely damaged. We cannot confirm how the meteor shower destroyed the Devourer's power core, but one detail can be verified..."

As n-4 spoke, she began to recite the description of this section from the Great Library's data:

"...All radar and optical observation equipment failed to capture the incoming trajectory of these celestial fragments. They seemed to appear out of thin air above the mother planet's atmosphere. The initial images recorded by optical equipment showed that the light in that area was distorted, and starlight from space was bent into a large number of crazy curves at the edge of the atmosphere. Various satellites in near-Earth orbit also malfunctioned. Then the meteor shower appeared. They sparkled in the sunlight, as if they were made of metal or ice..."

Hearing this description, Hao Ren's heart stirred, and he couldn't help but look at Vivian, who also looked back at him.

"Appeared out of thin air, and there was a distortion of light and a high-energy release process near the location of appearance," Hao Ren nodded slightly. "That's right, this should be the end of a transition process... Those so-called 'meteorites' were teleported over from beyond spacetime."

"I suspect those 'meteorites' are still stuck in the First Born's body, deep in the mantle or near the core," Vivian said. "We can look for them. Perhaps they can reveal all the secrets."

"Of course we're going, but before poking a hornet's nest, I'm more interested in the society in the sky," Hao Ren nodded and looked at n-4's eyes, which looked almost identical to human eyes. "Now, can you tell us about the changes that happened in Zenith and the Lunar Base? About... intelligence blockade, and so on."

n-4 hadn't elaborated on the changes that had occurred in Zenith and the Lunar Base before, but it wasn't hard to realize it from her few words. This survivor society, composed of 99% artificial intelligence and 1% humans, wasn't as bad as Hao Ren had initially guessed – a mechanical group that had lost all intelligent units and was only maintained by low-level AI. On the contrary, whether it was the humans rumored to live in the fortress, or these two artificial intelligence girls who were almost indistinguishable from humans, they all had their own thoughts and judgment abilities. Therefore, their indifference to the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace was particularly strange. Even if the AIs' thinking methods were more rigid and followed command lines more closely, their issuer should have realized how worthy of attention a spaceship that crashed on their mother planet was.

Moreover, n-4 had casually mentioned that there was an intelligence blockade in Zenith and the Lunar Base... This was even more wrong.

n-4 closed her eyes slightly, and a slight hum and electrical sound came from her body, as if her logic circuits were performing some kind of complex judgment. Finally, she seemed to have passed the logical "safety assessment" and opened her eyes to nod to Hao Ren: "Through reorganizing and analyzing the content of the previous negotiations, I judge that you meet our mission requirements."

"The Mainframe has become chaotic."

Hearing this sentence, the most surprised was n-6, who was sitting next to her: "That's impossible! It doesn't make sense logically!"

"Denial, it makes sense logically. The Mainframe is also an artificial system with rules to follow. It is possible for it to malfunction or become chaotic," n-4 looked at n-6 seriously. Although the Mainframe was as important as their most respected monarch and father to the Delegates, n-4 could only say this in the face of the facts. "In fact, the signs appeared as early as a few years ago, but all the lower-level nodes were not authorized to access the relevant data, which is why ordinary Delegates like us were unaware of the changes that had occurred to the Mainframe."

"It appeared as early as a few years ago?" Hao Ren was a little surprised to hear this. He thought that this was another case of his jinx aura taking effect, but he didn't expect that the "Mainframe" had been acting strangely several years ago. "What exactly happened in the sky? Ah, you'd better tell us in detail what the Mainframe is."

"The Mainframe is the highest governing node of all Delegates. As you know, it is located in the fortress of the Lunar Base. Thirteen giant server groups form its thinking device, and in the core of Zenith, there is the Mainframe's secondary center, which is responsible for directly transmitting the Mainframe's commands to the space station fortress," n-4 said calmly. "All along, the Delegates' actions have been uniformly commanded by the Mainframe. It issues instructions to the servers of various barracks and factories, and then forwards them to each of us individually. For thousands of years, this process has never had a problem."

"However, a few years ago, the instructions issued by the Mainframe began to be chaotic."

"It began to frequently modify the combat plans for the surface of the mother planet, adding a large number of unnecessary or even repetitive production tasks to the production program of the Lunar Base. It issued orders to significantly increase the attack echelons sent to the mother planet – even though this blind increase in troops would lead to production and maintenance pressure exceeding the Lunar Base's ability to bear."

"Contradictions began to appear in the Mainframe's information flow, although only a few times, it was an unprecedented phenomenon."

"All these signs have appeared in the past few years."

n-6 widened her eyes and stared at n-4: "Why have I never known about these things? I'm not referring to the issue of authority... I'm just a combatant, but why have I never received these abnormal instructions?"

"Because seven of the Mainframe's thirteen giant servers withdrew these erroneous instructions before they were issued," n-4 replied quietly.

Hao Ren's heart stirred: In other words, these erroneous instructions were not actually sent out, but were rejected by the Mainframe itself when they were circulating within the system. These unpublished instructions did not have a real impact, but only left some system logs?

Then why would n-4, an ordinary "Delegate" with similar authority to n-6, know about these things?

As expected, n-6 was also curious about this: "n-4, why do you know about these things?"

"Because the Mainframe contacted us directly," n-4 pointed to her chest, "Without going through those servers and relay stations, but directly transmitting the information to our logic circuits. I saw the Mainframe's system logs in these years and accepted an order."

Hao Ren and Vivian asked in unison: "What order?"

"It ordered us to come to the surface and find the alien spaceship that crashed on the mother planet."

"So that's how it is... so you came," Hao Ren seemed to have finally understood something. He leaned back in his chair and looked into n-4's eyes, "Then did the Mainframe tell you what to do after finding this spaceship?"

The other party answered very simply: "No."

"You came without even knowing the ultimate goal of the mission?"

"The orders issued by the Mainframe must be obeyed, because it represents the will of mankind," n-4's answer was quite natural, so natural that it was speechless.

Hao Ren knew that the other party was, after all, an artificial intelligence. Even though they were almost indistinguishable from humans, they were still different from ordinary people in terms of logical thinking or worldview. So he skipped this topic and directly asked another question: "Then let me guess... Before you came, it was also your Mainframe that prohibited other people from coming to the surface of the mother planet to look for unidentified spaceships, right?"

"Yes."