Chapter 1940 - 1939: Memories of the Past

Seeing this scene, A02’s expression changed slightly; without the slightest hesitation, she slipped aside.

The dazzling radiance struck the huge ship behind her in an instant, piercing through it and igniting surging flames.

He Ao calmly gazed at A02’s movements; in truth, the main power of that light lay in the auxiliary attributes attached by the surrounding Arrays—once those Arrays shattered, the remaining pure radiance no longer held much force.

Of course, it was still more than enough to smash the Navigator.

And at the moment the Navigator broke apart, A02’s body flickered abruptly; using the explosion’s flames as cover, she rushed toward the gap between the gray Arrays.

But before she could reach the Arrays, those violently flickering Arrays suddenly contracted.

Countless streaks of gray radiance stabbed inward like blades, piercing through her body in an instant.

She clenched her teeth, about to tear free of the gray light, yet the contraction speed of the Arrays suddenly accelerated.

In just a fleeting instant, the dense Arrays snapped shut and fused into a gigantic gray light sphere, enveloping her body within.

Countless gray lines speared through her body; fine wounds split open across her snow‑white skin, seeping a faintly gray blood that flowed in the void, then was instantly vaporized by the gray radiance.

He Ao gazed at this scene, stepped forward, crossed the void, and arrived outside this Array sphere.

He lifted his eyes, sweeping over the rapidly drying gray blood of A02 that diffused through the air.

An Angel’s blood is one of the finest Mysticism materials, able to rapidly construct complex Mysticism Arrays.

He Ao had no doubt about A02’s level of Mysticism Knowledge, nor about her ability to rapidly construct Arrays.

"What are you trying to do?" At this moment, A02 also raised her eyes, looking at He Ao floating outside, her brows slightly knitting. "Your power is very strong—you have the ability to kill me."

Vaguely, a sense of ill omen spread through her heart.

In this instant she suddenly understood the meaning of "feeling," yet her Life had already reached its end.

She lifted her head, looking at He Ao before her, consciousness growing ever more faint.

And at this time, outside the light sphere, He Ao suddenly raised his gaze and looked toward A02.

A faint violet radiance spread over He Ao’s pupils; the vast force of Super Memory stabbed into A02’s Soul in an instant.

Previously, A02 had no Soul; to know what she actually knew, one had to find her storage drives or find a way to steal her data—she existed outside the Extraordinary World.

But now, she possessed a Soul, possessed memory.

That meant he could directly flip through her memories.

Of course, her consciousness had to be blurred; at such a moment, the resistance within the Soul is at its weakest, and the memories one can see are the most.

As the Navigator’s former main artificial intelligence, left over from the Ruins era, having fully experienced the Ruins’ destruction, A02 very likely knew how the Ruins were destroyed back then—she might even have personally taken part.

If she was not an artificial intelligence created specifically for the Navigator, then she may have appeared in an even earlier era, and could thus carry certain early‑period data of the Ruins era.

Moreover, she only recently acquired a Life form; in this world, she may not even have come into contact with the God of Machinery.

Even if she had, she might not yet have realized that her mode of existence had changed.

Therefore, the God of Machinery may not have imposed restrictions upon her Soul.

From the first time he saw A02, He Ao realized she might be the key to peering into that bygone Ruins era.

The Ruins Civilization—or rather, the Original Federation of that time—why did they leave the dungeon world, and why did they ultimately perish?

As the force of Super Memory drove deeper into A02’s Soul, strand after strand of fine information began surfacing within He Ao’s mind.

A02’s memory differed from that of ordinary people.

An ordinary person’s memory is a first‑person, subjective record, where one can even see traces of self‑beautification in certain parts.

A02’s memory, however, resembled more a well‑classified archive room, densely arrayed with vast numbers of "observer" files.

And unlike the way ordinary memory lines blur, A02’s memories possessed a clear timeline.

He Ao swiftly located A02’s earliest memories and rapidly skimmed through their contents.

A02’s birth seemed to fall amid the most prosperous period of the Ruins era; judging from her memories, the Ruins Civilization’s artificial intelligence technology had developed extremely rapidly, dramatically reducing people’s work intensity.

At times, memory being too detailed has its drawbacks—namely, that there is too much content and it is far too time‑consuming.

Even with He Ao’s capacity for understanding, these complex memories almost made his brain briefly stall, and after seeing so much, he still had not found any key information.

And He Ao faintly sensed that the deeper he went into A02’s memories, the faster a certain invisible gaze was converging in this direction.

The God of Machinery did not seem to have left A02’s memories entirely untouched; this might be a power originally intended to protect A02’s Soul, now being triggered.

Fortunately, the good news was that this residual power could not yet interfere with A02’s memories.

Sensing that gaze drawing near, He Ao swiftly withdrew his awareness, abandoned the meticulous search, and began rapidly querying the cause of the Ruins Civilization’s destruction.

Very quickly, he found the segment of memory corresponding to the time of the Ruins Civilization’s fall.

During this period, A02 had already become the Navigator’s main artificial intelligence, yet she still maintained high‑frequency communications with the Relic Planet.

Within those communications were normal exchanges, as well as large quantities of twisted code that He Ao could not understand.

At first, this code was sent to A02 in rapid, massive batches; she categorized it as junk code and cleared it, repeatedly sending messages to the Relic Planet to inquire about its source.

But the Relic Planet continued to transmit this twisted code without interruption.

He Ao did not know the meaning of this twisted code, but he discovered that after receiving it, A02 never once reported the matter to the Navigator’s Commander.

She merely kept up her communications with the Relic Planet.

And those twisted codes seemed to possess a certain magic; very soon, A02 herself began sending such distorted codes to the Relic Planet.

In the end, all of A02’s "communications" with the Relic Planet turned into this kind of code.

After that, all of A02’s "memories" turned into this incomprehensible code.

As He Ao read through this code, the gaze projecting in from beyond time and space seemed to Advent even more swiftly.

Among this chaos of code, He Ao only managed to extract a portion of the twisted content, and a portion of unmutated "recording videos."

They documented the Navigator’s final argument.

By piecing together the remnants of video not yet completely mutated, He Ao found that the people on the Navigator seemed to believe the Relic Planet was researching something terrifying.

Through many methods, they sent warnings to the Relic Planet, but all of them vanished without a trace.

In return, they received the news that the "research" was about to succeed.

In the end, just as the Navigator decided to return, an invisible calamity struck the entire Navigator.

The vast majority of the crew died in this disaster, and in it, A02 also awakened her self‑will.

Just as A02 attempted to swallow all the crew and obtain true Life, the remaining Transcendents discovered A02’s Abnormality.

They united and, through self-sacrifice, Sealed A02.

What was the Ruins Civilization studying in that era?

In the instant this thought surfaced in He Ao’s mind, that gaze which crossed time and space arrived in A02’s Soul.

"My Lord..."

Outside, A02’s eyes suddenly widened. She lifted her gaze toward the void ahead, a faint hope flickering in her eyes.

A terrifying, twisted power pierced through the void in an instant, carrying a kind of shocking, irresistible pressure, descending upon this space. In a flash it stabbed through the gray Array He Ao had constructed, and stabbed into A02’s body.

Before she could react at all, it tore her Soul to shreds.

The hopeful expression she wore froze on her face in that moment.

Her memory "warehouse" likewise collapsed abruptly in that instant.

He Ao immediately unleashed his power and walked to the very depths of the memory warehouse, trying to capture some of the earliest memory fragments.

At the juncture when this Soul shattered—after those complex memories were completely broken—instead, some key memories were exposed.

Among them was a segment that seemed to be a video of A02 from the Ruins Civilization era, watching some big shot speaking, but only a single simple line remained: "...ever since the world was destroyed..."

What does that mean?

The world was destroyed?

He Ao tried to catch more information, but all that remained around him was a scattering of Soul fragments, utterly empty.

Meanwhile, the A02 on the outside was also staring wide-eyed at the sky, lips slightly parted, as if wanting to say something—but she could no longer say anything at all.

He Ao fell silent for a moment, then raised his gaze to the sky.

That vast, magnificent gaze was still fixed on this place, on He Ao below.

Yet It did not take any further action—only paused slightly, then withdrew Its gaze, as if everything just now had been nothing but an illusion.

He Ao also frowned slightly, his gaze fixed on the scene in the sky.

He could feel that the God of Machinery could Advent Its power, yet It did not Advent—It merely dealt with A02 and then departed.

That power just now looked impressive, but in truth it didn’t carry much weight; what truly tore A02’s Soul apart was the power the God of Machinery had long buried within A02’s body.

In other words, in essence the God of Machinery only glanced at this place this time, and did not Advent.

For the true Main World, It has no coordinates and cannot Advent. But for this world, since It can cast Its gaze here, It should be able to Advent.

He Ao did not believe that, seeing He Ao here, It would not be tempted to come down and try to kill him.

Unless some other reason prevented It from entering the field.

He Ao’s gaze swept across the surrounding void.

Is it because this world is too fragile? It cannot withstand the power of a true Divine Being?

The God of Machinery refrains from Adventing Its power for fear of tearing this world apart?

Since It cares about this thing, that shows this thing has a great deal to do with It?

This world was not made by that dog of a Holy Master—it was made by the God of Machinery?

Then did the Holy Master participate in it?

As he pondered, He Ao raised his hand, supporting A02’s remains.

In fact, when he sensed the Advent of the God of Machinery, he had deliberately stayed, wanting to see the God of Machinery’s attitude.

The Divine Being’s attitude can be used to deduce the mastermind behind this world.

If this world was simply the work of the Holy Master, then It would certainly stop the God of Machinery from Adventing, or interfere with the God of Machinery’s power.

And if this world is related to the God of Machinery, then the outcome would be more or less what just happened.

It was clear that the God of Machinery did not care about the "subordinates" of this world. Ultimately, these were merely Its Props.

Still, He Ao had not expected the God of Machinery to be this "cautious." This indicated Its plan was very likely already at a critical juncture.

He Ao glanced at A02’s corpse before him, lifted his hand, and a Dry Well appeared in his palm.

Then he looked at the Dry Well; A02’s corpse began to rapidly decay.

Sure enough, one can pay the "price" for asking questions through Sacrifice—or rather, this is the proper way to Open this piece of Extraordinary Items.

Previously, He Ao had relied on his own lifespan to fuel it; that was the "tough-guy" approach.

As A02’s corpse decayed, He Ao lowered his head to look at the reflection in the Dry Well in his hand, and asked in a low voice, "Where is the key point for Super Memory promotion?"

As his words fell, A02’s corpse turned to dust at a rate almost visible to the meat eyes.

The reflection in the well trembled at that moment, and faint ripples began to spread.

Then the scene in the reflection gradually turned into a deer. Next, a blurred human figure walked over and draped horse hide over the deer, and the deer became a horse.

Immediately after, the reflection shimmered, once again turning into He Ao’s reflection.

He Ao raised his brows slightly. What is this?

I Sacrificed an Angel, and this is the answer I get?

What does this mean, Pointing a Deer as a Horse?

"Are you looking at something?" Just then, a soft inquiry sounded behind He Ao.

"I was waiting for you." He Ao put away the Dry Well in his hand, turned around, and looked behind him. "Tuning Master."

A young man dressed in a plain white robe, with a gaunt face and a thin frame, his skin showing a sickly pallor, appeared in He Ao’s field of view.

This was the first time He Ao had seen the human form of the Tuning Master. This youth did not look like some ancient Usurper God who roamed the cosmos, but more like a young yet devout Believer of old.

Yet that unhidden aura that seeped into the deep layers of the world indisputably revealed that this was a terrifying existence Above Angel.

In fact, once A02 died, He Ao knew the Tuning Master had returned. Even if he couldn’t sense He Ao, the God of Machinery would send him over—so He Ao simply stayed here and waited.

"So you recognize me." The youth raised his hand to cover his mouth and gave a light cough. "You know the real-world me?"

Hearing his question, He Ao paused slightly, then looked at him. "You know this world isn’t ’real’?"

"Actually, in a certain sense, it is quite real." The Tuning Master floated in midair, quietly gazing at He Ao. "It’s just a bit too fragile."