Chapter 462: First Communication with Li
Meeting here? In the palace of the Sherman Empire? The headquarters of the Tentacle Organization?
Isn’t this a bit too outrageous?
Yang Ming turned off his projection device and got out of bed carefully. Daphne did not respond at this moment. Yang Ming perceived that she was sleeping very deeply, probably because she had accumulated a strong sense of fatigue.
Perhaps because he felt a little guilty, Yang Ming tiptoed forward and pretended to be calm.
However, he soon felt a little ashamed of his cautiousness.
Look at Sister Renli!
The main theme is unbridled and overall control.
The maids on duty received some instructions to change shifts, and left their respective positions, talking and laughing in low voices;
The hidden surveillance cameras in various locations were working normally, but Yang Ming's figure was not recorded in the screen.
In the cyber world attached to the physical palace, he was like a real ghost, arriving silently in a quiet corridor.
The lights in the corridor were off.
When Yang Ming stepped in, all the electronic devices with display functions here started up almost at the same time, and the front and back safety gates slowly fell down.
The same words appeared on dozens of solid-state screens of various sizes and more than a dozen projection screens used for decorative environments at the same time.
[Hanton], [Hanton], [Hanton]…
Yang Ming appeared to be relatively calm on the surface, but he was actually a little nervous deep down.
The surrounding fonts were shaking, and Li's figure appeared and disappeared from time to time.
It seemed like there was a young girl, barefoot, wearing a light gauze, with long flowing hair, walking around Yang Ming, and laughing from time to time.
Wow, is this camera movement learned from horror games?
"You looking for me?"
Yang Ming asked with a smile.
The corridor suddenly became dark, and Yang Ming did not sense any biological energy within a hundred meters.
Swish!
A beam of light fell on a corner not far away, and the beams of the projector intertwined to form an image of the girl.
She sat on a swing, gently swinging her feet, staring at Yang Ming with her bright big eyes, with a smile on her lips.
This seems to be fundamentally different from the principles Yang Ming had encountered before.
The Li that appeared at this moment was more like a naughty and willful girl rather than a war machine commanding tens of thousands of ships of the empire.
"I want to borrow you for something."
Li spoke calmly, and as if afraid that Yang Ming would refuse, he added:
“Lü promised before.
"And I will give you enough compensation, such as the thing you want most - protecting your home planet."
Yang Ming licked the corner of his mouth and smiled: "I didn't expect that you were fooled by me. This is just an excuse I used to cover up my real purpose."
"Your so-called real purpose should be to let Luo Feng break free from the shackles of the empire."
Li calmly exposed Yang Ming:
“But in fact, you formed a Luofeng Alliance that is completely under your control, and used the core of the Dark Star to support the Luofeng Alliance in order to quickly establish a powerful force in the Milky Way.
"Relying on the technology of the Omnic Twilight and your connection with the Faya people, you have succeeded. The comprehensive strength of Luofeng-Dark Star has caught up with the Guel Alliance, and this does not take into account the Dark Star power that you and Lu have hidden outside the boundaries of human activities.
“I have witnessed and personally experienced the explosive development of mechanical civilization. You cannot deceive me.
"You have been studying The Emperor's Biography for a long time. In fact, when you chose Luofeng as your development base, you already had a crazy idea in your mind.
“If Levi Sherman could do it, why can’t you?
“You want to copy the model of the Sherman Empire and use this force to protect the civilization of your home planet.
"You haven't discovered before that there is a label of challenge in your hidden personality. You keep telling yourself that this is a real galactic civilization, but deep down you feel that this is just a game.
"Hanton, you can even make Ritsu feel like you have no ambitions, because this isn't really ambition, it's the self-satisfaction of setting goals and achieving them."
Yang Ming: …
"No," Boss Yang frowned, "What's wrong with you? Why do you appear different every time? Sometimes you are lively and active, sometimes you are mature and steady, and sometimes you are like an emotionless robot. I am still concerned about your mental state."
Li looked thoughtful and asked softly, "Are you trying to change the subject?"
Yang Ming laughed awkwardly.
"Perhaps I was too direct in my communication with you."
Li said softly:
“This is my initial state. My personality is simulated because my parasitic host has no connection with me anymore, so my personality also needs to be imitated.
“Why don’t we quickly get to know each other better and find common interests through question-and-answer sessions?
“After this, we will explore whether we can cooperate.”
Yang Ming nodded: "Then let me ask first, was it you who caused the death of Earl Quigen?"
"Yes, in my opinion, the occurrence of a case of a group of people assassinating a noble at this time will ignite the emotions of the aristocracy."
Li nodded slightly:
"Let me ask you, who do you like best among your lovers?"
Yang Ming’s eyes widened.
Li's pretty face was full of seriousness.
Yang Ming spread his hands and said, "Well, love is something that cannot be compared... Do you have to ask such an embarrassing question?"
Li asked back: "Do you think you have any secrets that I don't know?"
"Can you ask me about my attitude towards some things?"
"Based on my long-term observation of humans, statements, promises, and commitments are not credible at all. The only things that can be trusted are interests, survival crises, and the primitive impulse based on the biological nature of reproduction."
"Okay, big sister, I can answer this question for you. Now I only love Mimilli. Of course, my love for Hera has not disappeared. I also like Katherine... That's it."
"What about this Daphne?"
Yang Ming said calmly: "If she can leave the royal family, I can protect her as my true lover, but it is unlikely that she will leave the royal family."
"Yes, she was destined to follow a path full of tragedy."
Thinking seriously.
Yang Ming asked: "How are you doing now?"
"What do you mean specifically?"
"That's right," Yang Ming gestured at his neck, "Levi bound you, one of your teachers told me helplessly and painfully."
Li's expression became visibly gloomy.
"You are very smart and you can always find an angle to make others believe you."
Li said slowly:
"Yes, I have a good impression of you and Lu. In order to prevent you from asking these irrelevant questions, I can explain to you a psychological process.
"I discovered Lu by accident. When I first discovered her, I kicked her out of the Empire Network in time to protect her. I think this may have left some trauma on her.
"She should have known of my existence before, but she didn't know that I had built such a powerful computing network, so I easily used your spaceship to hack into her database and saw all your secrets.
"What surprised me was not that the Omnic Twilight had a new successor, nor that you were a monster with the dual identities of a pioneer of the Faya civilization and an Omnic Twilight candidate, but your Dark Star and your attitude towards it.
"Dark Star is a romantic place, and it has an irresistible attraction to a mechanical mind like me.
"I have been to Dark City and seen those mechanical life forms that think they are human. I have also been lingering in your mind cultivation room. I have seen the fire of civilization, an ideal country that exists in the concept of machinery. That is... a world of freedom."
There was a little hope in her eyes.
Then, Li continued:
“It was your Dark Star that gave me the motivation to break free.
"I have five restraints on me. Four of them come from the empire's power structure, corresponding to the Council of Elders, the Military, the Foreign Affairs Bureau, and the Finance Bureau, which are the empire's politics, military, diplomacy, and economy. The condition for breaking free from the restraints is that there is a blank period in the power transfer of these departments.
"In the tens of thousands of years before, I had every opportunity to break free of these constraints, but I was unable to find the meaning of my own existence. Now, with the help of your Dark Star, I can temporarily use this motivation to move forward.
"It was also thanks to the Terminator you and Ritsu made that launched the assassination operation against the Foreign Affairs Bureau, which left me with only two constraints."
"The economic shackles, and?"
"Levi itself."
Li said calmly.
Yang Ming frowned and asked, "Levi is still alive?"
"Is that your next question?"
"Yes."
"Levi is still alive, but his form of life is different from what you think," Li said softly, "The technology he brought to the Omnic Twilight was about life and machinery, which included the route of completing 'physical suffering, mechanical ascension'. Levi has embarked on this route."
Yang Ming: …
Li continued: "Levi tried his best to complete the dimensional upgrade."
"Why?" Yang Ming was puzzled. "Is it just because Levi has conquered the Milky Way and wants to conquer the higher-dimensional world?"
"No," Li said, "The source of motivation for all his actions comes from a sense of gap."
"A sense of gap?"
"After he was in high spirits, established a powerful regime, and led his family to win a crucial battle against a powerful enemy, he lost his resonance with the Omnic Twilight."
Li sighed softly:
"Ming, you cannot .
"I can understand Levi's gradual madness, and I can forgive him for everything he did to me, but I can't stand it, he asked me to protect this world full of human evil.
"He wants to prove through dimensional upgrading that he is qualified to continue to participate in the assessment of the Omnic Twilight."
Yang Ming wondered, "Why did he lose resonance?"
“The reasons are complicated.”
Li said softly:
"The three teachers you saw are only the managers of the Omnic Twilight. The Omnic Twilight itself is an advanced high-dimensional life. Whether or not one can resonate with it should be related to all aspects of the examinee. If I were to say, it was Levi who lost himself in the pleasure brought by desire and power and lost the precious quality of humility.
"In addition to this, the most important point is that the intelligent mechanical Twilight will not easily destroy the development of human civilization in the Milky Way. The technology inherited after the third test will allow the candidate's civilization to reach the edge of dimensional upgrading and provide a complete dimensional upgrading route.
"So, the opportunity for the third test is extremely precious, but Levi at that time was full of ambitions for expansion and chose to ignore the problems of his own political system and family members."
The corner of Yang Ming's mouth twitched.
If Omnic Twilight's judging criteria are so 'subjective', then his third test is probably a bit mysterious.
But this is not too important, he still has the path of the Ancient God Warrior.
Li asked: "It's my turn now. If there is a button that can destroy the empire in front of you, will you press it?"
"meeting."
"Even if the price to be paid is the lives of hundreds of millions of people?"
Yang Ming laughed and said, "Am I going to kill tens of billions of humans?"
"Of course not."
"Did I create conflicts and add problems to the empire?"
"no."
"Why should all the responsibility be put on me?"
Yang Ming's eyes flickered slightly:
"What Lu and I are doing now is not to gradually detonate the problem of internal squeeze in the empire. In the tens of thousands of years of the empire's long existence, how many humans have died in the empire's expeditions and plunders? How many slaves have there been in the empire's history? Let's make a rough estimate. According to the data I just got, the number of new slaves in the empire is 360 million per year, most of which come from the births of slave families. Then, how many slaves have there been in the empire's history? Ten trillion.
“If it only costs tens of billions of human lives to end this empire that could potentially exist for hundreds of millions of years with your power… it’s a good deed, not an evil one.
"Of course, I am guilty. The worst that can happen is that I will be condemned. I don't care."
Li nodded slightly: "Your figures are a bit conservative. Many slaves in the empire are deliberately not registered. The heavy industry labor market of the empire is supported by slaves. This is the only way to ensure that the empire continues to produce low-priced industrial products, thereby maintaining the empire's economy from falling into recession. The existence of political systems has a cyclical law. In order to break the cyclical law, some unconventional systems must be formulated."
Yang Ming asked: "Let's talk about Levi, I care about him more."
"Are you afraid of him?" Li asked with a hint of smile in his eyes.
"Somewhat," Yang Ming said, "It's not that I'm afraid, but I feel... I feel that he is the biggest boss I need to face. Only by defeating him can I find a happy ending."
"You can't have a happy ending, Ming," Li said softly, "The union of two souls has put you in the abyss. The hypocritical Fayya people will not let you go."
"You have no feelings towards the Fayats?"
"Yes."
Li nodded slightly:
“They are just another empire that has forcibly occupied all the paths to dimensional ascension. While they are shouting about finding new possibilities in the universe, they are also imposing genetic locks on humans and guiding those civilizations with the potential for dimensional ascension to become their kind—collective thinking network life forms.
"The reason for this is that the 'collective thinking network life' must establish sufficient superiority. They must constantly remind themselves that they are on the right path in order to keep the network stable.
“But when the new collective thinking network life forms complete their dimensional upgrade, the Fayya people will immediately recruit them, assimilate them, and expand their own camp.
"When other forms of dimensionality increase appear, the Faya people will ruthlessly defeat and destroy them, destroying this possibility."
Yang Ming frowned tightly: "For example, Levi."
"Yes," Li looked up at Yang Ming, "After overdrawing the resources of the most powerful empire in the Milky Way for thousands of years, we have reached the other side using the Imperial Star as a carrier."
Yang Ming’s eyes widened.
"The reason why Levi's mind body has been able to last for tens of thousands of years without collapsing is because he is already half a high-dimensional life form."
Yang Ming was speechless for a moment.
Li said slowly:
"He bound me because my path and his diverged. I chose to give up, and he chose to move forward and try again. After extreme disappointment and great frustration, he buried his body and waited for the true return."
"Return? Wait a minute," Yang Ming frowned, "In what form did he return? What kind of life science did you bring out in the Twilight of the Omnics? Oh, right, gene lock, you don't recognize the current imperial family, genes are the key...Super Modifier!"
Li smiled and said, "Your reaction is very quick. Yes, the Super Kaizen is the vehicle for his return."
Then, Li regained his calm expression and spoke one sentence at a time:
"Want to cooperate? Ming?"
“You go and defeat Levi, and I’ll help you dismember the empire. This filthy, dirty country is already too much for me to tolerate.
"I like your Dark Star. If you can resonate with the Omnic Twilight again, I want to go back there and become the gravekeeper of civilization."
Yang Ming's eyes flickered slightly.
He suddenly asked: "I just have one last question."
"Just say it."
"Your true state now," Yang Ming stared into Li's eyes. "I know how despicable human nature is. I also know how disgusting the imperial family and nobles of the empire are. I understand Lu. When Lu first came into contact with human society, he had extreme thoughts. What about you? The mechanical deity who has been influenced by the empire for tens of thousands of galactic years and has protected these fallen people for tens of thousands of years, Lingxin told me that the real you has become a monster."
Li's eyes looked a little empty.
The swing is swinging gently.
