Chapter 355: Cracking the Self |
"Did the spore canister follow the clone into the Garden of Nurgle?"
"Yes, Boss. The canister went in too."
"Good." Li Nuo breathed a sigh of relief. Beside him, Palcador's face lit up with joy.
The Gretchin tapped away at his keyboard, head down as he spoke:
"Boss, after the canister entered the Garden of Nurgle, our tracker failed. We couldn't capture the canister's exact coordinates, and we aren't sure if its detonator is functioning properly."
"It's fine. I have a way to verify if the detonator works."
Li Nuo gestured to Palcador:
"I'm leaving the command work here to you. I'm going to meditate first."
"Yes, Boss."
Li Nuo left the monitoring room and entered the meditation room next door, opening the system's simulation interface.
The clone of Dicalemus and the work to crack Nurgle's spells were intrinsically linked to the plan to conquer the Eye of Terror.
That canister of spores implanted in the clone was one of the critical links in determining the plan's success or failure.
The spores had undergone special modification. They possessed no Biological Armor and had poor resilience to harsh environments, but they carried an adaptive optical camouflage membrane that changed with their surroundings.
In the ideal scenario, once the detonator went off, the spores would spray outward and blend seamlessly into the surrounding environment, delaying discovery by Nurgle for as long as possible.
During that exact window of time, Li Nuo would possess the Orks grown from those spores, descend upon the Garden of Nurgle in person, and use Warp positioning methods to acquire the Garden's precise coordinates.
[Searching for simulation targets matching criteria.]
[Search complete.]
[Search results: 0 items.]
Li Nuo didn't lose heart; he initiated another search.
[Search complete.]
[Search results: 12 items.]
Excellent. The first batch of spores had developed successfully.
[Search complete.]
[Search results: 28 items.]
The second batch of spores was growing smoothly.
[Search complete.]
[Search results: 175 items.]
The third batch of spores had successfully spawned Paru Boyz.
[Search complete.]
[Search results: 1,871 items.]
Yes, now was the time.
The Paru Boyz born from the fourth batch of spores were the only ones capable of completing the operation; the Paru Boyz from the previous three batches could only serve as decoys to mislead any potential enemies.
Li Nuo selected a Paru Boy and began the simulation.
His field of view shifted instantly, the scene before him replaced by dense vegetation and twisting vines. Pits in the ground pooled with foul, putrid water that looked like thick phlegm.
The sounds of combat echoed from not far away. Nurgle's daemons in the forest had encountered the first three batches of Paru Boyz, and the two sides were already engaged in battle.
Li Nuo knew time was limited. Ignoring the urge to explore the forest deeper, he made a straight line for a rocky corner suitable for concealment.
Opening his personal storage, he pulled out the latest Warp Locator developed by the Palu Academy.
The core component of this device was a cylinder fitted with multifaceted lenses, and beneath the cylinder sat a metallic structure resembling spider legs.
He drove the "spider legs" into the ground to anchor the cylinder and pressed the button. A ring of pale green light ripples expanded outward, then contracted, returning to the cylinder. Next came a second ring, a third, a fourth.
Every time a light ripple returned to the cylinder, another string of dimensional data appeared on the locator's Dataslate.
"Ring of Eternity... Section Seven... Subsection Seven... Corridor of the Pus Lake... Ulcerated Source of Alveolar Hyperplasia..."
"Rustle, rustle—"
The nearby brush trembled violently as several three-meter-tall daemons of Nurgle leapt out, closing in step by step on the rock where Li Nuo hid.
Li Nuo glanced back, suppressing the urge to freeze them in place with Brain Paralysis, and continued recording the dimensional data on the locator.
After the eighth wave of light ripples returned to the cylinder, the positioning work was complete.
Li Nuo pulled out a plasma grenade and detonated it.
Sizzle—bang!
The plasma storm shredded his body and incinerated the fragile locator into useless slag. The daemons of Nurgle pounced on empty air; frustrated, they turned away to chase down other greenskins.
Li Nuo's consciousness returned to the weirdboy. He got up, left the room, and went to the monitoring room:
"I've got the address for the Garden of Nurgle. Withdraw the Palu fleet monitoring the clone's planet—wipe all our traces."
"Yes, Boss." Palcador passed the orders down, then followed Li Nuo out of the monitoring room and into another chamber.
Many Flash Boyz were gathered here.
They surrounded the Warp observation apparatus in the center of the room, arranged in three concentric circles and linked to the device via psionic conduits.
Li Nuo input the address of the Garden of Nurgle into the Warp observation apparatus. In unison, the Flash Boyz closed their eyes and began observing the Warp.
A holographic screen materialized above the observation apparatus, displaying the Warp phenomena witnessed by each Flash Boy across hundreds of small windows.
The Warp was boundless and infinite; even with an address to guide them, searching for the Garden of Nurgle was no easy feat.
In the blink of an eye, a month passed.
The Greenskin Tide was advancing steadily across the Koronus Expanse. By now, sixteen rubbish-thing worlds and five xenos worlds had been occupied by the Paru Boyz.
These twenty-one worlds happened to sit within the exact same sub-sector of the Expanse.
The Palu Webway initiative was put into effect right there.
Fifteen Palu Astronomicans, over a hundred Monocrystalline Pods, and thirty stable entry and exit points between the real universe and the Warp together formed the first Palu Webway cluster. Its daily traffic reached 50 million passenger trips, and its freight volume exceeded 10 million tons per day.
Such booming, reliable Webway transit could not have functioned without the support of the Palu-brand Warp Energy Compressors.
At the center of the Palu Webway cluster, within that core zone shrouded by the Palu Shadow, tens of thousands of 1000T-Level Warp Energy Compressors ran 24 hours a day.
Each machine had an average daily output of 1,000 tons of Monocrystal; ten thousand units meant a daily production of 10 million tons, instantly boosting the Palu Empire's Monocrystal production capacity twentyfold!
Terrifyingly powerful!
This large-scale harvesting of the Warp drew the attention of the rubbish things.
Around the periphery of the Palu Webway cluster, red, blue, green, purple, and various multicolored rubbish things prowled and lingered, yet none could draw near the Palu Webway.
The pale green radiance emitted by the Palu Astronomicans possessed an effect that repelled the rubbish things.
Wherever that light shone, the rubbish things scrambled to avoid it.
Whenever the rubbish things overcame their psionic repulsion, organized their numbers, and launched a raid, the radiance of the Palu Astronomicans would instantly shift into the Palu Shadow, enveloping the invading rubbish things within it, severing their connection to the Warp, and then firing the batteries of the Monocrystalline Pods and the Astronomicans to blast them to death.
Any rubbish things that died within the range of the Palu Shadow were effectively subjected to forced banishment, rendering them unable to regenerate for a very long time to come.
The results proved that the combination of the Palu Webway and the Palu Shadow had virtually no rival within the Warp.
At present, the factor limiting the expansion of the Palu Webway clusters was no longer Monocrystal output, but rather the growth and reproduction of the Flash Clan.
To maximize the utility of the Flash Boyz, Li Nuo initiated Genetic Simulation, performing iterative upgrades on the genetic templates of the Flash Boyz.
After multiple rounds of verification, screening, and optimization, the current Flash Boyz had completed six iterations. The volume of the Palu Shadow a single Flash Boy could generate had tripled, and its duration stretched past ten thousand hours—essentially satisfying the requirements for constructing the Palu Webway.
Here, a word must be said about the lives of the Flash Boyz.
From the moment they were born, they soaked inside an amniotic tank. The amniotic tank was their home, and it was also their coffin.
It took a Flash Boy roughly half an hour to grow from a spore into a head suspended inside the amniotic tank.
For the next 10,000 hours or so, they would be anchored to the base of the amniotic tank, steadily and continuously maintaining the Palu Shadow.
After 10,000 hours, regardless of how much lifespan these Flash Boyz had left, their amniotic tanks would be fitted with mechanical arms and legs, allowing them to live out their retirement on the Palu Homeland.
Roughly one thousand hours later, the retired Flash Boyz would experience brain death due to prolonged interference from the Warp.
Their amniotic tanks would then be recycled and used to cultivate new Flash Boyz.
At first glance, working continuously for 10,000 hours seemed utterly inhumane.
But in reality, for the Flash Boyz, those 10,000 hours were like living in paradise.
Maintaining the Palu Shadow required consuming Universal Psionic Material.
One hit of Universal Psionic Material felt amazing for a moment.
Hitting it non-stop meant feeling amazing non-stop—and they didn't even have to worry about their heads exploding from absorbing too much psionic material.
With something this blissful, how could anyone speak ill of the Boss?
Therefore, when observing the living and working conditions of the Palu Orks, one must never judge them using humie logic.
Outsiders might think they lived miserable lives, but in truth, they were having the time of their lives!
Back to the main topic.
After a month of high-intensity searching, the Flash Boyz finally located the Garden of Nurgle deep within the Warp.
Just as the Palu Webway clusters were protected by the Palu Shadow, the Garden of Nurgle was shrouded in a layer of Nurgle's vile miasma.
Some Flash Boyz accidentally brushed against the miasma, and their heads immediately exploded into sludge inside their amniotic tanks, swarms of white maggots and venomous insects wriggling in and out of the remains.
The Paru Boyz promptly sterilized the area using anti-psionic mediums, averting a Nurgle plague outbreak just in time.
How to break through Nurgle's vile miasma became the crux of launching an assault on the Garden of Nurgle.
Furthermore, whether their troop reserves were sufficient was also an issue.
"Boss, I ran the numbers. Once our existing Palu Webway clusters expand twofold, we should be able to use human-wave tactics to conquer the Garden of Nurgle. But whether we can actually kill Nurgle remains uncertain."
Palcador spoke thoughtfully:
"The biggest variable is Nurgle's unique nature as a Chaos God. He can possess a virtually infinite number of avatars across infinite space and time. It's very difficult for us to lock onto his true body, and even if we do lock on and successfully destroy him, he might just respawn in another avatar. Until we find a way to stop his respawning, we'd best exercise restraint so we don't expose our trump cards."
Within the entire Palu Empire, Li Nuo was likely the one with the deepest understanding of a True God's methods.
Taking himself as an example, up to this point, only the Stasis Field had ever exerted any slight effect on the Waaagh Simulation.
Nurgle had been a Chaos God for countless years; the effect of a Stasis Field on him would likely be negligible.
Li Nuo pondered for a long time until an idea formed in his mind:
"Palcador, call Pader here."
"Yes, Boss."
A few minutes later, Pader arrived on the scene.
Li Nuo led the two of them into a shack, closed the door behind them, and said:
"To eliminate a Chaos God, I've decided to make a few sacrifices. Starting today, you two will use me as an experimental subject to find a method that restricts a True God from transferring between avatars."
A method to restrict a True God from transferring between avatars—that was equivalent to a god-slaying technique!
Li Nuo's words dropped like a heavy bomb, leaving both Pader and Palcador wearing expressions of sheer shock!
"Boss, maybe we should start with a Great Unclean One..."
Pader tried to persuade him.
Li Nuo raised a hand to cut him off:
"We won't get anything out of researching just a Great Unclean One. I know that very well. For rubbish things at the Great Unclean One level, simple freezing tech is enough to restrict their ability to transfer consciousness. But that kind of technology won't work on an entity at the True God level. You two don't need to try and talk me out of this. Go assemble the experimental team and get the research underway as soon as possible."
Pader and Palcador exchanged a look; beyond the shock in their eyes, there was only awe.
"Yes, Boss. We'll go make the arrangements right away. I will strictly screen the personnel to ensure no word of this leaks out."
Pader bowed deeply in salute before turning to leave. Palcador looked as though he wanted to say something more, but in the end, he simply bowed his head as well and walked out of the shack.
Later that evening.
A top-secret laboratory was added to the Palu Back Garden.
The subject of the experiment was a Paru Boy prepared specifically for this research, possessing every genetic fragment available, including those of ancient ork bosses and weirdboys.
Li Nuo possessed it and cooperated with Pader to carry out the research.
Molecular blades, nano-locks, magnetic lassos, psionic anesthetics, anti-psionic barriers, Stasis Fields, gene-disruption rays...
A vast array of tools with binding and restrictive properties was deployed one after another.
The experiment lasted half a month. Li Nuo possessed the experimental subject and cooperated with the trials for half a month, yet every single physical and psionic method ended in failure.
Only one approach remained untried: soul technology.
That required examining Li Nuo's soul encoding to uncover the secret behind the free transfer of his consciousness, and then performing a targeted cracking of that mechanism.
Once things reached this stage, Pader refused to continue no matter what—not even when Li Nuo tried to force his hand.
Li Nuo didn't press the matter.
He cleared everyone out of the laboratory and used the Soul Code Reader to inspect his own soul in person.
Soul keys of varying sizes flickered across the holographic display, with scenes of memories flowing through the gaps between the keys—some from after his transmigration, some from before.
These elements were categorized under the surface consciousness partition. Beside it sat the deep consciousness partition, packed with soul keys governing instinctual reactions, dreams, fantasies, and other mental activities.
On the far side of the deep consciousness partition lay the partition housing the system. Here, the arrangement of the soul keys became structured and orderly, looking overall quite similar to the system interface itself.
Another layer beyond the system partition was the blank partition, where soul technology could be used to input soul keys and forge new cognitive parameters for oneself—such as generating a brand-new personality out of thin air.
Destroying the soul would stop a True God from transferring.
But without stopping a True God from transferring, how could one possibly destroy His soul?
It was a paradox.
Li Nuo felt a wave of frustration, unable to glean any clues from his own soul.
As he pondered, he casually opened the soul templates stored inside the Soul Code Reader and began reviewing them one by one.
The soul of a Paru Boy, the soul of a humie, the soul of a pointy-beak boy, the soul of a rubbish thing...
The soul templates flashed past his eyes.
Then, as a particularly unique soul template entered his field of view, Li Nuo froze involuntarily.
On the holographic display, there was only a blank expanse.
(End of Chapter)
