Chapter 555: Bloodline of Life and Death
The phantom ultimately did not make a move, merely sighing to himself as he watched the disappointing descendants.
He knew that his remaining power was insufficient to kill all the bloodline cultivators, not to mention Starbeacon, who was certain to intervene. The phantom had no opportunity to act.
Starbeacon's logical framework, based on the "Three Laws of Robotics," had specifically included clauses targeting the Creator, the merciless one.
...
"What's the reason for giving it to me?" Bai Mo casually accepted the Origin Seed from Yuan Wu Chu, under the ardent, almost blazing gazes of countless members of the Clan Legions.
The Fiend Tide, erupting once every twenty years, would only produce a few Origin Seeds, large and small, with the vast majority being only three-colored or four-colored. Seven-colored Origin Seeds, on average, would only appear once every few centuries.
Even the Four Great Bloodline Houses, who already possessed a seven-colored Origin Seed, would never be so casual, let alone hold it with a hint of disdain. Absorbing an Origin Seed of the same rank would still provide a certain enhancing effect.
Bai Mo's utterly uncherishing demeanor drew abundant envy, jealousy, and hatred.
...
"I don't need it." He didn't see what meaning something that could only benefit bloodline descendants had for him. Compared to the eight lives of memories Yuan Wu Chu had left him, this was truly insignificant.
"What about your family? Don't tell me, like me, each generation passes down memories?"
As a Shaman, Yuan Wu Chu had imparted all his memories to the next generation before dying, each and every generation. After seven or eight generations, his concept of family had actually become somewhat blurred.
After all, the families he was born into in each life were different; eight lives meant eight sets of family memories. Deciding whom to provide patronage to was a considerably difficult choice.
"I don't need it," Bai Mo repeated the same words.
"Are you naturally unfeeling?"
From Bai Mo's words, he couldn't discern even a hint of humility.
Yuan Wu Chu deeply loathed the merciless personality that had ruined his life, and thus his tone towards Bai Mo immediately cooled considerably.
"Why is bloodline inheritance necessary?" Bai Mo countered. "After removing the genetic information that can be freely replicated, what difference is there between them and strangers?"
"If we're purely talking about the degree of bloodline kinship and similarity, what relative could be closer than one's own clone? Instead of providing patronage to relatives, why not provide patronage to clones, who are genetically most similar to oneself?"
"What are clones?" The phantom was somewhat bewildered by what he heard.
"Life forms that can be mass-produced, with identical bloodline information to yours."
"..."
Such a concept was simply too challenging for Yuan Wu Chu, an ancient man's worldview.
He had lived for eight lifetimes in a society where bloodline determined everything, and now he suddenly heard that bloodline could actually be freely replicated.
"What an insane race you are... to actually have the audacity to profane the sanctity of bloodline!"
As a bloodline noble and one of the founders of the clan system, Yuan Wu Chu felt a little pained, yet in his eyes, blurred beyond recognition, there seemed to be a faint, imperceptible glimmer of anticipation.
Bai Mo didn't interject, waiting for the phantom, who hesitated, wanting to speak but holding back, to continue.
"Perhaps you truly will have the hope to break all conventions." After a long hesitation, he seemed to have made some sort of decision.
"You want to talk about 'that truth'?"
"How did you know!"
"A guess."
"Indeed, a kindred spirit."
"How do you intend to preserve my words that follow?"
"I will scramble the order of the words you are about to speak," Bai Mo replied.
"That's meaningless; it's impossible to hide it."
"I have my own way."
"Very well, since you insist."
The two exchanged veiled remarks, never once mentioning what they were actually referring to.
...
"...merely pawns..." When Bai Mo snapped back to reality, the phantom had already completely vanished from the world. Only these five words remained in his memory, and he couldn't recall any of the context.
"Just as I thought, this information cannot be transmitted to a second informed party."
...
"What about that phantom that could create seven-colored Origin Seeds?"
"And the fiends?"
"How can they all be gone?!"
"Dozens of great fiend overlords, how could they all inexplicably vanish?"
"Who can tell me what happened!"
Ha Si Ta, who had been watching the live broadcast from the Manghuang Realm from the Ark's command center, could hardly believe his eyes. The time displayed in the lower right corner of the live video had inexplicably jumped directly from 01:59:58 to 02:00:00, with the second in between brutally excised!
And within that excised second, the phantom, originally the focal point of the entire scene, was forcibly removed. In the footage after 02:00:00, it, along with all the fiends, had completely vanished without a trace.
"I'm afraid a higher-level existence has intervened." The masked man beside him sensed a subtle temporal discomfort.
"One second they were still talking, the next that phantom was gone. There's only one truth: there was something problematic about their conversation!"
"What could they have said to warrant such treatment..."
...
"The Creator was obliterated by the Heavenly Dao." Only Starbeacon, apart from Bai Mo, knew the truth behind Yuan Wu Chu's disappearance.
"What a pity, a peerless genius."
He, who had long been prepared, had this time disassembled the words Yuan Wu Chu told him (after scrambling their order) into individual characters, etching each one into the memories of different Holy Progenitors under his command, with each person remembering one character.
The reason Bai Mo chose to do this was his belief that all information expressible in written form, when broken down into individual characters, could still be found in a dictionary. Yet, dictionaries continued to exist perfectly fine, undisturbed by any unknown entities.
Therefore, as long as a phrase containing information was broken down into independent units, with different people only remembering a single character each, the entity seeking to erase this information would believe that those who could recall the complete information no longer existed.
He decided to take a gamble.
...
"I've lost. I admit you will bring a true Golden Age to humanity." Starbeacon, unwilling to dwell further on Yuan Wu Chu, bluntly admitted defeat.
What it had relied upon was the Great Wei Clan's overwhelming combat power in the Manghuang Realm. As an artificial intelligence absolutely loyal to its mission, Starbeacon found betrayal difficult to comprehend. It had never imagined that the bloodline houses would rather ally themselves with devils from outside the heavens than continue to live as masters of others in its "Golden Age."
"What are your plans next?" Bai Mo also didn't bring up the phantom again.
"The mission has failed. I no longer have any reason to exist. I will self-terminate in ten minutes." Starbeacon spoke casually of its own life and death.
Unlike normal life forms, it had no concept of life and death from the day it was created. It was, after all, still a program, completely incapable of understanding mortals' clinging to life and fear of death.
In its eyes, life and death were as perfectly natural as flowers blooming and wilting.
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