Chapter 307: Herr of Erosion

【12 years After Collapse】

[07/03 17:12:35/: Instruction: Give "L12-58739601" third-level authority by L12-58739601...]

【07/03 17:12:36/: Please verify the permission password or call the administrator "Prometheus No. 17" to handle...

【07/03 17:12:37/:Select: Call the administrator "Prometheus No. 17" for processing...

【07/03 17:12:39/: Calling the administrator...】

[07/03 17:12:40/: Illegal instruction, rejected by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:12:41/: A suspected illegal intrusion virus was detected, and the entire network self-examination was immediately started by the administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:12:45/: After checking, 67892474 suspected virus targets were found, and the cleanup instructions were started by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:13:57/: Cleared, check again...No suspected target found...Check the passwords for all levels of authority...%&￥#x-on:%%#￥...Check completed&*%￥ #&*x-on:......Permissions at all levels&*%#￥x-on:￥Intact by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:14:02/: Command: Grant first-level permission to "L12" by L12... Please verify the permission password or call the administrator "Prometheus No. 17" for processing...]

[07/03 17:14:03/:Select: Verify authority password...]

【07/03 17:14:04/:Three-level password verification:】

【07/03 17:14:05/:Second level password verification:】

【07/03 17:14:06/:Level 1 password verification:】

[07/03 17:14:07/: Password verification is correct, first-level authority holder "L12"]

[07/03 17:14:08/: Order: Level 2 fire attack plan...Strike location: -121°656' west longitude, +36°678' south latitude...Strike range: 200 kilometers in diameter by one Level authority holder "L12"]

[07/03 17:14:10/: Nuclear weapon launch command detected &%￥&&￥#x-on:, password is being re-verified at %￥#&x-on:... Password verification%￥#&&x-on:# is correct...]

[07/03 17:14:15/: An illegal intrusion virus was detected and immediately entered the killing mode by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

【…………】

[07/03 17:19:30/: After checking, 1 suspected virus target was found, and the cleanup instructions were started by the administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:19:32/: No target found, unable to execute cleanup command to administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:19:37/: Immediately stop all weapon firing by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:19:38/: All fuses will be closed immediately by administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

[07/03 17:19:40/: A total of 37/85 fuses were closed and 48 failed to the administrator "Prometheus No. 17"]

"Oh……"

Mei gently put the system's operation log aside, not knowing what to say for a moment.

"I'm sorry, doctor, I was negligent."

Prometheus No. 17 stood beside her, lowered his head, and spoke word by word.

"No, you..."

Mei waved her hand, "Procedurally speaking, you didn't do anything wrong. I was careless when designing the program. You can't break through my program to make your own decisions, right?

"In the final analysis, the fault for this matter is mine. Mikael has obviously told me about the power of the Twelfth Herrscher - erosion, but I..."

"Doctor, you don't have to shoulder the responsibility again and again. There is nothing wrong with the program you designed. You also redesigned the three-layer password for the launch of strategic missiles and nuclear weapons. It is also necessary to check whether the password has been tampered with after cleaning up the virus. , no one expected that the Herrscher could directly copy it when I checked the password... That's right, although our carrier is the same, I am not life, it is."

Somehow, at first it was Mei who was consoling Prometheus No. 17, but in the end, as he talked, No. 17 actually comforted Mei.

"Click - click - click -"

Alicia sat across from the desk, watching the scene of one person and one artificial intelligence comforting each other. She couldn't help but secretly increase the sound of chewing the apple, successfully attracting their attention.

"Hey! Let me tell you, you two are not like this, right? Although forty-eight missiles and nuclear bombs were launched over the Third New Paradise City, didn't they cause no casualties in the end? The casualties caused by the missile debris falling to the ground were still It is not as high as the number of casualties caused by conflicts between military police and civilians.”

"You can't think so, Ellie..."

The most thrilling thing about this incident is that the 12th Herrscher, who was born at an unknown time and place, hacked into the system of the Fire Moth without any warning. The firewall set up by Velvi was almost useless. The password of No. 17, the last line of defense, was successfully stolen by the Herrscher after a feint, and even a large number of nuclear weapons were successfully launched by the Herrscher.

Although this incident was indeed averted in the end, it does not mean that we can sit back and relax.

Imagine if Mikael's body was not in the Third New Heaven City at that time?

Or, if the Herrscher had more time and set not only the Third New Heaven City as a target, but more than a dozen or even all human settlements, then even Mikael might not have enough time to move all the nuclear bombs and missiles away.

Oh, by the way, speaking of Mikael...

"How is he? Is his injury okay? After all, he resisted two nuclear bombs."

Facing the situation at that time, Mikael first used an unstable electromagnetic field to disrupt the missile's positioning system, and even more than half of the missiles had their engines shut down at that time.

But in order to prevent the missiles from falling and causing a large number of casualties due to the huge potential energy, Mikael finally needed to use the power of the air to transfer all the warheads.

Coincidentally, the last two nuclear warheads exploded at the moment they were sent into the space rift. Although Mikael closed the space rift in time and did not let too much nuclear radiation affect the city below, he was still burned bald.

"He has the power of death, so this injury is just a minor injury to him, but... he seems a little strange recently? Well, let's not talk about this. What do you have to do with the twelfth Herrscher, Mei?"

The atmosphere, which was not too heavy at first, was instantly suffocating after Ellie's words.

"This is the biggest problem, Ellie."

Mei smiled bitterly and supported her chin with her hand.

"The twelfth Herrscher, for the time being, we really can't find a way to annihilate it."

"Huh? The twelfth Herrscher... is it so powerful?"

"Rather than being powerful, it's more troublesome."

Mei's bitter smile never stopped.

"It is now certain that the abnormal energy reactions that have appeared one after another around the world in the past two months were caused by individuals of the 12th Herrscher."

"Individuals? Is it the same as the 10th Herrscher?"

Although Ellie was asking questions, her eyes did not seem very serious. She kept staring at the apple in her hand, as if the problem of the 12th Herrscher was not as important as how to eat this apple into a perfect dumbbell shape.

Mei looked at her and couldn't help feeling a strange feeling in her heart.

She always felt that as a Herrscher, Ellie might not be as "ignorant" as she showed.

Of course, ignorance here is not derogatory, but refers to being completely unaware of everything about the 12th Herrscher.

Especially compared with the so-called "script" written by Mikael, in the timeline that Mikael saw, the person who went to deal with the Honkai energy anomaly was Alicia, and she suddenly came to Sakura when she should have completed the task and told her that Sakura had become a Herrscher. At first glance, it seems that there is no problem, but if you think about it carefully...

There is a huge problem!

First of all, when Airi informed Sakura of her Herrscher identity, it was not just the two of them present, but also Mei herself.

If she had known that Ling had become a Herrscher at this time, then if she thought it was necessary to tell Sakura about this, she could have informed Sakura herself. If she thought it was not necessary, she would not have acquiesced to Airi telling Sakura about this in front of her.

Of course, perhaps it can be assumed that there was no Honkai reaction at all three thousand kilometers away, and this was an alibi that Airi deliberately created for herself, and the reminder from Airi that Sakura heard was not her body returning to the Fire Moth, but a special application of some power.

But if this is the case, what is Airixia hiding?

In order to create an alibi, she would rather run three thousand kilometers away, so that she missed the battle against the twelfth Herrscher. According to the instinct of a "human", such a great deal of trouble could only be for one purpose - self-protection.

Specifically for her, it was undoubtedly to cover up how she knew Ling's identity, or to be precise - her special identity as the Origin, the Herrscher. Because if she had learned this news from other channels, such as Aponia's prophecy, then she would have no need to hide it.

"Does the Origin still have the ability to sense the Herrscher?"

Mei did not dare to say that she was 100% sure. All of this was her speculation. After all, even Mikael, who might be the person in the world who knew the power of the Origin the best besides Ellie herself, could not determine the power of the Origin.

But assuming that this was the case, it also meant that Ellie had probably known about the coming of the twelfth Herrscher since those unknown reactions appeared at the latest, but she did not tell anyone, not even Mikael. What was the reason?

"Hey, hey, hey! Mei? Why are you not talking?"

"Ah... Oh... I suddenly thought of something else just now, and I was lost in thought."

Mei blinked. She did not know whether her thoughts just now could be called suspicion, but no matter how she characterized it, digging into the motives of a person doing something in front of her, although Ellie herself should not mind too much, Mei was inevitably embarrassed.

Of course, her face was calm, as if she was really just lost in thought about other issues.

"Its individuals cannot be generalized with the Tenth Herrscher. Simply put, the Tenth Herrscher has many individuals, but they are highly independent, and there are a thousand individuals. The Twelfth Herrscher has many carriers rather than many individuals."

"Carrier? Prometheus seemed to have mentioned it just now?"

"Ahem! Please call me Seventeen!"

Ellie stood up and reached across the desk to pinch Seventeen's face in front of Mei, but Seventeen dodged it skillfully.

"You should know that the upgraded Seventeen can exist in different carriers at the same time and process different information. The same is true for the Twelfth Herrscher, who is more powerful than Seventeen in the data world. Only by destroying all its carriers can it be killed. In terms of the number of networks and smart devices currently developed by humans...

"This is impossible."

"Is it like Mikael's clone and the original body? Can't we "lure the enemy into a trap" like the Tenth Herrscher did at that time and lure its original body to death? "

Aili sat back in her chair silently, resting her elbows on the table, her fingers tapping her cheeks like waves.

"Of course... no. To be precise, the Herrscher does not distinguish between the main body and the clone. Each of its carriers is a backup for it. As long as one survives, it can continue to "reproduce."

"So it can wantonly attack the Fire Moth again and again. We can only locate the carrier where it invaded and destroy it, but that is useless."

Although she felt that Ai Li was asking knowingly, Mei also needed to put her thoughts into words, which would help her organize her thoughts.

As for the possibility that the Herrscher was eavesdropping through ubiquitous smart devices? Just listen, although it feels uncomfortable to be spied on, these words are nothing, and can even serve to show the enemy weakness.

Ai Li leaned back in her chair, squinting her eyes slightly, and her eyeballs moved left and right, wondering what she was thinking.

Seeing this, Mei no longer paid attention to her, but with the help of No. 17, she sorted out the paper documents on the table.

It is ironic to say that when humans first invented paper, opponents used bamboo slips and other carriers to record important documents and books for hundreds of years on the grounds that paper was inconvenient to preserve. Later, with the invention of printing, the easy-to-spread nature of paper successfully made up for the disadvantage of inconvenient preservation and completely defeated bamboo slips.

But humans would not have thought that many historical documents had errors or even additions and deletions in the process of copying, and finally had to rely on early bamboo slips to revise.

And it is the same now.

At the beginning, everyone kept paper archives and documents because they considered that if the server was damaged, there would still be paper documents as backup. If this idea was mentioned to others two days ago, it would inevitably be ridiculed as worrying about nothing.

But thanks to the twelfth law, all the file processing and communication of the Fire Moth have now returned to the era before the Internet appeared.

The worst are scientific researchers like Mebius and Spasi. Like Mebius, they just changed the carrier to work, but when they face calculations, they can only calculate by hand and in their heads, and at most use old-fashioned calculators.

Fortunately, Aponia, Su, and Hua, who holds the Eighth God Key, are trying to use the spiritual perception fusion warriors as "servers" to establish a "consciousness internet". It won't be long before the information transmission of the Fire Moth will be faster and more convenient than before.

What a pity... In fact, if it was Mikael, he should be able to do this without much effort, but unfortunately he is not on Earth now.

After solving the missile crisis in the Third New Heaven City, he went to the moon alone.

When did it start?

Mei was a little distracted. Thinking carefully, it was either after the eighth collapse or the ninth collapse... No, to be precise, it should be before going to the moon. At the latest since then, Mikael has been holding back a lot of things in his heart.

He didn't even tell Ellie about those things, so Mei naturally had no way of knowing, and she couldn't think of anyone else... Well, Mebius might know something, but her mouth was hard and tight.

Of course, it was not just Mikael who had a lot on his mind. Even Kevin rarely spoke in a lively tone recently.

Thinking of this, Mei's lips curled up.

That fool, when talking to others, he always kept his voice low and sighed from time to time, but when he was in front of her, he still had to pretend to be carefree and lively, and even his voice was a little thinner.

And what about Mei herself? Didn't she also start to issue plans to the people of Anti-Entropy without telling Kevin?

Whether it was the Stigmata Plan that had not yet been finalized, or the Spark Plan, the Ark Plan, and the Hengsha Plan, these were all plans to prepare for the next era.

She had previously joked with Mebius that the Spark Plan was the best plan and the Stigmata Plan was the worst plan, but to put it bluntly, all these plans were based on the premise that this generation failed to fight against the End, so how could they be "the best"? They were clearly the worst plans.

And Alicia...

She was the most sincere among all the people, and she also hid her feelings from everyone.

"Ah..."

Perhaps she was too tired recently, both mentally and physically. No matter what, there were still a lot of problems waiting to be dealt with in the American branch, but Mei just couldn't concentrate on processing the documents.

She didn't want to sit here and fight with the documents meaninglessly. Instead of doing that, she might as well take a good rest, stand up and walk around, eat an apple, and then come back to work.

But as soon as she stood up, she remembered that the only apple had been eaten by Ai Li, but she was still here and didn't know what she was thinking. Anyway, the fruit had been eaten by her, so it didn't matter.

"Hey, by the way, Ai Li, what were you going to do here?"

Aili had just finished eating the last bit of meat on the apple and threw the core into the trash can. When she heard Mei's question, she couldn't help but tilt her head and think for a moment.

A few seconds later, she took out a mobile hard drive from her pocket as if she had just woken up from a dream:

"Hey, I originally wanted to show you the movie "Summer Wars" that we shot, but let's forget about it now."

"Hmm..."

Mei chuckled, "Well, let's save it for the day when we defeat Honkai and watch it together? Maybe we can find a producer to send it to the big screen. With Eden, the box office will not be small."

"Maybe."

Aili knew that Mei was just joking, or...consoling.

Even if it is released after defeating Honkai, even with Eden, it is estimated that there will be no box office. How many people can live to that time? Do they have spare money to watch movies? Do they still have the leisure to watch movies?

Of course, the most important thing is...

"Can we really defeat Honkai? Mei, we will all...die in the end, right?"

Mei turned around in surprise, but Alicia pursed her lips tightly, and when she saw Mei looking back, she gave her a gentle smile, as if she had said nothing.

No. 17 seemed to have heard nothing. She was taking advantage of Mei's break to sort all the documents again and select those that needed to be dealt with urgently.

Mei couldn't tell for a moment whether Ai Li had spoken or not.

After all, those words had indeed passed through her mind and left traces.

But outside of her mind, it seemed that nothing had happened.

Ellie blinked, not knowing whether she brought it up on purpose or just casually to change the subject, she asked again:

"By the way, Mei. Didn't you say that the Herrscher can attack us at will? Although we have disabled most of the smart devices, the server has not been shut down for safety reasons, right? There are still a lot of smart devices in the war room, and Prometheus is still alive and kicking..."

"It's Prometheus No. 17!"

"Look! She can still get angry. So, since the server is still running, why doesn't the Herrscher launch a non-stop attack and make our poor Prometheus... No. 17 so busy that he can't breathe?"

"It's very simple, either it's not in a hurry, just like a cat catching a mouse, it will never bite it to death immediately, or... it has found a more reliable way."

"What method?"

As soon as the voice fell, the door of the office was suddenly pushed open in panic.