Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1354: Global Network Alert?

The revival of the ancestors has a success rate, and according to the latest data, this rate is not high.

This is undoubtedly bad news, and it’s no wonder even Angel Envoys like Lian Sandora and Taville, who are usually determined and calm, appear so worried now.

"We can’t be certain of the exact success rate yet due to insufficient data," Taville said with regret in her voice, "but it’s probably less than one-tenth. I have analyzed the remains that haven’t undergone resurrection experiments and summarized some patterns."

"What determines the success rate of resurrection?" I immediately asked out of curiosity.

"Race," Sandora began, having arrived before me and already grasped the situation, "Ah Jun, you heard the ancestors mention this — the Xyrin people are composed of many different races, each vastly different from the others, even in their essence of life. These biological differences make their remains have varying difficulties in resurrection. Taville found that some ancestors have fragile bodies but strong souls, while others have strong bodies but fragile souls. Anses’s race is the only one that balanced these two aspects, which is why, after a long time, they still maintain the basic physical condition for revival. Others... their souls may have completely dissipated, or they can’t accept external life force activation anymore, making the chances of resurrection almost negligible.

"Isn’t there such a thing as stasis? Aren’t the ancestors’ remains well-preserved?"

"You know, stasis is not time freeze; it’s just the halt of matter evolution at a microscopic level," Sandora sighed, "so it’s not foolproof for preserving the ancestors’ remains. Souls dissipate most easily, followed by mutations in the material itself, and finally some unexplained phenomena occur, rendering these bodies unresponsive to the Life Goddess’s power."

Seeing Sandora and Taville’s expressions, I knew this problem was likely unsolvable, a hopeless situation.

I frowned, contemplating a rather tricky issue: "How do we explain this to Anses? He might still be full of expectations."

"I’ve already informed the ancestor. He’s on his way," Taville responded matter-of-factly, "He has every reason to be the first to know what happens here. The truth is the truth, with no choice of acceptance. That’s the theory."

I stood speechless, unsure of what to say. Taville’s response was typical Angel Envoy thinking: straightforward and logical, putting emotions second. Her characteristic of never doing anything unnecessary could be described as candid on one hand or stubborn on the other.

Just then, I heard the lab’s automatic door make a slight hissing sound before sliding open. Speak of the devil: in walked Anses, wearing military attire and striding firmly. The staff and Taville’s mass projections all greeted the ancestor.

Anses walked directly toward Sandora and me without a glance elsewhere, then quickly saw the experimental bench behind us, where his former comrades lay quietly in a crystal container. I noticed a fleeting expression of nostalgia on his face before he regained his composure. Taville stepped forward, as the direct leader of the project, she was somewhat awkward: "Ancestor, I’m sorry..."

Anses waved his hand before Taville could finish, indicating no need for explanations now. He then approached the experimental bench, silently gazing at the old comrade lying in the crystal container, saying nothing for a full minute.

I was about to break the silence when the old master finally moved. He let out a long sigh, bowed to the crystal container in farewell, appearing very calm during the process, as if he’d done this countless times before. He silently bid farewell to his crew, then looked up at Sandora and me, "There’s no need to say anything. I know you did your best."

Stepping forward, I felt so much to say but didn’t know where to start, ending up lamely muttering, "Condolences, we can’t bring back the dead..."

Instantly, I regretted the words: the ancestor had been resurrected just a few days ago...

I awkwardly stood there, unsure of how to proceed, while Anses showed no sign of taking offense. Instead, he smiled with relief, "Really, it’s not worth minding. As a group of ghosts dead for billions of years, we shouldn’t hope too much for a return to the mortal world. This was destined many years ago, so let Tarong rest. At least I can still fulfill my duty as a captain by sending him off."

Tarong, so this is the name of the ancestor lying in that crystal container.

Turning his head to the crystal container, Anses looked calm, "I’ve long lost count of how many crew members I’ve seen off like this, not to mention how many died quietly without a farewell. Compared to them, Tarong and I are quite lucky. At least he’s laid to rest; at least I have the chance to see off these old subordinates...so let’s leave it at that, no need to feel sorry for me."

Anses’s words made me even more uncomfortable, for his numbness to the parting of life reminded one of the dark days when the Xyrin people were in full-scale exile, an entirely unrelaxing history. Sandora and I could only nod silently in understanding as Anses, recalling something, added: "I have only one request, to lay these failed-to-revive old friends according to the customs on the Mother Star, placing them in stone coffins and burying them in the deep sea."

Sandora looked up into Anses’s eyes, and he continued, "This was a topic we often discussed during idle chats back then. Every day someone could die, so it was frequent talk. Tarong often joked about hoping to receive a native funeral, submerged in the sea of Mother Star when he passed. But the Exile Ark had no sea, no conditions for any funeral, making it an old joke about reality... Now he should be satisfied. We’ve finally reached a place with a sea, though not Mother Star’s sea, but..."

Anses reached out and touched the lid of the crystal coffin, as if the person inside could still hear him: "Old buddy, you’re truly lucky to have your last wish fulfilled, something many never achieved."

"We will arrange such a funeral as soon as possible," Sandora said, "It will completely recreate the customs of the Mother Star era. Of course, we’ll need your assistance for this."

"Don’t rush," Anses shook his head, "The revival of others probably won’t go smoothly either."

His tone was tactful, but the implication was clear: Tarong wasn’t the only one needing burial. Taville had fully disclosed the project’s conditions to the ancestors. Anses knew as much as any of us.

"Yes," Taville nodded, "The overall success rate of revival remains uncertain, but theoretically, it doesn’t exceed one-tenth."

"One-tenth..." Anses murmured softly, revealing no particular emotion about this number. Finally, he exhaled, "Then let’s wait for all revival experiments to conclude and send them off together, so they have company."

With Sandora and Taville nodding in agreement, Anses, wearing a weary expression, said goodbye to everyone: "I’ll head back now. As one grows old, moving about becomes tiring."

"Sandora and I will escort you back to the rest area," I promptly stepped forward, with Sandora, though not adept at warm hospitality, following suit immediately. Yet, Anses waved his hand, turning alone toward the lab door: "No need, I’ll go back by myself."

Anses returned alone, declining Sandora and my offer to escort him. I realized he didn’t want to linger in the research facility, rather than being "somewhat tired," as he claimed — this excuse’s weakness was apparent to anyone. Watching the gray-haired old master slowly leaving the lab, I noticed that his back was no longer as straight as it was when he first awoke a few days ago. A sense of loneliness and heavy burden clung to him, like a haunting shadow that had drained the vigor he had when newly revived: two days ago, he emerged from his slumber thinking he was leading the last group of survivors on the Exile Fleet, adrift toward survival. Despite the bleak prospects, he brimmed with determination. Yet today, something that supported him had seemingly crumbled to a perilously weak state, enough for the old master to utter the words "growing old" in such a short time.

Something was slowly overcoming him, but there was nothing Sandora or I could do.

"Perhaps the next successfully revived ancestor could restore his vigor," Sandora sighed, turning to see Taville, "Reviving the next person quickly, the ancestors need their kin’s company. Is that doable?"

"Yes, Your will!" Taville replied firmly.

Sandora nodded in satisfaction, "Then let’s first..."

She paused suddenly, as if her train of thought was interrupted by something. I noticed that it wasn’t just Sandora; Taville and the surrounding staff also seemed to have a moment of distraction, although it happened in the blink of an eye, I caught it.

"Sandora? What’s wrong?" I asked concernedly.

"There was just a spiritual network alert, but it was revoked instantly," Taville recovered from her daze and spoke rapidly, "Your Majesty, did you feel nothing?"

I thought for a moment, "Maybe I’m slow to react—still haven’t caught up."

Sandora and Taville exchanged a serious look. Apparently, a sudden brief alert in the spiritual network was not normal. As a Xyrin Emperor who joined mid-way, my perception of the spiritual network was not as comprehensive as theirs. I didn’t feel the brief alert in the network, so I couldn’t quite understand their tense expressions now, but I guessed it must be something unusual.

Because Sandora then called Bubbles, instructing her to immediately organize a full network check.

"Network alerts are usually issued when a large number of Angel Envoys get Abyss-infected; they work to disconnect some segments to protect the main network," Sandora explained quickly to me, "But that alert just now seemed like a false alarm, no report of any Angel Envoys infected, no corresponding Abyss report, and the alert only lasted for a few milliseconds, with no segments disconnecting from the main network afterwards... something must have gone wrong, the spiritual network doesn’t give such inexplicable alerts."

A few minutes later, Bubbles arrived at the Core Nest, where at least a dozen mass production machines were working at all times. They formed a high-performance matrix, monitoring the info-net of the Capital World routinely, and when Bubbles enters her position, this matrix allows her Mother Machine to take over data management authority at the fastest speed. Soon, the most powerful hosts array of the New Empire began a massive data examination, Bubbles reported her progress in the communication link, "The work log of the network alert has been found, backtracking the origin of the alert."

I, Sandora, and Taville (the primordial body) followed up quickly and arrived at the Mother Nest, where the working status of the hosts could be observed at any time, and Taville could assist the hosts in some creative reasoning tasks.

The Core Nest is a huge building, several times larger than a regular Mother Nest, located slightly to the east of the center of the Shadow Fortress. Its general structure is similar to a normal Xyrin Nest, but at the central position, it has an exceptionally vast mainframe room. Bubbles’ host slots are the largest crystal prism in the hall, and symmetrically distributed around it are a circle of smaller crystal columns, where the mass production machines are located. Outside this mainframe room, there are rooms prepared for redundant hosts and conventional servers, all these facilities together form the most powerful data processing center of the New Empire. When we arrived, the place was bright, the slight resonance sound around the crystal clusters scattered everywhere in the Mother Nest echoed like alien music, quickly bringing me into a calm state of mind: these sounds were generated when hosts were running at high speed and resonating with the Mother Nest, indicating that it had entered a very busy working state.

Bubbles was suspended within the main prism, eyes closed, mysterious light flows emanated from the prism, connecting to the tops of other prisms. Each prism now contained a mass production host, they surrounded their Mother like stars crowding around the moon, undertaking complex and cumbersome screening tasks, while Bubbles concentrated on analyzing the suspicious data flow in the spiritual network over the past few minutes: this required more flexible and agile thinking, which mass production machines were not good at.

Taville approached under the main prism, her hands fused directly with the crystals, a blue and white light stream emerged over her body, Bubbles slowly opened her eyes in the crystal column, her voice cold and mechanical, "All high-level nodes have been screened, no alert information issuer found, need to screen low-level nodes?"

Sandora thought for a brief moment, then shook her head, "No need, according to network protocol, low-level nodes have no authority to issue a full-network alert order unless the segment they manage has lost all live high-level nodes—there hasn’t been an attack report Empire-wide in the past few minutes, impossible for high-level nodes to be wiped out."

Bubbles nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly, "Screen gateway log, try locating the alert source."

Moments later, a nearby mass production host opened her eyes, "Mother, the log shows the alert originated from the entire data network."

"That conclusion is illogical, repeat check."

"Repeat check complete, Mother, alert origin is the entire data network."

"What’s going on?" I asked curiously—you know I’m not good at understanding technical jargon...

"The alert had no specific issuer; it was issued by the entire network at once," Sandora explained to me, "In other words, it warned itself briefly, then canceled the warning itself." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

I thought for a moment and suddenly had a revelation, yelling in the public channel, "Xyrin, come out!"

In the surrounding air, tiny light flows emerged rapidly, quickly combining to form a... a mini fairy about twelve centimeters tall, wearing a grass green dress with green long hair. She had a metal tag around her neck almost larger than her body, on which Xyrin’s name was written in a scratch-your-head font...

Sandora and I watched with deadpan expressions at the fairy girl resembling a Wild Dingdang but with a Xyrin name tag around her neck, who flapped her tiny wings hard, flying through the air with jerky motions—as the metal tag was a burden to her current body—and greeted us, "Ah, it’s Your Majesty—huff—and good afternoon—huff—is there anything you need Xyrin for—huff..."

I couldn’t stand watching it any longer, so I let this pocket-sized Xyrin land on my hand, "How did you become like this?"

"Upon arrival, I saw many strange creatures flying around like this, turned into their shape, then couldn’t revert back." Xyrin replied honestly.

"Was it you who issued the full network alert just now?"

I finally managed to remember the main issue, without being distracted by this creature’s muddle-headedness.

"The full-network alert?" Xyrin tilted her head thinking for a moment, as a conscious being in the network, many real-world terms related to the network needed to be converted for her to understand, then she nodded forcefully, "Oh, I issued it, there was an emergency, but the alert was quickly canceled as the emergency was resolved."

"Emergency?" Sandora and I looked at each other in disbelief. Originally thinking it was a false alarm, we never imagined something really happened—though it seemed to have occurred at the network layer, we living in the real world had no awareness of what happened.

"There were some unexpected fluctuations in the Rift," Xyrin cradled her name tag, explaining to everyone, "I went over to check, got a bit too close, and almost fell in—issued a emergency alert while falling, but quickly climbed back so the crisis was resolved."

This was the whole story of the emergency alert just now. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to vote for it on Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)