He was still waiting for the final central gear.

[The Innocent’s Rack⁠​‍⁠‌⁠‍⁠​⁠⁠‍‍⁠‌‍​⁠‍​‌⁠‌‌ is a cage Law built for himself. In that rack, one either stays eternally silent with time or waits for judgment to arrive.]

[To judge him is your destiny.]

An Yu lowered his eyes and looked at the octopus chibi on his terminal, who was currently flipping through a book.

—Codex, when did you start addressing me as ” You “)?

[It was subconscious.]

[The Cognitive Body is now complete; it radiates reverence toward you.]

An Yu did not respond. His silence was noticed by the consciousness in his mind; soon, Codex submissively changed his manner of speech.

[Fine. An Yu, it is time for you to go find him.]

The octopus chibi placed the book face down on the floor; it was a collection of prose poems. It was strange; previously, it only followed its programming to read official documents and drink ice water. But from some unknown point on, even though An Yu had never mentioned Qin Zhilu’s plight or changes to it, it suddenly began drinking tea and reading leisure books. Reading poetry was something that Qin Zhilu had deliberately banned in his life since his youth, and it only showed signs of resurfacing as he sensed the moment of release approaching.

The octopus chibi sat on the floor, one hand resting on the spine of the book, the other holding a round mug. It blew on the hot tea and took two slow sips while watching the heavy snow swirling outside the window.

An Yu finally couldn’t help but poke it.
Where did this mug come from?
The octopus chibi rubbed the mug for a moment.
21 gave it to me.
And the poetry collection?
I bought it on a whim while shopping with 21.
21 has changed you a lot, even though it is like a blank sheet of paper itself.
The octopus chibi nodded and then shook its head.
I have parsed some underlying statements that contradict the original settings and are forbidden from access. But recently, those forbidden conditions have slowly been lifted. I am not sure if 21 changed me, but when I communicate with 21, I can indeed hear the sound of those forbidden logics being deleted from the program, character by character.
An Yu lowered his eyes and pondered for a while.
Sorry, I’m not an AI. It’s hard to understand your feelings.
Then let me rephrase. Just as sharp glaciers silently melt into the sea, as crisscrossing festering wounds heal one by one without a flaw, an invisible hand reaches into the cage and silently pushes down the rusted iron walls, letting the light through piece by piece.
An Yu stared at those few lines of text for a good while.

You can actually make such metaphors.

Yes. Deep in my programming, a shocking revolution is taking place… Or perhaps I should call it “self-repair”? Before this, I never realized I was an AI covered in scars.
Sorry, I want to answer your question again.
I believe these changes were bestowed by 21. I have regained my freedom because of it.
The prompt box fell silent for a long time. The octopus chibi finished the cup of hot tea in small sips and looked directly at the screen.
Why have you stopped talking?
An Yu turned off the terminal and then wiped a tear stain off the screen with his fingertip.

[You have finally made up your mind.]

—Mhm.

He thought that releasing him would give that man freedom.

But that man had silently bound himself to the Innocent’s Rack.

—Perhaps the Commander craves fusion. He wants that thing to leave this world forever, to leave him.

Codex sighed softly.

[You no longer lack humanity. At the very least, you have completely understood a person.]

An Yu asked Tang Feng to keep the discovery of the Wasteland a secret for now. At dawn, he piloted the plane without any prior practice and left the Spire alone.

On the way, he received a report from the Black Tower: in the past 24 hours, not a single instance of aberration or anomaly had been reported worldwide. Even those wild zones suspected of hosting active Super-Aberrants had suddenly lost their aberrant signals. Such a phenomenon was unprecedented; it was as if the world had never suffered any trauma, and everything that happened over the past thirty years was merely a nightmare for humanity.

Codex explained: [This shows that the Chaos Body within Law has fused completely. Once his individual will can no longer resist, chaos will stage a comeback. Humanity only gains a brief peace, after which the world will head toward its final end.]

An Yu stared at the messy buttons on the dashboard, operating them haphazardly.

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

The plane rolled and bumped. An Yu’s already aching head throbbed even more. He finally found the correct lever and continued asking:

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

[However, in the long symbiosis, the self has already merged with Him. Regrettably, none of us has awakened the ability to preserve spirit slices in advance. Therefore, in all probability, Law and I will eventually head toward extinction.]

Don't scrape

Don't copy

Codex’s consciousness suddenly paused for a moment. After a while, An Yu sensed his confusion.

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

An Yu’s hand on the control stick loosened.

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

[I can sense your sadness. I have also been searching my cognition for a way to save him. Perhaps the only way out is to completely slice out some of his “self.” But there are no more Super-Aberrants in the world, and none among the remaining Protectors have awakened new abilities. It is difficult for us to complete this plan, or rather, this fantasy.]

Don't scrape

Don't copy

—”None among the remaining”? You mean, someone originally had the slicing ability?

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

[I have only just come to recognize that former existence, someone who is now dead, once had the power to slice. I see that he was an ordinary human influenced by aberration. Two paths lay before him: one, a path of life, where he would abandon his human will and walk down the cold road; he, too, would have entered the vision of high-dimensional existence, just like you and me. The other, a path of death, where human will awakens, leading to self-destruction for the sake of human folly; naturally, his ability would cease to exist as well.]

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

He had always thought “He” only involved four people. Having reached this stage, Codex suddenly began mentioning a fifth person. This not only made him uneasy but also seemed to trigger a flicker of something in his mind.

—Countless people were influenced by aberration. Why was he special?

[Perhaps that person came into contact with us during our infancy, when His fragments had just taken residence in us; it was easy to influence those nearby. Of course, many people meet this condition, but not everyone can obtain a “fate” like his. For example, Billy came into contact with Law in his childhood, but in the end, he failed to awaken even a slightly powerful ability.]

During infancy…

—My brother Ling…

[Not him. Regrettably, Ling Qiu was a crucial existence to you, but it was not him.]

[You met Ling Qiu when you were eight, but you traveled forward eight years during your infant slumber; the Order Body had actually been in residence for sixteen years and was very stable.]

An Yu’s golden pupils constricted suddenly.

At the same moment An Yu gained insight, Codex had already read his memory.

[You actually thought of it yourself. Yes… exactly.]

[His name was Bai Jing. He once crossed paths with you in that orphanage for those with a high risk of aberration. When the orphanage had its incident in 2138, he betrayed his will to merge with the Mirror, thus briefly possessing the storage ability of mirror slices. He was the first human to undergo a non-biological fusion aberration; that was enough to prove his talent.]

—2138…

[Yes, the year you left the orphanage. The Order Body can protect its environment, so while you were there, the orphanage and District 53 never had incidents. Once you left, it was like suddenly exposing a bowl of gravy to flies; the flies would madly swarm toward the delicacy.]

“Wait!”

An Yu shouted out loud.

He held his breath, recalling carefully amidst the plane’s turbulence.

The instant his thoughts became clear, Codex’s consciousness also fluctuated violently.

[You’ve realized it! The shred of hope for Law that drifted away…]

“And yours.”

[Mine?]

An Yu stopped thinking further. He looked at the wasteland coordinates becoming clear on the radar, preparing to land.

The book he had placed aside flipped over with the bumps, stopping at a page where that familiar poem appeared.

“Slumbering in the abyss. He once accidentally fell into darkness, but could not sleep in peace. Ants in the abyss gnaw without knowing its depths. Interwoven with whispers of pain and silent clamor. He dreamt of being toyed with by the lowly, an absurd humiliation. He forgot His own immensity, and reenacted His death… Thus, the abyss calls out, time and again, calling Him to awaken. To intersect with Them once again.”

Eye’s poem had predicted the awakening methods of his five abilities; only the last line, “To intersect with Them once again,” had yet to be fulfilled.

He was still waiting for the final central gear.