Xyrin Empire

In the dark space, it's impossible to perceive any existence, only the monotonous voice of PL-15 recounting events from years past.

"... After the attack arrived, many warriors couldn't react in time, and our first line of defense was lost within two hours. After the spiritual network ran amok, we did sever the link with the outside world immediately, but no one expected that things would escalate to the point of an Abyssal Emperor leading an invasion. The enemy pushed all the way to the Kayin World, where they were temporarily intercepted. To investigate the situation, Military Governor Gulandov led an attack into the enemy's Mother Ship fleet alone, attempting to forcefully connect to their information links. Thirty minutes after the impact, Gulandov and his soldiers detonated themselves. Before his death, he sent back a message saying he had been Abyss-infected, and all Imperial forces were infected beyond imagination. He urged us to retreat, buy time to collapse several worlds, thus disrupting the Void coordinates and preventing the rebels from attacking here..."

"Thus, the Mobra World became what it is now, a universe formed from several worlds stacked together, located on a Void island," I suddenly realized, many things I couldn't understand before began to become clearer, "This coordinate storm must have lasted a long time. In Divine Race records, this world system was still a blank zone until thousands of years ago."

"Will you name this world Mobra World then? Understood, database updated. As you said, we locked down Mobra World through collapse, preventing it from destruction, at least until the Void coordinate system stabilizes again. But an accident almost thwarted our efforts: Among the Apostles already evacuated to Mobra World, signs of Abyss infection reappeared and spread rapidly."

"You never knew it spread through the spiritual network?"

Sandora suddenly asked.

"Gulandov's speculation and the Imperial Technicians' research vaguely pointed to this, but we believed severing the spiritual connection between the Sky Zone intranet and Imperial main network was enough. Now it seems the Abyss had already infiltrated before we closed the connection. After entering the Xyrin Apostles' spiritual network, it underwent changes; possibly altering the Xyrin Apostles' spiritual network. In any case, no one detected its presence before it exploded. By the time it started to erupt, we had sealed ourselves inside Mobra World, too late."

"The second battle occurred during this sealed time, but it ended quickly because the world information system was closed, the Abyss couldn't replenish, and the Xyrin Apostles' soul had a certain purification effect on them. The infected rebel army was quickly annihilated, but the situation remained complex and dangerous. We lost contact with you, unsure of what happened on the Imperial mainland, unaware how many rebel armies were about to attack this world, and unknown if the Abyss was still lurking in our spiritual world."

"So you decided to destroy or release all Empire facilities of the entire world and lock yourselves here?"

I asked aloud.

"More or less, after finally confirming our spiritual network had mutated due to infection, and unable to actively detect the Abyss's presence, for security, to protect the Queen's last piece of territory, we destroyed all Empire facilities connected to the spiritual network. We then offline those confirmed uninfected Imperial military equipment, some preserved, others handed over to servants: they needed a fighting chance after we departed, at least when the rebels found this world, they could perish together."

"You don't know what they became later, needing Congress approval even to curse someone, let alone perish together, sigh..." I thought of those Mobrans able to escalate a brawl of thirty into a world panic, and sighed deeply. For a normal race, time indeed is the most terrifying weapon. Even if the Empire endowed them with sharp claws, they themselves must deal with muscle atrophy, and there's no medicine for that. A race able to fight valiantly forever in endless time, besides the time-conceptless Divine Race and the Xyrin Apostles—the war machines—perhaps there truly is none.

"After that, you created this enormous shadow space," Sandora said pensively, "You made it so massive that it is completely separated from the real world, no longer worried about large-scale mutual invasions, and then you left behind a key in the real world."

"We await your return," the Military Governor previously known as Samar replied, "I oversaw the creation of an artificial Heart of the World named Dina's Ark, and transformed it into a key capable of connecting two worlds in a short time. When you return to this universe, it will react, guiding you to open the shadow space."

"Man proposes, Heaven disposes," Sandora sighed, "After you left, this world remained restless. The key was damaged by subsequent wars, no one guided, yet we managed to lead the enemy out."

"Man proposes, Heaven disposes?" PL-15 repeated, "Hm, an interesting phrase, indeed fate is something the Xyrin Apostles couldn't thoroughly study, no one expected the situation would change like that later. We regret our mistakes: after evacuating to shadow space, we began searching for a method to completely avoid Abyss infection, eventually discovering the only path was soul segmentation..."

Lu'en's voice followed promptly: "After paying a great price, we finally confirmed the source and spread of the infection, but they hid in all Apostles' spiritual networks, and almost everyone got infected to varying extents. Complete Abyss purification became an almost impossible task. Worse, after Abyss subtly infected, our spiritual network mutated. Thinking about it now, perhaps the spiritual network was the first collapsing line of defense when disaster arrived. After the spiritual network mutated, we felt it became a threat, so jointly decided to destroy this network."

"We extracted and rewrote our souls," PL-15 said, "The Xyrin Apostles' spiritual network is built on the foundation of both soul and body. Once the soul leaves the body and completely loses connection, the spiritual network ceases to exist. Simply disconnecting the spiritual connection cannot eliminate the Abyss hidden in the spirit network, so we began destroying the Abyss and our spiritual network together."

The decision of the Revenge Army to decisively sacrifice after disaster struck moved me with reverence. Others probably wouldn't understand, but I knew the tremendous price they paid for it.

"Our plan was excellent," Samar said, "The Apostles left to observe the outside relayed information before self-destructing. Abyss reactions from real space to shadow space had ceased, the mutated spiritual network vanished, we finally preserved your last piece of territory. As for our bodies, they were processed synchronously during the soul stripping process, infected parts concentrated and destroyed, uninfected parts implanted with Ancient Era's primitive code, just like simple War Puppet programs. We left tasks for those shells retaining only a shred of soul fragments, letting them continue monitoring two worlds during shadow space confinement."

"Now it seems, this is the part that went wrong."

I said, and Sandora agreed: "Their judgment mechanism became chaotic, viewing all Xyrin Apostles, whether normal or abnormal, as rebels hunted from the Empire's heartland."

As Sandora's voice fell, countless soul waves all around simultaneously expressed an emotion of melancholy, clearly this was their greatest anguish.

PL-15 said with a low, unwavering voice: "Perhaps there was an issue with the soul fragments we left behind. The intelligence of pure War Puppet is severely limited, transforming all bodies into War Puppets would render this world's defenses merely nominal, so we left a bit of soul fragments based on our original power strength for those bodies. These fragments were rewritten, unable to resonate with the body and establish spiritual connections. Low-level soldiers' bodies were empty, while high-level commanders retained much intelligence, and our three governors left the most soul fragments, retaining nearly all our experience and wisdom—except memories."

"It was unexpected the remaining soul fragments were unstable, none of us realized this," Samar responded, and I noticed something interesting: these three governors always seemed to prefer explaining in turns when describing situations to Sandora, perhaps it's a kind of tacit understanding, "Even with only one soul fragment left, wisdom also has the potential to evolve. That's how our bodies mutated under these circumstances. They... began losing control, refusing to accept commands from their own soul. We could vaguely sense what these bodies were doing, but couldn't fully return to them."

A gathering of wandering spirits... um, speaking here seems a bit disrespectful.

While the Three Governors were telling the story, all the other souls kept silent. Although I could sense countless different spiritual waves around me, no one said a word. This was undoubtedly the world's most powerful gathering of onlookers, and after some time, it made me feel quite uneasy. Now that I basically understood the situation, there were still many things I wanted to ask, but dealing with important matters was a priority. So, I quickly said, "We'll discuss these things later. For now, we need to solve one issue—how can we close this shadow space, and how can we stop the Revenge Army from taking action? They're attacking my fleet, and in terms of numbers, we can't match them."

The facts were already clear. This control core was an ultimate barrier built by millions of Revenge Army soldiers from the Old Empire, across countless worlds, using the death will from their divided souls. Its defensive ability was likely many times stronger than any normal Emperor's Mother Star—after all, not just anyone would collectively commit suicide just to build a wall. After the collapse of the mass information, this place became immune to any damage. In other words, the information "attacked and damaged" could no longer affect the control core of the shadow space. Alaya provided us with a path that was hardly considered straightforward—that is, to penetrate this barrier using the power of the Mysterious System Apostles. But now the problem is—we don't have enough Ravens to drill a hole in it.

"Closing the shadow space requires the power of Her Majesty the Queen."

PL-15 spoke so bluntly that it was shocking.

I could feel Sandora momentarily freeze, then we both simultaneously demanded an explanation.

"The last obsession we left before leaving our bodies was to guard the defense line," Lu'en's voice was very deep, "protecting Her Majesty's territory and resisting invaders is the 'last wish' of all the Revenge Army soldiers. If this obsession fundamentally disappears, the mind field outside the control core would also be invalidated."

"What should I do?" Sandora asked flatly.

The reply came a few seconds later, evidently not an easy request to state: "Your Majesty, please announce the dissolution of the 77th Day Zone."

Sandora fell silent, everyone fell silent. I vaguely understood the intention but was still uncertain as I spoke to Sandora, "The 77th Day Zone..."

"It is my dominion," Sandora replied softly, though I could only hear her voice and perceive her presence. But this soft tone immediately conjured the image of her gloomy expression.

The dissolution of the 77th Day Zone would mean even the last of Sandora's territories completely fell, the final defense line crumbled, and might even signify the Revenge Army as an entity along with Sandora as an Emperor would henceforth be erased from the entire Empire system. Though it sounded like mere words and seemed rather formalistic, for a Queen, it was far more than just words; hence everyone silently waited for Sandora to make her decision.

But actually, I knew, there was fundamentally no choice.

"Alright, announce the dissolution of the 77th Day Zone, I understand," Sandora did not ponder for long, allowing her Queen identity to once again suppress the gloom within her heart, and chose the path most beneficial to the overall situation, "Actually it's no difficulty at all, after all, I was mentally prepared for an eventual complete demise long ago, it is just now fully confirmed... So, what exactly should I do? Broadcast this Emperor command within the shadow space?"

"Here, within the control core, it retains the last set of simulated information systems emulating the former Revenge Army's spiritual network. It is the only external command input method recognized by the control core. Originally reserved for your return... You just need to adjust your spiritual wave, verify this command with the highest authority of the Revenge Army, and the control core will cease operation. If the 77th Day Zone is removed, then this line of defense and those obsessions... will no longer have a reason to exist."

"And what about you?"

Before taking action, Sandora, with her meticulous mind, noticed something and inquired sternly.

"...We," Samar paused, "hours ago, our plan was to guide you to destroy the shadow space and then collectively commit a sacrificial explosion because the fault was ours leading to all this, an unpardonable act of betrayal. But the new information you brought is that the New Empire is being rebuilt, hence you need our strength. A group of souls that can no longer possess bodies can achieve nothing, but we possess some knowledge. All surviving Revenge Army souls will merge, and eventually, we will leave behind the Three Governors, which is enough to bear all knowledge and minimize wastage... The New Empire certainly needs every potential resource; no energy should be wasted on keeping souls unable to fight."

I thought, it was indeed such a plan, totally unsurprising of the Xyrin Apostle signature mindset, considering everything directly from the perspective of maximizing the Empire's interest, even quantifying one's own life precisely into numbers to place on the scales—anyway, I would never admit that I was backing out.

But I know, when they voiced this pre-arranged plan, executing it became impossible: because I understand Sandora as she is now. She remains that Battle Song Princess ruling over the world but is no longer the cold and ruthless Golden Tyrant of the past.

"This is merely the provisional plan devised in the Emperor's absence, but now that your Emperor has returned—I declare this plan void. You must all live, however many are here now, you will follow me back to the same number. The New Empire needs any resource that can be utilized, souls must continue to work. As for the so-called betrayal... I pardon you."

You see, I told you so.

Thanks to the tradition of Xyrin Apostles with their stubborn mindset, the Revenge Army was utterly obedient to their Queen's commands, to the point of blind faith, ensuring that any Xyrin Apostle would execute an order without question or inquiry, even if Yellowstone Volcano were to erupt, they'd fill it up in under thirty seconds if Sandora pointed and ordered jump—even more for a mere pardon.

I immediately notified the mothership standing by outside to quickly dispatch a large number of Leader Bees to support, sending as many as possible, accommodating over one hundred thousand souls here. Though the quantity isn't much, each one belongs to the most powerful group from the Old Empire, carrying one soul within a Leader Bee is quite good.

Sandora, following PL-15's guidance, successfully located the simulated port retaining the Old Empire's frequency within the surrounding information. She connected her spiritual power with this port (don't ask how, this place is pitch dark, who knows?), then remained silent for a full minute. When she spoke again, her voice resolutely echoed throughout the control core and then, through the control core's external simulation channel, reverberated across the entire universe.

"...I, Sandora Kervy Yurasis, ruler of the Empire's 77th Day Zone, Xyrin Emperor, hereby announce, all defense lines have collapsed. Former 77th Day Zone is now dissolved, Old Imperial Calendar terminates, today is the 275th day of the Third Year of the New Empire's Recovery. Revenge Army members, disband!" (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations or monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)