Chapter 259: The Inheritance Delivered to the Door

The moment Li Yu rejected the Nest-Breeding Machine Mother's contract, the latter immediately made a new decision:

"Target has rejected the contract; it is no longer possible to obtain the Machine Soul through non-violent means."

"Activating 【Endogenous Sin-Insect Plan】 to eliminate the target and minimize losses."

Hearing the mechanical voice, Li Yu looked back while approaching Hongdou.

As the radiance of truth flickered, the details of what the Machine Mother called the Endogenous Sin-Insect Plan appeared directly in his mind.

"Because the constituent materials of the Machine Goddess's body are half-mechanical and half-biological."

"Coupled with being infected with the 【Nest-Mother Virus】 from the very root, the shell itself possesses nesting functions. Beyond nurturing offspring, the shell can spontaneously catalyze a large number of 'Sin-Insects' within itself. These Sin-Insects are diverse, possessing the characteristics of all things and all races, while the shell itself is mostly half-mechanical and half-flesh."

"The existence of Sin-Insects can form a special environment within the shell, capable of resisting almost all foreign objects invading the machine body."

"If necessary, they can also be used for combat, with terrifying power."

"However, there are downsides; many Sin-Insects are brutal and uncontrollable. Once the Machine Soul's strength is insufficient, it is very likely that the Sin-Insects will lose control and cause damage to the interior of the shell."

As these secrets were revealed, Li Yu understood the Nest-Breeding Machine Mother's intent in a second.

Actively catalyze "parasites within the Machine Goddess shell," then eliminate the invading foreign object, Li Yu.

The cost is that the shell itself has a certain probability of being damaged by the Sin-Insects.

To some extent, this can be considered an inherent defect of artificial intelligence.

After all, from a normal perspective, it was impossible for Li Yu to agree to her maid contract. If she had considered it from the position of a citizen of Mancheng or any other human, she would have activated the Sin-Insect plan before Li Yu entered the shell.

Kill him, or stop him from approaching Hongdou.

But the Nest-Breeding Machine Mother chose to proceed step by step.

"Perhaps when she discovers that the Sin-Insects are ineffective, she will have other tricks up her sleeve."

"She can simulate, but she does not understand 'emotion.' The decisions she makes are entirely rational, weighing pros and cons."

"She does not know how to predict Li Yu's temperament, nor does she have the resolve to stake everything on one throw to complete her ascension."

Seeing through this, Li Yu turned around without hesitation and continued his actions.

Right there on the platform, which resembled a bed and was composed of billions of scarlet soul-threads, the two figures—one master and one servant—began to merge and replenish spiritual energy once again after many days.

At the same moment, inside the Goddess's shell, various organs underwent strange changes.

Under the active stimulation of the Machine Mother's program, tumors composed of scarlet flesh, rust, liquid metal, Nest-Mother Virus, and other strange and exotic materials sprouted everywhere.

They were dense, numbering in the tens of thousands.

From Li Yu's "perspective," it was simply horrifying and miraculous.

It was as if he were witnessing the birth of a 【Cancer Goddess】 in an instant.

A large number of disgusting and terrifying tumors covered every part of her body.

It was like a terminal omen of illness, the kind that is late-stage and beyond saving.

Each tumor seemed to be alive.

Inside them, "insect embryos" the size of infant heads were wriggling.

Brutal and violent roars, along with various types of pollution, began to erupt.

Even though Li Yu had known this scene would come, he felt he had gained more insight.

The next second!

A great crisis surged forth.

Accompanied by "pop, pop, pop" bursting sounds, the tumors began to shatter one after another.

Immediately, a large number of insects were unleashed.

Their appearance was even more disgusting and terrifying than a Xenomorph tyrant.

Most crucially, there wasn't just one type, but hundreds or thousands.

They formed waves of insect swarms, moving along "blood vessels," "viscera," "bones," and other paths toward Li Yu in the cranium.

The Nest-Breeding Machine Mother seemed at her wit's end, but that was under the condition of not harming herself.

In reality, as a vast and complex artificial intelligence system, she had too many methods.

Unfortunately, it was still useless this time.

While replenishing Hongdou's spiritual energy, Li Yu watched the waves of insect swarms surging madly from bottom to top.

Silently, he expanded his domain.

"All Dharmas perish!"

"Life and longevity are both lost."

The entire cultivation pool was filled with the invisible sword radiance released from Li Yu's body at this moment, leaving not a single gap.

This resulted in the Nest-Breeding Machine Mother's will projection being wiped out and expelled before those Sin-Insects could even rush in.

Among the "Dharmas" of all Dharmas, the Machine Soul of mechanical life was also included.

The core area of the Machine Goddess became a forbidden zone.

Even the creator herself could not enter.

This finally caused the Nest-Breeding Machine Mother to feel annoyance beyond her rationality.

A slightly sharp command resounded inside the Machine Goddess shell:

"Kill the invading foreign object!"

"Damn alien sub-human, eat him up."

As the cold command resounded, waves of insect swarms finally entered the core brain region along the throat, nasal cavity, ear orifices, and other passages.

These "Sin-Insects," even individually, possessed power similar to demons.

Within their bodies, they even contained a faint trace of divinity.

The semi-finished divinity of the Machine Goddess, a sin-creature between flesh and machine.

Unfortunately, their existence and power were still counted as one of the Dharmas.

Since that was the case, they could not escape judgment.

Once they entered the domain Li Yu had laid out, only one result would occur: life and longevity would both be lost.

First, they aged rapidly, and then they were wiped out by the sword radiance.

This kind of domain was simply too unreasonable.

Especially since the lifespan of the insects themselves was very short—some lasted a few hours, some a few days, or a few months.

But few could live past a year.

Their cycle of extreme elimination and regeneration destined them to have such a lifespan.

This also meant that it was difficult for them to shake Li Yu's defense in a short time.

They were truly unlucky to face Li Yu; he was their absolute nemesis.

Other "long-lived species" could resist the deprivation of lifespan by Li Yu's Longevity Sword Array, and if they could also resist the power of the sword radiance, they might even be able to counter-kill Li Yu.

But these short-lived Sin-Insects simply could not do it.

However!

Li Yu's situation would not be too good either.

Because the Sin-Insects had formed a swarm, one could imagine how vast their numbers were.

If Li Yu did not need to replenish spiritual energy, he could have held out for longer.

But he was simultaneously distributing his own spirituality to Hongdou and paying with "lifespan" to maintain the operation of the sword array domain.

The consumption increased exponentially.

Soon, Li Yu felt terrifying pressure!

And for the first time, he anticipated that he would be "unable to keep up with his heart's desires," and might even exhaust his spirit, lifespan, and essence... and die.

With the duration of his Truth Soul Body still active, Li Yu had to observe himself and ask himself a rather shameful question.

The answer, which made his waist ache a little, soon emerged:

"The consumption from the massive tide of mechanical Sin-Insects superimposed with the Great Art of Spiritual Replenishment has already far exceeded my upper limit."

"Starting half an hour from now, my expenditures will exceed my income."

"At this intensity, I will die of old age and exhaustion in three days."

Because he was in the state of truth, even seeing such a shocking answer, Li Yu would not lose his composure.

If it were his usual self, he would already be jumping in agitation.

What?

My thousands of years of lifespan plus a Sequence Five body, squeezed dry in three days?

If the daughter of the God of Vortex, Sister Sister Yi Ge, came to mount me herself, I fear that would be the only effect. In the Truth Soul Body, Li Yu was able to continue rational deduction while replenishing spiritual energy:

"The difference between Hongdou and the 【Nest-Breeding Machine Mother】 is only power; in terms of status, Hongdou has the advantage."

"It shouldn't take three days; as long as Hongdou, who has received my spiritual nourishment, wakes up, she can complete a counter-kill."

"I will not die."

When Li Yu affirmed this thought.

An assist he had not expected arrived abruptly.

A large amount of chaotic information, or rather, knowledge that had been deliberately scrambled, was entering Li Yu's head in a way similar to electromagnetic waves.

This knowledge was extremely vast, but the main content appeared to be technology left behind by the Modifier race, including racial modification, genetic sequences, mechanical technology, and so on.

It could be said to be a precious and rare inheritance.

The Mechanical Apostle race owes its current achievements to their ancestors, in an extremely distant era.

They scavenged a portion of incomplete heritage from ruins, patched it together with technology from primitive human relics, and after numerous transformations, evolutions, and iterations, attained the majestic power to manipulate gravity and drag planets.

Not a single word, not a single line, not a single piece of content was missed while reading!

Now, Li Yu has this opportunity as well.

And it is even more complete, for it involves other secret matters, such as technology transmitted by the Artificial Intelligence 【Nest Mother】, who is destined to ascend to the table and dominate the star sea in the future, as well as knowledge that the Nest Mother iterated herself.

Li Yu looked up at the knowledge surging into the void and understood the reason in the blink of an eye:

"The Nest Mother is activating 【Quantum Empowerment】 technology, deliberately scrambling and rearranging all the knowledge she possesses into garbled code, and pouring it into me."

"She copied Hong Dou's memories and knows that I cannot refuse secrets and knowledge; even if receiving these secrets might very well cost me my life, I would be unable to resist doing so."

"She wants to burst my skull."

"She believes that a carbon-based lifeform like a human could never carry such a massive amount of information in that tiny brain."

"Even if I attempted to parse one-tenth or even less, I would surely die suddenly."

"Logically, there is no problem."

"Other human cultivators would have their brains burst within three seconds of being empowered."

"In my normal state, I could hold on for at least half an hour."

"But as it happens, I am in my Truth state."

"A benefit delivered to my door—it would be a waste not to accept it."

"It just so happens that I currently have no Truth Bubbles; this gift from the Nest Mother might completely fill the progress of the twenty-second bubble."

With this thought, Li Yu, with immense arrogance, began to multitask three ways at once.

His body was replenishing Qi for Hong Dou!

Simultaneously, he was maintaining his domain expansion.

His brain and heart-soul were receiving and parsing that incomparably vast secret knowledge.

……

The massive garbled code formed by an Artificial Intelligence like the Nest Mother, deliberately scrambled.

Even for Hong Dou, or Brother Brother Shang Yang, or even higher-sequence beings like the "Dead Machine Daoist," and so on.

Successfully completing the parsing would take a very long time.

Several days, or several months, were all possible.

But Li Yu!

The Truth Soul Body state is a cheating, hack-enabled state.

He shortened the parsing time by an unknown factor and could even use questioning to filter out some useless junk information.

Before long, he finished parsing and began frantically acquiring the secret knowledge.

At his eye membranes, billions of rainbows flickered.

The twenty-second Truth Bubble!

The progress was practically skyrocketing.

One must know that the higher the number of the Truth Bubble, the harder the progress is to fill.

Li Yu had once fantasized that with the status and authority displayed by the Truth Soul Body, if he filled all the bubbles contained within that entire 【Gate of Truth】, would he ascend to become the "Lord of Truth"?

At that time, the various gods of righteousness and evil, the ten thousand races of the Spirit Realm, and even the unknown alien gods beyond the heavens would likely be no match for him.

But gradually, he realized that it seemed to be an impossible task.

The "number" of the bubbles had reached twenty-two.

Yet, looking at the Gate of Truth, it hadn't even reached one percent progress.

Achieving the status of Lord of Truth was likely hopeless, but with the help of the Truth Bubbles, charging toward the position of 【Spirit Venerable】 had a certain chance of success.

It was even possible that the Spirit Venerable he ascended to would be a top-tier ascension.

After all, among the cultivators of this path throughout history, I fear not one could compare their "knowledge" to Li Yu's.

Within two hundred breaths, a piece of alien technological heritage had been more than half digested by Li Yu.

The twenty-second bubble was declared full.

The even harder-to-fill twenty-third bubble began to flicker in relay.

And very quickly, it was also filled by a fraction.

The current Li Yu!

If he were willing to switch paths, with the technological knowledge he possessed, he could completely manage to switch to Sequence Five of the Heavenly Artisan path without paying any price, and still have room to spare.

If he worked harder to digest it, and replenished Qi with Hong Dou more often to exchange machine souls, in a few years, charging toward Sequence Four 【Great Wisdom Man-Doll】 might not be impossible.

But unfortunately, this sudden great stroke of luck had also reached its end.

Although half of the "garbled code" given by the Nest Mother remained unparsed and undigested.

The time limit for the Truth Soul Body was almost up.

Once the cheat expired, one naturally had to choose to play it safe.

"In the Truth state, I ignore the cost of being burst."

"But the normal me cannot; ten seconds to fall into demonic deviation, half an hour to die suddenly."

"From here on, I will honestly be a Qi-replenishing tool."

Once his mind was set, Li Yu began to act.

First, he forcibly cut off the Quantum Empowerment, then sealed his skull and hypnotized himself.

He only allowed his Longevity Daoist body to execute two commands: one, maintain the domain; two, replenish Qi.

Which is to say!

The moment the Truth Soul Body expired, Li Yu became a fool.

All consciousness was sealed in his mind, and his heart-soul fell silent.

Only his body moved mechanically.

This kind of defensive maneuver!

Even the Nest Mother, with her massive computing power, had not anticipated it at all.

And next, as time passed rapidly.

Some other "situations" she had not anticipated began to occur.

About a day later!

Hong Dou, who had originally had her machine soul devoured and was forced to shut down for self-preservation.

Her dead, silent body suddenly began to show signs of movement.

Accompanied by a "hissing" sound, that familiar pink steam surged out from Hong Dou's body, enveloping the bodies of the master and servant that were layered together.

Next, the billions of scarlet threads that had pierced her rear body encountered a counter-invasion.

Although Hong Dou did not open her eyes and seemed not to have woken up yet.

A mechanical voice, however, sounded first:

"Machine soul is recovering spirituality... Secret core is restarting..."

"Authority module triggered... Defense command changed to counter-invasion command..."

Following these sounds, billions of pink machine soul Qi began to reverse-pollute and devour those soul threads.

As the game of chess and slaughter between these two clearly different mechanical lives and artificial intelligences began to unfold.

That mechanical Goddess body, which had originally been motionless and nurtured by the Nest, suddenly moved.

It seemed that the struggle between the two "Dominant Wills" stimulated some kind of neural reaction in the Goddess shell.

This Goddess shell, which even Li Yu feared, suddenly swept one arm out casually; amidst a rumbling sound, the undead giant stele that had stood for who knows how many years—the monument the Reformer race was so proud of—was struck.

This goddess shell, which even terrified Li Yu, suddenly swept one arm out casually, and amidst a thunderous roar, the giant monument of the undead that had stood for who knows how many years—the monument the Reformer race took such pride in—collapsed.

(End of chapter)

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