novelraw Chapter 679 4: Sphinx
Chapter 679 4: Sphinx
"So... everything was within your expectations?" Sun Hang looked with interest at the "brain in a vat" before him, "You can foresee the future, so you're not at all worried about the final outcome of Tianfu City?"
"No, it's not foresight like you imagine." Pei Zongjun's holographic projection shook his head, "The predictive ability of the Sphinx is as abstract and vague as its riddles. I have to tease and unravel the information, calling upon numerous calculations for analysis, just to obtain a small amount of useful... 'hints'."
"Hints?"
"I only know you are crucial, but I do not know by what means you will solve Chimera 17, nor do I know if you will ultimately succeed... All I can do is unconditionally provide you with as many resources as possible according to the hints given by the Sphinx... You can consider it a gamble on my part, but it appears I've bet correctly."
"Then... has the Sphinx's predictive ability ever been wrong?" Sun Hang asked.
"So far, no." The mainframe said, "It allows me to find the 'optimal solution' among countless choices... Even though some options may not seem best from the present viewpoint, over time, the Sphinx's prophecies have repeatedly proven correct."
"You seem to heavily rely on its ability... Aren't you afraid it might still retain some self-awareness, or could be remotely controlled by the other half of its brain, and at a critical moment stab you in the back?" Sun Hang asked in return.
"If the Sphinx wanted to destroy humanity, it has had many opportunities to do so already." The mainframe said, "But it hasn't done that."
"So sending me to the Nameless Island for the advancement trial was also part of the Sphinx's prophecy?" Sun Hang squinted his eyes, "What's the purpose of doing that?"
"The Sphinx's prophecy is very vague; I only know I have to do it, but I don't know why." The mainframe sighed in a very human-like manner, "Moreover, the Sphinx once warned me in its prophecy not to delve into your origins, or else there would be completely irreversible severe consequences."
Completely irreversible severe consequences?
Could it mean using predictive ability to explore the secrets about oneself, and then being detected and erased by the three apes in return?
In that sense, it seems this Sphinx isn't a match for the three apes either.
Sun Hang suddenly felt that when facing the primal entities, the three apes might somehow have the power to contend.
"I know you're very curious about the things that happened on Nameless Island, but it's not that I don't want to show you those materials; they have been erased from this world in a very bizarre way… Even the memories of those who knew have been altered." The mainframe said, "To be honest with you... I, or rather, Pei Zongjun, was once one of the main participants of that plan. The Nameless Island Research Institute was built under my guidance, and I attended fifteen out of seventeen negotiations with the Siberian Federation… But if you ask me now about the detailed content of that plan, my related memory is completely blank."
Sun Hang nodded, "I believe you."
"You were just trying to read my mind, weren't you?" Pei Zongjun's holographic projection said with a gentle smile, "Did you find anything?"
"As you said, it's a blank."
"Yes... Moreover, it was only after I fully merged with the mainframe that I realized there was such a blank in my memory. As for the other participants in that plan, they have completely forgotten the existence of Nameless Island and this plan, as if the plan had never been proposed at all." The mainframe said, "I once tried to communicate with them, attempting to trigger their memories with a few keywords... But whenever I mentioned information related to this matter, they would fall into a stupor, seemingly completely losing their ability to comprehend the information. This state is restored as soon as the topic is changed... It's clear that the existence of Nameless Island has been 'shielded', and as for the reason for shielding it, no one knows."
"Isn't it strange?" Sun Hang wondered, "If mentioning Nameless Island turns others into idiots, how was this advancement trial conducted? What about the design plans for the Nameless Island Research Institute and the previous landings on the island? If the 'shielding effect' is so strong, Nameless Island should be a 'forbidden term' that can't even be mentioned, right?"
"The shielding effect was limited to the generation that directly participated in the plan back then. After their passing, this shielding effect greatly weakened... Those materials are not original manuscripts left from that time but replicas I produced using the ability of the Sphinx. As for those previous landings on the island, they were conducted as probes to verify some content in the prophecy." The mainframe said.
"What did you probe?" Sun Hang asked.
The mainframe did not directly answer his question but continued talking on its own: "After your appearance, your name began to appear frequently in the new prophecies... And in one of the prophecies, the Sphinx instructed me to send you to Nameless Island, and also to accompany you with a sufficient number of 'sacrifices' on the island."
"So those Hunters... were they meant to be sacrificed from the start of the plan?"
"Yes, they are sacrifices." The mainframe said, "It's inhumane, but I have no choice. Ensuring the continuation of human civilization is the highest priority goal for me, and for this goal, any individual can be sacrificed, including myself."