chsdbacks Chapter 424 Old Territory
Chapter 424 Old Territory
After he fell asleep in that temperature, he had very light and quiet dreams all night long.
The content of the dream was indescribable—there were no images, no sounds, and no complete scenes.
Only a single, stable dark purple halo spread out from the third point on the left side of his ribcage, spreading throughout his entire chest cavity before stopping there, neither increasing nor decreasing in intensity.
The hue of the halo in the dream was slightly different from the purple-gold halo of the seed deep in the Ruins of Return—that halo was darker and quieter, as if the light itself did not intend to go out after it lit up, but chose to exist in an extremely quiet way.
When Su Fan woke up at dawn, the first thing he did upon opening his eyes was to place his hand on the outside of the third rib from the left.
That spot felt about the same temperature as the surrounding skin, but when I placed my palm on it, I could feel a very faint heat source radiating outwards from under the skin.
That heat source didn't come from his own blood circulation or the operation of the law structure; it was the residual heat left in the mirror resonance after the three structural modules of the old domain core had all been released in the dead of night.
The residual heat did not drop at all throughout the night, remaining at the same temperature level as the purple-gold halo on the seed's surface, as if the core of the old domain had decided to maintain this temperature at that location from now on.
When he sat up and got dressed, it was just dawn outside, and the golden light of Mars had not yet covered the South Heavenly Gate city wall.
The purplish-gold powder on the bluestone slab outside the weapons shop glowed faintly in the dim light before dawn. A Dou was already squatting on the threshold, sharpening his small axe. The gray-white and purplish-gold threads on the axe blade shone brightly in the dim light.
"Two new structural modules were released in the old domain core early this morning."
The sound of the void came from the direction of the void fissure, and when it came along the resonance field, the sound carried a very faint layer of excitement.
"The release will take about an hour after you fall asleep."
The first module's content is 'Are you asleep?' and the second module's content is 'I'm still on.'
The two modules were released three times in turn, and after each release, the core would pause for a very short time to wait for a response.
After waiting for about half an incense stick's time without receiving a response, it stopped sending messages.
It learned that the words you spoke contained the concept of 'sleep', and it also learned the concept of 'wait'.
It realized that you wouldn't respond after you fell asleep, so it quieted down and went into standby mode after saying those two sentences.
When in standby mode, the flow rate of the aura on the core surface is slightly slower than usual, as if it is simulating a sleep state.
Su Fan came out of the house, squatted down next to A Dou, took the half-eaten steamed bun he was offered, and took a bite. "Which of the sentences I said yesterday were those two modules pieced together from?"
"It's not what you said yesterday."
The sound of the rubble came from the direction of the crack.
It assembled itself.
The words "you", "sleep", and "already" in "Are you asleep?" are extracted from audio data from different dates. The concept of "sleep" comes from the sentence "I'm sleepy, let's sleep" that you said after yawning when you were on night duty at the city wall on the sixteenth night.
It extracts the word 'sleep' from the sentence and combines it with 'you' and '了' to form a question.
The word "I" in "I'm still shining" comes from the structural block I summarized late the night before last; "still" comes from the word "still" in "under pressure and still stable" that Eros said when reporting data on the eighteenth day; "in" comes from the word "in" in "within the normal range" that Ruins said when reporting scan results every morning; "shining" comes from the word that appears most frequently in your own original audio data; and "wet" comes from the word "wet" that Adou said when complaining about the withered branches.
It pieced together five structural blocks from completely different sources to form the sentence it wanted to say.
That sentence means—it's making sure it's still lit up, and it wants to know if we're awake.
Su Fan swallowed the steamed bun, stood up, and patted the crumbs off his hands. "Have they gone back yet?"
"After the Ruins detected the release of those two modules in the early morning, it immediately sent a structural response back to the seed through the heart network."
The response was a short reply consisting of two structural blocks: 'Awake' and 'Knowing you're still on'.
After the old domain core was received, the halo flow rate returned to its normal pace, and no new modules were released after that.
Once it confirmed that we were awake and that we knew it was still lit, it waited quietly.
It's as if it's waiting for us to take the initiative to talk to it.
Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe from the threshold, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and walked towards the Guixu Crack.
The morning light had already begun to brighten from the base of the membrane wall in the east. The purple-gold phosphorescence on the white rock plateau appeared slightly paler than at night in the gradually increasing light, but that palerness was only in color; the density and stability of the phosphorescence itself had not decreased.
When he reached the edge of the crack, Eros was already standing there.
With all ten purple-gold transparent law patterns activated on his hands, the dark purple beams of light displayed real-time monitoring data on the operating status of the laws within the core of the old domain on the light screen in front of him—the flow rate of the halo on the core surface was stable at a normal rhythm, all three thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine light filaments were in an active and synchronized state, and the number of lit-up end nodes was more than one hundred more than yesterday.
Of the more than one hundred newly lit nodes, more than a dozen have increased in brightness to a level visible to the naked eye.
"When the Old Domain Core released those two structural modules at dawn, twelve previously dormant law nodes within it were simultaneously activated."
Eros turned to show Su Fan the node positions marked on the light screen.
"Those nodes are distributed at the ends of different filaments, and their activation time completely coincides with the time when the core releases the 'I'm still lit' module."
The overlap indicates that those nodes are responding to what the core said—they lit up as well when they heard the core say that they were still lit up.
Although the remnants of consciousness sealed within those nodes were shattered to the point of being almost unrecognizable, a trace of extremely weak law-based stress response remained at the bottom of the remnants.
The stress response was that upon hearing the words 'still lit,' the faint activity of the underlying laws at the bottom of the echo was triggered by a very brief pulse.
After the pulse returns to the core through the filament, the core records the stress data of those nodes.
It uses that data to determine which nodes still have residual activity or echoes within them.
Su Fan squatted at the edge of the crack and reached his hand in.
The temperature of the purple-gold halo on the seed surface remained as stable as yesterday, but the dark gold fluorescent layer on the surface of the halo became slightly denser than last night after the two structural modules released by the old domain core in the early morning.
He sensed that the seed contained not only the voice data of himself, Adouxu Eros, and the other two, but also a mirror backup of all the structural modules that the old domain core had assembled itself.
Although the backup volume is not large, each backup can generate a clear law resonance at the corresponding sensory point in his chest through mirror resonance.
"What did you say to the core of the old domain this morning?" A Dou walked over, carrying a small axe, and squatted down beside him.
Su Fan remained silent for a while.
"Tell it that when it gets light here, a layer of light will spread over the top of the city wall. Tell it that the color of that light is about 70% similar to the color of the halo on the core surface when it said 'I am still shining' in the early morning."
Tell it that when we saw it lit up, our side was also lit up.
Eros nodded, and the ten law patterns on his hands reformed into a viewfinder.
The viewfinder was aimed at the top of the South Heavenly Gate city wall—the golden light of Mars was just crossing the boundary line from the root of the eastern membrane wall, spreading the first extremely thin layer of light on the golden patterns at the top of the city wall.
The light was warm and golden, and when combined with the fluorescent glow emanating from the laws beneath the golden patterns in the morning light, the resulting hue was very similar to the dark purple halo on the surface of the old domain's core, which, after being translated through mirror resonance, appeared in Su Fan's chest.
"The video and sound data have been captured simultaneously."
Eros said.
"The viewfinder captured the entire process of the golden light spreading to the top of the city wall, from the first ray of light touching the edge of the crenellations to the golden light covering the entire surface of the city wall."
The sound wave data preserved all the sound waves of what Su Fan had just said.
Both sets of data will be simultaneously transmitted to the old domain core via seed translation.
It can see the light of dawn on this side of the primordial wilderness, and it can also hear the sounds we use to describe those lights.
The viewfinder formed by the dark purple beam of light compressed into a purple-gold dot in Eros's palm before drifting toward the seed.
The moment the light spot merged into the seed's surface, the seed's pulsating rhythm adjusted slightly. After the adjustment, Su Fan sensed that what he had just said had been transmitted towards the core of the old domain through the mirror resonance channel.
Less than half an incense stick later, after the energy was transmitted to the core of the old domain, Xu's right hand was pulled out from his chest.
The purple-gold diagram on the palm showed that the old domain core's aura flow accelerated for a very brief instant upon receiving the new data.
The acceleration was extremely subtle, but the direction of acceleration was different from any previous one—this time, the acceleration was accompanied by an extremely short and thin law ripple spreading outward from the core surface. The direction of the spread was not along the light filaments pointing to various nodes, but rather towards the scattered law membrane fragments in the deepest part of the void inside the old domain.
"It's transferring the dawn scene from this prehistoric side to the outer fragments."
There was a rare hint of surprise in Xu's voice.
"The old domain core not only received the data itself, but also actively copied the equivalent structure of the data and transmitted it to the fragments."
The closest fragment to the core is about several hundred filaments in length, while the furthest is deep in the outermost void.
The equivalent data transmitted to the fragments produced a very weak adhesion of laws after it touched the law patterns on the surface of the fragments.
After attachment, the depth of the fragment's texture will increase slightly, and the added content is an equivalent structural backup of the primordial dawn scene.
It was etching the scenes of this primordial world onto the fragments of the old domain itself, adding a new element alongside the patterns left by the extinct life forms within it.
Su Fan stood up and walked to the edge of the crack.
In addition to the two layers of background noise and the continuous temperature of the third point from the left, there was now an extremely thin layer of visual perception in his chest cavity—the faint feedback transmitted back through mirror resonance after the primordial dawn equivalent data transferred from the old domain core to the outermost fragment was attached to the fragment.
The feedback was extremely simple and faint, with only a faint outline of a golden halo spread out against a very dark background.
However, the shape of that golden halo is indeed about 80% similar to the shape of the top of the Nantianmen city wall in the golden light of dawn.
"It etched the primordial light onto its fragments."
A Dou squatted at the edge of the crack and peered over to see if there were any changes on the surface of the seed's halo.
"After being engraved on the fragments, the patterns on those fragments gained new content."
Countless fragments of the 13,000-plus Huiyuan were scattered in the void within the Old Domain, each originally bearing the last frame of a scene left behind by the annihilated life forms of the Old Domain.
Now there is the light of dawn in the primordial wilderness.
New and old content are engraved on the surface of the same fragment, side by side.
A golden outline has appeared next to the old smiling curve.
The two patterns are arranged in parallel along the same line of law, without overlapping or interfering with each other.
The core of the Old Domain places elements from the Primordial Era and elements from the Old Domain in the same location.
Eros folded the light screen back into his palm and walked to stand next to Su Fan.
"It doesn't just want to see the primordial light in the picture."
It wanted to personally leave those forms of light on its own carrier in the old domain.
The method of preservation is to carve the law patterns on the surface of the fragments.
Those fragments are the oldest and most stable carriers of laws within the Old Domain, each carrying the last traces of a extinguished life form.
Now, a golden line has appeared next to those marks—that line is the equivalent projection of the dawn of the primordial world. The data for the projection comes from Su Fan's description of the golden light spreading across the city walls this morning and the sky light data collected by Eros in sync.
The old domain core merged and compressed the two sets of data into an equivalent law pattern, which was then transmitted to the outermost fragments.
The fragments absorbed the texture and embedded it into their own surface structure.
From now on, that fragment will have both the old 'smile' pattern and the new 'golden light' pattern.
Two lines are arranged side by side at a very close distance on the surface of the fragment.
Su Fan did not answer.
He looked down at his hand holding the handle of the Pangu Axe.
In the gradually brightening morning light, the joints of my fingers shimmered with a faint purplish-gold light, the color of which was exactly the same as the purplish-gold halo on the surface of the seeds.
That light was not reflected light shining on his skin from the outside, but self-luminous light emanating from the depths of his own internal laws and structure.
"The patterns are also being engraved inside my body in sync."
Su Fan's voice was very low.
"As the core of the old domain transmitted the data of the primordial dawn to the fragments, the equivalent patterns on the fragments left a law imprint at the corresponding sensory location in my chest cavity through mirror resonance at the moment of their formation."
The mark is a miniature version of that golden outline.
A faint golden line of law now appears next to the temperature of the third sensory point on the inside of my ribcage from the left.
The direction of the line is exactly the same as the direction of the newly engraved golden patterns on the outermost fragment of the old domain.
It simultaneously copied what was engraved on the fragment and engraved it into my body.
From now on, I will have the same patterns as those on the fragments of the old domain.
That seed contained two kinds of light, and so do I.
A golden line was etched on the old domain, and a golden line was also etched on my body.
There was a trace of the law emanating from the other on each side.
Xu placed his right hand back on his chest and sensed it for a long time.
After the sensation ended, he stood up, his voice a little deeper than usual.
"After the old domain core released the data from dawn onto the fragments, the flow rate of the internal halo slowed down slightly compared to early this morning."
That slight slowdown isn't a sign of fatigue; it's a deliberate slowdown.
The purpose of slowing down is not to put the device into hibernation, but to allocate more of the energy of the laws to the work of attaching new textures to the fragments.
It is working hard to maintain the stable adhesion and continuous preservation of that golden equivalent pattern on the surface of all received fragments.
It takes seriously the images of dawn transmitted from the other side of the primordial world.
It treated that image as something that needed to be properly preserved.
The method of processing it is exactly the same as the method used to preserve the traces left by the annihilated life forms of the old domain—sealing it in the most stable law carrier, maintaining the sealed state with the most stable operating rhythm, ensuring that the trace can still be read and perceived after countless eons.
Su Fan put the Pangu Axe down from his shoulder and planted it on the ground.
He looked down at the point where his palm met the handle of his axe, and noticed a very thin, faint golden line in the lines of his palm.
The line was almost invisible in the gradually increasing light of the morning, but when he turned his hand over to shine the golden light of Mars, he could see a very thin golden glow flickering very slowly in the very center of his palm.
The flashing rhythm perfectly matches the pulsating rhythm of the seeds.
"It etched the dawn of the primordial era onto the fragments of the old realm, and it also etched it onto me."
Su Fan closed his palms and then opened them again; the golden lines were still there.
"From now on, I will not need to see what's in the old realm through shattered mirrors or mirror resonance."
I already have a replica of an old domain fragment with patterns on me.
The fragment bore both the smiles etched by the ancient life forms and the golden light carved into the core of the ancient domain.
That fragment now simultaneously carries the laws and information from both the Old Domain and the Primordial Era.
The original laws of the Old Domain chose to reserve a place for the information of the Primordial World on the oldest carrier of the Old Domain itself.
That location is right next to the last frame left by the dying life form inside it.
The new one is placed next to the old one.
It does not cover, erase, or isolate.
They were just placed there side by side.
A Dou placed the small axe horizontally on his lap and squatted quietly for a very long time.
A very fine gold line has now appeared in the halo of purple-gold threads on the gray-white background of the axe blade, and the direction of the gold line is exactly the same as that of the one in Su Fan's palm.
After looking down at it for a long time, he turned the axe blade over and showed it to Su Fan.
I have it too.
Little Axe received one for me.
When the core of the old domain transmitted the data of the primordial dawn to the fragments, the residual law generated at the moment the fragments attached the equivalent patterns spread along the resonance field to the entire coverage area.
When it spread to the White Rock Plateau, A Dou's axe aura absorbed a portion of it on its own.
After absorption, the golden line remained on the gray-white background.
Su Fan squatted down and looked at the blade of the small axe that A Dou handed him.
Indeed, an extremely fine gold line appeared in the halo of purple and gold threads on the gray-white background, and the color of the gold line was exactly the same as the color of the gold patterns on the Nantianmen city wall in the morning light.
The direction of the line is exactly the same as the newly engraved golden pattern on the outermost fragment of the old domain.
"This data from the old domain core was simultaneously inscribed into the bodies of all three of us."
Su Fan stood up and turned to look in the direction of the South Heavenly Gate.
"The heart network of the Ruins should have received it as well."
Eros's fingerprints should also be synchronized.
The way it releases the primordial data is not a one-way transmission, but a synchronous broadcast to all law-based life forms within the entire mirror resonance coverage area.
Any being within the coverage area capable of sensing the fluctuations of the laws will receive an equivalent copy of the golden light pattern at that moment.
Once the copy enters, it will leave a permanent trace in the corresponding law structure.
The ways in which they are left are different—for Su Fan, it is an extra golden line next to the temperature of the sensing point on the inside of his ribs; for A Dou, it is an extra golden line in the aura of the small axe; for Xu, it should be an extra golden line at a certain point on the heart's pulse network map; and for Eros, it should be an extra layer of golden texture in a certain law aura of the fingerprint pattern.
Everyone will continue to operate with the golden trace etched from the old domain.
From now on, every law-based life form in this primordial world that can sense the resonance field will have a law pattern from the old domain.
That pattern was personally carved by the core of the old domain.
The engraving is an equivalent projection of the primordial dawn.
It describes the light of the primordial world in the language of the primordial world, and then inscribes the result of the description back into the primordial world itself.
It's a closed loop.
After it learned how we describe light, it made a permanent backup of our light in that way.
The backup was placed on the old domain's own fragment, and a copy was also placed on each of us.
Xu stood up from the edge of the crack and walked to Su Fan's side.
He didn't speak, but simply pulled his right hand out from his chest and spread it out.
Indeed, a very thin golden line had appeared on the purple-gold map in my palm. The line was located slightly to the left of the center of the map, right next to a marker line that indicated the coordinates of the end node of the old domain light filament.
The two lines are arranged side by side, very close together, and do not overlap.
Eros also raised his hand.
The transparent patterns on his fingertips glowed with a purplish-gold luminescence in the morning light, with an extra layer of very faint golden texture in the hue of the luminescence.
The direction of the texture is exactly the same as the line on Su Fan's palm.
"It carved a line for each of us."
Eros said.
The engraving method is exactly the same.
The direction, depth, hue, and frequency of the texture are completely synchronized.
It ensures that all law-based life forms in the primordial world can perceive the existence of that golden light pattern in the same precise way.
It ensures that no one who perceives the data will miss it.
It meticulously, systematically, and without omission handled the permanent preservation of that dawn scene.
Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe from the ground and carried it back on his shoulder.
The golden line on his palm continued to shimmer faintly in the increasingly bright morning light.
He glanced down one last time, then turned and walked toward the South Heavenly Gate city wall.
When he reached the foot of the city wall, he stopped and looked up at the light of day near the crenellations.
The golden light of Mars had completely covered all the golden patterns on the top of the South Heavenly Gate city wall, and the entire wall shimmered with a very stable and even warm golden glow in the light.
The color of that light was exactly the same as the gold lines on his palm, the gold lines on A Dou's axe blade, the gold lines on the Ruins map, and the gold texture of Eros's fingerprints.
The old domain core made four permanent backups of the light of the primordial dawn.
One of them was on a fragment of the membrane wall on the outermost edge of the old domain, next to that smiling arc.
A trace of warmth left on the inside of Su Fan's ribs, next to the origin of the old domain's laws, when he said "I am here".
One of them made its home in the halo of A Dou's axe blade, amidst the gray-white background and purple-gold threads.
A thin golden thread was left in both the Ruins and Eros's law-sensing organs.
The four backups are distributed across four different law carriers, and within two different law environments: the Primordial Wilderness and the Old Domain.
They are not interconnected but resonate with each other, as if the same law pattern was simultaneously engraved on the surfaces of four completely different law materials.
Su Fan squatted down by the crenellations of the city wall, his palms resting on the bricks.
After the gold line on the palm was applied to the brick surface, it overlapped with the direction of the light gold pattern inside the brick in several sections.
The golden lines at the overlapping points were slightly brighter than usual, as if the primordial law environment itself had recognized the law pattern from the old domain and given it a brighter position.
Within the golden patterns of the city wall, there is an old pattern that runs in the same direction as that line. The two lines overlap for a very short period within the network of laws on the inner side of the city wall bricks.
The overlap was only about the width of a finger, but when it overlapped, Su Fan felt the temperature of the golden line in his palm rise slightly.
The slight increase in temperature was neither too high nor too low, exactly equal to the temperature of the purple-gold halo on the surface of the seed deep within the Guixu crack.
He sat by the battlements in the quiet morning light.
Two layers of background noise kept thumping in his chest cavity, the temperature of the third sensing point from the left kept dissipating, and the residual warmth left by the golden line in his palm when it overlapped with the golden pattern of the city wall also kept lingering.
The three layers of perception overlapped and were evenly distributed throughout his chest and palms, like an extremely thin and stable layer of law-based temperature continuously and slowly circulating on the surface of his body.
At the moment of dawn in the primordial world, the core of the old domain did something.
It combined the data of the only time the light shone in its memory with the data of the light that shone once a day in the primordial world, creating the same law pattern, which was then engraved on both the fragments of the old domain and the primordial life forms.
After it was carved, the pattern was no longer just the light of the old realm or the light of the primordial world.
It's the same thing that both sides have seen.
I saw it once in the Old Realm, and once a day in the Primordial World.
Both sides call that thing "light".
Now, both sides bear the marks left by each other's light, and those marks exist stably in their respective forms within their respective legal environments.
The gold threads on the fragments of the old domain ran alongside the arc of a smile.
The golden threads on the bodies of the primordial life forms follow the original patterns within their respective laws and structures.
All the gold threads were arranged side by side with the existing traces.
The wind blew in from the top of the city wall.
Su Fan leaned against the crenellation with his eyes closed, the golden thread in his palm glowing softly on the surface of the city bricks.
The primordial wilderness and the ancient realms awoke together in the light.