Chapter 1129 — Mathematics

Beyila's words plunged both Gao Yang and Belantia into thought at once. They were like a flash of light, suddenly guiding Gao Yang, amid the chaotic and tangled clues, to notice certain details he had never paid attention to before —

If those cultists deep in the wasteland were no longer "human," no longer concerned with the "Great Plan" being carried out by their brethren outside the wasteland, no longer concerned with the world beyond, then why should they continue to cooperate with the "Outer Church"? And since they had been cooperating with the Outer Church's operations for seven hundred years, that meant...

"They have been supplying us with data all along, even helping us infiltrate the Sentinel Tower. For centuries they acted like loyal colleagues, which made us overlook the lurking anomalies, and we never once considered whether such a group of physically and mentally mutated 'brethren' still shared our values," Beyila's voice came from beside him. "Not until the false god's body spiraled out of control, everything was reduced to nothing, the church outside the wall collapsed, and I finally had the chance to stand here, to calm down and think undisturbed — only then did I see the problem in all of this..."

"They weren't helping you. They were helping themselves," Gao Che said in a ringing voice. "After all these years of cooperating with you, the only explanation is that this 'cooperation' benefits them, or that there is something about you worth exploiting... Think back carefully — among all your plans, what might the cultists deep in the wasteland have found useful? It may help us grasp their purpose."

"Too many things — bioengineering, environmental modification, divinity factors, godscourge... We are running too many projects, and any one of them might be of use to them," Beyila said, deep in thought. "The wasteland inside and outside are utterly different environments, which means many experiments can only be conducted on one side. Every piece of research conducted by us and by them alike is an extremely valuable source of data for the other..."

"Then let us assume that all of this is their purpose," Belantia broke the silence. "Lady Beyila, the projects you just mentioned should all have been carried out in practice by you 'Outer Church' followers, with the data then shared with the 'Inner Church' behind the barrier, correct? And what all these projects have in common is that they concern the survival and modification of living organisms within their environment..."

"What have you thought of?" Gao Shao turned to look at the Silver Empress, his expression growing serious.

"Let us set technology aside for a moment — if we regard those cultists living within the great wall as a 'new species,' what do you think this new species wants most right now?"

"A new species? What it wants most?" Gao Yang frowned instinctively. Belantia's words gave rise to a whole new line of thought. He broke free from habitual notions like "world-ending conspiracy" and "cult worship," and once the question was reduced to its simplest premise, something suddenly occurred to him. "Wait — you mean what they want is actually a living environment..."

"A living environment — a simple yet dangerous answer," Belantia nodded slowly. "The Gondor Wasteland is a land where they can survive, but this habitat is probably not so comfortable to live in now — the central region is the ruins of the Deep Blue Well controlled by the Iron Legion, while the peripheral region is a警戒 zone under the Sentinel Tower's surveillance. They can only move within a limited area between the two, so... they are probably not too pleased with this situation."

Gao Song's eyes grew deep and grave. In that instant he thought of many things, while not far away Beyila quietly turned her head to glance at the Magic Web terminal. Above the terminal, the projected image of the mutated treant rotated slowly in midair; those twisted and deformed limbs and the vaguely human faces housed a nonhuman mind. After gazing for a long while, the former Dark Hierophant gave a soft sigh, as if speaking to herself: "We have strayed too far..."

Gao Yang was startled out of his musings by this sentence, but as he raised his head and was about to say something, he saw Beyila suddenly assume the pose of someone pricking up her ears. Two seconds later she finished listening, and her tone turned exceptionally grave: "The monitoring team just sent an urgent message. They have picked up some... very unusual information. We had better go to the monitoring center ourselves."

"The monitoring team?" Gao Yang quickly realized she was referring to the long-term monitoring project that captured the "mysterious signal" at the major Magic Web hubs. His expression turned solemn at once — knowing Beyila's character, she would not be so pressing unless the situation was truly somewhat unusual. "All right, let's go now."

Beside him, Belantia was taken aback by the sudden turn of events. She cast Gao Yang a curious look: "What are you talking about?"

"Remember what we were discussing in the plaza just now?" Gao Yang glanced at the Silver Empress. "That antenna device — perfect. Now I can take you to see firsthand what this 'monitoring' project actually does."

As he spoke, a series of clicks of shifting wooden structures already came from the parlor that the Sorin Great Tree had "grown" for itself. The wall at the far end of the parlor slowly opened, revealing the pipe-like structure within and a transport device with seats that had come to a stop inside the pipe. Beyila walked toward it as she spoke: "We can reach the monitoring center through the vascular passage. It is a little faster than the corridors outside."

Gao Cen led Belantia toward the transport pipe, glancing up at Beyila in some surprise: "You built an entire pipeline transit system inside your own body?"

"It was General Margarita who suggested it to me. The Sorin Great Tree is immense, and many of its internal facilities are arranged in a complex three-dimensional layout. Conventional elevators or exterior corridors cannot handle the commuting pressure of all the facilities, so General Margarita suggested I design a kind of 'chute' capable of rapidly transferring personnel and materials between facilities — her inspiration seems to have come from the farm granaries of the southern regions, where farmers use similar chutes to send grain dried on high platforms directly down into the storehouses..."

Gao Cen listened in a daze, surprised that so many creative things were happening in fields he knew nothing about. Amid his astonishment he felt deeply gratified as well. He mused on the prospects of applying such things in other factories and compared them with similar devices back on Earth, and then he saw Beyila stop beside the pipe entrance, seemingly with no intention of entering.

He was a little surprised: "You are not coming with us?"

"I will create a new 'avatar' at the exit and wait for you there," Beyila said, while the flower vines behind her spread out like a cloak and swayed gently to demonstrate their presence. "You see, my avatars actually have limited mobility and cannot ride 'vehicles' — these vines do not permit an avatar to make rapid transfers over long distances."

So Beyila was tethered, after all?

The somewhat peculiar remark rose unbidden in Gao Yang's mind, and then, unable to restrain his curiosity, he asked: "I am suddenly a little curious — if you were maintaining this avatar and these vines really were severed all of a sudden, what would happen?"

"It would leave behind a lifelike Beyila doll, made of wood," Beyila said expressionlessly. "She is essentially just a medium for conversing with people. Once the nerve cord is severed, naturally only an empty shell remains."

"...That is very reasonable." Gao Yang's mouth twitched, and that was all he could say.