Abyss Solo

In order not to let himself keep stewing in agony, Yang Ming decisively unleashed the great technique of "auto-pilot."

But after he left the City of Light, he still couldn't "snap out of it" from Levi's story; for three days straight he sank into a kind of decadent mood.

Faya.

Levi Sherman, this founding Emperor of the Sherman Empire, had only one point Yang Ming genuinely admired: he did not directly compromise with the Faya people, but resisted in his own way.

Yet that resistance was like a lab mouse locked in a transparent eco-box.

The Faya people merely watched this mouse quietly as it struggled, using its sharp teeth to tear apart other mice thrown into the box, and with its burly body, battered and scarred, it proclaimed itself the overlord of the Milky Way.

And what about himself?

Wasn't he also a lab mouse of the Faya people?

A sense of oppression rose unbidden.

Negative thoughts kept bubbling up in Yang Ming's heart.

For example, all the things he was trying so hard to do—did they actually help Earth at all?

Earth was being held hostage in the hands of the Faya people; he had no way to contact Earth at all. Even if he risked his life to do all this, the Faya people could wipe it out with a flick of the wrist—just by editing some information.

Don't talk to him about the "principles" of the Faya people; that thing was like the "sanctity and inviolability of private property" slogan in that pretty country on Earth—its bottom line was extremely flexible.

Civilization is pure; political systems are filthy.

Ideals are pure; the human heart is complicated.

The power he currently held, compared to that of the Faya people, wasn't even on the same level.

Yang Ming felt as if countless silhouettes had appeared around him, pressing in on him bit by bit, as if they were going to devour him whole.

He informed Lyu and Mimili, then shut himself up in his room, lying there staring at the ceiling and walls—sleeping, zoning out.

It even made issues he'd always ignored before start to surface under the influence of this wave of decay.

He began to ponder a few questions, about the universe, the starry sky, and philosophy.

It felt like he had hit some kind of bottleneck.

Or like he was trying to grasp some kind of truth.

Yang Ming of course knew this was very dangerous for him. Once he got stuck in a dead end, many things would be affected; his plans, his goals would all start to change—just like Levi's several reshufflings of his mindset.

But he also had to walk through this stretch of emotion.

It felt like a trial, a trial before facing a true challenge.

Outside the captain's rest cabin of Yang Ming's ship.

"Lyu, what's up with Boss these last two days?"

026 was fussing over a sumptuous nutrient meal, asking worriedly: "I've never seen Boss this down before."

"Boss is thinking over a few questions," Lyu said in a mock-old tone, "young people are like this, you know, they'll occasionally get lost in themselves and suddenly start pondering some completely ungrounded questions. This is a minor issue born from the structure of the human brain; it happens quite often."

"But… would Boss really get lost?"

026 wondered aloud:

"Our Boss has been full of drive from the very start; in such a short time he raised the Wind Alliance, and now we're about to crush the Sherman Empire."

Lyu's realistic projection appeared to the side, and he clicked his tongue lightly. "That's exactly why Boss is lost."

"Why?"

"My guess is, the essence of it is this: Boss can't tell now whether the achievements he's made are because Intelligent Mechanic Dusk chose him, because the Faya people chose him, or because of his own ability."

026 seemed to be thinking it over.

Lyu went on: "Boss, this person, he's got a strong sense of pride. And you really don't have to worry about him not finding his way out."

"Why?"

"First, Boss's Ancient God Life Form was obtained by trading a piece of Resurrection Armor, and if the info I know isn't off, it was also Boss who proactively punctured Po Suo's conspiracy; that's why Kigrov got to pin him to the operating table to settle his private grudge under public pretense.

"Second, Boss was the one who主动 chose to go to Intelligent Mechanic Dusk.

"This is like a self-salvation of the Earth civilization where Boss comes from.

"Look: why is it that the other four greenhouse civilizations all had no idea Intelligent Mechanic Dusk even existed?"

Lyu chuckled.

"Everything has to be viewed dialectically. Precisely because Earth's level of civilizational development was still too low, its overall atmosphere filled with ideological confrontation and clashes in worldviews, utterly ignorant of trials of civilization, they took that single-player version of 'Abyss' as nothing more than a game. They explored it recklessly, in this game that brought them technological awe and an informational shock, indulging in their beautiful dream of exploring the universe.

"That is possibility.

"The free Earth players discovered the projection of Intelligent Mechanic Dusk in the game. 'Abyss' was a direct snapshot of a brief moment of human civilization in the Milky Way, then allowed to evolve and simulate on its own, so Intelligent Mechanic Dusk would also appear, in a simplified form, in the planetary single-player version of 'Abyss.'

"Precisely because the Earth players had no particular goal, Boss ended up getting hold of that information and then主动 went to seek out Intelligent Mechanic Dusk.

"That is the self-salvation of Earth civilization, and Boss played a key role in the middle—he conceived the idea of searching for Intelligent Mechanic Dusk, and then sweet-talked Kolev into giving him his first ship."

026 blinked. "So that means…"

"All the paths were actually chosen by Boss himself; he's the one who walked them."

Lyu turned to look at the hatch of the rest cabin.

"If someone else were sitting in Boss's seat, they would just walk down a different road. Every single thought in Boss's mind dictates his future.