Chapter 730: 30. Mikhail
In fact, when Fisher saw the beautiful Holy Realm scenery outside, shrouded in mist and unchanged from a thousand years ago, the first question that appeared in his mind was,
“Why did Hamon Hamon do this?”
If it was really just as Hamon Hamon said, wanting to seek an answer from Fisher, then inviting just him would have sufficed; why invite Gouwen and other Chaos Races for a banquet?
Moreover, the document that Hamon Hamon ultimately requested them to open was still opened with David’s help.
Looking back, many of Hamon Hamon’s preparations were utterly useless, like inviting Fisher and others for sightseeing and then giving him the Supplement Handbook along with part of His authority.
This was not a legitimate reason, unless…
A bold idea surged into Fisher’s mind, making him grit his teeth and accelerate through the rapidly collapsing, violently shaking refuge space, dashing back to the original place.
“Whoosh!”
“Rumble!”
Large chunks of bricks fell from the ceiling and walls, and behind those bricks, bloody and entangled matter descended, reminding Fisher of the critical situation in the refuge.
Yet he rushed back without hesitation. When he passed through the large door he had seen earlier, the fungal strands were as before, and the figure with a human head and snake body still stood in front of the screen, reading the information above word by word.
His calm back formed a stark contrast to the collapsing, wobbling space around, immediately capturing Fisher’s attention.
Hearing footsteps entering this space behind him, Hamon Hamon’s tail behind him flicked slightly. He turned his head, his gaze tinged with confusion,
“Mr. Fisher, why have you returned? Are you here to take the Supplement Handbook? There’s really no need for that.”
“I’m not here for the Supplement Handbook. In fact, the Supplement Handbook is no longer important. What the Supplement Handbook hopes is for me to read all of it completely, so that I can isolate the influence of chaos invading the fortress with the precious nature within me. One Supplement Handbook corresponds to one authority, right, Hamon Hamon? Or should I call you, Michael?”
“…”
The elegant snake person’s back finally turned slightly after hearing Fisher’s words, his eyes completely taking in Fisher’s figure. After a long silence, he suddenly said,
“When did you discover my connection to Mikhail?”
“Just now.”
Fisher took a step forward, slowly approaching the snake figure. As he walked, he said,
“Because I couldn’t think of a reason for you to do all this, to invite me and Gouwen here, and Pisces and others were actually invited by you, right? You even replicated the scenery of the Holy Realm and created those angel-like things. The reason Hamon Hamon wouldn’t do this puzzled me, but the files I just saw inspired me.”
Fisher looked at the snake person before him and articulated clearly,
“If it is Mikhail, then everything makes sense.”
In that file, Fisher saw Mikhail’s expressed fondness for the Holy Realm during that period, his concern for Tang Zeming Asuka and the Creation Society; even the file was titled “Fisher’s Plan.”
Just seeing that document, Fisher’s memories seemed to be transported back ten thousand years in time.
So…
“You invited me, invited Gouwen, and invited the Ocean, which is the angel Hela, and besides the already known, polluted Asuka, the rest of those from back then have all been invited by you. You just wanted to see us one more time, right?”
“…”
At this moment, Fisher had already walked right in front of him. He looked at the expressionless snake person, knowing that this was merely his avatar,
“And there’s another point that drew my attention. In that document, you mentioned creating a brand new intelligent structure for David, capable of avoiding the flaws based on previous algorithms and memory networks. But, in fact, this technology has not truly been applied to David, right?”
“I carefully thought about my past conversations with David and found he still relies on networking and algorithms; otherwise, he wouldn’t have completely lost his memory after a network disconnection, not even knowing where you and Michael went. And at this moment, I recalled something from the past.”
Do you remember Haldor from the Northern Region?
It was he who, by means provided by the Mechanism of the Creation Society, completely copied the consciousness of Valentina’s teacher into the Mechanism, while there was no soul within Haldor, only the light of the Mechanism. This proves that the copied consciousness was actually a form of artificial intelligence inheriting the thoughts and memories of a truly living person.
And that was the new intelligent structure Mikhail successfully studied and handed over to the Creation Society!
“You copied a portion of Michael’s consciousness and your own consciousness, cleared the memories within, and placed it into David’s body as your child, which is why he has an angelic appearance. But if that’s the case, a brand new intelligent system shouldn’t be affected by network disconnections and lose memory, which differs from your description of the new intelligent structure. His intelligent structure has been replaced, right?”
“I don’t know the reason, and right now, I can only guess this much, but I can now be absolutely certain that you are Mikhail, or rather, you are part of him. Because I can sense the breath of the avatar authority from you. Mikhail, what exactly happened back then?”
“…”
The snake person before him grew increasingly silent, his gaze lowering for a moment. After a long while, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly, squeezing out a trace of humanity that Fisher was familiar with from the weight of divinity.
“Fisher, you always have this ability to perceive others’ thoughts, which is why you can guess what those women think, becoming entangled with you.”
Fisher opened his mouth, for at this moment, when he spoke, it seemed to affirm that Fisher’s speculation was close to the truth.
“…However, I don’t know if I am truly Mikhail. Perhaps I am, or perhaps I am a brand new, successfully aberrated Hamon Hamon. These two do not contradict each other, and it doesn’t matter now, because I am about to die.”
“You…”
“What on earth happened to me back then?”
He flicked his tongue and turned to look at the instruments,
“You are right, David was originally born this way, and as for why he reverted to being an elementary intelligence affected by network disconnections, that is entirely my fault. Since the beginning of the war, the chaos within me began to stir. In the process, I came to understand him more and more.”
The snake person raised his hand, describing to Fisher the survival methodology of a deity,
“Hamon Hamon’s authority destined him to undergo complete qualitative changes constantly. His memories are sealed, but his body and consciousness undergo irregular changes. For him, this change is no different from our death. A new Hamon Hamon has just been born from a complete qualitative transformation, and before he can learn and understand his past memories, he may undergo another qualitative change due to authority, essentially losing everything again, starting from zero.”
Fisher opened his mouth wide; upon listening closely, he found that the ecosystem of this deity, Hamon Hamon, was like,
“A mayfly born and perished every day.”
“Yes, so whichever Hamon Hamon it is, he exhausts everything in search of the ‘unchanging thing’; he joins the covenant of dreams to invade this world for the same reason.”
“But this does not explain why you and he have become what you are now.”
“From the very beginning, once I knew of his existence, I also understood what he was searching for. I was just too superficial and regarded him merely as chaos to be fought against, thus continuing to wear each other down. Until the myth war situation became increasingly severe. I was constantly worried about Michael’s safety; I couldn’t bear to see him get hurt in the war. I could not bear to lose him.
“But the worst eventually happened; the great power bestowed by the Mother Goddess overturned the Holy Realm, and he suffered a severe injury within. When he returned to the Spirit Realm by my side, he was already…”
The snake person’s gaze glimmered. Fisher couldn’t help but look at the phantom images of Michael and Mikhail appearing beneath the white fungal strands, just as they had seen earlier, with Michael missing an arm, covered in wounds, the illusory wings behind him shattered, and the halo above his head dimmed significantly.
This was a sign of death.
“I watched him in such a dying state, I could hardly believe it. I could not accept his departure, utterly unable to. Do you know how long he has accompanied me? Seven thousand years. Seven thousand years! He has long become part of my life. For him, I cannot let him leave. I would give everything up for him. So at that time, I thought of a way to save him, even if it was only his consciousness.”
Watching that scene, Fisher’s pupils constricted as he suddenly thought of something and said to the snake person,
“You weren’t planning to replicate the method to copy Michael’s consciousness into David’s body, were you?”
“…Exactly.”
The snake person closed his eyes and honestly told Fisher,
“I panicked at that time; I truly did not want to lose Michael. For Michael’s consciousness, I made space for a body. I uploaded the backup of David’s consciousness from another refuge and reset it to be no different from before as an artificial intelligence. It was at that moment, the more anxious I became, the more turbulent the chaos within me became. The aberration virus was thus born, spreading from all directions, affecting not only this refuge but also using the network as its transmission channel.
“Just as I was about to upload Michael’s consciousness, at that moment, Michael awakened. He looked at me as I reset and uploaded David’s consciousness onto the network to save him and saw the chaos that had spread because of my reckless actions. He just watched me with those deeply captivating eyes, telling me his choice.”
“Rumble!”
The collapse around grew more intense, and the lights began to flicker, casting the snake person’s figure in and out of shadows.
In this bizarre moment, in the distance beneath the fungal strands, the scene of the two embracing seemed to come to life.
The fungal strands above trembled, simulating the sounds from that time as if effortlessly.
Fisher first heard Mikhail’s voice,
“I cannot lose you. I… I have already regarded you as an indispensable part of my life; I cannot withstand any changes. If you die, I would rather die with you.”
“…”
In the silence, Fisher finally heard Michael’s asexual voice once again. Just compared to ten thousand years ago’s pride, at this moment, his voice was weak yet filled with countless tenderness he had shared over the millennia,
“Mikhail… We have always been independent. From now on, we will truly become one.”
Mikhail bowed his head, tightly embracing Michael’s body. Then, he heard Michael softly speak his last words,
“My change is your unchanging; it is David’s unchanging. As long as you remember me, I will live forever.”
“…”
Listening to Michael’s gentle words, Fisher seemed to grasp Michael’s meaning.
Michael did not wish for Mikhail to upload his consciousness into David’s body and replace him. This way, though he seemed unchanged, David’s consciousness would vanish, returning to change.
Michael did not want Mikhail to disregard the beauty of life he had lived for him. He knew Mikhail’s kindness, but now Mikhail wanted to ignore the chaos slaughtering the refuge of the spirit realm, allowing the other beings of the spirit realm and reality to be infected by Hamon Hamon’s influence.
For Michael’s unchanging, was Mikhail’s original kindness and warmth to be turned into this?
Thus, rather than this, Michael would rather enter the “death of change” himself to maintain Mikhail and their child David’s unchanging state.
And for this reason, he rejected Mikhail’s wish to upload his consciousness into David’s body.
“…What should I do?”
The refuge fell silent for a long time, and then Fisher finally heard Mikhail’s choked voice from within the fungal strands.
What responded to him was Michael’s calm and relieved voice,
“Shut down the network, seal everything here, and then fight against and defeat the chaos within you. I believe you can do it, right, Mikhail?”
“Buzz!”
That voice stopped abruptly. At this point, Fisher finally understood why there would be a network disconnection and why everything here would be sealed.
The snake person’s voice was filled with sorrow, as if the expressionless aloofness was finally stirred by sealed memories. He gently said,
“I did as instructed. I shut down the network, reloaded David’s reset consciousness back into his body, and then I sat here holding the deceased Michael, engaging in a mental confrontation with Hamon Hamon’s chaos.”
“You won.”
“Not necessarily; perhaps I lost.”
The snake person managed a bitter smile, looking at Fisher and saying,
“Michael’s words not only made me reevaluate, but they also seemed to provide Hamon Hamon a potential solution to his unchanging dilemma.
‘My change is your unchanging.’
“So He devoured my consciousness, making me completely become a part of Him, a part not influenced by the non-Him authority.”
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(End of this chapter)
