Mythological origin

More than a hundred years ago, Terra, which was originally thriving, had no choice but to take drastic measures and launch the crazy "Soldier Bow" project after foreseeing that it had no chance of winning against the all-out invasion of the "Black Tide," which was unreasonable and almost equivalent to the rules of natural disasters.

The entire civilization was randomly launched into unknown corners of the universe, organized into units of flagships, in the hope that this extremely dispersed approach would preserve a faint spark of hope for the civilization.

It was a desperate interstellar escape.

However, more than a hundred years later, these scattered sparks have once again gathered on the boundless earth and rebuilt considerable order and power.

As the instigator in a sense, Bai Mo knew very well that his evil corpse would definitely catch up again. What was so confident about these people in Terra?

“We have to thank them for this.” Upon hearing this, Vinnie slowly turned her gaze to the other side of the round table, to the several True Immortal Incarnations from the White Land.

"Oh?" Bai Mo's gaze shifted and landed on the eight True Immortals.

His gaze was very calm, yet it made the eight people being looked at feel an invisible, heavy pressure, as if the celestial light flowing around them froze for a moment.

Those were eight true immortals with unique temperaments, four men and four women—at least in terms of appearance, physique, and the temperament and habits they exuded.

For immortals who have transcended the mundane and undergone a second leap in their life form, appearance, race, and even biological sex have long become mere outward appearances that can be adjusted at will.

What sustains their self-awareness as "human beings," or rather, as intelligent humanoid life forms, is more the cultural imprints and long-accumulated memories deeply rooted in their souls.

From childhood, people are used to living and perceiving the world with a certain gender identity. After becoming true immortals, most of them are too lazy to deliberately change it. At most, they use some means to make slight optimizations and adjustments to reach the ultimate of their own aesthetics, which can be regarded as a kind of permanent "beauty filter".

Of course, there are also those who might spontaneously decide to try a different gender experience, or simply change their gender as easily as they would change their daily clothes.

At their level, they have long since transcended the constraints of worldly norms, seeking only the clarity and understanding of their true nature.

As the saying goes, just be happy.

At this moment, these eight True Immortals of the White Earth, facing Bai Mo's calm gaze, were far from as calm as they appeared.

Although at the moment they successfully ascended to True Immortal and broke free from the cycle of reincarnation, they already knew that the "system" that once controlled their destiny and was high above them could no longer instantly obliterate them as it had done to mortals who had not yet ascended to immortality.

However, if the system truly wanted to suppress them for a hundred years and gradually erode their true spirits, it would still not be difficult.

The system itself, as Bai Mo's benevolent corpse, is merely an enforcer of ruthless rules. As long as they strictly abide by the "rules of the game," there is no need to worry too much.

However, what they are facing at this moment is not the cold rules themselves, but the creator who has subjective consciousness, unpredictable power, and most likely has deep backdoors and ultimate permissions in the system.

Unlike their compatriots who have already become white people, the system can still restrain these eight people.

Therefore, when facing Bai Mo, what unconsciously welled up in their hearts was an almost instinctive sense of awe and restraint.

……

Beside the round table, the native Terran immortals also took in this subtle reaction.

Their gazes were calm, but their inner thoughts were complex and varied.

Several highly senior immortals, who had struggled through blood and fire in the old era, had a barely perceptible look of understanding and a slight sense of superiority in their eyes.

Some of the newer generation of Terran True Immortals are more driven by pure curiosity and scrutiny, observing these peers who are rumored to have been "raised" in captivity.

However, the core members of Terra's leadership present were all aware of an undeniable fact: those who came from the special system of the White Land were inherently much more innocent and gentle than these wolves and tigers who had struggled through mud and thorns.

This is not a simple difference in strength or intelligence, but a fundamental difference rooted in the path of growth.

Because in that world, which was strictly managed by the system and where all social operations, resource allocation, and even the boundaries of individual behavior had clear and rigid rules to follow, the Holy Adventists may never have truly faced the temptation to "do evil" throughout their lives, nor have they been given the effective opportunity and real choice to "do evil".

Their desires are channeled or limited by the system in some way.

Their conflict was predetermined and resolved by the rules.

Their path was forged in a relatively peaceful, orderly environment where resources were allocated according to rules.

It was a kind of ascetic life that could be described as "carefully manicured, garden-like".

Although there are many hardships and obstacles to enlightenment, they rarely encounter malicious plunder or life-or-death struggles from their own kind.

This is completely different from the path to the rise of the strong in Terra.

Among the latter, whether they were remnants of the old era or trendsetters of the new order, many relied on the overt and covert "cannibalistic" rules to take off, stepping on countless corpses.

Which Terra Immortal who can stand here hasn't experienced several life-or-death betrayals or counterattacks?

Who hasn't teetered on the edge of the abyss of profit and ultimately seized something?
Beneath the radiant glow of their Dao fruits, there was a faint, indelible trace of blood and the wear and tear of time. How could a simple "it's just a little bit of hardship" possibly suffice?

……

This difference often has a profound impact, even on those pioneers who have left the land of white and become so-called "white-outers".

The environment in which they grew up was far too "friendly".

Not only do they lack the opportunity to practice being "bad people," but even in the social environment of the White Land, which has been systematically purified, they don't have many opportunities to truly observe, contact, or understand what it means to be a "bad person" without any bottom line.

The system acts like a filter, preemptively blocking out the most extreme malice and chaos.

This leads to a significant consequence.

When they truly leave the protective social structure of the White Land and venture alone into a vast world like Terra, where light and darkness intertwine and human nature is unpredictable, they often appear out of place in the initial stages, like fresh-faced college students just entering society.

From time to time, they will stumble and suffer in silence amidst the treacherous schemes of human nature, the complex game of interests, the unexpected betrayals, or the moral blackmail, becoming the "honest person" or "sucker" in the eyes of others.

Their immense power, in certain situations, is actually made more susceptible to being misled or exploited because of the "naivety" of their cognition and experience.

Only through repeated collisions and setbacks in reality, carrying confusion and pain, can one stumble and fall to rediscover another completely different world.

A real world where good and evil are not clearly defined, but rather intertwined and symbiotic, and where the human heart is as complex and unpredictable as a kaleidoscope.

……

"Our long-term tracking and research data shows..."

Seeing that the eight True Immortals from the Land of White seemed even more reserved under Bai Mo's gaze, and even somewhat at a loss for words, Vinnie naturally took over the conversation and continued speaking.

"As long as a stable alliance is established with the White Land, the intensity and frequency of the Black Tide invasion will drop sharply within the area covered by the alliance zone."

As she spoke, she raised her left hand, her slender fingers tapping lightly above the round table.

As she moved, a clear screen of light unfolded before everyone.

On the light screen, there was not simple text, but a dynamic star map, complex curve charts, contrasting data streams, and some abstract energy wave diagrams, making it look like a PowerPoint presentation.

In her data statistics and model projection visualization, it can be clearly seen that the Black Tide's "tentacles," which symbolize destruction and erosion and resemble murky ink, had actually tracked and spread to the vicinity of the re-assembled Terran civilization decades ago.

However, contrary to expectations, these Kuroshio forces did not launch a devastating, full-scale invasion.

The chart shows that, due to the "marking" effect of the White Earth's power in this area, the number of invasions and the quality of the forces dispatched for each invasion are pitifully small, even "perfunctory."

Over the past few decades, among the more than twenty probing attacks by the Black Tide forces detected, the specific cases listed next to the chart show that the strongest single monster that appeared only barely reached the fourth-tier energy level.

Such beings could be easily wiped out by any well-trained and well-equipped Terran noble lord or mid-level officer in modern Terra.

It is far removed from the terrifying image of the Black Tide that everyone remembers as devouring stars and annihilating civilizations.

Is there such a... underlying setting?

Hearing Vinnies's clear and logical explanation, and especially seeing the intuitive data comparisons, Bai Mo tilted his head slightly, fell into a brief moment of contemplation, and began to recall countless details when he built the underlying logical framework of the "Three Corpses".

The Three Corpses represent three powerful obsessions originating from the source, or rather, three distinct "ultimate solutions" he deduced for the fundamental dilemma of the universe.

To prevent these three "avatars," each with its own independent logic and potentially conflicting actions, from falling into endless internal strife from the outset, Bai Mo did indeed add many underlying rules and taboo clauses that mutually restrain each other and set priorities to their core logic chain.

For example, the evil corpse will treat the white earth, which is the incarnation of the good corpse, as the lowest priority target for attack. Before other conditions or logical chains are met, it tends to avoid it or only make minimal attempts to probe... to avoid the two sides fighting each other to the death from the start, otherwise its three corpses would be wasted.

Bai Mo gradually understood.

He guessed that Terra's group of experts at skirting the rules had probably cleverly gotten close to the edge of this underlying rule.

By forging an alliance with the White Land, they deeply bound the existence of their civilization to the White Land.

This binding may have significantly reduced the "attack priority" value of the Terra region in the black tide judgment logic of the evil corpses, thus turning what should have been a surging wave of destruction into the almost symbolic, low-intensity harassment we see today.

It's not that the Kuroshio has weakened, but rather that its "attention" and main power have been diverted elsewhere by the rules.

PS: This is chapter 300. Let's make it a 3,000-word chapter. By the way, Happy New Year everyone! According to the outline, the book still has a long way to go. Right now, it should be... about 60% complete? (End of this chapter)