Mystery: Survival from the Secret Doll

Chapter 150:149 Demon Wolf's Whereabouts
"Why are you so surprised?" Tang straightened the monocle in his right eye socket. "The world of mysticism is always full of strange things. Your Excellency, there are some things that even an omniscient and omnipotent God cannot understand, master, or utilize. How much less can the Silver City, which has been eroded by a thousand years of darkness and is no longer what it used to be?"

Is the Ancient Sun God very strong? Of course, after all, he is a half-step ancient, a powerful being that controls the Chaos Sea.

But He still fell.

The two demon hunters turned their heads at the same time and looked at Tang.

Tang smiled, grabbed the ball of crazy knowledge in his hand, and let it fall back into the state of construction. "Okay, you can understand that this is a virtual personality in my hand."

"Well, everyone, that's Sequence 4 of the Dragon Path. The potion is called Manipulator. Beyonders who advance to this Sequence can also create virtual personalities, but they're just a little cruder than the ones I created."

"Or perhaps, you could understand this as a continuation of the demon hunter Gar Brai, a replica of your own spiritual imprint?"

"Ah, come to think of it, I've seen some movies before where humans can abandon their bodies and continue to survive as digital life forms by transferring their consciousness into servers... Is this an example of 'flesh is weak, machines ascend'?"

The powerful being who called himself the 'Angel of Time' began to talk to himself, and what he said was something that Gal Bray of Silver City could not understand.

"However, this is something that only happens in science fiction movies. In reality, it's probably not the case that consciousness is transferred into a server, computer, or cloud storage, allowing the person who transferred the consciousness to achieve a different kind of immortality."

"One second my consciousness was still in my body, and the next second I was in a virtual world. That world was no different from the real world, except that it was more intelligent..."

"True uploading of consciousness simply replicates personality, memories, emotions, knowledge, and other factors to create corresponding signals, thus creating a new 'person' in the virtual world?"

A fake uploaded life: dying one second and entering a new world the next.

The real uploading life: you are about to die in the last second, and the next second the staff tells you that the transfer is complete, your backup has arrived in the cloud, and you can go back and wait to die.

"As for the production of the 'Bionic Marionette' module, we can rely on manual adjustments to simulate the various behaviors after the module is installed on the corresponding marionette's spirit body."

"It's like training an AI. By extracting relevant information from the marionette's past and personality, and training it through simulations, we can cultivate an intelligent management AI that is almost identical to the marionette's before its death... It's probably something like this, the equivalent of a 'backup' in the mystical sense."

Then, by installing this module on the corresponding secret doll, you can create the illusion that this person is still alive.

That is, a 'personally customized' type of secret puppet.

Tsk, it’s such an absurd and terrifying story when you think about it. The ‘Bionic Marionette’ module really suits the Trickster.

With one-stop service after death, the predecessor of the secret doll must have died peacefully.

System: 'emm...' The host's thoughts are sometimes difficult to evaluate.

"As for your instructions to those demigods, generally speaking, there is indeed no problem." Tang said to the former chief of Silver City.

He knew that the other party had warned the demigods to be on guard against the Demon Hunter Gar Bray if he appeared before them again. He knew it, but he didn't care.

"Okay, any more questions?"

Tang Wen adjusted his monocle again, cut off the influence of the "0" level seal in Silver City once again, and refused to be pried into by the outside world.

Demon Hunter Gar Bray glanced at the almost unbearable object in Tang's hand. After a long silence, he finally asked, "What is your purpose? Why did you come to Silver City?"

This was an answer he hadn't asked before.

"In order to train a new Lord of the Mysteries," Tang said, "to prepare for the apocalypse, someone needs to take some precautions."

This is true for him, and so is the Goddess of Night.

To some extent, Tang, who has a certain degree of foresight, is more suitable for this task than the goddess.

"Any more?"

"…there is none left."

"Well, then, good night... Gar Bray, the former Chief Lord of Silver City."

"Your spirit, your memories, everything about you, will all grow again after death, like a sapling, using your body as nourishment..."

Ah, this description seems quite strange.

-

He made the former chief of Silver City, who was on the verge of losing control, into his own secret doll. During this period, the other party did not even have any resistance to the spiritual thread. The extraordinary power of operating the spiritual thread was so smooth and incredible that Tang also obtained a new secret doll.

With the installation of the 'Bionic Marionette' module, the marionette quickly 'came alive'. Even without the Marionette Master to operate it, it opened its eyes on its own initiative, and it seemed as if many secrets were hidden in its eyes.

It seemed that at this moment, the former chief came back to life.

But is it really him who is "alive" in this state?

"The spirit is dead. Though hidden, the island of the subconscious, nestled within the ocean of the collective subconscious, has become gray and silent. Regardless of any mystical explanation, the moment the marionette was completed, the fate of the person known as 'Gar Bray' was sealed."

This is the current situation for the current successor, the former chief who was "resurrected" from the corpse, and now the secret puppet Gar Bray.

He has his own memories, his own personality, his own emotions, his own confusion about the future of Silver City and his wariness of the enemy, his own love for this city-state that perseveres in the depths of darkness, and his belief in giving everything for it.

But the chief of Silver City is really dead.

Living here are secret puppets that are immortal, indestructible, and ageless, and they are puppets of others.

The puppet cannot rebel against its puppeteer until the puppet master makes a cognitive error and the puppet loses control and becomes alienated.

And in the 'Bionic Marionette' module, which is based on the personality of 'Gar Bray', there are no shortage of necessary restrictions and rules.

"Perhaps after I've been promoted to a Sequence 1 Servant of the Mysteries, I might be able to salvage this situation if my soul has also fallen into death. However, at Sequence 4, I clearly can't do that."

The former chief looked at Tang. Through the connection of countless spiritual lines, he obtained all the relevant knowledge and information about the God-forsaken Land.

What is the Lord of Mysteries? What is the identity of the person before me? What is the world outside this cursed land like?

The former chief fell silent. "Why are you so pessimistic..." Tang looked at his new marionette and saw that it seemed depressed. The corners of his mouth twitched.

Suddenly I had the illusion that copying homework exactly as it was was not a good thing...

"Alright, alright. After all, the Bionic Marionette module is really useful, and I couldn't help but try a new use for it. Besides, you're the only Marionette that needs some effort to disguise..."

Tang couldn't help but sigh and touched the bottom edge of his monocle with his fingers.

Silver City hadn't reached the point of running out of ammunition and food yet. Since there was no way to turn the entire Silver City into his secret doll and leave the God-Forsaken Land through the Euclidean space, leaving the secret doll here to interfere slightly was the safest move.

After all, Xiao Ke's miracle worker promotion ceremony will most likely be held here. In order to cultivate a Lord of Mysteries to hold up the sky under the oppression of the Outer Gods when the doomsday comes, some things can indeed be arranged in advance.

The former chief of Silver City, who had also received the same signal, looked at Tang with eyes filled with complicated emotions.

"Then from now on, I'll leave things here to you." He looked out the window. "As for the rest, if you want to help, please do so."

Clothes, food, herbs... Apart from the unrealistic miracle of leaving the God-Forsaken Land and letting the light cover the land again, he could provide the rest by having the marionettes cross the seal of the God-Forsaken Land, which would also provide his miracle worker with the opportunity to digest his potion in advance.

"If there's any problem with Silver City, go find someone else... Um, Tongzi, you can install a subsystem for him later."

"Okay."

There should be no problem if we just place two of them, one open and one hidden, in Silver City.

"You can do this, right?"

"…Um."

Tang glanced at the thundering sky outside the window, then withdrew his gaze from Silver City and regained consciousness.

He picked up the lantern at his feet and continued to move forward into the deep darkness.

The success of this attempt gave Tang more inspiration.

The system upgrade has been completed. Version 2.0 of the 'Bionic Marionette' module can perfectly conceal the anomalies of the spirit line, allowing the core extraordinary abilities of the Marionette Master of the Diviner's Path to be hidden in mystery, making them almost impossible to detect.

Facts have also proven that by reading the past of the marionette through Euclidean space and using it to train the AI ​​of the 'bionic marionette' module, it is indeed possible to create a virtual personality that is almost identical to the marionette.

"The strange wizard combined with the extraordinary power of the second path of knowledge can actually reach this level... No, ordinary mystics and alchemists can't do it. This obviously involves something at a higher level, the source material..." In a way, it's really scary, well, in all aspects, it's like this.

"And if that's the case..." His secret doll would become increasingly difficult to detect.

"The person being replaced will not show any abnormalities. Their thinking and memory are normal, their spirit is 'normal', and their body remains the same, without any signs of contamination. The subconscious island has also been obscured by the upgrade of the 'bionic marionette' module. Even the most observant audience cannot detect any difference between the identical person and marionette."

Is it just a little bit inhumane?
Tang thought about it, then shook his head helplessly.

For a demon hunter on the verge of losing control, this is the best possible outcome.

It will benefit both him and Silver City.

But for some reason, Tang still felt a little melancholy.

"At least, I can't let myself and the people I care about fall into this situation..."

Putting his mind at ease, Tang continued to move through the Euclidean space, looking for traces of the Dark Demon Wolf.

Time flies, and this journey across the God-forsaken Land finally reached a turning point after a month and a half of travel.

This place is still some distance away from the eternal fog in the east. He was lucky to have found clues about the Dark Wolf in advance.

The marionettes within the city-state were alive. Although they had long since lost their activity and transformed into individual Beyonder characteristics that had been re-extracted, from the perspective of observations in Euclidean space, these marionettes had not been dead for very long.

Tang, who came to the real world through projection, looked at this city-state that was also destroyed and made into a secret doll. He was silent for a while, watching the transparent white flame shaking in the lantern in his hand becoming hotter and hotter. Through the state of the flame in the lantern over the past month, Tang quickly confirmed it.

The dark wolf is nearby.

"At least, He abandoned this secret town of marionettes in the last few days, not too long ago."

"But why did He suddenly choose to leave this city-state?"

Because of Amon, or because of the true creator?
Tang's gaze slowly moved and looked at the darkness outside the city.

His gaze became distant and long. Through the extension of the authority of Euclidean space, he seemed to penetrate layers of curtains and see the eyes behind the curtains that were quietly spying on the Secret City of Dolls.

The next moment, Tang's figure disappeared instantly, and the shadow that pounced on him passed through the afterimage he left behind, merged with the surrounding darkness, and swallowed everything around him.

After removing the spatial projection of the higher-dimensional space onto the lower-dimensional space, Tang took a few glances at the Beyonder who attacked him and confirmed that it was a Sequence 2 angel.

Sequence 2 of the Hanged Man's Path, Elder Dirty Whispers.

"Tsk." The believers of the true creator, really, the only ones who are not afraid of the darkness are probably the monsters in the darkness and the believers of the true creator who have mastered the power of corruption.

At the same time, Tang felt that something extraordinary seemed to be looking at him.

He did not stop at all, nor did he try to observe with the power of Euclidean space. In a flash, Tang returned to the safe house that had been set up in Tingen in advance. A bug disappeared in the theater.

Tang swapped places with the secret doll he had reserved in the theater.

"Huh, the sight of the true creator." Tang took a deep breath and wiped the non-existent sweat from his face. Then he walked out of the room and entered Miskatonic University, which was built inside the seal.

He was sure that his direction was correct, and the real creator was obviously also following the trail of the God of Wishes.

"But why is the True Creator pursuing this Miracle Worker? The Hanged Man Path and the Diviner Path aren't on adjacent Extraordinary Paths. What does He want to do?"

It can't be that he is looking for a playmate for his unlucky child, right?
(End of this chapter)