Successors of all mankind

"Yes, sir. We'll be there in half an hour."

Seeing that his part was finished, Yu Le turned to Earl Rhine behind him and said:

“You know your people better than I do, so those troops can come over, and those people are better off being used for something else. Now, you report, and I will decide.”

"My honor, Your Highness, however, you are mistaken, it is your people!"

Count Rhine fully accepted his position and identity as a entertainer, and made an appropriate statement.

This made Yu Le take another look at him.

Then Count Rhine asked in a low voice:

"Your Highness, I would like to ask you, has our restoration of communication already attracted the attention of the rebels or the church?"

After all, it can be said that the other side now controls all communication throughout the entire dynasty.

They first used various rumors and unfavorable battle situations to spread panic throughout the dynasty.

Finally, just as the situation was about to ease, they immediately cut off the communication.

This is not only about catching a turtle in a jar, but also about making people and Wang Jun lose confidence in the situation.

This is a very clever tactic and an extreme display of technical superiority.

The Human-Machine Association's move not only reveals all its cards, but also risks making it a thorn in the side of other forces.

Because if they can do it in France, they can do the same thing elsewhere.

If they fail again this time, it will be like trying to steal a chicken but losing the rice instead. Therefore, Count Rhein is convinced that the other party has put in unimaginable effort in this regard.

Yu Le chuckled knowingly:

"No, it is they who are now blind, Earl."

-----------------

Inside a massive signal tower standing in rebel-held territory, several tech-priests are in the tower's control room.

A semi-transparent terminal panel floated in front of them, displaying real-time traffic graphs of the surrounding area's communication networks.

The bright blue lines that originally represented Wang Jun's frequency band are gradually darkening, breaking, and disappearing.

Their job is to confirm that these lines are cut according to the expected schedule and to monitor whether they are restored.

Behind him, the very machine that truly bore the weight of all this stood quietly at the base of the signal tower.

That was one of the sacred relics unearthed by the Human Machine Cult from the ruins of an abandoned city, dating back approximately 2,700 years.

It took church scholars nearly a century to figure out its uses, and almost three hundred years to learn how to activate and put it into practical use.

It has no name, and it is unwilling to share its information with the church.

Therefore, the church's internal files only marked it with a number: RS-07.

It was designed with a very simple purpose: to manage the public broadcasting system of a city and its surrounding areas.

In human times, this magical machine was simply the processing core of a civilian broadcasting station, responsible for transmitting traffic information, weather warnings, and public announcements released from the city center to every receiving terminal in a timely manner.

It was a standard infrastructure component that was ubiquitous in countless cities during that prosperous era, so standard that it was often overlooked.

But in the hands of the church, its use was completely restructured.

The church has not changed its core function; it continues to perform its mission.

The only change was the input command: the church told it that the only source with 'highest priority' was the church's own encrypted band.

All signals that do not belong to this frequency band are classified as 'unidentified sources' and need to be retrieved by the church.

As a result, the communication network throughout western France remained technically normal.

The signal towers that people built were not damaged, the repeaters were not disconnected, and the lines were not broken.

However, all signals that do not belong to the church are indefinitely queued up under the control of RS-07 and other similar machines, in the name of 'priority'.

They will also be subject to church scrutiny!

This is the first time the church has brought this technology to the forefront.

They invested too much, and just as Count Rhine thought, the emergence of this technology meant they would immediately face condemnation and defense from the rest of the forces.

Therefore, they must ensure that their efforts yield the expected return—victory!

There was originally no problem at all.

The technical priests watched with immense satisfaction as Wang Jun's signal channels disappeared one by one.

They also listened with delight to the panicked shouts of these heretics on their respective channels and watched with pleasure as they tried to restore communication and breach their firewalls.

How foolish!

How could you possibly understand the technology of such great humankind?

Suddenly, they all noticed that the data in front of them flickered.

After exchanging glances, they realized that it wasn't their problem.

Then they all looked behind them, without saying a word.

With just a glance, those servants who were constantly whipping themselves with thorns in front of Shenji were silenced.

They immediately began to hit even harder, and his already mangled back started to have more flesh and blood flying off.

But the technical priests remained dissatisfied and angrily rebuked:

"Push harder, go faster! You actually slacked off just now, and you displeased the Divine Strategist! Do you know how great a crime you have committed?"

The technical priests didn't believe it was Wang Jun's fault; they only thought it was this group of incompetent people who had displeased Shenji.

The tech priests' rant continues:

"You will never receive forgiveness from humanity, and because of this, you will never receive divine protection!"

"Hurry up, hurry up! I'd rather kill myself than stop!"

The sound of whipping grew more intense as the servants lashed themselves almost frantically.

Chapter 91 Divine Strategy (3k)

Soon, some people could no longer hold on and collapsed to the ground.

But he won't even have the chance to be dragged down like trash.

Immediately, soldiers from the Christian Guard taxis stepped forward and slit his throat, adding even more color to this ceremony that pleased the divine.

Until there is no more to flow, and no more to die.

His body will then be taken away and replaced by a new servant.

This is how the church 'controls' divine will.

Although this was something other nobles would do, the church did it with extra 'diligence'!

And they also have some other special methods of their own.

With the two combined, the church always puts extra effort into its divine plans.

An officer walked up from below, glanced at the servants, and then looked away.

There's nothing to be careful about, and nothing to say.

He makes others sacrifice themselves to torment him, just to please his soul.

Everyone does it this way.

However, the officer still glanced curiously at the figure at the very front of the group of servants.

She was a very beautiful young woman, almost completely naked, her body wrapped only in shrouds from the relics of past church sages, and she was devoutly chanting prayers.

She doesn't need to torture herself; she only needs to pray for forgiveness.

This is also part of the joy of divine wisdom; her bloodline is noble enough, and she is human enough!

In particular, she was also holding an incense burner containing special fragrance.

The officer was very envious of that incense burner.

Or rather, the inscriptions burning inside!

The nobles could produce the first two items, but they had none of the last one.

This silver-gray, translucent incense, just a little bit is enough to bring great joy to the soul.

However, that was beyond his level to obtain. He glanced longingly at the incense, then at the alluring officer, and said to the mechanical priests:

"Fathers, I've come to ask if you've noticed anything amiss?"

This question left the mechanical priests frowning deeply:

Are you questioning the church? Questioning our capabilities?

The officer hurriedly lowered his head and said:

"I absolutely did not mean that, gentlemen. It's just that our scouts witnessed some unusual troop movements by the enemy forces that were originally confronting us."

At the same time, he couldn't help but curse inwardly, 'What a bunch of arrogant bastards! I just came to confirm!'

The mechanical priests, however, completely dismissed it, seeing it solely as the idiot's incompetence:

"An unusual mobilization? What, do you think your enemies are dead, pawns? Do you think they'll just stand there dumbfounded after we cut off their communications?"

The officer couldn't refute it; he could only emphasize one point:

“But, sirs, they seem to be moving towards where the new aristocracy is gathered. I suspect they’ve received orders from them!”

"Because of the timing, it's impossible that the other side sent someone to manually relay the instructions, so..."

The officer's suspicions were quite reasonable; even his subordinates who reported this hadn't considered it.

The other party simply made the same judgment as the mechanical priest, believing that the other party had realized something was wrong and was preparing to retreat in panic.

He reported this point, even intending to show off.

Look, the enemy is fleeing in disarray!

But the officer felt that this did not seem like the other side had realized something was wrong and wanted to withdraw.

Because it was too fast!

This is more like the other party receiving an order from a superior, and in terms of timing, it is clearly not a human relay.

So, just to be absolutely sure, he specifically asked the mechanical priests if they had discovered anything unusual.

Unexpectedly, these arrogant guys didn't take it seriously at all.

They even tried to label him!

"So you suspect they've restored communication? By the grace of mankind, Bourbon II actually sent a fool like you to cooperate with us!"

“I told you, they couldn’t succeed because this technology comes from humans, not you!”

The mechanical priests' arrogance and rebukes grew increasingly fierce.

The officer was also feeling the pressure, but he remained standing, head bowed, and said:

"Gentlemen, it's always good to be careful. Are you perhaps checking it carefully?"

Seeing this, and since they were still allies, the mechanical priests couldn't really break off relations.

They could only let out a resentful snort.

Passing through the wailing servants, they reached the divine strategist, knelt down in unison, and said:

“Great divine machine, 0 and 1 constitute your soul. Praise be to humanity, praise be to gears and metals. Now, please forgive us for not being able to offer you a complete ceremony.”

"Please allow us to connect with your sacred body and access your great data!"

Shenji did not answer, but did grant access.

Seeing this, the mechanical priests worshipped the divine machine once more.

They all took a data cable from behind their heads and into their hands, and connected it to the interface opened by Shenji.

In the Human-Machine Cult, members with higher status tend to have a greater degree of physical modification.

So let's not even talk about something so childish; there are plenty of people who can directly use their brains as computers to connect to supercomputers.