Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

Chapter 32: Where Destiny Meets (Part 8)

"Oh, wait—"

When Lusa Efayeret saw the scene, to be honest, she was a little unable to understand the situation.

The cluster of monitors originally deployed in the city of Twek began to decrease continuously from a certain day due to unknown reasons - there was no basis for control and contact, and nothing could be deciphered from the signals sent before they lost contact. Short-distance wireless signals now also had difficulty sending too much information at one time, and these small messages were completely filled with strange and meaningless pictures, snow screens, or words that could not form a sentence and were not some kind of code.

Physical inspections conducted after the monitor clusters were recovered also did not reveal any clues. It was only known that their load suddenly began to increase some time before and after they sent those meaningless messages. After the information was sent, the load reached its highest point, followed by a "puff" sound, and the internal mechanisms completely melted due to the severe overload.

Originally, she had no idea what this phenomenon was. It was not until she discovered that the main force of "Legacy of Natya" was filled with undead creatures that Lusa Efayeret finally realized that she was being attacked by ghosts.

The next period of time was for the White Eagle Squad to snipe the ghosts in the city - the defenders of Twick City were indeed established enemies, but this did not mean that "Legacy of Natya" was a friendly force - although there was no intention to give "Legacy of Natya" any face from the beginning, the tug-of-war between the White Eagle Squad and the ghosts did not achieve any results.

The final result was that, due to various considerations, the "Opera House" had to give up sending a cluster of monitors into Tweek, which caused the Iron Leviathan to seriously lack intelligence on the movements in the city in the later stages of the war. Only a small number of monitors located in secret places could continue to send back information, and only those monitors strengthened by Systine and her personal exclusive monitors could fly in the city.

Before the final battle, Lusa once again ordered the last reserve of monitors to fly into the city, trying to obtain real-time intelligence at all costs before she arrived in the city to participate in the battle. To her surprise, the monitors lost contact almost instantly, and the last information they received was very consistent: in the completely black screen, white noise formed a skull pattern.

This meant that something beyond her capabilities had joined the battle.

——It’s either the Archlich Alexis Pentelier, or something else that we currently have no information about…

She directly ruled out the second possibility: on the one hand, the characteristics shown by those patterns, if the "Legacy of Natya" has a second undead creature that can rival the lich, they can simply wipe out the defenders in a swaggering manner from the beginning - the walls of the Kingdom of Nasaran in its heyday can naturally block legendary strongmen, but the defenders on it are not legendary wizards - without having to wait for the opportunity and adopt such a troublesome combat strategy.

After abandoning the bombardment position and setting off, the Iron Leviathan's almost unscathed army crushed several small troops, some of which belonged to the "Legacy of Natya" and some to the Principality of Marie Army. Those were not the point. The point was that they had to arrive at the city within the specified time and prepare to support Cestin who was advancing alone.

Everything else can be put aside for now - this is not the judgment of the "Opera House" itself, but an absolute order directly conveyed here from the "Avatar".

According to Lusa's original expectation, after arriving at the Wall of Erumu, she would either see the Principality of Mariai Army waiting for her, or see a group of skeletons under the command of "Legacy of Natya"... Who knew it would be like this now, the Principality of Mariai Army was fighting a group of undead desperately, the former were few in number but their morale was mysteriously high, the latter were numerous but could not hide their sense of devastation.

Besides, where is the Archlich Alexis himself?

The meteor explosion that just smashed the roof of the sky indicated that there were at least two legendary warriors fighting in the city. One of them should be Alexis, and what was the other one?

Countless thoughts flashed through the Opera House's mind one by one. The prayer-etched gears that made up the core black box of her mind spun rapidly. In the end, she came to the conclusion: Don't worry about it for now.

"——Forget it, there's no need to wait. The audience is already impatient. All troops, open fire! Charge!"

She did not identify the enemy.

There is no need to point it out, what's the difference? Anyway, the most important thing right now is to rush into the city to protect Systin himself. Of course, Lusa is not happy to do this. She knows very well that once the two sides merge, she will completely lose her position as the center of the battlefield, and everything will go back to the time when it revolves around Systin, and she has not yet enjoyed enough of this happiness that makes her intoxicated. But what can we do? The orders of the "incarnation" are the orders of the "master brain", and the orders of the "master brain" are everything. Since it is everything, there is no room for resistance -

——Then why not try to find joy in misery?

She hummed a song - every syllable was composed by her herself, completely original music - and the black boot-like thrusters under her feet sprayed out hot flames. The dazzling blue light was neither too intense nor too light, just enough to support her body and let her move forward leisurely and steadily.

The charging puppets would automatically make way for her, and this would not hinder her from fighting at all. Behind her, more than fifty monitors gathered in a cluster mode, floating and automatically following her, moving forward with her. Please note that I did not use the word "quietly" to describe them. Even though the monitors can operate silently due to their mission requirements, Lusa Efayeret obviously does not need this function now. The monitors with dark, narrow and streamlined bodies have their cameras replaced by speakers. As the "Opera House" hums softly, they stretch out their hands and wave the long baton, and they also make sounds from the speakers.

Some are cellos, some are violas, some are violins, some are piccolo, some are flutes, some are clarinets, some are trombones, some are French horns, harps and pianos are clearly audible, drums and triangles sound together, they are the symphony orchestra of the "Opera House", as the baton dances up and down on the fingertips wrapped in leather gloves, the music pours out. Which famous piece is it, "New World", "Hope", "Tragedy" or "Heavenly Army"? No, no, none of them. The "Opera House" never plays the music of predecessors, every one of them is written by her, with the intention of perfectly matching the current battle situation, ensuring that no syllable can escape her control.

The sound of machine guns, the sound of sniper rifles, the sound of lasers streaking through and burning the air? They cannot be mixed up. Like the observers during the performance, they are also part of the adjustment process when the baton is swung up and down.

There are no heavy units, so we can only use mortars and grenades to increase firepower? This is not a problem. It is just right. The enemy is not strong enough to need heavy armor to deal with. The Death Knights and Mummy Lords are just the last of their strength. They can even be forced to be on par with the strong men in the Principality of Mariai. If we put heavy units here, will we be able to see the most exciting scenes of giants colliding and cavalry fighting? Since we can't see it, it's better not to have it. Isn't the sound of mortar explosions more suitable as an embellishment to the symphony?

Don't believe it? If you don't believe it, just turn sideways and listen - listen, one beat, two beats, each explosion sounded exactly where it should be, just like the gunshots, they were all embellishments of this music, adding iron-blooded color to the stage.

Wars and battles are important, and there is no point in not winning. But since we can win anyway, why not have some fun before seeing that face I hate again? The Opera House waved its baton happily as it headed straight toward the city wall.

The three armies were completely entangled, the ghouls tore at the knights' armor, and after tasting the flesh, their heads were pierced, and the rotten brains were splattered all over the ground. Iron rain swept towards the group of skeletons, and was then interrupted by the priest who came up from behind with a scepter. Mass-produced lightweight autonomous armored soldiers were wandering around, focusing fire on the soldiers with small-caliber beam rifles, and then were grabbed into the sky by ghosts that fell from the sky and torn into two halves... The battlefield was such a chaotic thing.

But the battlefield is also an orderly thing, a kind of chaos with its own order. Losses, heavy damage, results, these numbers constantly floated up from the mind, position, movement, behavior, these elements are all under monitoring. Originally, the command should be delegated to the deputies, to the puppets with command modules at the next level. I just need to be the core of the overall strategy. But if I really do this, how can I reflect my irreplaceable value?

In other words, how can you find fun for yourself more conveniently?

Therefore, "Opera House" Lusa Efayeret finally gave up the plan to delegate command authority, and instead directly concentrated the command of tens of thousands of puppets and autonomous armors present in herself. In other words, she can issue instructions to each individual at any time and anywhere directly through the command network. This is why the rhythmic, musical sound of the battlefield is possible.

——Yeah, it went smoothly. It really makes me feel good.

In fact, this battle in which the Opera House directly commanded tens of thousands of units at the same time, which made her feel relaxed and happy, accounted for less than 30% of her core mental computing power.

This sounds incredible, right? Elite Specialized, No. 077, codenamed "Opera House", as an elite puppet produced after the Iron Leviathan went out of control, she has the highest level of command ability among all second-level elite puppets, that is, the level below the Leviathan prototype "Master Brain" and the first-level puppet "Incarnation". All elite puppets are equipped with command modules, so they can obtain command over lower-level puppets, but it must be pointed out that the mental models of many elite puppets are not specially designed for command, so they can only perform the tasks of front-line commanders at most, and cannot be used as the commander of a battle or even a war, because their minds are simply unable to issue commands while processing large amounts of battlefield data.

Unlike this "combat mental model", the "command mental model" weakens functions such as fire control and greatly enhances the data processing capabilities required to adapt to the position of battlefield commander. The integration, analysis, and calculation of data streams, the independent design of command networks and the arrangement of units contained therein, the free decentralization and recovery of authority, the construction of large-scale real-time maps at any time and interactive command based on them... After concentrating all computing power on the command function, these are all completely achievable. Among the elite puppets equipped with the "command mental model", only two have command capabilities that surpass all other elite puppets.

The first is the "Infinite Snake" Ouroboros, a "monster" created through a huge number of simulated battles and born purely for the purpose of commanding thousands of troops.

First, "Opera House" Lusa Efayeret had some unknown and undetectable fault during the construction of her mind core, but it actually greatly enhanced her command ability, making her a newcomer who stood out from the elite puppets with her bizarre tactics.

One is cold-blooded and ruthless, who will do anything to achieve his goal and never cares about sacrifice and evaluation. The other is eccentric and can hardly get along with most puppets. As a puppet, he can only be called a psychopath.

Having these two as the aces in command, the "mastermind" must be very troubled.

But Lusa didn't care. She and Ouroboros were very similar in this aspect, that is, they didn't care about other people's opinions at all. For her, the Tweck attack went very smoothly. The only dissatisfaction was that she did almost nothing. She just sent a small force to induce the intensification of the battle between the Principality of Marie and "Legacy of Natya" and to cover "Legacy of Natya" to enter a decisive battle. She didn't show her full ability at all.

——This is a mission that is almost not difficult at all. So sending me here is a bit of an overreaction...?

There's no need to pamper that Cestin like this - just as she was thinking this, she had already arrived at the bottom of the city wall.

Attracting firepower, dividing the battlefield, breaking up the enemy's formation, neither the undead army of "Legacy of Natya" nor the remnants of the Principality of Marie Army could stop the pace of "Opera House". It can even be said that they did not notice Lusa's existence until the very end, and noticed that there was a glamorous woman slowly walking across the entire battlefield.

The army gathered outside the city gate, and the fighting also took place outside the city gate. The three armies were twisted together like a hemp rope and could not be separated. No side had the time to pay attention to the bottom of the city gate. The Iron Leviathan was another matter. The other two parties only regarded this place as a worthless ruin. No one would pay too much attention to it. As for the Iron Leviathan troops, they did want to rush into the city, but in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, the progress was not as fast as originally expected. It would take a while to fully concentrate on the position close to the city wall.

As for that short break, the Opera House didn't care much about it.

She raised her head and looked up at the wall - the chalk wall still stood. What they said before the expedition was just empty words, and she knew it herself. The only thing that could be breached was the Principality of Mariai. If the goal was more ambitious, the Kingdom of Nasaland might be used as an imaginary enemy, but no one thought of really destroying the wall. It just stood there, without its own will, but it existed in the past and will continue to exist in the future. I am afraid that even if the rulers of this land change one after another, the Wall of Erumu will still be the Wall of Erumu.

Lusa shook her head.

The music had stopped. No one would listen anyway - how could a symphony without an audience entertain the composer himself? At least Lusa didn't find it very interesting.

The matter has come to an end, although the progress bar has not yet reached the end, but from a strategic point of view, this battle has actually belonged to the victory of the "Opera House". After a short period of happiness, there is no reward, no cheers, no thunderous applause, only the feeling of emptiness that comes again.

The feeling of emptiness lingered, so Lusa chose to remain silent.

There were no guards around her, and even the monitors had dispersed. She was not an elite soldier who was outstanding in combat. She was definitely not weaker than ordinary soldiers, but even Lusa herself did not think that this level of strength was of any use. But so what? The large army was fighting outside the city, and one or two skeletons were not a threat. What kind of accidents could happen? It was impossible for Alexis to————

Alexis it————

I was halfway through my thought process when I got stuck.

There is no other reason.

Looking past the city gate and towards the dark scorched earth inside, Lusa saw "someone" limping towards here.

Chapter 33: Where Destiny Meets (Part 9)

“Gah…Haaaa…!”

What exactly happened?

There seemed to be some errors in the memory module of the mind. No matter how hard I tried to recall, that small piece of memory seemed confused and fuzzy, difficult to distinguish. There was no other way, I could only sort it out from the beginning to see if I could remember why the current situation came about.

Hmm...it seems so...

Yes, I originally planned to wait under the city wall. After all, no one would close the city gate, so there was no need to worry about that. I just had to wait for the battle to end as scheduled, and for the puppets of the Iron Leviathan to get rid of the undead and the guards and gather at the back of the battlefield. At that time, I could lead those puppets and rush directly into the city while the other two parties were caught off guard, and then I could continue to complete the mission.

Mission...what is the mission...oh yeah.

The mission is to rescue Sestine.

Retrieving records... Retrieving task records... Retrieved entry 21000173, go to this entry to view it.

...Sizzle...Sizzle...

"This... is the request of the Mastermind?"

"You have no right to question it. But I can answer it - it is correct."

"Really? Seriously? The Mastermind, who is sitting in the highest VIP seat, has been watching my performance the whole time. There is no way he doesn't understand my style. For poor Ms. Lusa, even if she has the equally pitiful and lovely sister Leah by her side, it's too difficult to work with someone who doesn't even want to talk to me, right?"

"You have no right to refuse this mission. If you raise any objections again, I will report all my previous mistakes to the Mastermind."

"I haven't questioned it yet—OK, OK. I'll just ask one last question."

"license."

"It's true that this is what Mastermind meant. Everyone knows the strategic significance of the Black Knight, and cooperating with her does not conflict with our goals... But Mastermind didn't propose this mission alone, right?"

"..."

"How much of this is your own selfishness?"

"...Guess what?"

………………Sizzle………………

Recording ends.

This is a very unpleasant task, but what can I do? Anyway, I should lead the team to rush into the city. I can vaguely sense that in the distance, in the deepest part of Twek, across the other end of the city, there seems to be some commotion brewing. I guess it must be something that Sestin is doing. I can only feel the increasing momentum of the magic sword, as if even the wall of Erumu is trembling under its power, but the battle seems to have not happened yet. I didn't feel the earthquake, nor did I hear the sound barrier being violently torn apart. I can catch up completely.

——But what happened afterwards?

If a body made of steel is born entirely for war, it will naturally not have many meaningless physiological reactions like humans. Originally, this was indeed the case. The puppets made by the Steel Leviathan, which existed as an arsenal and arms dealer, were "weapons" that neither felt pain nor struggled, no matter how soft, gorgeous, or hard and cold they were in appearance. Now, due to unknown reasons, the Steel Leviathan eventually lost control and was removed from the list. No one knows what happened inside. Some have been produced according to the original design drawings, while others have become more... "humanized". If you don't take into account body temperature and internal structure, most people may find it difficult to distinguish them from humans.

Like now, kicking its legs meaninglessly, struggling, twisting its body - not needing to breathe is a strength of machines. But if it's just being strangled by the neck, it shouldn't be in such a posture, right?

——But what happened afterwards?

The streets were dark as the winter wind, the sky fire, and the terrifying force all worked together to extinguish every inch of fire. Without the illumination of the blood moon, the area within the city walls became a demonic realm. A place without light in this world was equivalent to "a world where humans could not survive." Even if there were survivors there originally, they would probably have to die now for various reasons.

From there, something was coming towards him step by step.

He was limping and looked quite miserable... Even so, he still could not be underestimated.

——Oh, yes, I remember now.

Opera House Lusa Ephayet finally remembered what it was. The figure was wearing a tattered robe, with no flesh on his body, only bones. Even the skeleton was broken, half of it was cracking, and one third of it was missing. It was only by spirit and strength that its outline was maintained. The whole body was charred, as if it had been burned fiercely in a raging fire. Even the two green ghost lights in the eye sockets were erratic, as if they would go out at any time. It sounds very tragic, doesn't it?

But those were not ordinary skeletons or undead.

That was the Archlich, Alexis Pentelier—even though he was seriously injured and on the verge of death, he was still a legend.

——Then…what should we do?

Retrieving records...

Search records...

Retrieved image record 22748911, go to this image record.

The automatically saved video record is retrieved and playback begins.

"Ah... not many people would appear in this kind of seats. Let me guess - oh, you have written your name on your face? I am really grateful. Then you must be the famous Ya--"

"……kill……"

"——Alexis——"

"...The living will betray, and the betrayers must die... What is the meaning of the existence of the living? Philosophy does not tell people this truth, so why should I care about the connection between them... Then kill... The undead are the best choice. The undead can be controlled and will not betray... So kill them all."

"--Mr. Pentellier--"

....................................

The sound was so tiny that if you didn't turn the volume up to maximum during the recording and combine it with environmental noise reduction processing, it would be almost impossible to hear what the charred and half-broken skeleton was mumbling.

At that time, the sound receiving function of the "Opera House" was not turned to the maximum. Although as a musician, she certainly had requirements in this regard, she was not idle enough to use her hearing to the fullest in the wild environment to occupy computing space. As a result, she could not hear the Archlich Alexis's low and fast mumbling to himself.

....................................

"... Speculators must be executed, fence-sitters must be rooted out, and those with weak wills must be brainwashed... If brainwashing doesn't work, open the skull and replace the brain with Alexis's... We must focus on restoring the Kingdom of Nasaran with all our strength, leaving no time for wavering... Those who are likely to betray must be executed before the risk is realized... beheaded... and their bodies made into undead soldiers..."

"——It seems that your situation is not going well. Well, we are not very interested in the ownership of this city. Why don't we talk about it——"

"...How many 'Alexis Pentelier' are left in the territory? If the number is insufficient, continue to produce. If necessary... replace all the wavering members of 'Natha's Legacy' with 'Alexis'..."

"——Things related to cooperation——"

"...the obstacles that stand in the way of national restoration must be removed."

"Uh, what did you say?"

"The obstacles must be removed - you...what are you? I don't know what you are..."

"I mean--"

“The obstacles have to be removed.”

………………Sizzle………………

Recording ends.

The invisible hand grabbed the throat of the Opera House and lifted her off the ground. The Mage's Hand was not a lethal spell, unlike the spells that were also classified as "magic" such as "Magic Explosion", "Freezing Ray", and "Holy Flame". The latter could exert a sufficient level of lethality as long as the output was increased, while the former was just a convenient spell for picking up distant objects and moving objects silently at any time - unless it was used like Alexis did.

The fair and slender neck was visibly sunken, as if some invisible hand was tightly strangling it. No matter how Lusa Efayeret tried to grab and block it with her hands, she could not touch anything. It looked like she was waving her arms in vain.