Chapter 987
Evolution
Chapter 987 Evolution
When his vision refocused, Xia Xiu found himself standing in a corridor. The runic light source in front of him shone with a calm light, but his mind was like a turbulent lake—chaotic, blurry, and even the most recent fragments of his memory seemed to have been ripped out.
This feeling……
He is very familiar.
That was the emptiness left behind when Gray devoured the outer layers of information and memory, like a logical loop being pulled out, but the remaining part was still functioning normally, even deceiving you that everything was fine.
The buzzing in my mind hadn't subsided when suddenly I heard the Queen's deep, steady tremor in my ears:
"You're out. You were inside for a full half hour."
Xia Xiu frowned slightly.
Half an hour? For him, time in the room didn't span that long; his memory was still stuck at the moment he was about to enter the room.
He didn't rush to respond, but subconsciously mobilized the crown element within his body, and then activated his domain.
[Frame Rate World: Rewind -]
Space became segmented in his perception, the flow of time began to recede, and the images flipped back frame by frame—however, at the crucial moment, the entire field of memory suddenly collapsed into a black vortex.
Outside the black hole, however, floated a layer of extremely thin, bookmark-like markings—interface information he had left behind—clearly stating:
【Retrospective Memory · 1】
Further away, there was a series of memory markers of the same form, like a string of beacons buried deep in the dark sea... except that all those lights were pitch black, with eye-catching information labels written on them.
Do not read!
Xia Xiu gazed at the symbols silently, already having formed his own judgment.
He took a memory-erasing drug.
As an information conglomerate, the crown possesses strong resistance to memory-erasing agents.
However, if he gives up resisting or even actively grants the drug the authority to delete or modify memories, then the memory deletion will precisely erase the part he specifies.
Now, these black holes and markings are the "locks" he himself set, and he even put up warnings.
He exhaled, withdrawing his view of the frame-by-frame world. His golden eyes remained calm, but the light in them was a few degrees deeper than before.
A faint ripple spread across the end of the corridor, as if an invisible crack had been torn open in the air.
A phantom of Armand emerged from it, still maintaining that leisurely yet unfathomable expression, his voice deep and carrying a nonchalant certainty:
"It seems you've already realized that you've taken the memory-erasing drug."
Xia Xiu neither nodded nor refuted, but simply looked at him quietly.
Amund's gaze seemed to pass through Xia Xiu, landing on the heavy door behind him, and he slowly said:
“We did obtain a lot of useful intelligence from the Queen’s archives. However, as you know, I am the Ghost of the First Web… I have long ago used my unique abilities to create an information black box, so there is no possibility of any leakage. Therefore, I remember more information than you do.”
He paused, a deep meaning flashing in his eyes: "And going forward, in order to ensure the smooth progress of our operational plan against the Fifth Church, I cannot reveal too much to you—at least, I cannot hand over the complete model of the Fifth Church to you."
Deep within his consciousness, Xia Xiu responded faintly, "I understand."
Amund nodded, then vanished into the air like mist, leaving not a ripple.
Xia Xiu withdrew his gaze and turned to Clariti, who was still standing to one side:
"I have obtained the information I wanted through special methods. Now, I need some time to process this information."
Clariti's tentacles twitched slightly, his compound eyes reflecting the runic light at the end of the corridor as he listened quietly.
“After I’ve processed this intelligence,” Xia Xiu continued, “I will issue further operational orders to your Ant Clan to assist the Kingdom of Peace in completely annihilating the Fifth Church.”
"learn. 』
The Queen's deep, trembling voice echoed through the corridor, like a stone thrown into a deep well, lingering for a long time.
Then, she turned her neck and pointed slightly at a few worker ants beside her with her antennae. The worker ants immediately received the signal, gathered around Xia Xiu, and guided him along the spiral-shaped carapace passage into the depths of Jawbone City.
……
……
Led by the worker ants, Xia Xiu arrived at an area completely different from the battle atmosphere outside.
The space here is spacious and bright, with walls inlaid with polished shell material and obsidian, engraved with the trade patterns and emblems of the ant tribe. The inlaid gold threads shimmer with a delicate luster under the light. The floor is as smooth as a mirror, covered with thick, soft shell material. In several corners, there are exquisite utensils and silk curtains obtained from surface trade—this is clearly a special zone for the ant tribe to receive guests and conduct trade, exuding a refined atmosphere that seems to belong to someone from underground.
Xia Xiu didn't pay any attention to these things and casually sat down near a relief wall.
The worker ants quietly retreated to the doorway, leaving behind only tranquility.
He raised his hand, his fingertips gleaming, and extracted the compressed [Retrospective Memory 1] from the depths of the crown's information.
In an instant, the flow of information unlocked in his consciousness, the projection device of the genealogy unfolded in front of him, and a semi-transparent curtain rose from the ground, trembling gently.
"Pfft-"
After a slight sound of energy, a figure emerged from the curtain.
That was Xia Xiu himself.
On the screen, he was facing the camera, his blond hair slightly down, his expression calm, yet carrying an undeniable sense of pressure.
The sound came from behind the curtain, deep and clear:
“I have read the Fifth Church’s investigation files kept within the Queen’s palace, and I have discovered many terrible things. First of all, the Fifth Church’s tentacles have spread throughout the entire Kingdom of Peace, except for a very few small areas that can effectively defend against its influence—such as our current situation.” “Thanks to Amund’s initial network properties and the way he temporarily granted us human status, otherwise, both Heaven and Terra would have been infiltrated by now.”
Xia Xiu paused slightly on the screen, his gaze growing even colder:
"Regarding the message in the Queen's room... this is all I can summarize; every effective anti-Membryo research project will sooner or later find traces of the Fifth Church in its trajectory. It manifests itself all over the world in thousands of forms."
His tone was slightly lowered, as if he were suppressing some kind of warning signal:
"Dealing with these manifestations is already tricky enough... It is deliberately designed to lure people deeper into the path, it is designed to make people discover them, and it even emerges in a regular pattern. With just a little effort, it is possible to place the data points about the Fifth Church in the conceptual space and draw an outline between them."
He slowly raised his eyes, his tone even softer, yet carrying an invisible chill:
“These data points are merely on the outer shell of the Fifth Church… These manifestations are simply its shadow projected onto our reality. When you connect four or five different manifestations of the Fifth Church into a shape—you see it. And at the same moment, it sees you.”
Xia Xiu on the screen remained silent for a moment before speaking:
"Therefore, I delete memories in segments. I only retrieve them by backtracking when needed."
The light and shadow on the curtain suddenly darkened, and Xia Xiu on the screen raised his head, his golden eyes revealing an extreme sense of oppression—not just simple seriousness, but an extreme fear of the unknown.
His voice was low, yet carried a sharp tremor: "The Fifth Church... is indeed extremely troublesome. The moment you make 'visual contact' with it, it will kill you."
He paused, lowering his voice even further, as if guarding against some kind of unseen eavesdropping:
"As Armand said before—it will not only kill you, but also anyone it thinks is 'like you'—not in terms of physical similarity, but psychological compatibility. Anyone who has the same thoughts, the same mindset... will become its prey."
"If Armand had not excommunicated me, then angels in the Kingdom of Terra would already be being possessed; and even further, he would seize individuals among humanity and begin possessing them."
The idea will then be disseminated through books, music, rituals, electronic information, and other means.
When someone realizes its truth, it will recognize them, and may even cause their death.
Anyone who understands its full scope will immediately suffer a mental attack—an instantaneous mental breakdown or sudden death.
Xia Xiu's expression grew increasingly gloomy in the light screen:
"Once it has accomplished all this, your research project will become a hole in the ground, and no one will ever know that the Fifth Church exists."
It is a black hole of information; no information can escape from it. You can only probe its shadow indirectly. Any direct description, or even just a hint at what it is—will lead to a containment breach and a deadly indirect cognitive hazard.
"Once the Fifth Church's full recovery mode is triggered, given Terra's current propagation capabilities, it may only take 4 to 12 hours to control the entire human mind world, turning the collective consciousness of humanity into its extension, causing a crisis of shift in human dominance and a crisis of the extinction of the human collective."
"Fortunately, our current identity is temporarily determined with the Fomi Ant Clan—I'm sure that when I read this memory, there were already insects within the Fomi Ant Clan who had been possessed."
"However, given the capabilities of the Fermi Ant Queen, she has already established a relevant censorship mechanism—the principle of which is somewhat similar to the censorship system of a certain forum on Terra—Avalon (this Avalon is a key censorship mechanism of a certain genealogical forum on Terra; Terra has several special systems named Avalon, and this is just one of them)."
"By blocking key messages, we prevent the alienation of the group's ideology; according to the information I received from the room, similar blocking mechanisms exist throughout the entire peaceful nation, which prevent the spread of information and alienation by quickly blocking 'key messages'."
"However, this mechanism still has loopholes. It can only prevent the spread of alienation throughout the entire population. It cannot cure the minds of the diodes that have already been alienated... well, that is, the individuals of the Fifth Church."
“The Kingdom of Peace already has a censorship system similar to Avalon, but they do not yet have a Wailing Wall similar to the Kingdom of Heaven, so they are destined to be gradually eroded and killed by the Fifth Church.”
A ripple of interference suddenly flashed across the screen, and his voice seemed to come from a deeper level:
"Did you see that? That's its information mechanism. Its information-devouring behavior is just a shell, a toxic coating, protecting the real entity from being detected when it invades our reality, and then it begins to evolve its own ideology."
The images appearing on the light screen look like they are collapsing—the skyline of a city is disappearing silently, replaced by an endless black fog.
Xia Xiu's voice on the screen carried a hint of coldness:
"In the end, the whole world will be submerged by them. Everyone will be left only with the helpless cry—why did no one notice this evolution?"
His gaze was fixed directly on the camera, a cold light flashing deep within his golden pupils:
"No one will answer. Because everyone who discovered it is dead... silenced by this evolutionary mechanism."
"Civilization must always be vigilant against this kind of evolution, because it is silent yet deadly."
Upon hearing this, Xia Xiu, who was watching the screen, felt a chill creep up his spine and up to the back of his neck for no apparent reason, causing him to shiver involuntarily.
It wasn't just fear, but an instinctive alertness—a premonition of death at the species level.
The operating logic of the Fifth Church gradually pieced together a suffocating outline in his mind.
It did not blast the city walls with cannon fire, nor did it plunder the land through slaughter. Instead, it was like an invisible river, silently seeping into every inch of the soil.
Instead of destroying your system or directly overthrowing your order, it starts from within, slowly causing your thoughts, beliefs, and consensus system to collapse.
First, plant an invisible flag in your heart and spirit, so that you will unconsciously shout for it and drive away your own roots for it.
All of this was amplified to unimaginable extremes at the level of the reverse mother.
It will evolve to gradually strip away and replace the cultural memory, collective identity, and even the deepest instinctive reactions of this population, until the entire population is like a worm shell with its spine hollowed out, standing but no longer in its original life form.
The Fifth Church is that enormous predator that covers the entire world.
It's not in a hurry; it never needs to be in a hurry.
Once its consciousness threads pierce the core of a race, it will begin to weave an inescapable net until everything is devoured, rewritten, and assimilated—until finally, not even a trace of being devoured remains.
In the light screen, Xia Xiu's expression had lost its previous apprehension, replaced by an extreme calmness, like a blade that had been repeatedly honed, ready to pierce the target's vitals at any moment.
He spoke on the screen, his voice deep yet so clear that every syllable seemed etched into one's consciousness:
"Next, we will use the Kingdom of Peace as our front line on the information front to wage war against the Fifth Church."
The background of the light screen faintly revealed the outline of a map of a peaceful country, covered with intersecting symbols and information nodes, with several points of light specially marked.
"Now I need to find the Court of the Four Symbols."
Xia Xiu lightly tapped a certain area with his fingertip, and an emblem representing the Court of Four Symbols appeared above the map.
“Among them, some have already been alienated. We must identify them as soon as possible and prioritize eliminating the most alienated individual—they are the voice of evolution, the cancer of civilization that must be eradicated.”
"Whoever spreads the Fifth Church's ideas on the evolution of civilization is a specific enemy."