Hugh and Fors looked at the scene before them, not understanding what had happened for a moment.
Why were these people attacking them just now, but now they've all suddenly collapsed to the ground?
Although they didn't know what was going on, they guessed that Mr. Gar was fighting his opponent in a place where he couldn't see him, and that Mr. Gar had briefly gained the upper hand, which led to the current situation.
At this moment, Odis, in the realm of thought, successfully caused the "intelligent entity" to malfunction.
The next second, he noticed that the eyes in the darkness seemed to be attracted by the phantoms of the three gods, and suddenly turned.
The entire hall collapsed, and a raging fire broke out in the courtyard, but the dark space remained calm and undisturbed.
As if understanding something, Odis used two defensive spells before flying into the darkness.
In an instant, he was surrounded by colorful light and mist, as if he had entered a time tunnel.
At the end of the "tunnel" lies a beautiful meadow and magnificent scenery.
Odis was taken aback; it seemed he hadn't broken through the opponent's computing power limit just now!
He took a deep breath and looked around. To his right was a huge waterfall, its water rushing and crashing against the rocks, creating sprays of water and forming rainbows under the sunlight.
To the right is a magnificent plain with a river flowing through it.
Directly in front of him was a stone statue taller than a mountain peak, which gave Odis a great sense of oppression.
The stone statue had a resolute face, held a giant sword in both hands, and stood there very majestically.
It seemed to notice Odis, its two stone eyes slowly turning to look at the intruder in this peaceful world.
Oddess suddenly felt her legs go weak and she almost knelt down.
At this moment, Odis seemed to realize that the "intelligent being" had brought him to this space to wear down his character and torment his spirit with the pressure of a simulated god.
He recalled the corpse collectors who worked for the "intelligent entities." They must have been targeted by the "intelligent entities" for various reasons, and were gradually tamed in the mind space, eventually becoming puppets of the "intelligent entities."
In theory, given the opportunity, an "intelligent being" could even tame a demigod.
Unfortunately, Odis wouldn't give the other party a chance, because he had already discovered the loophole in this space: even things that Odis imagined required the computing power of an "intelligent entity" to be realized.
If it were an ordinary demigod, the computing power of the "intelligent entity" would be sufficient to handle it, and even if that demigod had a rich imagination, it would not be difficult to achieve.
But Odis was no ordinary man; the knowledge in his mind and his experiences far exceeded the imagination of any "intelligent being"!
At this moment, the "intelligent entity" seemed to have seen the phantom of the god and felt the god's power, so it planned to use this huge statue to simulate the god's majesty and put pressure on Odis.
In this situation, it would be bad if Odis knelt down; basically, taking one step back would lead to taking a hundred steps back.
Or rather, once Odis's psychological defenses weaken, the "intelligent entity" will relentlessly attack in that direction until Odis's psychological defenses completely collapse.
Odis took a deep breath, raised the "Staff of Gus," and a huge shadow of light appeared behind him.
The light and shadow gradually solidified, and a dazzling sun appeared behind it.
Light and shadow gaze upon the world in the sunlight, their gaze filled with kindness and compassion.
Immediately afterwards, a gigantic cross that stretched straight to the sky appeared behind the light and shadow, making everything seem small and insignificant in its presence.
Especially the enormous stone statue in front of Odis, which, although still very tall, had become as small as a doll.
Now Odis was completely letting his imagination run wild. He smiled and said, "You didn't expect that, did you? I've seen the 'Ancient Sun God'."
Although we only see it in memories or murals, by using the ability of "reproduction," we can fully use our imagination to demonstrate the power of the "ancient sun god."
Black Hat Street.
Hugh and Fors noticed that people in the next block were also falling down one by one.
This made them realize that the impact of this incident was widespread, affecting people in at least several blocks around.
Fortunately, it was discovered early, otherwise it would have definitely led to a tragedy.
In the realm of thought.
The stone statue in front of Odis was peeling away layer by layer, and beams of light shone out from the inside, causing the statue to collapse and its majesty to vanish.
Odis flew toward the stone statue and passed through a passage similar to a "time tunnel" again. Odis arrived at an autumn forest. The forest between the hills stretched as far as the eye could see. A strong wind blew through the forest, making a rustling sound. Yellow leaves slowly fell, as if Odis were in an oil painting.
At this moment, a hissing sound came from the forest, and snakes of varying sizes and colors, some blue and some colorful, swam towards Odis. Odis gripped the "Staff of Gus" tightly, but found that the staff did not react at all.
He paused for a moment, unable to use any of his other abilities.
Odis smiled. It seemed that the "intelligent entity" had learned from the previous two lessons and set certain "limitations" in this scenario to prevent the "reproduction" of anything extraordinary.
Odis estimates that maintaining such a "limitation" would require considerable computing power.
There was no time to think further, because the snakes had already swum to Odis's feet, and several of them had already bitten and wrapped around Odis's legs.
Odis held her breath and began to imagine again: a large group of honey pots, which love to eat snakes, attacked, and the venomous snakes were immediately bitten and eaten, with only a few escaping.
Just then, the woods nearby rustled, and a group of wild boars with tusks charged in. If an ordinary person were hit by such a wild boar, they would be seriously injured, if not killed.
Odis smiled slightly, and behind him came the roars of tigers followed by the howls of wolves.
First, a group of tigers rushed out. Although these animals don't usually travel in groups, anything is possible in the realm of imagination.
Then another pack of wolves rushed out and fought with the wild boar, quickly driving it away.
But not far from Odis, a huge herd of elephants appeared, knocking down trees as if to trample everything in their path.
The tigers and wolves were scared away.
Odis was about to "recreate" the rats, but suddenly changed his mind and "recreated" a large field army with guns and cannons. Under the attack of the firearms, the elephants fell to the ground one after another.
But then squads of soldiers appeared on the other side, and gunfire erupted. Rows of soldiers fell, and new soldiers appeared on both sides, continuing the battle.
Then cavalry and airships appeared one after another, and the war became increasingly fierce, blasting the forest into flat land.
Unfortunately for Odis, he could only "reproduce" the military units currently available on the northern and southern continents. He couldn't even "reproduce" missiles, let alone nuclear weapons.
Soon, the number of soldiers on the "intelligent" side decreased, while the number of soldiers on Odis's side increased.
Odis realized that the computing power of the "intelligent entity" was about to reach its limit again, because he still had to maintain those "limitations," and at this time, the two sides had already committed more than 100,000 troops to the battle.
The mountains and forests are filled with soldiers fighting.
The "intelligent entity" probably couldn't have imagined that Odis could conceive of such large-scale military operations.
Odis's experience before Christ helped him in this regard; he had read the "Three Great Battles" and had some understanding of large-scale military operations.
Soon, all the "intelligent" soldiers were wiped out, but Odis continued to "reproduce" more soldiers.
III
Black Hat Street.
Hugh and Fors looked around and found that not only had everyone in the next block fainted, but everyone in the magic circle that Mr. Gard had set up earlier, except for the two of them, had also fainted.
Although they still didn't understand what was going on, they could guess that Mr. Gar's battle with the other side had reached its most critical moment.
At that moment, some images suddenly appeared in their minds. The first image was Mr. Gar fighting against a group of richly dressed people.
Both of them were stunned, not understanding how they had suddenly seen all this.
In fact, these were some signals that their brains received from the "intelligent beings." If it weren't for the witchcraft performed by Odis, their brains would have been filled with the battle scenes in the "world of thought."
If that were the case, they would become part of the computing power of the "intelligent entity".
Immediately afterwards, the two saw three angel kings appear, then a huge stone statue, as well as the "ancient sun god" and a huge cross.
When Hugh and Fors saw this scene, their legs went weak. Even though they didn't directly face the scene, they felt immense mental pressure.
Finally, they witnessed a large-scale battle in the woods and were immediately awestruck by the grand spectacle.
At this moment, they realized that this was the battle that Mr. Gar was fighting against the enemy, a battle that was clearly beyond their imagination.
Especially those tall figures, and the crosses that seemed to reach the sky—although they didn't understand what they were, they knew very well that they were all very high-level beings.
In the world of thought.
Odis didn't know how many soldiers he had "recreated," but the endless forest was already full of soldiers.
Not only did Odis "recreate" the soldiers, but he also had them train, set up camp, and cook; in short, they were all constantly busy.
At that moment, the distant woods suddenly showed signs of collapsing.
Odis did not stop, but began to "reproduce" more airships, trying to fill the sky.
The collapsed area grew larger and larger. After observing the collapsed area, Odis jumped into it.
In the blink of an eye, Odis returned to the real world and appeared in the corridor on the second floor.
Looking back, the streets were filled with people lying down.
Odis roughly understood that those were the "computing power" of the "intelligent beings".
Then he smiled to himself and thought, I haven't had a chance to "recreate" the "May Day Golden Week" for you yet.
Odis breathed a slight sigh of relief, then lamented that thankfully the "Goddess of Night" was still in trouble. If the "intelligent entity" had been allowed to hide for a while longer, the entire Eastern District would probably have become its computing power.
After Odis "woke up," the first thing she did was to use a magic circle to seal off the entire building.
Then their gaze fell once again on the corridor in front of them. There were four rooms on the second floor of the building, two on the left and two on the right.
Odis stepped forward and came to the door on the left, which was closest to him.
Oh dear, when Odis pushed open the wooden door, he saw a pillar made of mud, and on the pillar, row upon row, densely packed, were human faces.
Those people all looked extremely pained, and many even had snot and tears streaming down their faces.
Odis had seen some disgusting or cruel scenes before, but he still felt somewhat uncomfortable at this moment.
He then realized that these were not human faces at all, but the heads of those homeless people!
The puppets of the "intelligent beings" go out every night to find homeless people who are already dying but not yet brain dead.
This method achieves its purpose while arousing almost no suspicion from anyone.
Then those heads were cut off and connected to the "intelligent entity" in a special way, forming its first batch of computing power, which is also the central hub of the entire "spiritual force field".
It's essentially the same function as the motherboard and CPU.
The people in the surrounding neighborhoods are the memory and graphics card.
Odis breathed a quiet sigh of relief, once again thankful that she had discovered it early.
This is like a "mental plague" that has spread silently to tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people!
Just as he was thinking this, the pained expression on the face of one of the heads in front of Odis suddenly disappeared, and it suddenly opened its eyes.
At first, the other person's eyes were all white, but soon the pupils appeared.
Then the other person spoke in a very hoarse voice: "You can't escape that fate."
Odis smiled and said, "You've lost."
He knew very well that the one he was talking to was that "intelligent entity".
The intelligent being retorted, "Why do you think you were able to win? It's because you possess the authority of a great 'Hidden Sage.' If you couldn't use any of the 'Mystic Reappearance' abilities, do you think you could have won?"
Odis was taken aback. He had thought that although the intelligent entity's computing power was strong, it was only enough to deal with extraordinary beings below the level of demigod. At the level of demigod, its computing power was simply not enough.
However, if he cannot use any of his "mysterious reappearance" abilities, the first scene will be extremely dangerous.
Moreover, in that case, an intelligent entity could actually complete the brainwashing process for a demigod.
Odis breathed a sigh of relief: "Fortunately, fate has no 'what ifs'."
The intelligent entity was taken aback: "There's a problem with your statement—"
"Alright, let's not discuss these philosophical questions," Odis said. "Why did you say I would merge with the 'Hidden Sage'?"
"This is your destiny."
Odis laughed and said, "It seems you don't know the truth either."
"No, I know," the intelligent being said. "Have you never felt your own divinity?"
Odis's smile vanished; this was indeed a difficult problem for him.
"Because the 'Hidden Sage' is your divinity," the intelligent being said. "When you ascend, your divinity resides with the 'Hidden Sage,' so you cannot perceive it."
Odis's expression gradually turned serious: "What does the 'Hidden Sage' intend to do?"
"He plans to fully merge with you when you ascend to the angelic realm. At that time, you will both be complete."
Odis was about to ask if the other party knew about the "Celestial Master" when he suddenly remembered that the Celestial Master had said before that the "Hidden Sage" only gained a complete life and consciousness with the help of the "Fallen Mother Goddess".
The fake fall of the Celestial Master, or rather the "Sage," also fooled the "Fallen Mother Goddess."
On second thought, Odis asked:
Do you know what the current state of the "knowledge wilderness" is like?
"The 'wilderness of knowledge' can't play much of a role in this matter," the wise being said. "Because of the great 'hidden sage'."
I once owned it.
"Once you ascend to the angelic realm, all restrictions will disappear, and the 'Hidden Sage' will be able to face you directly. At that time, you will be attracted to each other, and the 'Wilderness of Knowledge' will also be attracted to you."
It will be unable to help you.
The other party concluded by saying, "This is your inescapable fate."
Odis suddenly smiled and said, "I must say, your words just now were quite deceptive; I was almost fooled by you."
"Or rather, a large part of what you just said is true, such as the 'Hidden Sage' possibly really wanting to merge with me and eventually replace me."
"But because of the lack of information, you have overlooked a serious problem."
This question is about the Celestial Master!
Since the "Wilderness of Knowledge" is the Celestial Master, and the Celestial Master and the "Hidden Sage" are clearly in opposition, the Celestial Master would never allow Odis to merge with the "Hidden Sage".
The "Hidden Sage" clearly did not know the exact state of the Celestial Master, which created a huge loophole in the intelligent entity's account.
On this issue, Odis ultimately decided to believe some of the Taoist priest's previous statements.
If Odis was certain that he could become part of the divine in the future, then merging with the "Hidden Sage" was not an inevitable option.
However, this issue obviously cannot be revealed to the intelligent entities. Odis strongly suspects that the "Hidden Sage" can "connect to the network" with the intelligent entities.
Even if you can't directly participate in the battle against Odis, you can still give some orders to the intelligent entity or observe the conversation between the intelligent entity and Odis.
Thinking of this, Odis continued, "The problem is that you haven't explained clearly, and can't explain clearly, who gave the 'Hidden Sage' and the 'God of Steam and Machinery' certain restrictions? So that I wouldn't be disturbed before becoming an angel."
"This restriction was obviously not imposed by the 'Hidden Sage,' otherwise the 'Hidden Sage' would have wanted to catch me long ago. This is obviously a superfluous and unnecessary action."
"Or, if he really wanted to see me sooner, why would he impose any restrictions?"
Since the restrictions were not imposed by the "Hidden Sage," then merging with the "Hidden Sage" is not an inevitable option.
2
The intelligent entity fell silent, realizing that it truly could not explain the problem clearly.
However, after a second or two, it said again: "I won't argue with you about this, but be prepared, your fusion with the 'Hidden Sage' is inevitable!"
Odis sneered, then glanced at the heads in front of him and said, "I can feel that these heads that you've used as computing power are very, very tired. They've long wanted a complete rest."
This suddenly reminded him of the "brain in a vat" thought experiment, which suggests that subjective consciousness is actually the brain submerged in a glass vat, and all thoughts, reactions, and feelings of subjective consciousness come from different signal stimuli to the brain.
This idea is both strange and despairing.
These heads are currently similar to those "brains in vats," powerless to resist, only able to work and work endlessly. "I can feel it too," the intelligent entity said, "but who cares?"
"So you lost." As Odis spoke, he raised the "Staff of Gus", and the "mud pillar" in front of them was suddenly torn apart by a tremendous force, allowing him to see what was inside.
In the center of the "mud pillar" is a metal pillar with constantly floating mystical symbols, seemingly existing between illusion and reality.
Thin lines extend from the metal pillar, connecting inside to the spines of individual heads and necks.
At the same time, there is a thicker, ethereal line that connects to the blood vessels in the head, seemingly supplying nutrients to those brains.
Odis took a deep breath. Inside the mud pillar was a not-so-large, but extremely exquisite and complex "integrated magic array".
Although the intelligent entity's approach was utterly inhumane, it was still worthy of serious study. He knew very well that it wasn't necessary to use a human brain; it was entirely possible to simulate electronic computers and invent spiritual mechanical structures to replace the human brain.
Odis waved his hand, tearing down the metal pillar that was both real and illusory, and threw it into the "wilderness of knowledge." He then recorded the remaining magic array.
The "intelligent entity" kept talking to Odis, but Odis no longer paid attention to it.
He then opened the doors to the other three rooms, and sure enough, each room contained a "mud pillar" with heads almost completely filling the space.
Odis removed the core of the magic circle, carefully examined the parts that supplied nutrients to the human brain, and then left the building.
Many people were lying in the street, so Odis used magic to summon a gust of wind that blew them to both sides of the street.
Then, while maintaining the blockade of the building, Odis bombarded it with the "Iron Gauntlets".
Explosions continued to occur, but thanks to the magic array, the explosions and flames were contained within the building.
Soon, fire snakes spewed out of the windows, and the entire building was blown up. The "intelligent beings" inside, as well as those heads with painful expressions and extreme exhaustion, were all killed and burned.
Then, under Odis's control, the concrete used to build the buildings began to burn, and soon only a pile of ruins remained.
Hugh and Fors also rushed back. Hugh asked Odis, "Is the problem solved?"
Odis glanced at the people lying on the ground and said, "Not yet!"
Then he activated his "Eye of Secrets" again and began to examine the people lying on the ground one by one. Soon he saw a middle-aged woman's head flashing with a faint yellow light.
Odis smiled and said, "I knew it, you definitely had a 'clone'."
After saying this, Odis summoned flames and burned the middle-aged woman to ashes. She was already dead and was now just an empty shell controlled by an "intelligent entity".
Within the grayness, a small cluster of yellow light flickered. Its core resembled a constantly flowing stream of information, but because this stream of information quickly lost its support in the real world, it vanished swiftly.
Hugh and Fors probably guessed what was going on, but they didn't dare to ask and just followed closely behind.
Odis continued searching and found three more clones of the "intelligent entity." They also tried to escape, but Odis had a magic array designed in advance to prevent them from escaping, and in the end, they were all wiped out.
This time, the "intelligent entity" was completely wiped out.
At this moment, some of the people who had fainted earlier had already woken up.
The person who woke up stared blankly at their surroundings, as if trying to recall where they were and what was going on around them.
Odis stared at one of them for a moment, then said to Hugh and Fors, "The problem is solved, let's go."
As he spoke, he deactivated the magic circle that had covered several blocks.
From the direction of King's Road, a rather imposing gaze immediately appeared.
Although Odis is currently only at Sequence 3, the magic array he just set up borrowed the power of the "Wilderness of Knowledge," so it was at a very high level. For a short time, neither the Rune royal family nor the official extraordinary individuals noticed anything unusual here.
However, as soon as the magic circle disappeared, the level 0 sealed artifact in the palace immediately noticed the strangeness in Black Hat Street and turned its attention to it. But Odis and his two companions had already left using "Earth Escape".
Back at Hugh and Fors's residence, Odis said to Hugh, "You can report this to MI9 and the Church of the God of Steam and Machines, and have the official extraordinary ones handle the aftermath."
He paused for a moment and then said, "Those who fainted are not seriously injured."
"However, they will probably be spacing out a lot in the next few days, and their reactions will be slow."
"Some people may suffer permanent damage, but they won't become stupid."
These all require the intervention of the official extraordinary individuals.
Hugh nodded: "Okay."
"If you have any questions, please write to me again." After saying this, Odis left using her ability to "recreate".
Because it would grant Hugh the extraordinary ability to advance to Sequence 6, he would not need to pay Hugh any further compensation.
Hugh and Fors finally had time to discuss the scenes they had seen earlier.
They were certain that it was not their imagination, because they could not even fathom those details.
In the end, they exclaimed: This is a battle at the demigod level!
Odis returned to the embassy and immediately entered the "wilderness of knowledge".
The four core arrays of the "intelligent entities" found within the "mud pillars" still contain spiritual energy that has not been fully digested, so mysterious symbols are still churning within them.
Odis couldn't wait to take one of them apart and begin to study its internal structure.
After studying it for a while, he couldn't help but smile. At that moment, he really wanted to praise the "Hidden Sage" and thank him for "sending the technology from afar".
The two most crucial and extraordinary technologies within the "metal pillar" are: first, how to connect in parallel with the human brain and utilize its computing power; and second, the wireless signal transmission system.
The former, Odis, can only be taken as a reference, because he did not intend to use only the brains of living people as computing power, like an "intelligent entity".
The alternative is readily available: the "Intelligent Cube," the central processing unit of the "Extraordinary Puppet."
The current generation of "Extraordinary Puppets" uses a six-sided "Intelligent Cube". The next generation of "Extraordinary Puppets" Odis plans to create "Commander-level" puppets, and the "Intelligent Cube" they use will be upgraded to twelve sides.
In that case, the "Extraordinary Puppet Commander" would not only be able to think at the "tactical level," but even at the "strategic level."
In terms of overall computing power, it has actually surpassed the human brain.
It certainly isn't as flexible as the human brain, but it's perfectly capable of replacing the brains of those homeless people.
The second technology that Odis acquired is what he needs most right now. Some time ago, he discovered a problem: dozens of "extraordinary puppets" can cooperate closely.
However, once the number rises to more than 30, there will definitely be some "extraordinary puppets" that are idle.
This is because the current computing power of the six-sided "intelligent cube" has reached its limit.
In the event of a large-scale battle, this would definitely become a weakness of the "Extraordinary Puppet".
Therefore, Odis planned to use the "intelligent cube" with stronger computing power to issue commands on a large scale.
This requires solving the problems of signal transmission and signal reception. Signal reception is relatively easy to solve, as it only requires a slight modification to the "smart cube". However, the problem of signal transmission is still under research.
Because it transmits signals that are not electrical signals, but rather signals that are primarily spiritual fluctuations, and because of the extraordinary nature of spirituality, it is clearly different from electrical signals, so it is impossible to draw on the experience of wireless signals.
But the four seemingly illusory metal pillars that Odis captured today perfectly solved this problem, allowing unimpeded information exchange between the "intelligent entity" and the brains of those around it.
Odis was greatly inspired by his research. He realized that he was going in the wrong direction. He had only been drawing on the theory of wireless signals. In fact, he should have drawn on the interaction between gods and believers.
For example, believers pray to gods, and the gods respond.
This is equivalent to completing a worldwide signal exchange, something that could only be accomplished using satellites in the Common Era.
In this extraordinary world, this operation was accomplished through the astral plane.
Once the research was on the right track, Odis was able to quickly design devices for the widespread dissemination of spiritual signals.
This was all thanks to the technology provided by the "Hidden Sage," otherwise Odis would have had to study it for a longer period of time.
He finally understood why he saw a large base station when he made his prediction before taking action: because the technology we have today serves a similar purpose to a base station!
Odis did not stay in the "wilderness of knowledge" for long. Instead, he handed over the specific research work to the "intelligent puppet" and returned to the real world to continue designing scrolls for "Little Sun" in the office.
But just as he wrote a few "Garbular Runes", the messenger Elbera delivered a letter.
Odis opened it and glanced at it; it was a letter from Klein, inviting him to explore Grosser's Travels.