The Martial Unity

Chapter 3537: I Can See Your SOUL

While the continent of Samarkha was about to undergo marked changes with recent happenings, it was not the only race to do so.

In North Acherialis, a council of tekvores had convened within a large conference hall with many a seat. The walls and the ceiling of the hall were laden with glowing circuits that illuminated the hall with a bright light.

And yet, it was unable to disperse the darkness that hung in the atmosphere.

The air was heavy.

The expressions on the cyborg faces of the various tekvores were intense.

Grave.

”We must find a way to deal with this crisis.”

They were not referring to the giants mobilizing most of their population underwater, they didn’t give a damn about what those primitive primates did. They weren’t even too concerned about the environmental disaster of the Great Void Ocean boiling and growing more toxic by the second.

No, the crisis that drew their attention the most was one within their own continent.

Within their own species.

”NOVA has reawakened.”

The voice of a tekvore leader echoed across the hall. His voice quivered a bit, reflecting the gravity of the situation.

”It is only a matter of time before our nations meet their demise.”

The continent of Acherialis, home to the tekvore species, was not ruled by a single entity. The powerhouse Imperial Tekvorian Federation ruled only half the continent, while the other half was occupied by a large mix of tekvorian nations of different sizes.

They had banded together in an alliance to resist the imperialism of the superpower within their nation, struggling to maintain their sovereignty in the face of their more racially supremacist brothers and sisters.

They had succeeded, but only because of one reason.

Because NOVA was asleep.

The single greatest expert on information technology and the most intelligent entity on the planet. Her cognition, even before her most ambitious project, had vastly exceeded even that of the most powerful dwarves when it came purely to algorithmic information processing. Her presence alone made surviving the Imperial Tekvorian Federation an impossibility, they would have all fallen a long time ago if not for the fact that she went to sleep to do the unthinkable.

To transfer the sum totality of her mind to a quantum supercomputer designed to harbor her consciousness.

She had disappeared for more than a century.

The tekvores of North Acherialis had only just begun letting go of their fear of her after a long century, until just a day ago.

”We have confirmed her recovery... NOVA has returned.”

Those words were spoken with a grim severity.

And yet, within them was just the slightest inkling of hope.

Hope that while she may have returned, she might also have failed in her grand venture. Transferring consciousness was an extremely difficult process. Even in the grand technological era of modern Gaia, it was still regarded as an impossibility.

Even though the amount of memory stored within the mind, regarded to be around two-point-five petabytes, was not that big of a deal for supercomputers, scanning that information and accurately assessing every ounce of information contained within the mind and converting it into a model that could be uploaded onto a quantum supercomputer was one that took a century.

Especially for a brain and mind as extraordinarily complex as NOVA’s.

Their only hope was that while she had returned, she had somehow failed, that she had failed to upload her conscious mind into a quantum supercomputer.

”Don’t be so cowardly!” one male tekvore from the crowd snarled.

His body was comprised of a smart metal invintium-alloy that could bend and warp in reaction to electromagnetic fields that his brain monitored, making him one of the most durable defensive tekvore pathwalkers.

”So what if NOVA has awoken?”

He demanded with a fierce tone.

”So what if that witch has succeeded?”

His metal eyes flared with determination.

”We will fight with everything we have and crush her!”

His mighty roar riled up some of the younger leaders who hadn’t been around in an era where NOVA was the most powerful force on the continent.

”Her information technology is one century out of date!” the invintium tekvore declared. ”Even if she comes, we will crush her with our supercomputers!”

The others stirred as their eyes lit up.

Indeed, technology progressessed astronomically each century, and they had access to information science that was astronomically superior to what it had been one hundred and twenty years ago when she had gone to sleep to conduct her grand undertaking.

Even if she was back, she was definitely not as strong as she used to be.

This gave them hope.

”We will fight!” the man roared. ”We will fight against her with everything we have! We will not allow the imperialistic federation to take over our sovereign—!”

BZZZT

His body froze.

The smart metal comprising his body froze, solidifying into a single metal block.

Against his will.

One moment, he was a dynamic, moving living metal. The very next moment, he had been rendered into a solid statue.

BZZZT

The glowing circuitry running across the ceiling and the walls of the hall flickered.

Chills crawled across some of the older tekvores as their eyes widened with horror.

”She...” A shaking whisper escaped from an old man. ”She’s here...!”

Each of them received a radio signal.

[Correct.]

Horror emerged in their minds as they realized that the isolated environment that they were supposedly safe within had been spontaneously compromised. There was only one person who could achieve such an absurd feat!

[Also correct. There is no such thing as an environment isolated from my mind.]

A gaping pit of terror emerged in their gut as raw fear gripped their heart with a single realization.

She could read their mind.

[I can do more than that.]

Chills ran across their skin at that message.

[I can see your SOUL.]

RUMBLE

The entire facility shook as the tekvores convulsed, losing control of the technology that composed their body despite the fact that they shut down any possibility of remote hacking by sacrificing connectivity for security.