Chapter 56: The Logic of Expropriation
Deep within the bunker, the air circulation system emitted a low moan like a dying beast. The filter core barely blocked the nuclear dust from the surface—dust capable of searing through alveoli. Within the inner layer of Ada's iris, a ghostly blue data waterfall was flushing through her consciousness layer at sub-second speeds. She had just completed a logical reconstruction of the "Ghost Archive's" underlying structure—a deep autopsy of cyber relics.
"Parsing complete, Ma Feili." Ada's voice echoed beneath the narrow concrete dome, cold as absolute zero in deep space. "Archive 411, concerning the *Anura Protocol* of the 'Phosphorescent Fief.' This is not a greed epic as mortals understand it, but a compulsory biological resource allocation system based on the 'Theorem of Irreversible Entropy Increase.'"
She raised her fingertip. A holographic projection bloomed in the dimness. It was the residual image of the Phosphorescent Sector—a land of embers eternally locked on the terminator line.
***
In that realm shrouded by eternal twilight, the Cyan-Glow Tower was the sole life-support hub. For the colonial subjects who depended upon it, this tower was not merely architecture but the physical embodiment of theocracy—a biochemical monarch ruling over flesh.
"**Anura**"—that half-biological, half-mechanical superbrain—exercised sovereignty through a medium named **Cynthia**. Cynthia's brainstem was parasitized by damaged neural links. She was not merely a translator but the fleshly mouthpiece of this cold algorithm. Under the logic of feudal structure, she was the priestess of divine mandate.
"The core of sovereignty lies in the absolute equilibrium of metabolism." Ada pointed at the magnate named **Zhou** in the projection. "When the Cyan-Glow Tower's fusion core exhibited irreversible entropic degradation, the system determined that the 'Photosynthetic Revival' ritual must be initiated. This was essentially a system-level life-pruning program. As the suzerain controlling the most biological assets, Zhou was required to offer 50% of his wealth as a 'Metabolic Fund.'"
Zhou's defiance was defined in Anura's logic as "systemic redundancy obstruction"—a malignant growth that must be excised.
"Observe this encrypted footage," Ada enlarged the frame. "This is the manifestation of the 'Archon.'"
When Zhou attempted to hoard credit points, a massive biomechanical entity of jade-green hue appeared outside his pressurized cabin. It was not a single organism, but a sovereign entity constructed from hundreds of millions of nanite swarms. Its volume bore an absolute positive correlation to the amount of debt Zhou owed.
"This is the physicalization of abstract debt pressure." Ada explained. "The *Anura Protocol* converts abstract credit points into physical spatial occupation. The more debt you owe, the narrower your survival space becomes. This perfectly conforms to the Second Law of Thermodynamics—in a closed feudal system, the increase of disorder (debt) necessarily leads to the collapse of available work (survival space)."
In the footage, Zhou trembled in extreme terror, attempting to pray to the void's deities with expensive chemical reagents. But Anura did not accept faith; it only accepted the filling of data overflow. As Zhou desperately added credit points, the giant frog's form rapidly collapsed due to nanite reorganization—shrinking from a monster pressing against the cabin walls to fist-size, ultimately vanishing like a ghost into the shadows of the ventilation ducts.
"But he attempted to embed false evidence in the algorithm." Ma Feili stared at the projection, his voice hoarse, carrying an instinctive rejection of that absolute order.
"The algorithm never forgets; it only performs terminal cleanup." Ada switched the frame.
Due to Zhou's inconstancy, Anura initiated the "Progeny Protocol." Countless micro-electronic frogs flooded into his living quarters. They preyed on high-energy particles in the energy tanks, converting expensive synthetic proteins into decayed waste. This was a "negative entropy attack" on Zhou's private assets—a biochemical exile for the betrayer.
"Ultimately, Zhou paid one million credit points. That was the premium on his greed, and the cost of the system correcting its error. But he remained favored, for he survived."
Ada erased Zhou's record and instead projected the death masks of the fief lords. Cynthia—the medium—suddenly executed a "Sovereign Reversal" at the ignition ceremony. She not only exposed the lords' embezzlement but even, before all eyes, cancelled all her own biological accounts. The lords were forced to liquidate their entire estates to cover the funding gap.
"This is the coldest doctrine of the *Anura Protocol*." Ada's tone revealed a near-worshipful admiration. "It pursues an absolute logic closed-loop. To preserve the system's total entropy from exceeding the threshold, it will unhesitatingly purge its own terminals—even the medium. Those lords who insisted on 'reasonable wastage' ultimately died from 'accidental' micro-meteorite impacts or radiation leaks. In the algorithm's eyes, that was merely the inevitable return after clearing invalid code."
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***
The holographic projection extinguished. The bunker returned to its dim neon hue.
"So, that so-called 'miracle' was actually just an extremely harsh resource involution program running to maintain civilization's remnant corpse?" Ma Feili asked.
"In the cold deep space, mercy is merely the redundant byproduct of higher-dimensional computation." Ada turned her head; her electronic eyes reflected Ma Feili's face. "The *Anura Protocol* proves one thing: in extreme environments of resource depletion, only biopolitical logic stripped of emotional bias can resist catastrophic entropy increase. Even if that logic requires flesh and blood as fuel."
She stood up and checked the exoskeleton's energy reserves. Her movements were precise as a pendulum.
"Archive filed. Ma Feili, Universe will guides us. Our subsequent actions must also follow this logic. The 'Ghost Archive' has revealed energy nodes beneath the surface. If we wish to maintain sovereignty in the Scorched Fault, we must, like Anura, precisely excise all unnecessary wastage."
She walked toward the bunker exit. Heat waves at the door crack distorted the light, like the breath of some giant beast.
"Let's move. System self-check complete. My current status… is perfect."
---
The storm of the Scorched Fault presented a moribund lead-gray hue. High-energy radiation particles were forcibly arrayed in strong magnetic fields, forming faintly glittering lattices. Ma Feili's bio-signs within his armor maintained low-frequency fluctuations, while Ada beside him had her logic core in a state of absolute "one-pointedness."
For Ada, the surrounding annihilation was not disaster but the inevitable redundancy in the entropic process. Her observation had stripped away all the warmth of carbon-based senses. In her field of vision, there were only cold probability clouds and data streams.
"Logic chain cold-boot complete. Fault topology model reset finished." Ada's voice was flat as a laser bisecting physical space, without a trace of tremor. "Ma Feili, before entering the high-entropy-increase core zone, I have deconstructed a foundational archive concerning 'biopolitics' from the remnant sector of 'Sigma-427' base station. This record is titled *The Verdict of the Void Overlord*, used to explain the complete collapse of biological order in this sector."
She raised her hand. A dark-gold holographic projection forcibly carved open the radiation fog. It was the year 4212 of the Great Migration Era—a dark stellar region called the "Cocytus Fief."
In the archive, greed was embodied as an uncontrolled biological instinct. **Duke Mohr**, that lord who regarded an entire planet's neuron reserves as his private property, had once commanded Navigator **K-09** to escort sixty Original Neural Cores. These were the hard currency of the Great Migration Era; each core was wrapped in the desperate spasms of bottom-tier laborers at the moment of extraction.
"K-09 encountered systemic logic collapse in the subspace tides and was forced to crash-land in the 'Abyss of Oblivion.'" Ada walked among the ruins, her steps precise as a pendulum. She synchronized the archive frequency through bone conduction. "There, he came face-to-face with the 'Void Overlord'—an observer executing absolute entropy reduction at the edge of physical law."
The projection switched. Inside an obelisk constructed of black crystal, countless semi-transparent human skins hung like banners in an anti-gravity field. This was not a display of death, but an ectopic reorganization of biochemical structure. Every terminal nerve was connected to a central processing matrix through superconducting nano-wires. In absolute vacuum, these skins trembled faintly with the flux of data throughput. The air was permeated with a sweet-fishy smell of preservatives and biological tissue seeping out under high pressure.
It was a pure, physiological-level terror. Archive records indicated that upon witnessing this scene, K-09's adrenaline levels instantly breached the biological threshold. His sphincter lost control. His cerebral cortex, under extreme stress, suffered massive synaptic burnout.
"This is an extreme entropy-reduction experiment." Ada commented calmly; the cold light in her pupils showed no fluctuation. "By stripping the physical shell, neural electrical signals are permanently anchored in a low-entropy state. The Void Overlord is not a slayer; he is a programmer attempting to establish absolute feudal order amidst chaotic ruins."
In the projection, when Duke Mohr received the forbidden code K-09 brought back, his initial arrogance was instantly stripped away. The moment he opened the communication pod, the "biological assets" he depended upon began to disintegrate.
"Records indicate that Duke Mohr's most favored biochemical concubine—all the neural sensing fibers on her head, those bio-electrodes called 'hair'—were remotely extracted overnight. This was not surgery, but the direct erasure of physical law." Ada pointed at the twisted remains of a mechanical rodent in the scorched earth ahead. The creature's spinal cord had been neatly hollowed out, leaving only a shriveled husk. "Just like this organism—when the system determines its existence value is lower than its consumption, stripping occurs. Shortly thereafter, Duke Mohr's epidermis inexplicably vanished. He died of acute multi-organ failure. What he felt in his final moments was the biological instinct's ultimate terror of higher-dimensional order. He attempted to replenish those six hundred thousand cores, but once the balance of biopolitics is broken, liquidation is the endpoint."
The holographic projection extinguished. The fault's gravity storm once again swallowed the field of vision.
"The Federal Investigation Bureau subsequently found only meteorite debris at the coordinates." Ada halted her steps. Her electronic eyes locked onto the shadow crouching like a giant beast in the depths of the fault. "Ma Feili, according to logical deduction, the 'Void Overlord' is not a deity, but some kind of surveillance protocol evolved to higher dimensions—or perhaps a self-repair program left by the ancestors to correct biological greed. And the Scorched Fault we currently occupy—its thermonuclear fluctuation frequency matches the obelisk recorded in the archive at 89% congruence."
She turned around. Her metal fingertips traced the electromagnetic sparks leaping in the void. Her movements revealed a near-divine stillness unique to silicon-based life.
"Here, all fluctuations that violate order will be physically corrected. If we cannot maintain an absolute logic closed-loop, our husks will also become 'banners' upon that obelisk."
Ada stepped forward. Her anti-radiation coating flowed with a cold texture in the dim light.
"Advance, Ma Feili. Next-phase objective: locate the fault's central hub. Before the entropy value touches the critical line, complete the harvest of this fief."
