Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1493: The Beastly Duo

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It looks like there is indeed something wrong with the world management system of the Divine Race, but unfortunately, I can’t be of much help this time — not only can’t I help, but even the most knowledgeable experts of the Empire can’t help this time. The world management system is not like the projects we’ve united on before; it has been exclusively used by the Divine Race from start to finish, and the Xyrin Apostle clearly can’t handle this thing.

However, I reckon the Divine Race doesn’t need us to worry about it. From Bingdisi’s perspective, although this "large-scale crash" has caught the Pantheon’s attention, it hasn’t caused significant upheaval. It seems to be not too serious a situation for the Divine Race, and since it’s also their internal affair, I should stop worrying unnecessarily.

Dingdang and Uncle Kenser returned to the Divine Realm early the next morning. It’s said that quite a few management gods returned to various parts of the Divine Realm this time. In addition to those like Uncle Kenser who encountered severe malfunctions, there were also many who encountered routine alerts, but their situations were likely related to this incident. The combined number is probably hundreds or thousands. Compared to the total number of Divine Race territories in the Void, "hundreds and thousands" may just be a small number, but it’s already hundreds of times more than the usual number encountering system failures at the same time. And this number continues to grow rapidly with time. Hopefully, nothing major really goes wrong on the Divine Realm’s side.

As a gold-level academic overachiever, Bingdisi’s self-compiled and self-used management system would naturally not have any problems. So this female hooligan can now calmly curl up on the sofa, eating peanuts while lazily discussing the collective crash event with me: "Actually, the impact of this is not too significant. The most serious system failure encountered so far is just restarting the management terminal, and every world has a backup management team. Even if the world management system completely crashes, the universe won’t immediately fall apart. It’s a small issue that’s easy for the local management gods to handle, even ones like Dingdang can manage. The only problem now is that these situations are occurring at a very untimely moment. Look, the Divine Realm is about to start an expedition, and suddenly a bunch of things are going wrong at home — who wouldn’t be anxious? The Pantheon should be going crazy by now."

While combing Alaya’s feathers, I looked up at this female hooligan: "You, an expert in the Divine Realm related field, are still mooching food, drinks, and peanuts at someone else’s house without any guilt?"

Bingdisi, shamelessly tossing her head: "I’m the high-level commander of the Xyrin Apostle; it’s perfectly fine to sit at the Imperial Capital during this time."

Me: "...Don’t make me record your speech and send it to your dad; he’ll cross the universe to chase after you."

"Actually, I really wouldn’t be able to help by going back," Bingdisi finally waved her hand, a trace of seriousness in her expression, "My research on the world management system is a personal hobby. Even if I’ve reached the level where I can write my own system, it’s still an outlier compared to that expert team."

I looked at Sister Bing with some surprise, as it’s rare to see this proud female hooligan speak so humbly. It seems that the Pantheon, which she often mocks as "a bunch of old relics guarding relics researching relics," is indeed a profound place. The scope it covers is quite broad, not only including Divine Realm personnel and administration but also information aggregation of worlds under the Divine Realm’s domain. Now, it seems it even manages research and emergency incident dispatch — what isn’t within their purview?

"The Pantheon is quite a general term," Bingdisi casually waved her hand upon hearing my doubts, "It’s a colloquial name, meaning ’the temples of ten thousand gods.’ It refers to numerous temples managing various different things. Because there are too many temples and their names are so varied, we usually collectively refer to them as the Pantheon. When mentioning one, it’s also directly called ’Pantheon’ — just like how Earthlings refer to ’the Authority’ or ’government’. However, no matter how diverse the Pantheon is, there is always one thing in common: they are all old relics."

Me: "...Whoa, I’ve always parsed the sentence wrong! I thought the temple was named Pantheon!"

"A temple of ten thousand gods?" Bingdisi rolled her eyes, "Wouldn’t that be a collective dormitory?"

I held back my words, thinking I can never randomly parse ambiguous phrases again; the difference between ’Pantheon of ten thousand gods’ and ’temple of Pantheon’ is really darn intriguing...

Just then, several palm-sized black shadows suddenly jumped onto the coffee table in front of me and Bingdisi, interrupting our idle chat. I looked down and saw that they were a few Little Crows: now I don’t even know how many of these Little Ones Little Crow has created or hatched, I just know that you can see these palm-sized black-clothed girls anytime at home and in Shadow City. Most of the Little Crows usually integrate with the Silly Bird and live in a mystic Other Space, but considering the Silly Bird’s chaotic personality and the Little Crows’ mischievous and unrestrained habits, it’s no wonder these little ones run everywhere. For these creatures that haven’t fully escaped their avian nature, speaking only in various tonal "chirps," I always regard them as cute. Although theoretically, they will be future goddesses of the Crow God System, sometimes a goddess and cute creatures aren’t mutually exclusive—just think of Dingdang.

These Little Ones came here for food. Once they hopped onto the table, they ran straight to Bingdisi’s peanut dish, each grabbing a peanut to nibble on, resembling squirrels in their cleverness. Then I noticed they quickly devoured the peanut shells clean and casually tossed the nuts onto the table...

"Why do creatures related to that Little Bird seem to have distorted worldviews?" Bingdisi stared wide-eyed at those figurine-sized girls, curiously picking up a discarded nut and feeding it to one of the Little Crows. The latter obediently ate it, but immediately spat it out, saying, "It seems like they really came for the peanut shells... Chen, why does your expression look a bit odd?"

Me: "...Yesterday afternoon Little Crow gave me a big bunch of peeled nuts. I was moved for half a day, thinking that girl finally grew up and matured... Turns out it’s leftover from this bunch of Little Things!"

As soon as I mentioned Little Crow, the Silly Bird came downstairs with Silly Fox, both seemingly having a joyful conversation, appearing exceptionally harmonious. As soon as the group of Little Crows happily pecked peanuts saw their "mother," they immediately all chirped like young birds calling for their parents and flew over—actually, there wasn’t a fluttering sound; it’s just that these Little Ones behave so much like birds, I subconsciously added the sound effect.

They are a group of self-sound-effect Little Ones.

Little Crow seriously tucked several Split Lifeforms into her hair (who knows how those Little Ones hide in there once stuffed), then ran to my side with the fox, the Silly Bird excitedly shaking my sleeve, her face practically glowing: "Master, Master! We’re going to form a band gah!"

I was just thinking about asking about yesterday’s nuts when Little Crow’s nonsensical declaration threw me for a loop: "Band?"

"It’s to form a band with Sister Fox!" Little Crow nodded vigorously, as if that was enough to explain the whole cause and effect, and the Silly Fox also modestly nodded, pretending to be mature, calm, and reserved—though her tail swayed like a windmill, clearly this Silly Fox wasn’t calm either.

My brain was made twice as big by these two nonsensical girls, struggling to inquire thoroughly until I finally figured out the gist of it—they were watching TV upstairs and saw various music band formations.

Little Crow and Silly Fox simultaneously thought of many things: as important figures, they need a name; as significant retainers (self-appointed) of the Empire, they also need a name; the most important was that they both simultaneously thought of yesterday’s story with only the beginning. Although they didn’t know the content of the fable, based on the title, these two girls assumed foxes and crows should form a band...

You say, what kind of leisure do they usually have to cause them to mess with all these ridiculous things?

"So... what’s the name of your band?" I had long been worn out by the whimsical characters frequently popping up at home, couldn’t bother disputing this trivial matter, and could only follow their train of thought.

Little Crow rolled her eyes, suddenly showing an elated expression: "Just what Master called us yesterday, Birds and Beasts!"

I slapped my forehead: "Change that!"

Little Crow pondered hard, digging through her not-so-diverse vocabulary, finally coming up with another: "Then Chicken Flight Dog Jump!"

This time, before I could speak, Silly Fox was the first to object: "I’m not a dog! I am Fox Fairy Lord!"

"But Master said you’re canine."

"Canine is different from dog, and you aren’t a chicken either, chickens are domestic birds, crows are wild birds..."

"But I’m domesticated..." Little Crow was suddenly confused, then turned to look at me, "Master, Master, am I a domestic bird or a wild bird?"

I was almost going crazy at this point: "..."

By this time, Bingdisi was on the verge of laughing herself into a six-pack, slapping the coffee table like she was having a seizure: "Puhaha... The guys around you are funnier one after another... These two should just be called the Animal Combo, at least it’s explainable in terms of biology!"

Little Crow exchanged a glance with Silly Fox, then happily high-fived in celebration: "Yeah!"

After the two silly ones walked away, Bingdisi paused a beat before reacting. She stared at me for a moment, then blurted out: "Damn, what was I doing just now?" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Who doesn’t act a little silly in their childhood," I sighed longingly, watching the back of Little Crow as she walked away, "At least she didn’t tie two pieces of wood to her shoulders pretending to be a Gold Saint Fighter. But I’m curious, why is that fox also so silly?"

Bingdisi nodded seriously: "Maybe she got averaged out after playing with Little Crow for so long."

Anyway, those two troublemakers, who’ve been causing chaos since yesterday, finally found something to do, which means things might quiet down a bit. Meanwhile, I have some real business to attend to: I need to talk to someone in Shadow City.

This time, I didn’t bring anyone with me. I went alone to the research center in Shadow City, heading straight for the staff dormitory, as expected—I had already bumped into Tavir more than twenty times before reaching my destination...

To say the entire dormitory area, half of it was occupied by this bespectacled lady, how many mass projections has she made for herself?

"I’m looking for Xyrin." After greeting Tavir for the twenty-first time, I finally couldn’t stand this bizarre rhythm, so I randomly grabbed a mass projection and got straight to the point. Tavir gave me a surprised look: "Your Majesty, you can always just call her, Xyrin can project herself anywhere in an instant."

I slapped my forehead: "...I forgot, I’m really not used to that guy’s strange life form. Anyway, since I’m already here, she should be resting now, right? I’ll go over and find her."

"Yes, Xyrin is in the dorm room on standby," Tavir casually pointed in a direction, "Right now, it’s just the second batch of projections out and about, follow my mass projections over, and you’ll see my dorm."

I wordlessly followed the direction Tavir pointed: having one’s clones arranged as a roadmap to guide people, and doing so as if it was perfectly normal, this bespectacled lady’s schizophrenia is probably beyond cure... what, is she planning to form a Race of her own next?

I knew roughly where Tavir’s (true body) dormitory was, but with a bunch of mass projections pointing the way, it became even easier to find. Soon I arrived at an individual living pod that looked indistinguishable from those around: a silver-white alloy gate displaying Tavir’s identity information, with a ×1 mark behind her avatar, this was where the Empire’s top scientist usually lived. The "×1" behind her avatar signified that there was only one Tavir living in this room, while all the other rooms on this floor also had Tavir’s avatar, except other rooms housed at least x50—because canceling and rebuilding a mass projection takes considerable energy and time, mass projections once made are generally not dissolved, hence there is naturally a need for downtime, and while on standby, a mass projection is like an idle thread, requiring no living environment whatsoever, so Tavir stacks her clones like building blocks throughout various rooms, forming a landscape in the dormitory area...though it’s quite an eerie landscape, accidentally walking into other Tavir dorms is like stepping into a morgue...

One of Tavir’s countless clones was waiting by the door, and as soon as I appeared, she warmly welcomed me inside, where I got to see the home and living quarters of the Empire’s chief technician—simpler than expected.

Two beds, one for Tavir, and one for Xyrin, that’s all.

Isn’t this a bit too sparse!?

"All furniture is integrated into the floor and walls, it can be expanded to form various things as needed," Tavir (mass projection) explained, "We both like simple styles, the less stuff in the room the better, we’re even considering upgrading the beds so they can be retracted into the floor, then the room would look like an empty cube... Earthlings call this postmodern home design."

I felt like she might have gotten the term wrong again... oh well, like I’ve said, anyone with a normal worldview couldn’t survive in the Empire’s high-level environment, what counts as common sense these days anyway.

Looking at the empty room, I curiously asked Tavir (mass projection) next to me: "Where’s Xyrin then? Isn’t she here?"

"I am," the "Tavir" standing in front looked at herself strangely, then pointed at a small name tag on her chest, "Your Majesty, look, I am Xyrin!"

Only then did I notice that the seemingly half-transparent lady in front of me, looking just like one of Tavir’s mass projections, was indeed wearing a Xyrin name tag: I had thought it was Tavir’s identity card and hadn’t even noticed!

"Why do you look like this!" I exclaimed, staring at Xyrin in surprise. "I thought you were Tavir’s mass projection."

"Don’t know," Xyrin scratched her head, "My appearance changes randomly most of the time, I don’t even pay attention myself, probably turned into this because I’ve been living with Tavir for so long."

I chuckled awkwardly, not knowing what to say, just grateful Xyrin wasn’t living alone, as she might turn into whatever she spends a lot of time with—what if she turned into a bedside table?

Such things aren’t impossible in the Empire, where high-energy everyday life constantly happens.

"Your Majesty, are you here for anything in particular?" Xyrin asked, curious seeing my long silence, "A new test project? I’ll be ready~~"

"No, this time I’m here to talk about the trip to the Abyss Zone border a few days ago," I remembered my purpose today, sitting down on the edge of the bed (there was no other furniture here either), "The other day, you appeared on the Admiral because you sensed an ’attracting signal’ from the Abyss Xyrin, could you tell me about the specifics then?"

This was something I’ve been thinking about and concerned over these past few days: What extent does the connection between Xyrin and the Abyss Xyrin still exist?

Since the "Rift" in the New Empire’s network was sealed, and Tavir designed a massive amount of surveillance programs to monitor it closely, I once believed Xyrin and the Abyss Xyrin were completely isolated, and indeed Xyrin hadn’t reported anything related to the rift or the "other side of the network" for quite a while. But based on recent events, I deduced that the connection between Xyrin and the Abyss Xyrin persisted in some mysterious form, which was truly unsettling.

Even more unsettling was that our Xyrin here was a naive soft girl, while the Abyss Xyrin on the other side of the network was shrewd and cunning... if those two really made contact, imagine how quickly the Abyss Xyrin could manipulate Xyrin with just a few words? I guess it wouldn’t take longer than Sandora having a meal for foolish Xyrin to sell herself out...(To be continued. If you like this work, please support it with your votes on Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation. For mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)