Legend of the Embroiderer

Chapter 513 Source Code for Iterative Experiments (1)

Golden ink condensed into complex runes on the blank pages. These runes shared the same origin as the chaotic patterns on the guardian's chest, but had countless additional subtle branches, like a constantly growing neural network.

As the runes took full shape, the pages of the book suddenly rippled, and three figures identical to the Guardians emerged from them—their four-colored longswords burned with red, blue, and green flames respectively, and only the life stories on the blades were exactly the same as their original forms.

"The variable differentiation procedure was initiated during the 7th iteration experiment."

The three figures spoke simultaneously, their voices interspersed with the noise of data streams, “Please choose your evolutionary path: red represents absolute freedom, blue represents orderly balance, and green represents a return to chaos.”

The red figure's longsword pointed towards the forest of the dimension of possibility, where the laws were mutating at an even faster pace, and even black vines that were devouring their own energy had appeared.

The blue figure points to the mirror images of nested dimensions, where the guardians in each mirror image are achieving a subtle symbiosis with the corresponding narrator;

The green figure pointed to a crevice in the center of the forest, where a giant desk deep within was secreting a gray, viscous liquid that could dissolve dimensions.

The Guardian's four-colored longswords suddenly hummed, and the figures of the previous 49 Guardians appeared on the blades. Their expressions were different, but they all made the same gesture.

It neither points to red, blue, or green, nor denies any possibility.

The white light of the fusion resonated with the sword blade, transforming these figures into three beams of light that shot towards the three clones: "Divergence is not a choice, but an escape from the complete self."

The moment the beam pierced the clone, the red figure's flames suddenly backfired, enveloping it in a burning cocoon;

The blue figure's reflection began to shatter, revealing a core composed of countless question marks beneath.

The green figure transformed into a seed the instant it came into contact with the beam of light, falling into the black vines of the forest. The pages of the blank book flipped violently, the golden runes began to fade, revealing the hidden silver-gray code beneath.

These codes are exactly the same as the control program for the ring device, except for one additional comment: "Differentiation failed, self-destruct protocol initiated".

"It turns out that the endpoint of iterative experiments is self-destruction."

The guardian gripped the four-colored longswords tightly. The life stories etched on the blades suddenly resonated with all the trees in the forest. The leaves of those trees turned towards the enormous desk hidden in the crevices, and the words on the leaves formed a clear warning:

"The desk is a parasite that devours dimensions; its energy comes from the despair of all those it observes."

He noticed that the wood grain of the desk was writhing; those grains were actually countless tiny mouths, gnawing at the edges of nested dimensions.

The white light from the fusion suddenly extended to the surface of the desk. Wherever the light passed, the mouths that devoured dimensions closed, revealing the creation runes engraved underneath.

These runes are identical to the parchment at the narrator's core, but they have been corrupted by some kind of dark energy, turning them into devices that absorb life force:

"The broken longsword of the 0th generation observer, the half-pen of the narrator, and these corrupted runes—they are all fragments of the same power."

Her fingertips traced the runes, and the black energy suddenly transformed into a human face, emitting the same laughter as the blurry figure deepest within.

The blank book suddenly closed automatically, and the cover revealed the same pattern as the four-color fountain pens in the pen holder, except that the end of the question mark was connected to a thin chain leading to the depths of the gap.

The moment the guardian reached out to touch the cover, his consciousness was suddenly pulled into the book.

It was an ocean of silver-gray code, with countless lines of code being automatically written and deleted, forming a swirling, repetitive cycle.

A golden fountain pen floats at the center of the vortex, its nib constantly dripping black ink. Each drop of ink transforms into a small nested dimension, only to be swallowed up by the ocean of code in an instant.

"Welcome to the source code repository for iterative experiments."

The voice of the blurry figure echoed in the sea of ​​code. Only then did the guardian realize that the other party's outline was composed of countless lines of code. Every time it spoke, a part of the code would fall off, revealing a more complex structure underneath. "Every observed is a manifestation of code, including the pen in your hand."

He pointed to the edge of the ocean of code, where countless pens of different colors floated. Each pen cap was engraved with a corresponding chaotic pattern. The cap of one of the four-color pens was slowly rotating, revealing a miniature desk hidden inside.

The Guardian's four-colored longswords automatically unsheathed, their blades slashing towards the nearest line of code.

The moment the code broke, scenes from countless parallel universes poured out from the crack: in some universes, the Guardian chose to become the red clone, and ultimately burned up along with the dimension of possibility.

In some universes, he achieved a blue symbiosis with the narrator, only to discover in the dead of night that his pen was automatically writing a script of destruction.

In one universe, he completely gave up resisting, transformed into a green seed, and was reborn as a new narrator within the vines.

"These are not parallel universes, they are obsolete code that has not been compiled."

The blurry figure's code arm suddenly stretched out and grabbed a dissolving golden fountain pen, "just like the original owner of this pen, who chose to coexist with the desk, but was eventually digested into ink."

The pen in his hand transformed into black liquid, dripping into the ocean of code and stirring up countless tiny vortexes. Within each vortex, a desperate consciousness repeatedly wrote the same sentence: "Choice is destruction."

The fusion's white light suddenly burst forth in the ocean of code, forming a bridge composed of light filaments.

The filaments are filled with life consciousness from all dimensions, their stories intertwined to form a complex network that cannot be deciphered by code:

“Deprecated code can also give rise to new possibilities.”

She pointed to a tiny vortex, where a sense of despair suddenly rewrote the sentence: "Choice is creation."

The vortex exploded, turning into countless points of light that merged into the light filament bridge, "like plot points deleted by the narrator, which can always be reborn in the reader's imagination."

The Guardian's chaotic heart suddenly pounded violently, and the patterns on his chest resonated with the ocean of code.

Countless "what ifs" flooded his mind: what if he hadn't accepted the identity of the observer, what if he had chosen to completely separate from the merged entity in the Mirror City, what if he had succumbed to the recorder in the circular device.

These "ifs" did not form parallel universes, but rather turned into islands in an ocean of code, each island home to different life forms that belong neither to the known dimension nor the dimension of possibility.

"This is the real vulnerability in the source code."

The guardian plunged the four-colored longswords into the sea of ​​code, and the life stories on the blades began to rewrite the surrounding code. The silver-gray code was gradually replaced by colorful text. "When you wrote the rules, you forgot that life adds its own comments."

The rewritten code transformed into countless colorful fish, swimming along the sword's edge into the depths of the code ocean, where a giant funnel was converting discarded code into energy for the desk.