Twenty minutes later.

In the middle of the empty square, Asker stood in the middle of the data fragments that were scattered on the ground with a knife in his right hand and a sword in his left.

Raphael stared at him blankly, his expression as if he had died.

"Your swordsmanship is wrong." After a long silence, Raphael finally spoke, "I just monitored your battle. ”

"In the face of such a highly complex battlefield environment, if you want to replicate the effect that your swordsmanship has just achieved, the computing power required has theoretically broken through the sky...... Isn't this an ability that ordinary people can do, is it from your extraordinary sword power? ”

"I don't understand what you're talking about." Asker put his sword back into its sheath and looked around, "So these are all the encryption programs?" ”

"What's the name of your transcendent swordsmanship?" Raphael did not reply, but quickly flew in front of him, looking a little curious and excited—as if a child had seen a beloved toy.

"Is that all?" Asker asked repeatedly.

"If I don't have a name, I'll give you one." Raphael said, "How about calling it 'Laplace Demon Sword'?" ”

Asker: ..................

"I think it's better to call it "The Sword of Artificial Intelligence Must Die". Asker's eyes narrowed.

"Haha, I'm kidding." Raphael laughed and said, "That should be all there is to it." I've sensed that the body has regained contact with us, are you going out now? ”

"Hurry." Asker said.

"Okay." Raphael opened his arms and smiled, "Hold me, I'll take you out." ”

Aske drew his sword with a thud.

Then he woke up from the information connection pod.

"Asker!" Nora hurriedly helped him up, "Are you okay?" ”

"I'm fine. I didn't come out of the dead. Asker understood what she was worried about, "Sanity is not impaired. ”

"That's good." Nora breathed a sigh of relief and patted her chest.

"Where's your brother?" Asker asked.

"They seem to have found out something, and they went out temporarily." Nora said.

"Lord Asker, Miss Nola." Raphael's voice sounded again, but at this time it was no longer the agility of the virtual world, but some kind of cold and indifferent female voice:

"Thank you both for your help in cracking the encryption, and please return to the Licinius Building as soon as possible and wait for further notice."

"Let's go." After sensing that Raphael's state was not right at this time, Aske also realized that it seemed that a certain plot mission was about to happen, and hurriedly said to Nola.

"Okay." Nora said, "I'll take you out." ”

————————

A few minutes ago, based on Raphael's analysis of the declassified and mutilated data, information about a certain location was exposed to the clergy.

Bishop Valian led the Papal Guard to the outer city, while the rest of the cardinals, along with the Pope, were in the Lateran Palace to discuss what to do with Bishop Langdon, and kept a close eye on the progress of the field on Valyan's side.

Even after capturing and subduing Bishop Langdon, the hand of Giotto's Clock remained in place and did not roll back—indicating that Raphael judged that the threat had not yet been lifted.

The location that Raphael declassified was located in an abandoned building near the Tiber River in the northern part of the city. In the Quaternary period, it was originally planned to be developed into a commercial complex, but it was abandoned due to the rupture of the capital chain.

The group descended the passage of the underground garage and soon found a hidden entrance: to the subway station at the bottom of the building, which was of course deserted.

After rushing into the subway station, everyone found that the surrounding subway facilities had been removed and replaced with various biological research equipment, and there was even a neat row of petri dishes against the wall, extending from Exit A to Exit B, which contained either humans, or some kind of half-human, half-tree corpse.

A large amount of information was scattered on the ground, and it was clear that the staff had been evacuated in a hurry, only in time to take important documents with them. The papal guards rushed to the nearest computer, pulled the cable from their temples, and quickly hacked into the server.

In the Lateran Palace, the deleted information recovered by Raphael in real time was also fed back to the cardinals.

Project Spiritual Tree:

Using a large number of clones of transcendents on the verge of getting out of control, some tissues of the essentia tree are "stimulated mutagenized".

The purpose is to take advantage of the "evolutionary" nature of the essentia tree and induce this part of the tissue into a spiritually hungry "spiritual tree".

The Psionic Tree inherits the Essentia Tree's ability to "pollute" and can secrete "Psionics" to contaminate and create appendages that will autonomously crave any spiritual creature, devouring and polluting them.

………………

"Prepare to activate martial law level 4 immediately!" Before the information was finished, Innocent suddenly said in a loud voice.

The cardinals below shivered in unison. How many years has it been since martial law level 4, corresponding to the outbreak of R4 level deterrence**?

In other words, the so-called spiritual tree......

…… Already freed by Bishop Langdon's people?

"Raphael!" Innocent stood up, "How many potential spiritual polluters are there in Solomon City today?" ”

Raphael was silent.

The cardinals also held their breath nervously.

A map suddenly appeared on the screen, with dense buildings centered on the city of Solomon, radiating out in all directions along the street.

Subsequently, several small crimson dots appeared on the map, next to which were written in blood-red numbers: 23.

"So far, 23 spiritual polluters have been found." Raphael typed out a video on the screen next to him, which was taken by the city sheriff while on duty.

Inside the window was a pedestrian on the side of the road, his face frozen and his expression glazed. From the neck bone of his back, a translucent figure protruded, covered with strange branches and vines, twisting and dancing wildly in the air.

The Templars and sheriffs were shooting at him, but the tainted pedestrian, with dozens of bullets in his body, still stubbornly and mechanically moved forward.

"At present, a total of 23 cases of spiritual pollution have been confirmed." Raphael said indifferently, "The Templars and the sheriff have been notified to deal with it. ”

Before the bishops present could breathe a sigh of relief, Raphael was heard to continue:

"According to these 23 cases of polluters, in the last six hours of the route of movement and contact range, a total of 28,821 potentially dangerous polluters have been identified."

In the center of the screen, Solomon's map was instantly covered with countless pale red dots. Most of Solomon was dyed red almost instantly.

Bishops: !!

"Martial law level 4 has been activated and the city-wide lockdown has begun." Raphael concluded, "But the forecast is not optimistic. ”

"Due to the recent magic wave, complex technological devices, including the anti-magic magnetic field, are unusable, and the relevant industrial production lines have not yet been restored. Judging from the combat power displayed by the Psitron Polluters, it was not easy for the Templars armed with ordinary gunpowder weapons to suppress the confirmed Polluters. ”

"And, in the next 24 hours, second-generation polluters will climb exponentially. At that time, the difficulty of suppression will be greatly increased. ”

"Raphael." One of the cardinals suddenly asked, "What are the aggressive tendencies of these spiritual polluters?" ”

"Analyze it based on the information left by the other party." Raphael replied, "Out of an instinctive thirst for spirituality, the Spiritual Polluters tend to attack the Transcendent, and the higher the rank, the easier it is to be attacked. ”

"The second is ordinary humans who have not taken potions, but have ingested a certain spirituality through various channels every day."

"What do you mean, Silestin?" Innocent asked solemnly.

"Human pure-bloods, represented by Bishop Langdon." Silesteen replied, "Their purpose in creating and spreading the Spiritual Tree is undoubtedly to purify humanity by destroying the transcendent. ”

"If the Spirit Tree would attack all living organisms indiscriminately, like the Essentia Tree, and irreversibly contaminate the target, then how could they achieve their goal of 'purifying humanity'?"

Silesteen said in a deep voice, "I suggest that a polluter be captured immediately for emergency experimentation. ”