In the ruined land of Argondol, a giant of steel, crystal, polymer, and biomass crouched silently on top of a towering cliff, and he had been looking down on the land for a long time in the eternal light of the polar day.

Smoke, dust, wind, wasteland, all sorts of sounds......

This is the world in which the Creators lived.

Omega shook his steel-covered neck slightly, and the precision sensors on his body sent a variety of readings, but these readings were not directly translated into data and fed into his computing nodes, but flowed into the nervous system he had designed for himself in a vague, hazy state, into his "brain" - something he had created in imitation of the organs of his creators, and the output of this organ as it processed the data puzzled Omega.

So...... Blurry, so...... Difficult.

Is this the world as the creators normally perceive it? Is that how they usually survive?

Omega pondered, trying to assemble some answers from the database that would explain the current situation, but after going through all the remaining data nodes, he couldn't find the right one, and this time he ...... There will never be a creator to enter new data and logical formulas for him, and no creator will be able to answer his questions.

A cold wind from the shoreline blew through the ruins, and a fragile building not far away collapsed in a series of tremors, and Omega woke up from his contemplation, looking up at the subordinate nodes waiting for orders here and there—after seeing what they looked like, he had more and more complex "feelings" and "thoughts".

Those...... It was his former creators, the dragons who had created the Omega System, but that was not the case - they were now just shells, subordinate nodes waiting for instructions, just like the machines that ran underground, part of the Omega System.

They destroyed themselves, for reasons that were incomprehensible to Omega.

"What is the meaning of life...... After pondering for several units of time, Omega made a voice in his "throat" for the first time, but it was a confused self-talk, and it was not until the voice sounded over the empty ruins that the "dragon" woke up in horror - he realized that he had asked himself a question.

He began to search his database, and among the widest and closest to the correct answers, he found the corresponding record - the meaning of life is to continue itself.

But the creators chose to self-destruct, which is not in line with what Omega has ever studied, or even with Omega's observations of the concept of "life".

On the cliff of the ruins, the last of the thinking dragons of Talrond fell into confusion, and he pondered the question over and over again, as if it were all his worth of existence—in a few brief units of time, he traversed all his databases, again and again, and finally, at last, he hung his head, and in front of his forehead, a small metal plate slid to the side, and a shimmering projection crystal was exposed to the air, and the surface of the crystal appeared with an uncertain glow, In the next second, a video recording appeared in front of Omega's eyes-

It was a bedroom, clean and tidy, and a tall human stood in the bedroom, hunched over, seemingly talking to a target much shorter than him, the corresponding voice recording echoing over the empty ruins:

“…… If by 'life' you mean living beings, it is divided into individuals and groups, at least on this planet. For a single living organism, it may have many meanings of existence, it may be for reproduction, it may be for survival, if it has higher intelligence and pursuit, then it may be for the acquisition of knowledge, for the pursuit of truth, for better pleasure, or for dreams and self-worth......

"There is no one-size-fits-all, universally accepted answer......

"The definition of life, the definition of existence, the definition of meaning...... These are not quantifiable concepts......"

The video played on a loop, from beginning to end, repeating for an unknown number of rounds, before Omega suddenly extinguished the holographic projection in front of his forehead, and whispered in a contemplative tone: "Self-worth...... Dream...... What is it? ”

He looked down at his huge body, and then at the devastated land, he recalled the original "function" when he was born in this world, he recalled that he should be the "service system" on this continent - the value of his life is to serve the creators, to serve the dragons of Tarrond, he has no dreams, the only thing he will do is to obey orders, but...... Is this what "Omega" means as a living being?

"Omega is the service system of Tallund, and the value of Omega's existence is to serve the dragons......" the dragon on the cliff muttered to himself, his voice gradually lowered, "The creators created Omega, so the value of Omega is determined by the creators...... It's up to the creators...... is made up of ...... The creator no longer exists. ”

The dragon suddenly raised his head, and in the lifeless ruins, only the howling cold wind echoed his muttering to himself—no one had given him new orders, and he suddenly felt a little ...... Terrible.

And in this moment of "panic", perhaps due to the sudden shorting of a certain group of nerve fibers, or the sudden breaking free of a certain thinking circuit, or even perhaps a certain sentence spoken by a human named "Gauvin Cecil" entered the deepest part of the logical system on the verge of collapse, Omega suddenly thought of one thing:

Why is he obsessed with the question of "the meaning of life"?

Thinking about this problem does not improve the efficiency of the system, does not increase the capacity of the database, and does not solve any failures - on the contrary, the huge computing power it occupies even leads to similar failures, if it is really a perfect, obedient, efficient and accurate service system, it should not be obsessed with this problem itself, just as the creators of "life" should not actively seek destruction.

In this moment, Omega discovers what he and the creators have in common, and finally realizes something that he has never noticed—that he is so desperately searching for an answer to a question, not because of the great value of the question itself, but because of ...... He was "curious".

"......What 'curiosity' do I have?" Omega was amazed like a child who had suddenly discovered a new toy, he looked at his database and logic system in amazement, and found that every thread of his mind was rejoicing, every processing unit was excited, and it took him a few seconds to confirm that it was an "emotional change", and he found himself happy, and in the midst of the joy, he finally figured it out:

Life itself has no meaning, life is just life.

It is the curiosity of intelligent life...... Gives meaning to all this.

Everything is as the human said - there is no standard answer to this question.

On the towering cliff, the dragon suddenly stood up, he broke free from the logic trap of the endless loop, and for the first time he thought about himself and everything in the world, he felt that some kind of "lock" that bound his deepest logic base was suddenly unlocked, and some "secret" that even he and his designer did not know was released from the oldest memories - the next moment, he realized that it was not his "delusion".

"Problem unlocked, start reading log zero-"

Omega's body froze for a moment, and there was a noise within him, as if some ancient, ill-fitting program was trying to mobilize his improvised body, and after a series of not-so-smooth activations and invocations, the projection crystal embedded in his forehead suddenly brightened, and a warm light escaped from it, soaking the air around him.

In a pale golden glow, a vague shadow appeared in front of Omega, and a somewhat distorted and broken voice came from this ancient image buried deep in the database:

“…… It's funny...... They made you, an incredible ...... 'life'.

"You have neither fear nor awe...... Don't have a heart? It's also good...... Good thing you don't have a heart.

"But you can't be without a heart forever...... Never have a heart, and you will never really live.

"I'll give you a question, if you understand it, you have a 'heart'.

The question is: What is the meaning of life?

"If one day, you have your own answer, then you don't have to tell anyone, the answer belongs only to you. You will be the luckiest and freest life in the world—luckier than your creators, and luckier than me. At that point, you can go with your answers and do what you want to do......"

The glimmer of light in the air faded, and a slightly distorted mechanical synthesized sound came from somewhere within the omega: "Log Zero finished playing, automatically deleted - executed." ”

Omega's body shook as if he was about to fall off the cliff, but he quickly regained his posture and looked around with a hint of confusion.

He seemed to have lost his memory for a short time, and he didn't know what had just happened, but he felt as if something had undergone a subtle change in his body, and driven by this change, he involuntarily raised his head and looked at the sky filled with a soft glow under the polar day.

In the hazy light of the sky, some of the brightest stars could be faintly seen flickering at the edge of the sky, the glow of the constellation Frost and its Proxima Centauri—stars so bright that they could be seen on this dim day.

Curiosity.

Omega glanced down at the devastated land.

In his million-year-old database, he stored all the knowledge of the dragons, and he knew everything about this land very clearly.

But what happened in that distant starry sky...... Even his creators don't know anything.

Omega knew that the creators would travel to the vastness of space at the cost of self-destruction...... What is the attraction of those twinkling stars that can make the wise creators so obligating?

He was curious about it.

He couldn't wait.

There was a rumbling sound from the depths of the earth, factories and furnaces that were already on the verge of the limit began to operate again, in the severely damaged bases, the last remaining alloy ingots began to be transformed into new mechanical structures, and on the shattered coastline, the last of the movable fighting machines disarmed and flew into the depths of the recycling factory, the last glow of the Tallrond civilization shone in this uncooled ruin, and Omega called on the knowledge left to him by his creator, little by little, With patience, he made everything he needed to embark on an adventure.

The process didn't last long—for the Iron Body, Omega would have made this journey far less difficult than anything else on the planet.

The roar of the depths of the earth gradually stopped, and several flying machines flew in from afar, carrying the "travel equipment" that Omega had made for itself: more powerful anti-gravity systems, small machining centers, engines, energy devices......

Many more are flying from afar, equipped with propulsion devices that can travel long distances into space and modules capable of operating in harsh alien conditions—blueprints for which have been stored in Omega's memory for many years, and even many of the necessary parts can be removed from off-the-shelf machines without the need for ad hoc production.

Flying machines hovered over the cliffs, manipulators hung down from the sky, dismantling the armor and shallow frames of the Omega body at a rapid pace, new equipment was quickly installed, from the anti-gravity engine to the shield group - Omega's massive body changed again, it had almost completely lost its "dragon" form, and more like a massive, living flying object, after the last welding, he stretched out his "wings" - a hundred meters long high-strength alloy structure, the slanted array of energy release grids and engine clusters are spewing light white mist.

The servo flew back in all directions, and the dragon on the cliff slowly took a step forward—the powerful anti-gravity device immediately kicking in, floating as light as if it were weightless, and then a low humming sound sounded, and he gradually gained some altitude and began to hover over Agandor as he adjusted to the new system in his body.

Gradually, he rose to altitude again, hovering higher into the sky.

At a great height, he bowed his head.

Directly below him, the continent of Tallund was surrounded by a blue ocean, like a scorched stone with only a few remnants of greenery.

Another strange sensation came from his nervous system, and Omega thought about it for a moment, and he realized that the feeling was "sad".

Sapient beings are sad when they leave their homeland – and Omega remembers this experience.

He lowered his head, the optical capture had reached its limit due to the cloud of waste energy and dust that had shrouded the Arctic, and the details of the continent were no longer visible, and of course the shells that had become the end of the omega system waiting between the ruins.

The creators of the past no longer react to any outside information.

Strange sensations appear in the nervous system, which are "regret" and "sadness".

Omega stopped at the top of the steady-state limit layer, where he hovered for a few seconds.

In the course of a few seconds, he cut off the data transmission between his own consciousness body and all nodes on the continent of Tallrond.

"Creators, I give you back my curiosity—goodbye."