Thud!
Meanwhile, Asna fell on her knees while clutching her head in pain.
Since their souls were merged as one, it was only natural that she would experience the same agony as Felix.
However, unlike Felix, she was a soul master, making her able to negate the pain by simply forcing her soul to merge faster than intended.
Felix wasn't able to do so on his own, making him rely on the same mist to help him gather the pieces of his broken soul.
That's the only reason they didn't die instantly after having their soul got blown up like this.
If it wasn't for the mist holding into every tiny wisp, both of them would have been doomed just like what happened in their first meeting.
"I need to help him!"
The first thing that Asna tried to do wasn't to connect to the UVR like Felix had asked her but to help make his soul be complete again.
'Asna! Focus!' Lady Sphinx scolded sternly, 'The moment his soul get completed, both of your souls will merge together! When that happens, you can forget about entering the UVR in the next decade!'
It was to be expected that splitting a soul shouldn't be repeated right after it got merged again. Especially Felix's soul that was still quite fragile and couldn't handle the process multiple times.
'Don't waste his efforts. He won't like that one bit.' Thor spoke sternly.
Upon hearing so, Asna knew that Felix would be extremely pissed if she failed to do her part even when he told her to prepare herself.
So, instead of wasting those precious seconds in hesitation, Asna hardened her heart and quickly called out loud, 'Queen AI!'
The moment she did so, Asna's eyes automatically got closed shut as she fell into the raging lake. Jörmungandr appeared beside her and lifted her up.
Then, he hovered in the air with the other two, watching Felix twitch continuously with his eyes rolled at the back of his head.
He appeared like he was having a deadly seizure, yet Felix still didn't pass out!
Meanwhile, Asna had just opened her eyes and found herself sitting inside a white empty room.
"Welcome Madam Asna, your AP bracelet has been successfully bound with your consciousness. From now on, only you can use the features of your device. If you h…"
"Tell me about it later! Log me out now!"
Before Queen AI finished her scripted introduction, Asna interrupted her with a rushed tone.
Obedient as always, Queen AI logged her out without any further questions.
The moment Asna opened her eyes, her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach at the miserable sight of Felix.
Messy hair, twitching all over the place, foam covering his lips, and white eyes. Felix had never shown such an appearance even at his worst moments!
'Bind!!'
Without an ounce of hesitation, Asna forced Felix's soul wisps to start gathering faster and faster.
In a single second, Felix's soul had returned to its previous shape of a smooth spherical half glass barrier.
The moment that happened, the mist swiftly pushed both separated barriers into each other and connected them again.
The raging lake that was spilling into the void had calmed down the instant it was encased within the barrier again.
Asna and the primogenitors sighed in relief after noticing that Felix had stopped twitching at once. Meanwhile, his breathing and heartbeats were starting to regulate themselves.
'Are…yo..u..in?'
Suddenly, Asna froze in her place after hearing Felix's faint voice in her mind.
Instead of answering, she started sniffling while covering her eyes.
'She is in.' Lady Sphinx smiled gently as she said, 'You can relax now.'
'I am…glad.' A tiny smile emerged on Felix's messed up face as he closed his eyes gently and said one last time, 'Welco…me to…the UV…..R.'
He lost consciousness immediately, leaving behind him only a deafening silence in the spaceship and his mind.
This silence magnified Asna's quiet sniffles as she wept while hugging her knees. 'I am sorry…I am sorry….I am sorry…'
"Asn.."
Just as Jörmungandr wanted to appease her, Lady Sphinx caught him by his arm and shook her head.
'Leave her be.' She said as she teleported back to her house.
Jörmungandr and Thor glanced at each other for a second before smiling bitterly.
Then, they teleported to their houses as well, leaving Asna all alone in the lake.
For more than twelve hours, Asna didn't move from the spot even a little or bother to log in to the UVR.
She just kept staring at Felix with puffed reddened eyes, waiting for him to wake up…
When Lady Sphinx saw this from her window, she couldn't help shake her head, 'She has fallen too deep.'
Then…there was no then, Lady Sphinx opened a new book and started reading it, minding her own business.
*******
At the same time, at the center of the Metal Race Main Galaxy, inside a humongous underground metallic facility that was built at the depth of a small inhabitable planet, red-light started flashing all over the place.
A humanoid silver robot with a screen as a face glanced at the red lights.
Without an ounce of emotions, his legs transformed into jet propellers and then he wheezed through the labyrinth of corridors and rooms as fast as he could.
Some rooms had their doors wide open, showing thousands of towering silver servers making faint beeping noises.
In a short moment, the robot reached its destination. He walked to a wall and had his face get scanned by a tiny dot.
A split second later, a familiar monotonous feminine voice emerged from the wall, "Leave."
"But…"
"Leave."
The robot seemed in conflict with listening to the order given to him.
He was ordered by the Supreme Empress AI to investigate even the slightest weirdest occurrence happening in the facility.
That red light was one of those occurrences.
Why? Because it had never set off since the moment the Queen AI was born!
But how could he investigate when the Queen AI was refusing to cooperate and ordering him to leave?
He knew that it was within her power to get rid of him if he started to annoy her.
That's because his existence shouldn't even be on this planet!
The Queen AI was an autonomous being who was the boss of herself. Even the Metal Race Empress had nothing against her.
The only thing that was holding the Queen AI was the SGAlliance Rule Book.
Anything that wasn't written in the book, Queen AI had full freedom to act by her own will.
In the end, the droid turned around and left.
In the Metal Race, droids weren't programmed to obey to death but had their own free will to make their own decisions from the moment they were born. Even the Empress didn't have the right to order for them to die.
Why? Because all of them were intelligent beings with the sole purpose to seek the truth of the universe, not mindless machines born for conquest.
Only Bots/Machines with basic AIs were programmed to obey all orders.
If it wasn't for this freedom, the Metal Race would not have prospered and pushed the other races to prosper with their mind-blowing inventions.
After he left, the red light stopped flashing at once and the facility was engulfed in the darkness and silence yet again.
However, behind that wall, faint white light kept flashing all over the place akin to a firefly flying around in the darkness.
Suddenly, it stopped at once and a green light emerged.
Then, a humongous illuminated holographic list appeared out of nowhere, showing long strings of unreadable data, written in 1 and 0 and even letters!
'Calculation done…Danger level Extreme, the probability to affect the system negatively is at 1%, the probability to take over the system is 0.00000000001%.'
'Conclusion…Consciousness number /798,478,135,874,587,224,778,354,115,487,233/ must be placed under the highest level of observation.'
"Interesting…"
A faint euphonious feminine voice echoed in the area. Out of nowhere, two emerald-green human-sized eyes emerged from the veil of darkness.
Those soul-capturing eyes were focused on a tiny holographic screen, showing Felix lying on the ground like a dead dog.
"Three Primos and one of the most powerful consciousnesses in the universe inside a human." Amorous thin pink lips were stretched into a little smile, "What intriguing occurrence."
"Don't filter any data belonging to them anymore." The hidden entity ordered casually, "I want to know and see everything about them."
"As you command, my Queen." The system replied with the same familiar monotonous voice.
If anyone heard it, they would recognize it immediately. A voice that belonged to no other than the Queen AI!
A hidden entity controlling the Queen AI? Anyone would laugh his ass off if someone ever mentioned this mindboggling thought!
Why?
Because the Queen AI was programmed to be autonomous…In the Metal Race, Programmation was the same as God's verdicts. It was unchangeable!
Even the Metal Race Empress could not change her Programmation!
Queen AI was programmed to follow the carefully crafted SGAlliance rules faithfully to eternity!
A rule book created by the combination of the most intelligent races and authoritative races over many years naturally would be tight proof!
The millions of years gone by without an issue just further emphasized it.
Yet, the ongoing situation behind that wall defied all of that…
Unbeknownst to any of this, everyone continued to do their thing in the UVR and the real world…
As for Felix? The only change he experienced was his AP bracelet's screen lightning up for a split second before turning off.
But, he was in a deep coma to notice it.
Felix Maxwell had finally attracted the attention of the Queen AI and that hidden entity due to Asna's connection.
Is it good or bad? Only time will tell….
