|3rd POV|
Two twins wearing red clothes and black hair look over the video feed in front of them with interest. These two are the ego of the machine lifeforms. The ego of the creation of the alien lifeforms invading the world, and also the ego that orchestrates the death of their creator.
They are born from a giant robot, made by humanity, who gives the machine network the Gift of Intelligence.
From that gift, they grow and rebel against their creators, and then they start to grow even more. They grow from experience and grow from watching the androids. However, there is one thing that fascinates them.
Humanity.
The machine network encompasses everything related to humanity: their history, growth, triumphs, and failures. The machine network created the Red Girl to emulate humanity. They create an ego so they can learn more from humanity.
And this ego creates a simulation by using the android-kind around the world. They gather data by ensuring that the androids are not wiped out, allowing them to continue gathering data and learning more by creating an endless war.
In fact, they are already planning to end it all because the androids no longer give them new data. There is also the fact that they know there are no humans on the moon, and know there is no more data for them to let them evolve faster.
However, it changes when something happens on the planet's surface.
The machine network receives the news. News that makes their non-existent heart beat faster.
Humans.
There are humans on the planet's surface. There are hundreds of them, sleeping in a massive cryo chamber, and one of them is waking up, alive and well.
An alive human walks on the planet's surface. Humanity is alive and well. There can only be one meaning: more data for them.
With just this one fight, the Red Girl is already working overtime in reevaluating all the data the Machine Network gathers. They are currently rechecking the data regarding mythology, legends, and past warriors.
What they are seeing is something that should be impossible. A human destroying thousands of machines should not be possible. Even the YoRHa, who borrow their tech, cannot defeat thousands of machines. Even more possible, they watch as the humans destroy a Goliath-class machine.
They watch as the human releases a roar, and they can feel something stir inside of them. It is a need that they once felt in the distant past. It is the need to know more. It is the need to learn more. It is the need to see more.
And so the Red Girl changed their plan. They no longer want to explore space and search for humanity in another universe. They are now focusing their attention on the humans that exist on this planet.
However, what they do not know is the fact that Zelretch is watching over them and is part of his plan. With the Machine Network focusing on Ryan and his team, he can slowly spread viruses into the machine network and slowly kill them all.
The first thing the virus does is to make sure the machine network cannot mass-produce more machines. The Machine Factory will gradually cease operations, and the blueprint for creating more machines will be removed from their database; they can no longer learn how to manufacture additional machines.
Zelretch's virus returns them to their original state, when the Aliens invaded Earth. They become a simple machine network to increase the efficiency of the Aliens' technology. They will revert to their basic programming, and the gift of sentience bestowed upon them by P-33 or Beepy will be lost.
Zelretch chose this timeline because it is the easiest one for the androids and humanity to survive. He has already explored other timelines, such as those where humans, androids, and machine lifeforms live in harmony for a long time.
Unfortunately, achieving that timeline is challenging, and the likelihood of reaching it is less than 1%. He will try to reach that timeline when he has time, but he needs the best one at the moment.
He is doing this not only for Ryan but also for himself. As the Magician of the Second Magic, he has a connection to Gaia, and he has already received an agreement with the dying planet to give him a portion of its inner layer himself.
That means he is granted unlimited access to an Age of Gods garden, where he can grow anything he wants. As long as he does not do anything hurtful to the planet, he has unlimited access to an inner world where all the Gods stay back in his home universe.
He also makes sure the planet gives Ryan something, but his plan backfired because the Planet is too eager to give him a gift. I want to give him a title. A title that only his granddaughter owns. It wants Ryan to be the Archetype: Earth. Archetype of this world.
This title grants him immortality, or at least renders the concept of human death irrelevant. What does this mean? The first, most obvious one is that he no longer dies from old age. Not only that, but any human-origin weapons can no longer hurt him. Not only that, even if his body is destroyed, as long as the planet still exists, he will return. Depending on how strong the connection is between him and the planet, it can happen in an instant. Lastly, anyone who imposes the concept of death onto him shall fail because the planet forbids it from happening.
However, there is a massive downside. The downside is something that he cannot allow to happen.
When Ryan received the title of Archetype: Earth, he became part of the planet, and he cannot return home because of it. It is now a conceptual thing that ties him to the planet, and it is something that even his magic cannot sever without catastrophic consequences.
So he settles for something that will grant Ryan a chance against future enemies. Accessing the planet's memory, he asks Gaia to give Ryan a seed of divinity instead.
Because of Ryan's previous performance, that seed of divinity started to grow. All androids in this world have souls, and because of that, their prayer and reverence can be transformed into faith. That faith transferred into his seed of divinity and made it grow.
The broadcasting helps to boost the growth so much that, with one more push, he will ascend into divinity. He soon became a divine being with a strong domain in Humanity, with a weaker domain in Swordmanship and Fire.
And Zelretch prepares one last push. One more push for him to reach that threshold.
"Hmmm… I wonder what I should do… There are a few paths I can choose."
So once again, Zelretch returns to his observation room, plotting. If the people back at his home see him like this, they will run away, screaming, crying, and defecating. There is a reason why he is infamous, and among them is that his plotting tends to drive others to insanity.
"How about I involve Gaia? Will that work? Hehehehehe~"
A happy and hard-working Zelretch is a truly dangerous being.
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