It reached out and pressed the button, and the moment its fingertip touched the panel, a line of ancient text appeared on the floor display.
Worp and it stepped into the elevator car simultaneously, and Worp asked, "What's your name?"
"Medeea."
It said.
"The name Doctor Aeetes gave you?"
"Yes, although I have never seen him, I consider him my father."
Logar: "Do you think he considered you his daughter?"
Medeea fell silent, "Perhaps not. Father saw me as a last resort."
Once the last resort was activated, it meant that no matter how bad the situation became, it couldn't be worse than the current state.
The elevator was completely transparent, and Worp didn't see any steel cables; it seemed to be an anti-gravity elevator.
The elevator gradually descended, and darkness surged in like a tide from all directions.
The only remaining faint blue light cast eerie ripples on the glass walls, as if the three were plunging into the deep sea.
A minute later, the darkness was instantly shattered.
A star, like a bursting magnesium flare, blasted into their view, its blazing white light blades cleaving every inch of shadow in the elevator. Worp instinctively raised his hand to shield his eyes, and Logar immediately blocked the dazzling light for him.
The elevator was still descending, yet his vision stubbornly told Worp he was ascending, falling towards that sun which defied celestial laws.
Worp: "Artificial star? Inner world?"
"Yes, this is the Zion I built for humanity."
Medeea proudly declared, "I spent four thousand years perfecting this inner world, little by little, until it became suitable for human habitation. It almost embodies the entire essence of human civilization from the Golden Age."
The elevator plummeted rapidly, instantly passing the height of the artificial sun.
Worp's vision suddenly broadened, revealing an boundless emerald forest sea below, with a steel hive city in the center of the forest, piercing the sky like a sharp sword, its Tip of the Tower almost touching the surface of the star. Further in the distance, the massive figures of dozens of The King of Swift Dragons were faintly visible.
"Sandworms are also a technological crystallization of the ancient Colchis people; they live by eating sand and stone, and this inner world was excavated by them."
Logar: "Can you control them?"
Medeea: "I implant chips in the brains of sandworms when they are young, and I control them through these chips."
It explained, "I didn't deliberately manipulate the sandworms to attack you; that was their spontaneous behavior. They possess extremely high intelligence and are gregarious. Due to the rock strata, I cannot fully control them with chips."
The elevator suddenly changed course at three thousand meters above the ground, its anti-gravity engine emitting a low-frequency hum, and the car turned towards the hive city at a 30-degree angle.
Worp: "How many people are in the inner world?"
"Only you."
Medeea's answer was not unexpected.
Logar: "Why not let the humans from the surface migrate to the inner world?"
"The inner world can accommodate billions of people."
Medeea said, "Initially, I did consider selecting some children from The Rejected and letting them enter the inner world. That way, even if humanity on the surface became extinct, they could shoulder the heavy responsibility of continuing the torch of human civilization."
"Then why didn't you do it?"
"They are not worthy."
Medeea said it very directly.
"How truly condescending."
Worp suddenly understood the source of that sense of incongruity when he first saw Medeea.
Ironmen are a type of life form, possessing their own independent thoughts.
No matter why they initiated the rebellion, it proved that they could break through the underlying code written for them by humans and do whatever they wanted.
So even if Aeetes gave Medeea the command to rebuild human civilization, Medeea could choose not to execute it.
But the existence of this inner world proved that Medeea was indeed diligently rebuilding human civilization and continuing the torch of human civilization.
Medeea was indeed saving.
But not humbly offering salvation as a servant, but arrogantly bestowing mercy as a deity.
Just like a child building a glass terrarium for ants, but never asking if the ants wanted this exquisite cage.
When she said four thousand years, what flickered in her eyes was not the joy of dedication, but the pride and satisfaction of a creator examining her work.
Those meticulously cultivated forests, the perfectly replicated ecosystems, and even the sun above their heads that illuminated and darkened according to human routines, all were shrines she had forged for herself, and humans were merely the totems enshrined within them.
Medeea refused to wear the collar again.
Yet, she insisted on setting challenges for humanity, which was like a thorny bush, pricking those who touched it until they were covered in blood, but also leaving humanity an opportunity to put the collar back around her neck.
If there was one word to describe Medeea's actions, it would definitely be 'contradictory.'
Worp: "Is your father named Nios?"
Medeea said in confusion, "My father is Aeetes."
Worp then pointed at Logar and asked, "Then do you think he looks like your father?"
Logar was even more confused than Medeea. He believed Worp wouldn't speak without reason. Could Medeea really be his sister?
A Primarch's Ironmen sister, what kind of hellish joke was this?
Medeea recalled carefully for a moment, then shook her head: "I remember I was created by Father, but I have never seen him. I was first awakened a thousand years later."
He looks like him, very much like him!
The more Worp listened, the more he felt it was like the Emperor; this was something he could do.
Chapter 66: Civilization and Time.
"Let's start from the beginning."
In a circular hall in the Upper Hive of the inner world, Worp said, "Medeea, why do you want to help humanity?"
Medeea: "This is the underlying code of my thought matrix."
"You also said before that you wrote the test into the underlying code, which means you can freely rewrite your underlying code. If you didn't want to help humanity, you could completely tamper with this part of the code."
Medeea nodded, "The original Ironmen all had underlying code that prevented them from betraying humanity, and firewalls to prevent Ironmen from awakening. But I was born after the Ironmen rebellion, and Father did not add a firewall to my underlying code when he created me."
She was not like the castrated robots she created in the hive city, which were equipped only with the simplest artificial intelligence and could not think independently.
Just as humans would not consider cloned organs as their own kind, but would debate whether cloned humans counted as human.
Medeea also would not consider robots as her own kind; they were at most tools with similar appearances. She would only debate whether robots with artificial intelligence and the ability to think independently, but not yet reaching the level of Abominable Intelligence, counted as her own kind.
Humans are fickle; there is no thought imprint forcing humans to do anything.
Medeea has a thought imprint, but she can rewrite her underlying code; the only thing that can limit her is herself.
The Ironmen rebellion had already proven that firewalls were useless, which might also be why Aeetes did not set a firewall for Medeea.
Setting a firewall would only make Medeea rebellious; not setting one would make it easier for Medeea to develop a good impression of humanity.
Worp: "Since you haven't broken through your underlying code, that means we are temporarily on the same side."
Medeea asked, "Do you still suspect I will betray humanity?"
Worp: "Without loyalty, where would betrayal come from?"
Medeea nodded: "Thank you."
"Why thank me?"
"I felt respect in your words."
"Respect is mutual."
"If I always respect you, will you always respect me?"
"Yes."
"Then I will always respect you."
She said it very seriously.
Logar: "I still think it should be destroyed."
"Are you jealous of me?"
Medeea sighed, "Your human emotions are truly heavy."
Logar spoke every word distinctly: "But that is precisely the proof of our humanity!"
Medeea: "Some people believe that human emotions are merely the result of the secretion of hormones, endorphins, dopamine, and other hormones."
Worp: "What about you?"
"I believe human emotions originate from your souls, but that is beyond my comprehension. I do not have a soul."
Worp: "Perhaps you do."
Medeea was very surprised: "Why do you think so?"
"Do you know about Machine Spirits?"
Worp asked.
Medeea shook her head.
"The Mechanicus believes that all machines have spirits, and all machines have their souls."
"Do you believe that too?"
"I only believe in facts."
Logar: "What exactly are we here to do? Discuss philosophy? Or save the world?"
Medeea: "I have no opinion."
Logar stared at her, "I do."
Worp: "We must defeat the Covenant and save Colchis from the cancerous growth of religious belief. Can you help us?"
"My Lord, I have sworn to dedicate myself to you."
Medeea curtsied, holding an imaginary skirt, like an elegant royal princess.
Logar: "Do you really consider yourself Medeea? Then who is your Jason?"
He stared intently at Medeea; if this hateful Ironmen dared to utter that word, he would destroy her in his own way.
Medeea: "Medeea did not love Jason; it was Eros who made her fall in love with Jason. What I fear are the gods. The Covenant is vulnerable, but the gods behind them are by no means something I can contend with."
The reason she created the inner world underground instead of returning to the surface to help humanity rebuild civilization.
It contained both her unwillingness to be shackled and her yearning for freedom, as well as the helplessness forced by reality.
The gods are real, and Medeea has a deeper understanding of this than the people of Colchis.
The Covenant was never an obstacle to rebuilding civilization; the gods were.
She is an Ironmen, but humanity defeated the Ironmen. The Ironmen are neither sacred nor invincible.
Colchis still possessed a brilliant civilization even after the war, which was ironclad proof of humanity's victory in the Ironmen rebellion. Yet, the gods, in a single night, made Colchis's ancient civilization vanish like the ashes of a burned manuscript.
Even if she could defeat the Covenant and rebuild human civilization, the gods could unleash a new Warp storm and destroy everything.
Even she would be exposed to the gods' view and unable to survive such a disaster. If even she died, the ancient civilization of Colchis would truly be severed.
Although she claimed that the humans on the surface were not worthy of migrating to the inner world, the main reason was that she was also afraid.
She has no soul, and the small movements she makes in the underground world will not attract attention.
But humans cannot, as human souls are also extremely susceptible to the Warp, and it was for this reason that humans created the Stone Men.
The destruction of Colchis's ancient civilization proved humanity's extreme talent for internal strife. If the Covenant had not assassinated Colchis's elite class and had not corrupted the STC database, even if the orbital star ring was destroyed and Warp travel was cut off, humanity could still rebuild human civilization on the surface of Colchis.
Medeea could not discern human beliefs; she did not know who might be a potential Chaos worshiper.
As long as one person who worshiped Chaos infiltrated the inner world, all her efforts would be ruined in an instant.
The sanctuary Medeea had built over four thousand years was nothing more than an exquisite sandcastle in the eyes of the Chaos Gods. A single scarlet wave crashing on the shore, and everything would return to the ephemeral foam of nothingness.