223: Sequence 994: Project Cylinder Brain

[Starlight Channel energy reserve: 0.81%]

The cold numbers, like a countdown to the final judgment, hung at the top of the light screens in every corner of the ark, and also weighed on the hearts of every survivor.

That starlight which had warmed them for a million years now seemed, in everyone's eyes, like the burning embers of a dying civilization, blinding and cruel.

The result of the national referendum, under the pressure of absolute survival, was without suspense.

Over 92% of the ark's citizens chose that slim, elusive possibility of "conscious immortality."

Despite the protests, the fear, and the ultimate resistance against losing their flesh and blood bodies, in the shadow of the entire civilization's annihilation, individual choices seemed so insignificant.

The supreme directive was issued.

[sequence 994: cylinder brain project], initiated.

This was not a celebration, but a civilization-scale suicidal Nirvana.

Inside the ark, all production, research, and even basic Cultivate activities ceased completely.

Energy was compressed to the extreme; except for maintaining the minimum life support System, all energy—including the remaining Starlight Channel energy—was transported to the ark's most core and secret area: the [Godly Kingdom Server cluster].

It was a construct so vast it was unimaginable, buried deep within the ark's hull.

Its core was precisely the surviving Origin of the magic bottle that had endured for a million years and had almost merged with the ark, built by combining the ark civilization's highest spiritual energy technology and quantum computing technology.

Countless spiritual energy circuits flickering with dim blue light intertwined with cold data optical cables, forming a complex and precise, seemingly living, gigantic brain-like structure.

[Extract all human consciousness and upload to Divine Kingdom within the Bottle] — the project began.

There was no grand ceremony, only the most efficient execution.

"Consciousness scanning and uploading units," resembling crystal coffins, were urgently deployed to every residential area of the ark.

People stood in long lines, silently and orderly, their faces bearing a determination akin to facing death and a fear of the unknown, as they lay into the cold pods one by one.

The first to lie down was a young mother named Ink Snow.

She held the oblivious infant in her arms tightly, kissed the child's forehead one last time, her eyes filled with tears but carrying a startling calmness.

The pod lid slowly closed, and the dim blue scanning beam lit up.

"Consciousness scan started... Locking onto neuronal activity... Analyzing Divine Soul fluctuation frequency..."

"Constructing digital model... Importing memory data stream... Synchronizing emotional modules..."

"Uploading to Godly Kingdom Server 'Newborn Zone'... Progress 1%... 5%... 10%..."

Data flowed rapidly on the light screen outside the pod.

Lia's body trembled slightly during the scanning process, and her eyes gradually became hollow, as if her Soul was being pulled away bit by bit.

And the infant in her arms seemed to sense something, letting out a faint, uneasy cry, but this crying was soon quelled by some kind of gentle suppression mechanism.

When the progress bar reached 100%, Lia's eyes completely lost all luster, becoming as transparent as glass.

Her breathing and heartbeat stopped simultaneously, her body stiffened slightly, like an exquisite doll.

"Unit A-01, consciousness upload complete. Vital signs terminated. Initiating biomass recycling program."

A mechanical arm gently moved the soulless body and the sleeping infant out, sending them into the rear passage, where facilities would break them down into the most basic molecules, recycled to maintain the minimum energy consumption for the server's operation.

Efficient, cold, allowing no waste of emotion.

One after another, the ark citizens walked silently into the crystal coffins, completing the transformation from flesh and blood to data.

It was not without accidents during the process.

Some individuals with unusually powerful Divine Soul strength or special structures experienced severe rejection reactions during the upload, their consciousness models being extremely unstable; some even suffered consciousness collapse during the upload because they could not withstand the pain of "Soul tearing," turning into meaningless garbled data.

But the overall situation was irreversible.

Regent Ink Snow stood silently in the main control center, overlooking the entire ark.

On the light screen, the number representing the surviving population plummeted like an avalanche, while the number representing the "digital Souls" within the Godly Kingdom Server rose steadily.

Her face was as pale as snow, her fingertips digging deep into her palms, but what seeped out was not blood, but wisps of icy Spiritual Qi.

For a million years, she had maintained order with the power of Reincarnation, witnessing countless births and deaths, but she had never felt such bone-chilling cold and... sin, as she did at this moment.

It was she who ultimately signed this plan.

It was she who gambled the future of civilization on a virtual cage.

"Sister Snow..." a faint voice echoed in her consciousness; it was the remaining resonance mark of the Dao Fruit Child, as if it sensed her immense pain.

Ink Snow did not respond, only slowly closed her eyes, forcibly freezing all her emotions.

It is unknown how much time passed, but when the consciousness of the last citizen in the ark was uploaded, the number representing the surviving population finally returned to zero.

The ark had become a huge, cold... tomb drifting on the Starlight Channel.

Only the Godly Kingdom Server cluster emitted a faint blue light, running silently.

[cylinder brain project complete. Total consciousness uploads: 3,721,458. Number of failures: 17,341. Godly Kingdom Server operating status: stable.]

Ink Snow slowly opened her eyes, devoid of sorrow or joy, leaving only the absolute coldness of an executor.

She walked step by step toward the core interface of the server cluster.

There, there was an upload unit specially made for her, more precise and even more dangerous.

As the initiator and leader of the plan, she would be the last one to "enter," and in the Godly Kingdom, she would shoulder the responsibilities of the "Eternal Regent."

She lay into the unit, and the pod lid closed.

"Starting Regent Ink Snow consciousness upload. Abnormal energy fluctuations detected... Deep entanglement with Reincarnation Law detected... Initiating highest priority forced detachment and conversion program..."

A scanning beam, countless times more intense than before, enveloped her!

An intense pain, as if crushing her Divine Soul inch by inch, washed over her!

Her Reincarnation Butterfly Seal was passively triggered, erupting with a strong light of resistance!

But all of this was within the plan.

The server cluster operated at overload, forcibly analyzing, detaching, and converting her consciousness that was deeply bound to the Reincarnation Law!

The process was slow and painful.

Just at the moment her consciousness was about to be completely extracted and uploaded—

She abruptly mobilized the last shred of her own power, not to resist the upload, but to... split!

She forcibly detached her core insights into the "Reincarnation" Law, as well as a portion of her most fundamental consciousness fragments, and injected them into that Reincarnation Butterfly Seal which had been nurtured deep within her Divine Soul and had already dimmed!

The Butterfly Seal let out a faint, mournful cry, carrying this final "truth," turning into an imperceptible stream of light, silently merging into the ocean of redundant, unsupervised code at the very bottom of the server cluster, lying silently dormant.

And her main consciousness, in the next moment, was completely uploaded and merged into the vast Godly Kingdom data stream.

The pod lid opened.

Ink Snow's (physical body) eyes slowly opened, but they were already empty.

Her body was moved out, broken down, and recycled.

Inside the ark, there were no longer any vital signs.

And deep within that vast [Divine Kingdom within the Bottle] server, a "digital Soul" built based on Ink Snow's consciousness model, possessing all her memories and abilities, slowly opened its "eyes."

Her "gaze" swept across this newly born virtual world composed of data and Laws.

[Godly Kingdom Utopia], initiated here.

The flame of civilization, in another form, was able to continue.

The price was an eternal digital prison, and a trace of uneasy foreshadowing hidden beneath the perfect code.