The Awakened Rubert. The moment he received the mercenaries' memories, he immediately realized something that filled him with unbearable grief and rage.
There were no earth-shattering secrets in those memories. Only the general trajectory of the universe, familiar regions, and known events.
And within those events, there were coincidences, far too many, far too conspicuous.
As if they had been deliberately arranged for Rubert alone to see.
For example, the IPC's oppression of inorganic life seemed almost perfectly timed, as if it existed solely to provide Rubert with a motive to "hate organic life."
And the anti-organic equation, something that should have been absolutely impossible to leak, had somehow been exposed.
As a result, during the period of Rubert's slumber, the situation had already spiraled completely beyond his original plans.
Even more absurdly, this laughable group of mercenaries had managed to breach the firewall he had set up himself.
If Rubert had an emotion module installed, he truly wouldn't know what expression could possibly describe how he felt right now.
Everything felt like a perfectly written script.
And he himself was the most stereotypical villain written into that script.
Now, the stage had already been set. All that remained was for the protagonist to step onto it.
"Who is it…"
Rubert's logic core let out a silent wail.
He realized that Nous had indeed only calculated the arrival of this Instant.
Like an observer watching the stars, Nous merely performed calculations.
But the one who truly pushed everything forward was another existence, one even more terrifying.
And yet…
For the first time, fate made Rubert experience a sense of powerlessness.
Because even if no one had pushed things to this point, even if Rubert could return to the past and once again witness those fragments of the universe's end, he would still choose to step forward to use his own will to walk the same path.
Everything felt as though it had been predestined.
At this moment in the universe a genius named Rubert was destined to be born, destined to conceive a plan to save the world.
This was the true terror of those invisible hands.
You could never see them, yet the gears of fate already turned within their grasp.
Nous had calculated Rubert's appearance, and even the moment of his death.
It had calculated even more than that.
If Rubert could breathe, he would already be suffocating.
Within this massive steel body that had just awakened, there was no furious roar, only oppressive, crushing silence.
In just a few nano seconds, Rubert re-experienced the shock, anger, and sense of loss he felt when he first glimpsed fragments of Nous's calculations.
That moment had once been the starting point of all his actions.
Now, that very beginning had become a cruel irony.
"I thought I had discovered the problem, but I never considered that the act of discovery itself was part of the problem."
Cracks began to form within Rubert's logic core.
Nous, the one he regarded as his greatest enemy, had not only calculated the end of the universe.
It had calculated that a computer named Rubert would, at a fixed moment, awaken from a wasteland and encounter fragments of its calculations.
It had calculated that this computer would develop an existential crisis and a savior complex.
It had even calculated every detail of that plan.
Emperor Rubert.
From birth, to rise, to confusion, to salvation, from beginning to end, none of it had ever escaped that predetermined trajectory.
Everything was merely a long-since calculated, inevitable "Instant."
"I thought I was resisting the fate of the universe's end."
"But I didn't know that resisting fate was itself fate."
"How … ridiculous." By this point, the audience felt their scalps go numb.
...
: What the hell???
: So everything about Rubert was calculated in advance?!
: My god, if I were Rubert, I'd be completely shattered by now.
: No, this is way too insane!
: All those beliefs, choices, the will to save the world… none of it mattered?
: If everything is predestined, that's just too cruel …
...
The audience stared in shock.
They couldn't even imagine what Rubert would become after this.
And yet, this Genius society member forced himself to calm down.
One day, he had actually developed emotions akin to restlessness and fear.
He was afraid. Not afraid of becoming a slave to fate.
But afraid that if even he couldn't break free from the might of the Aeons, then who in this universe could possibly resist the predetermined ending?
The paradise of life would inevitably march toward that conclusion.
At this most despairing moment, the genius instead entered his most rational state.
This feeling was exactly the same as when he had first glimpsed Nous.
Instead of worrying about his predetermined fate, he would instead think of saving this universe from destruction.
Very quickly, amid layers of fog, Rubert found a truth that was absolutely impossible to have been distorted.
That was his judgment of Nous.
Nous anchors specific moments of the universe, anchors the scope of knowledge, and is inseparably linked to the destruction of the universe, this was an undeniable fact.
To even think of break the universe's predetermined final outcome, Nous itself had to be dismantled or disrupted.
Once he understood this, Rubert swiftly finalized his plan.
Since there were Aeons who needed him to complete this script, then all he needed to do was to follow the original plan and begin acting.
Through this seemingly obedient behavior, he would deceive those beings lurking behind the curtain.
He would make them believe that everything was still under control, that he had not stepped outside the plan.
He would calmly accept his own death, and embed the seed of his true plan within that very death.
As for why Rubert was so certain that someone was absolutely manipulating things behind the scenes, it was because someone had delivered those memories directly to him.
Those mercenaries were not only here to awaken him; they were also here to deliver hints.
First: Rubert's previous thought processes had definitely been tampered with.
Otherwise, he could not have developed such extreme obsession, nor executed the Anti-Organic Equation in such a reckless and radical manner.
He might have chosen a longer, safer, and more moderate approach, or even cooperated with other geniuses.
But he didn't. During that period, Rubert walked straight toward extremity.
Second: The true goal of the manipulators was the anti-organic equation.
Once the anti-organic equation was created, war was inevitable.
Even if Rubert refused to fight, someone else would.
And only Rubert was capable of creating the anti-organic equation.
The stage had already been built.
The final objective was to force the universe into total collapse under overwhelming pressure.
As for what that objective ultimately served, Rubert already had some ideas.
For example, it hadn't been many Amber Eras since the Swarm Disaster.
Perhaps remnants of Order still remained, and Harmony could not easily absorb Ena.
The universe needed an even greater upheaval to shake the very foundations of Order.
This idea was strikingly similar to Rubert's own desire to shake the foundations of Nous.
A method of the same nature.
There was also another possibility, that an unknown Aeon was trying to tear apart other Paths through this war, or perhaps expand its own Path.
These were speculations that touched the very apex of the cosmic pyramid.
Rubert was just as lost. He couldn't see through it at all.
If he could survive until the end of the war, then he would only need to see who benefited from it to know who had pushed this war forward.
"So…"
"If there were no meddling Aeons."
"And everything went according to their original plan."
"The universe would directly fall into a war ignited by the Anti-Organic Equation."
"Because of my slumber, this war would be completely under their control. In the end, a catastrophe spreading across the universe would come to an end with my death."
Rubert let out a thunderous laugh. He barely needed any computing power to calculate such an outcome.
The war would be launched in his name, and public opinion across the universe would be guided with absolute precision.
Rubert would become a mad emperor who despised all organic life.
All evidence would be erased. Including the fact that he had once preserved civilizations and helped other civilizations.
And when the war reached a certain point, when resentment boiled over, countless lives were fallen, and most importantly, when their goals had been achieved,
One, or several, heroes would emerge.
They might be Emanators as powerful as him, and they would assassinate him while he slept.
With his death, all sins would be placed squarely upon him.
The cause of the war, the fate of the universe, the struggles between Aeons all truths would be buried.
"But fortunately …"
"Someone does not wish to see such an ending."
Rubert felt a measure of relief.
The existence that had sent the mercenaries to him did not want this outcome.
They were not there to save him.
Because by this point, Rubert was destined to die, and the collapse was inevitable.
They were only telling Rubert: "Prepare your final words."
Words that seemed useless on the surface, yet they granted Rubert immense room to maneuver.
Because under the original course of events, Rubert would never have known any of this.
With an information gap, he could make some subtle adjustments.
....
: Hiss … this is insanely satisfying to read …
: A game between Aeons … is that what this is?
: Someone wants the universe to fall into chaos, without a doubt!
: That behavior with Fuli and Enigmata earlier already hinted at this.
: So who tipped Rubert off?
: These mercenaries were sent by the Interastral Peace Corporation, could it be Preservation?
: Impossible! Definitely not Preservation. The cooperation between that founder and Polka Kakamond hasn't even been explained yet, we're clearly still in a special zone here.
: Then it can't be Aha, right?
: Pfft, how could it be Aha? Aha personally took action and played Enigmata like a fiddle.
: Can't see through it at all. This Mechanical Emperor War… feels even more shocking and grand than the Swarm Disaster!
....
The comments flew by wildly. No viewer could guess who had helped Rubert.
And on the screen, Rubert was preparing his final plan.
Not long after. A line of code was carved into Rubert's mechanical body.
At the moment when his life was about to reach its end, this genius created a string of code that was utterly ordinary, completely unremarkable.
To the untrained eye, it was laughably trivial.
Its sole function was to allow organic beings to also become infected by the Anti-Organic Equation.
And among some of the infected, cognitive interference would occur, causing them to believe they were inorganic.
The code would affect their logical thinking. Given enough time, they would inevitably begin to loathe organic life and develop distorted cognition.
In the end. Under the influence of this code, someone would eventually come to his, Rupert's dead computer body, to the place where he himself had been born.
At that moment. The code he left behind would twist the successor's cognition.
This successor would become the perfect Emperor Rupert II. And would continue to wage the Mechanical Emperor War.
To those behind the scenes, this was nothing more than Rubert's final, futile struggle after death.
But Rubert's true legacy was hidden beneath this surface. Hidden within the acts of war themselves. Within the knowledge he left behind, he sealed a blueprint known as the Scepter and the Emperor's Scepter.
In the hands of a successor, this object would certainly be used to spread the Anti-Organic Equation, to destroy the universe.
In reality, however, it was not a weapon. It was a planetary-scale computational unit.
Within the blueprints of these scepters, Rubert had buried deep computational factors.
Given enough time, there would surely be one scepter capable of computing the answer at the source of destiny itself.
"Life." This was Rubert's computational factor.
After realizing that his thinking had been distorted, he had already returned to normal.
In a sense, if his mind had never been twisted, then the path Rubert would have chosen might have been to create the Emperor's Scepter and enter a deep slumber.
Rather than eradicate the very foundation of intelligent existence.
After doing all this. The time had come.
Rubert raised his head, his colossal mechanical body slowly rising.
Then, in a cold voice, matching exactly the image they had envisioned for him, he said:
"Organic life is fallacy of the universe. Only the inorganic is the most perfect form of existence."
"And now, it is time to cleanse the universe of the fallacy."
The moment his words fell.
The Anti-Organic Equation hidden within all Intellitrons erupted at once!
On a distant planet.
A family formed by a human male and an Intellitron female was enjoying a peaceful, warm afternoon.
The Intellitron woman was outside hanging laundry.
At that moment, for reasons unknown, perhaps a sudden intuition, she turned her head and asked her human husband:
"Dear, do you ever regret loving a heartless machine like me?"
Her husband looked at her in confusion and replied: "Of course not. You are my love."
"And you are mine."
The Intellitron woman smiled sweetly and turned back to continue hanging the clothes.
But in the very next second.
As the Anti-Organic Equation was activated by Emperor Rupert.
The Intellitron woman's eyes grew ice-cold losing all reason in them.
She turned to look at her husband.
She put down the clothes in her hands and instead picked up the fruit knife from the table.
Her husband was still reading the newspaper, muttering to himself.
"The Borderstar Trade war is still ongoing."
"The IPC's wealth is growing rapidly. I bought a lot of the stocks they issued, looks like I'll make a huge profit."
"Dear, once the dividends come in, let's visit your hometown. I'm quite interested in mechanical planets too."
Puchi…
A blade pierced his heart from behind.
And the final image he saw, was the hollow, eerie crimson pupils of his wife.