Chapter 379
Chapter 379 Conceptual Death
The scene looked quite bizarre amidst the chaos of the night.
Ling Mo couldn’t help but stop in his tracks, becoming alert to his surroundings, while he inquired through the channel, “What happened to you…”
But before he could finish his sentence, all the equipment in the cockpit abruptly ceased functioning, like a power outage, rendering the mecha completely disabled.
Not only that, but even Tianji, who was originally integrated into the mecha, was unexpectedly ejected and burst forth as a little fat chicken that landed in Xia Xinyan’s hands.
Ling Mo furrowed his brows slightly, “What exactly happened?”
Under normal circumstances, the energy reactor of the mecha could ensure its operation for at least a hundred years without depleting, but at this moment, the mecha’s condition clearly indicated that the energy reactor had lost its power output.
And why did Tianji get ejected?
“This mecha is dead,” Tianji responded, “It hasn’t just stopped working; it’s conceptually dead, turned into a useless lump of metal.”
Even lifeless machines have a conceptual state of life and death, primarily judged by whether the machine can still operate—if it cannot function at all, then it’s considered dead.
Of course, this inability to operate isn’t as simple as just being damaged; it’s akin to a computer case—when it’s smashed and unable to power on, the CPU and graphics card inside might not necessarily be broken. To be deemed in a state of death, every component of the machine, including every electronic part on the motherboard, must be completely non-functional, including the effects produced by the properties of the metal itself—if not a single part is usable, then that’s true death.
In simpler terms, it has completely turned into a large piece of junk.
After hearing this explanation, Ling Mo pondered for two seconds and pulled down the emergency ejection lever beside him.
It was movable, but there was no response whatsoever.
“Can a completely mechanical structure fail too?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Before designing this mecha, he had surely considered the possibilities of various interferences leading to its paralysis, so he made the emergency ejection system purely mechanical without any electronic components, which is why he was able to swiftly escape with Xia Xinyan in the valley last time.
But this time, even the mechanical structure had failed.
“That’s right; conceptual death is absolute death; no functions will operate again,” Tianji replied.
Still using the computer case analogy, once it has conceptually died, the originally conductive metal on the case might completely lose its conductive properties—this nature encompasses all effects or functions that any inanimate object carries and can be responded to by the outside world, which will completely disappear.
That’s why it was ejected from the mecha—because the mecha has now completely turned into a pile of scrap metal, with no means to support its existence anymore.
Ling Mo then looked at Xia Xinyan in his arms.
There was no need to say anything between the two; Xia Xinyan already understood his meaning. She grabbed Tianji, swung her tail, and directly cut out a large hole in front of the cockpit before jumping out first.
The swiftness of this action surprised Ling Mo.
The death nature that Tianji mentioned refers to the fact that dead objects no longer react with any external existence, but their intrinsic properties remain unchanged—the metal is still metal, and the mecha’s protective layer is still a protective layer; this state doesn’t diminish its defensive capability—after all, cutting does not strictly count as a reaction.
Yet Xia Xinyan still cut open the mecha’s belly with just a single swing of her tail.
As the creator, Ling Mo understood the mecha’s ultimate defensive capabilities the best. It’s no exaggeration to say that even if another identical mecha came and he just stood there taking hits, it wouldn’t be able to breach the external defense in a short time.
From this, one can see just how powerful Xinyan is now—or rather, just how formidable her tail is.
This made Ling Mo somewhat mesmerized, staring at Xia Xinyan’s tail, which was slightly swaying behind her.
Until her voice pulled him back to reality, “What’s wrong?”
“Ah, it’s nothing,” Ling Mo quickly averted his gaze, waved his hand to dissipate the now useless mecha, then snapped his fingers to manifest a set of battle armor—
And then with a thud, he fell flat on the ground while maintaining that pose.
Xia Xinyan immediately rushed over, “What happened?”
“This battle armor is also dead.” Tianji quickly identified the problem, “All the joints of the armor are locked up, so it can’t move.”
The joints of the battle armor have electronic assistance, but the majority are still mechanically driven, which leads to another characteristic of machine death—dead objects cannot run; besides the failure of electronics, components corresponding to purely mechanical structures will not change their state due to system variations.
For instance, a mechanically structured handgun normally requires pulling the trigger, which allows the hammer to strike the firing pin to ignite the bullet. But a dead handgun won’t revert the hammer to strike the firing pin even when triggered.
Even manually resetting the hammer to strike the firing pin will show no change.
The same goes for manually striking the bullet’s primer.
In simpler terms, two gears in a death state can be turned by external force, but rotating one gear can’t turn the other.
Ling Mo immediately understood why this battle armor was like a hunk of iron, and that the mecha’s ejection system was likely affected for the same reason.
He dissipated the battle armor and got up somewhat awkwardly. “I was careless.”
Xia Xinyan then looked towards Zhang Zhen and the others, who were still sprawled on the ground, “They’re probably facing the same situation.”
Ling Mo moved over to dissipate the battle armor on them, and they fell in a heap on the ground, clearly injured.
“Give them some potions,” Xia Xinyan instructed Ling Mo, then began surveying the surroundings, “This place seems suspicious.”
After approaching this area, no demons were seen in sight, and the streetlights were on, clearly not dead. But why did Ling Mo’s items die as soon as they got close here?
She contemplated for two seconds, tried activating her spatial wristwatch, and took out a handgun.
The spatial wristwatch was still operational, but after skillfully chambering the weapon, she tried pulling the trigger towards the sky, only to find it didn’t fire.
“This gun is also dead,” Tianji provided the answer nearby.
Xia Xinyan tossed the handgun back into the spatial wristwatch, deep in thought, “This phenomenon seems to only affect weapons?”
At this moment, Ling Mo also fed Zhang Zhen and the others healing potions, allowing them to regain some composure before following along. He speculated, “Could it be an invasion by some conceptual intruder?”
Xia Xinyan shook her head, was about to say something when everyone noticed a man staggering out from an intersection ahead.
Zhang Zhen, from behind, immediately exclaimed, “Old Eight?!”
