The destruction came quickly and suddenly. From an individual point of view, the final scene that can be seen is certainly strange, but the macroscopic process is very simple and clear. If there were such a giant, it would be so huge that it could overlook the universe, and at the same time observe the details, being able to see a grain of dust on a planet. It will fully bear witness to how the old world ended. The darkness first appeared at a very small point, inside a building that was no different than dust. Then it began to disintegrate, turning into a dreamy, tumbling void. The giant looked closely and found that the time and space inside it had dissolved, but some creatures smaller than dust escaped from it. They ran along a thin road covered with ice dust, and in the blink of an eye they escaped into the void at the outermost edge of the galaxy. Suddenly they disappeared without a trace, as if hiding somewhere where even giants could not see them. That was completely beyond their capabilities as microorganisms, but to the giant's eyes, it was as natural as the flickering of sparks.
To a consciousness watching the rebirth of the universe, the microbe's escape path is of little interest. The giant will soon forget about it and continue to pay attention to the beautiful broken place. It's starting to spread. At the moment when the elementary particles tremble, their colors cover the entire planet where the building is located, and then the galaxy and the adjacent void. No creature can escape this dream or witness this carnival from the perspective of a bystander.
Only the imaginary giant watched quietly. In the broken dream, countless scenes appeared that could make the microorganisms lose their souls. In that ocean of color without direction and time, life has become an incoherent phenomenon. Matter and thought are no different. Desires are splashed in all directions like rain, hatching out writhing words and pictures. The souls of the dead are Singing and dancing in the boat of the sun, the palace more magnificent than the galaxy bloomed like an epiphyllum, and then shattered in the wind like a dead leaf. It has become a common sight, a meaningless display of randomness, like the words accidentally spelled out by an ape tapping away at a typewriter. And more often than not, those pictures are not within the realm of life. The giant can see it, but does not understand its meaning, because meaning itself is a finite need. It is impossible to construct an overarching meaning from infinity—unless it is not truly infinite.
Now, infinite colors fill the entire universe. Within that glorious and dark dream, light and vibration disappeared along with matter. Difference no longer exists, but neither does sameness. Life and death no longer need to be distinguished, they are now the same thing, and the "matter" itself is no longer real.
But even this beautiful and shining infinity stone has boundaries, right at the end of the universe, and not even dreams can go any further. What lies beyond the boundaries of space? Not even the giants who gaze upon the end can know it. It can only watch the universe fall back, and the dream is compressed and tightened accordingly, returning from a vast ocean to the original small dot, until even a conceptually omniscient giant can no longer see it. It has been squeezed infinitesimally small.
The contraction of the singularity is over. It began to expand outward again, space reappeared in the concept of giants, and the new world grew rapidly. It's a rare sight, but assuming the giant has existed longer than a less expressive universe, it has witnessed many cycles of creation, residence, and destruction of space. Aṣṭṭhāna. Even a dust-point tribulation. A new life is not worth watching so intently. The giant will devote all his curiosity to that phenomenon that has not been expressed since the birth of the universe, that dreamy gem compressed into the singularity. It saw that the gem was broken. And the broken places continue to expand with the expansion of space. Somehow, its brilliance that transcended the concepts of energy and matter had completely dimmed, and only an abyss remained in the gap.
Where does it lead? Not even the giant's powerful eye of thought can catch up. It is expanding rapidly, forming a chasm larger than a star cluster or galaxy, like a deep ravine running across the center of the universe. Some remaining colors floated up from its broken edges, forming a blue-blue light band that dispersed in the void. It spreads farther and farther, changing its properties in the process. It began to gain energy, became more docile to the rules of this impoverished universe, and became especially perceptible to all consciousnesses born in the new world. But that will take a long time - the roar and echo of the broken dream gems are constantly coming from the chasm.
This tremor that inspires all things to sing wanders in the universe, making matter tend to be separated and independent from each other. This is a situation that should not occur in the cycle, so complex life can no longer emerge as easily as it did in the old universe. The world remains dead in the roar, and perhaps one day it will be swallowed up by the chasm. In the chorus, only two lives still exist outside the gap. They are giants independent of this cycle, and they can observe everything freely without being harmed in the slightest. But now they are all silent, each thinking deeply on the abyss.
Two chairs are suspended in the dim light of the universe. When the long silence ended, Ji Xun stood up from his seat. He gazed briefly into the depths of the unseen chasm, then turned to look at the other viewer.
"Very interesting story," he said.
"You must have seen it in Wes's memory."
"Yes. But it's not so clear. Untrained personal memory is inaccurate." Ji Xun said, "The story you showed answered my question from another angle. When I studied your secrets, your Motivation has always intrigued me.”
"Now you see, Mr. Ji Xun. This was out of sheer cowardice. We could have tried to make amends before everything came to this, but Weiss backed down."
"From what I saw, you didn't object at the time."
"My opinions were overridden by their fear, Mr. Ji Xun. As you can see, I had no weapons at the time. If even my colleagues lost their consistent stance, I would not be able to proceed with a high-risk adventure."
Ji Xun almost smiled. He glanced quickly at Jules.
"You're pointing it at Bei," he said. "She was finally convinced by Weiss."
"I don't think that can be called 'persuasion', it is a kind of degradation and withdrawal. I don't know what she was thinking at the time, Mr. Ji Xun. On this issue, maybe you can give me some answers. After all, you have checked His memory. What made her believe Wes's nonsense was something I wondered for a long time."
"I'm afraid I can't help." Ji Xun replied, "She cleared the details of this part of her memory. I think it was transferred to other places. In fact, I didn't find any correspondence with this part in Weiss's memory. . I think they should have discussed countermeasures on this matter - you know, it was not prepared to prevent an outsider like me."
Jules raised his head disdainfully. She really didn't care about this obscure accusation. Instead, she asked aggressively: "Don't you have any doubts about these missing parts? Have you never carefully investigated where they hid those memories?"
"I don't have much time to spend investigating."
Jules stared at him suspiciously. It was understandable that she didn't believe this, because that was where it all started, but Ji Xun didn't flinch at her sight. He left his seat in the void and wandered over the chasm, as if looking for some sign of hope. Jules quickly caught up with him and monitored his movements without concealment.
"Speaking of which," Ji Xun asked her casually, "what happened in the rest of the stories? During the time you and Weiss were together, you witnessed the execution together, but it seemed that only He was affected. You didn't show me the full extent of that scene."
"I think that's lackluster." Zhu Er said coldly, "I won't show you that part, Mr. Ji Xun, because it is really as simple as you see. At that time, Weiss and I watched the loss of control analysis room. A supposedly dead man was resurrected. We watched him outside the door, trying to communicate with him - with the machine that had caused his manifestation, but nothing happened. Wes and I were just staring there. , and then he fell into a state of insanity and believed that he was having some kind of non-verbal communication with the vision in that room."
"Maybe he has a different word for it?"
"Yes. Later he gave us a story about the moment when he and the dead man - you know I mean the illusion created by the syncopator - looked at each other, and he claimed to have traveled to another possibility, and Be convinced of the fact that we got the basics wrong.”
"So, what are his facts?"
"He believed that we could never build a truly infinite machine, no matter how close it seemed. I hope you can imagine how I felt when I heard this, Mr. Ji Xun, a security guard and executioner teaching me my profession Knowledge."
Ji Xun and her looked at each other silently. They all had something close to a smile on their faces.
"We are indeed facing an infinite machine now." Ji Xun said, "It's only within one model. However, it is indeed a manifestation of infinity."
"It seems our prophet was wrong."
"Maybe." Ji Xun still said.
"Conservative wording will not make you more precise, Mr. Ji Xun."
"I just want to postpone the conclusion of this matter. Moreover, I noticed that you still followed his advice. Even if you are coerced by the majority of people, I think he has at least convinced a considerable number of people."
"Yes." Jules said. She seemed unwilling to elaborate, but Ji Xun's eyes followed her closely. She had to go on: "There's a reason for that."
"Because he did show you the way to escape." Ji Xun guessed, "At the moment when the big squeeze of the universe happened, you managed to escape. This is the guarantee he made to you, a miraculous road. . Not only that, it seems that some of your past territories have also been retained. Is it because he promised you that there would be a place to survive? Do you know how he did it? When you set foot on that illusory ice field When we were on the road, where were you actually?"
"On another path in high-dimensional space. That's our guess."
"Unverified speculation."
"That road only appeared once, Mr. Ji Xun. After that, we no longer had the conditions to conduct research. You know our subsequent situation. Lunla took part of the gene pool with him when he left, all of which were post-apocalyptic modified species. … We have very little biological resources, which makes us do a lot of things we don’t really want to do.”
"That's right." Ji Xun said calmly.
"You don't agree with my statement, Mr. Ji Xun. You still think that our actions are motivated by selfish desires rather than the pursuit of intellectual continuation. Some of you are yes, I admit it. But let us put aside these inefficient parts and see , what really matters is the core conclusion. We still succeeded. In this way, we allowed our civilization to continue into the new universe. Here we can meet - or, we are destined to meet."
"It's not like you're a fatalist in any way."
"I'm talking about cause and effect, Mr. Ji Xun. Through the friend who awakened us, I learned a lot about you. About this era, about you, and your hometown."
Ji Xun's walking in Guanghai stopped. The look he looked at Jules was still calm, but his concentration was unprecedented.
"I'm very interested," he said bluntly, "that you think all this has something to do with my hometown."
"I know your hometown, your origins better than you think. That's why I appear in front of you now. Our lovely furry friend investigated you very carefully and generously showed us the details, so I I have to pay attention to this, Mr. Ji Xun. You do not come from a natural country, but from a technical base, an engineer civilization, very similar to us. But before that base was built, your predecessors I am a wanderer, searching for the never-ending universe. I have also heard about your civilization's resistance to the concept of infinity... Please note that as an explorer, I think this is very unnatural. But it is not impossible, as long as There are good reasons in their history."
Ji Xun already understood the ultimate direction of this topic. A rare, uncontrollable look of surprise appeared on his face. The latter followed him urgently with his eyes, not letting him get away from this wavering.
"Part of us went up." She said arrogantly. "After the rebirth of the universe, some of us thought that the Slicer accelerated the destruction, and the appearance of the wandering patients was some kind of conspiracy, or it could also be called As bait. They suspected the existence of a larger scale Slicer, and the Big Crunch was caused by this. Weiss tried to suppress them and prevent them from exploring this area, so they left, claiming to go to a place beyond the boundaries of the universe. place. They no longer use our titles, Commissioner, Professor, or Immortal. From the day they left, they called themselves an exploration team, an army charging towards the end of the universe. Or let us put it this way - They are an expeditionary team.”
