6: Chapter 6 The New Era Universe

What the future looks like, no one knows.

In the end, Chen Cheng still didn't have the chance to introduce himself in detail. After the toast, the program entered the drinking game phase.

Zheng Jun was a young man from the Northeast after all, with an astonishing tolerance for alcohol. After drinking Chen Cheng and Li Li—who refused to admit defeat—under the table, he still had the energy to duel with Wang Shuo.

Wang Shuo was also fighting for his life, but for some reason, he who usually collapsed after two or three glasses was surprisingly ferocious today, dragging Zheng Jun into a final showdown.

The final result... was naturally mutual destruction.

Four people drank, and all four passed out; the first university dormitory drinking session ended in tragedy.

Wang Shuo's only thought before passing out was, "Why can I drink so much today? Damn it, I'm never drinking again..."

"Detected host consciousness is asleep, beginning assessment..."

"Assessment complete. Host's Brain Domain has been strengthened, strengthening coefficient 0.1326, meeting the minimum requirements for system activation... Execution starting... Request from an exotic realm is being generated..."

"Injecting..."

Wang Shuo felt as if he had entered a black hole, constantly sinking... sinking, sinking until he didn't know how many years or months had passed, until finally, with a sudden jolt, he stopped.

He looked around at the environment. The pitch-black space was vast and boundless, without any movement. Occasionally, he could see beams of light, like meteors flashing by rapidly.

Wang Shuo tried to reach out and touch these bright spots, but he felt nothing at his fingertips.

"What on earth is this? Where am I?" Wang Shuo looked at his slightly glowing hands in a daze. "If this is a dream, it's too realistic, isn't it?"

He raised his head, looked around, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Is anyone there?"

"Is anyone here?"

"Can someone explain to me what is going on?"

After shouting for a long time, Wang Shuo realized that other than looking at the dark space, he couldn't do anything at all—he couldn't move, or rather, perhaps he was moving, but without a point of reference, it was the same as not moving.

"Why am I so unlucky today!" Wang Shuo wanted to cry but had no tears. He began to suspect that maybe he had left the house the wrong way today. Perhaps he had stepped out with his left foot first?

After struggling for a while, Wang Shuo finally gave up resisting and floated quietly in place, watching the lights flashing by from time to time. After calming down, he found that the scenery before him was actually not bad. At the very least, it wasn't purely pitch black, was it?

And just as he was diligently observing one of the bright spots, the light he was watching suddenly emitted a blaze of brightness, stinging Wang Shuo's eyes and causing him to close them instinctively.

The next moment, a strange figure appeared before Wang Shuo's eyes.

Wang Shuo would stake his eighteen years of emotional experience on the fact that what he saw was a figure that could only be described as strange. The reason he used the word "figure" was because the shadow in front of him also had a head, two... uh... arms, and two legs; it was completely a proper humanoid shape, but calling it a human didn't seem quite right.

This humanoid-type figure was dressed entirely in a black bodysuit, and mysterious patterns on the clothes occasionally emitted inexplicable flashes of light. Its head was exposed, and there were two small, antenna-like protrusions on its forehead. It also had distinct eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, and so on, and its face looked quite refined.

But for some reason, Wang Shuo just felt that The Figure in front of him was very strange.

While Wang Shuo was deep in thought, The Figure in front of him opened its eyes. He didn't know if it was an illusion, but Wang Shuo seemed to see a trace of confusion in its eyes.

"Is this... the New Era Universe? Has the... activation succeeded?" The Figure made a sound, and then seemed to fall into confusion again.

This... Wang Shuo stared wide-eyed as The Figure in front of him emitted strange syllables he couldn't understand, and then ignored him completely. He couldn't help but be stunned. "Big brother, can you not get into your own rhythm first? Don't you see there is a little boy right in front of you who is completely baffled, doesn't know what happened, and just wants to get out of here?"

Fortunately, The Figure didn't make Wang Shuo wait long. After being slightly confused for a moment, it turned its eyes toward Wang Shuo, looked down at him from a high position, and emitted a strange syllable.

Wang Shuo indicated that he didn't understand the meaning at all, and could only stare at The Figure in front of him with wide, innocent eyes.

The Figure seemed to frown, then revealed a look of sudden realization. It raised its arm to touch the small protrusions on its forehead, then immediately put it down with a frown, looked at Wang Shuo, shook its head, and then closed its eyes.

Wang Shuo: "..."

What does this mean? Is it looking down on him? Wang Shuo felt deeply insulted. If it weren't for the fact that everything here was intangible and formless, Wang Shuo would have really wanted to jump onto The Figure's chest, grab its collar, and ask if it understood what it meant to respect the old and cherish the young—well, "cherish the young" was definitely correct.

While Wang Shuo was still thinking about how to save face, The Figure opened its eyes again, lowered its gaze, and uttered a sentence that almost made Wang Shuo jump: "Your name is Wang Shuo?"

"What... what the hell are you?" Wang Shuo, who had drifted back a bit, looked at The Figure in front of him cautiously.

Dammit, the sentence The Figure just said was in perfectly authentic Mandarin pronunciation?

"Primary intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo, having undergone one primary Brain Domain strengthening." The Figure's voice became increasingly indifferent: "Initially meets the core's capacity requirements."

"What kind of thing is that?" Wang Shuo felt that he had truly been baffled all day today. Should he just establish a holiday for himself in the future and call it Bafflement Day?

"My time is running out, primary intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo." A trace of sorrow seemed to flow from The Figure's eyes: "Crossing the membrane wall consumed too much energy, the core structure has been severely damaged, the intelligent emotion module is defective, and I can no longer hold on for much longer."

"But fortunately, the database is relatively well-preserved. We, or rather, you, still have a chance, primary intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo."

The Figure's voice carried indifference, yet Wang Shuo somehow detected a trace of unwillingness in that indifference. But why could he understand every word The Figure said, yet fail to comprehend them when put together?

"Wait a second..." Wang Shuo, with a face full of question marks, interrupted The Figure: "I'm sorry to ask, but what are you talking about? What 'us' and 'you'? What is the core? Who exactly are you? Most importantly, I'm a primary intelligent lifeform? What the hell?"

"Primary intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo, my time is running out." The Figure looked down at Wang Shuo with slightly indifferent eyes and said calmly: "Are you sure you need me to provide a detailed explanation? This will consume the core's remaining energy."

"Of course I need you to explain it clearly to me." Wang Shuo shook his head. Core energy or whatever, what did that have to do with him? But not knowing what The Figure in front of him was, where he was, or what was going on, Wang Shuo felt he would go crazy.

"As you wish." The Figure fell silent for a moment, then extended its palm and rotated it slightly.

Wang Shuo immediately felt the speed of the light spots around him suddenly increase, quickly gathering together and bursting forth with even more intense light.

The scene that appeared again left Wang Shuo stunned. Countless specks of dust rapidly settled and condensed in front of him, forming various bizarre, irregular substances. Numerous irregular objects collided with each other, blooming with brilliant colors.

Time seemed to be accelerated at this moment. Wang Shuo witnessed a planet forming before his eyes. The initially gathered matter constantly collapsed toward the center, while more matter kept arriving. Finally, the center of this planet seemed to erupt in a violent explosion, and the entire planet ignited like a giant fireball, with various substances being thrown out from time to time, carrying energy capable of destroying everything, sweeping in all directions.

"This is..." Wang Shuo seemed to have realized something.

The evolutionary history of the universe seemed to be condensed on this brilliant pearl at this moment. After the birth of the new star, the matter surrounding it seemed to have found a backbone, starting to circle around it, constantly colliding, merging, colliding again, and merging again, finally forming various bizarre, massive composites.

"Our universe has no name, but to distinguish it from your universe, let's call it the End Universe, while yours is called the New Era Universe in our place."

"The galaxy where we were born is on the edge of the entire cosmic galaxy group; we call it the Moore Galaxy. And our race, you can call it Humanoid Race—I cannot find any other name in your vocabulary database. Just one day, trillions of years after the universe was created, our ancestral planet was born."

Before The Figure finished speaking, the huge composites that were just merging underwent several violent collisions, becoming fragmented, and countless substances were scattered into cosmic space. The massive debris showed its power at this moment; they incorporated the smaller debris and dust into their own orbits. Whatever could be swallowed was swallowed, and what couldn't be swallowed was bound to their sides. In this way, a regularly shaped planetary group gradually appeared before Wang Shuo's eyes.

The newly born, young planet was still very unstable, as mischievous as a little child, often getting itself covered in wounds—land collapsing, magma and toxic gases spewing everywhere, like hell. And the little companions following it were inevitably affected.

Wang Shuo saw one of the little companions hit another, and both became fragmented, with a large amount of matter being attracted by the asteroid's gravity and falling onto the asteroid's surface.

But bratty children will always grow up, and so will asteroids. After day after day of collapsing, absorbing, and spewing, this little brat finally grew into a qualified planet. It became more regular and stable, providing great warmth and care to the little parasites on its body.

"Moore Planet is located in the fourth orbit of the galaxy, with a pleasant climate and is extremely easy to survive on. After our ancestors appeared, they began to develop rapidly. In just seven thousand years, they developed technology capable of escaping the planet's gravity. From then on, we began the era of interstellar colonization."

In just this short time, sesame-seed-sized small spaceships began to fly out from the newly formed Moore Planet. Some of them accelerated rapidly, flying away from the planetary orbit, while others landed on nearby satellites and began rapid construction.

Thus, right before Wang Shuo's eyes, satellite exploration bases appeared on the empty satellites as if by magic.

At the same time, more and more spaceships flew out from inside the planet, becoming increasingly advanced, faster, and larger in volume.

Finally, a huge spaceship comparable to Wang Shuo's fist appeared in the planetary orbit, its massive body seeming to block out the sky and sun.

"By the time we developed to eight thousand years, we had mastered gravitational wave navigation technology and simultaneously built the first deep-space mothership in orbit, the Hope."

Wang Shuo was deeply amazed. The impact of condensing the development history of a civilization and presenting it directly was indescribable, especially when The Figure in front of him used such an incredible method of presentation.

"By the time we developed to nine thousand years, our race split. Trillions of our people split into three parts and began to fight each other. This war lasted for one hundred years."

The evolution of the scene continued. At this point, the perspective had widened to a certain extent, and Wang Shuo could see that the Humanoid Race had occupied the entire Moore Galaxy.

"Because the occupied star territory was vast, and we were still in the primitive stage of gravitational wave navigation, we could only conduct basic communication through established interstellar routes. However, the prolonged war seriously threatened the safety of these interstellar routes, and some members' unscrupulous behavior caused serious losses to various star territories."

What the losses were like, The Figure didn't say, and Wang Shuo didn't ask.

The Figure rotated its palm again, and the scene around Wang Shuo began to develop rapidly.

"In the next ten thousand years, we discovered the wormhole effect and created large wormhole generators. At the same time, we began research on space. We succeeded. Because of wormholes, we jumped out of the small valley of the galaxy and came to the large lake of the galaxy cluster; because of jump technology, we greatly increased our navigation speed and realized the miniaturization of the entire group. We developed new communication technology that could transmit information without loss or delay over light-years; we optimized our own genetic structure and even unlocked some incredible abilities because of it; we built large space stations that could even rival planets; we immigrated to countless planets, providing a solid foundation for the population explosion of our race. Our civilization was thriving, and we firmly believed that we would explore more galaxy clusters, more planets, and develop better technology."

Wang Shuo listened with great interest and watched with enthusiasm. Feeling that The Figure's voice had stopped, he couldn't help but ask: "And then?"

"We succeeded, but we also failed." The Figure remained silent, and its palm rotated again. This acceleration was faster than all the previous ones.

The scenes around him spun rapidly, and it seemed as if tens of thousands of years had passed in the blink of an eye.

When it finally stopped, everything around had changed. If the universe just now was still a vigorous Middle-aged man, then the current universe had become an old man at sunset—and one who was seriously ill, in critical condition, and could collapse and die at any moment.

"What... happened?" Wang Shuo looked at this scene in disbelief.

"The end of the universe." The Figure was silent for a moment, then said: "After hundreds of thousands of years of development, our race has occupied every corner of the universe, and we can touch the edge of the universe. No cosmic disaster can cause our extinction. We can even imprison stars, preventing them from radiating a single bit of energy outward; we can also make white dwarfs and neutron stars become our Weapon; we can instantly destroy a planet completely; make matter collapse from a three-dimensional state into a two-dimensional state; allow our own information to attach to the core and exist forever for ten thousand years; we can also pass through sub-dimensions to collect dark energy; and we can even tear a hole in the cosmic membrane. But we are ultimately not the rules; we are ultimately biological beings and not gods; we are ultimately unable to defeat the universe itself."

Wang Shuo widened his eyes. What The Figure said seemed to have exceeded the scope of what he could understand. In fact, Wang Shuo felt that everything that happened today exceeded his ability to understand. After exceeding the limit multiple times in a row, Wang Shuo felt that he seemed to have developed a certain immunity—or, well, it could also be called numbness.

"You cannot understand, primary intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo." The Figure said with sorrow, "When you know that you will die tomorrow, and no matter what you do, you cannot avoid it, what would you do?"

Wang Shuo blurted out: "I would finish everything I want to do within a day."

"Finish all the things you want to do, and then die in peace?" The Figure looked at Wang Shuo: "Would you, knowing clearly that there is no hope at all, still strive for a glimmer of hope, even if this struggle is futile?"

"If there is a glimmer of hope, of course I would. This is the instinct of intelligent life." Wang Shuo nodded seriously.

The Figure continued to be silent, then continued: "When we developed to our peak, we accidentally touched the imprint of the universe; this is the realm of rules. From it, we glimpsed the fate of our race; we learned of the destruction of the universe and its irreversibility. We went mad."

"Just as you said, intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo."

Wang Shuo listened attentively, seemingly not noticing anything different in The Figure's words.

"The yearning for survival is the instinct of all life, and we are no exception. A portion of the race did not accept this reality; they developed fantasies about themselves. Due to our method of communication, such fantasies affected a considerable portion of our kin, and they... went completely insane. Another portion of the race accepted this reality, but they were unwilling to just disappear. As mentioned before, they wanted to complete all their dreams, not even caring whether such dreams complied with the race's rules. There were also some who had no reaction at all; they lost hope for their lives, just staying at home every day waiting for the arrival of the Great Cosmic Destruction. And there were others, which is... us."

A glimmer of light burst from The Figure's eyes. It suddenly intensified its tone; it was no longer that indifferent voice, seemingly carrying a certain sense of excitement.

"We are the most outstanding explorers of our race, and we possess over ninety percent of the race's knowledge, technology, and resources. We are the strongest resisters when the Great Cosmic Trial arrives!"

"We are similarly unwilling to follow the universe toward annihilation, but we need to save our race, rather than joining the ranks of those destroyers."

"Our space exploration technology has already developed to a certain level. In successive probes targeting the edge of the universe, we discovered the existence of the cosmic membrane. Research targeting the cosmic membrane has been ongoing, but due to resource allocation issues, there hasn't been much progress. The Great Cosmic Trial gave us an opportunity, and the race gave us sufficient resources."

"We hypothesize that the positive universe should be finite; it is like a fruit, or a room, having its own maximum boundary. From the moment of the universe's birth, it has been constantly growing and expanding, moving from disorder to order, but when it grows to the point of touching other fruits or rooms, it will begin to collapse on itself and enter a stage of destruction. Just like a fruit will rot after growing to fullness, or a house will be demolished after being expanded. This process might require tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or tens of quadrillions of years to calculate."

"We are unfortunate, but we are also lucky. Unfortunately, our race was born too late; we are like brilliant fireworks bursting forth in the instant before the universe's destruction. Although radiant, it is very short—so short that we did not have time to continue optimizing our race and finding our retreat. Fortunately, our ancestral star was gentle enough, giving us the shortest amount of time to grow. Tens of thousands of years is very short on the cosmic scale, but for a race, it is equivalent to an eternity."

"If the universe is truly as we hypothesize, then after the universe begins to collapse, its membrane will be at its most fragile. Just like a rotting fruit, its shell will not be as hard as usual; this is also our best opportunity to open it and pass through it. We spent a thousand years preparing two plans: First, we gathered all the race's resources, concentrated all the explorers, and at a huge cost, built a set of equipment. This machine, covering several galaxies, exhausted the race's highest-quality resources. If everything goes smoothly, it can open a hole in the spatial membrane large enough for an adult to pass through, allowing our people to carry the prepared heritage of the race to a new era."

Wang Shuo broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing this. If it had been a person that hit his head back then... given their physical constitution, they might have been fine, but he might have kicked the bucket. Moreover, a space-alien—oh, no, an extra-universal person—suddenly appearing from the sky, carrying technology and equipment enough to blind a human's 24k titanium alloy dog eyes, would definitely be worshipped as a god by some people, wouldn't they? Thinking of this, Wang Shuo actually felt a tiny bit of secret joy?

"Second, we gathered all the explorers of the entire race and built a super core!" Speaking of this, The Figure raised its eyes and glanced at Wang Shuo.

Wang Shuo blinked his eyes very innocently. What does that mean? I didn't steal the core, so what is the meaning of that look of yours?

"This core adopts the latest biotechnology, made using materials that can fuse with the human body. It can operate using various energy sources, and after fusion with the host, there is no way to remove it."

Before Wang Shuo's eyes, an almond-sized crystal-like object floated quietly. It had a pale blue luster throughout and was breathtakingly beautiful. It did not seem like an artificial creation, but rather like a masterpiece of nature's uncanny workmanship.

"Transmitting information using structured light is already a mature technology for us, but structured light is too fragile—too fragile to protect our information as it passes through the membrane. We had to think of another way. Finally, we decided to use soul information to transmit data."

"Compared to ordinary methods, soul information has better extensibility, stronger stability, and possesses a certain level of intelligence. If the worst-case scenario truly arrives, the controlled soul can, to a certain extent, replace the intelligent brain. And our core's volume does not allow us to set up an excessively high intelligent sequence."

The Figure was silent for a moment, then continued: "Therefore, after a round of cruel selection, only I could be modulated into a controlled soul, serving as the first sequence of the core itself, while discarding most of my memories and emotions to store the race's precious data and materials."

"The information database, which gathered all the technology, humanities, and geographical data of the race, was incomparably vast. Even if my Brain Domain were developed to ninety percent, it could not contain it all. And this required sacrificing over ninety percent of my emotions and memories, but we had no choice; we could only prioritize selecting technical data and discard most of the humanities and geographical information."

Wang Shuo was also silent. Even with his lively nature, he could not gloat at this moment. What kind of desperate situation must it be to make such a choice, to have a race go wave after wave to attempt to modulate their own souls, discarding ninety percent of their emotions and memories just to store more data? Is this kind of thing not inhumane? To kill a person, the cruelest thing is to not even spare their soul.

"After the modulation was successful, in order to give the core certain permissions while I was not in deep sleep, I listed a second sequence, which you can call the logical sequence. It does not have autonomous emotions and consciousness like me; it is similar to your fixed programs, but has a certain logical judgment ability. After I awakened, I did not find its shadow on the core module you obtained; it must have been damaged when passing through the membrane."

"This... is the whole truth, intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo." The Figure fell completely silent, quietly watching Wang Shuo floating in front of it.

"I... have another question." Wang Shuo raised his hand, then seemed to feel it was pointless and put it back down: "Are the messy things that keep popping into my head today related to the core?"

"Yes. The core requires energy to operate, even if it is weak bio-energy. In the human body, the place where bio-energy is most concentrated is the brain. The higher the degree of Brain Domain development, the faster the bio-energy operates. During the process of the core fusing with your brain, your Brain Domain has already been strengthened, and partial sequence permissions and the database have been opened to you, which is why you can see me in your Brain Domain."

Wang Shuo opened his mouth, "My... my Brain Domain?" He turned his head to look at the surrounding space, somewhat unable to believe it: "Here?"

"This is your Brain Domain, intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo." The Figure paused, "Or rather, your Thought-Touch Space. After your Brain Domain was strengthened, it barely reached the standard for independent operation, and the Thought-Touch Space can also be generated by relying on your Brain Domain."

Wang Shuo felt that he was understanding less and less, "Does this not mean that you can enter my brain at any time and thus know what I am thinking?"

"I cannot do that." The Figure said indifferently, "If it were my peak period before I was modulated, I could have directly turned you into my puppet through the Brain Domain, but now, my duty is as the core's first sequence, and I am about to dissipate, so I cannot enter your Brain Domain to pry into your thoughts."

Wang Shuo wanted to say something more, but The Figure did not give him the chance and continued: "I just tried to communicate with you directly through brainwaves, but your Brain Domain's defenses are tight, and I could not succeed. I had no choice but to learn your language from the core, although I very much dislike such a low-level and inefficient method as verbal communication."

A trace of secret joy appeared on Wang Shuo's face. It seems he still has some merits after all.

"You cannot receive my brainwaves; firstly, because your Brain Domain's defenses are tight and highly individualized; secondly, because your Brain Domain development is too low, I cannot force the transmission of brainwaves. Although I can control it, there is still an eighty percent probability that you would become an idiot." The Figure paused, "The core cannot be handed over to an idiot to control; we need your brain."

The trace of secret joy that Wang Shuo had just revealed suddenly disappeared. He really wanted to pick up the thought he had just put down and beat the giant head in front of him into a giant pig's head!

"My time is running out, intelligent lifeform Wang Shuo." The Figure raised its head slightly, and its tone returned to an indifferent state: "I will, on behalf of the highest sequence of the End of the Universe Salvation Faction, His Excellency Haiku, the final ruler of the Humanoid Race civilization, and all the members of the entire Humanoid Race civilization, convey the final request of the Humanoid Race civilization to you."

Wang Shuo looked at it blankly, somewhat at a loss, and said: "You... go ahead and speak; there's no need to be so solemn."

"Intelligent lifeform, I am the civilization's supreme leader, Haiku."

A different voice suddenly came from The Figure's mouth. Wang Shuo seemed to see a black figure standing on the highest throne, speaking to him through the barrier between two universes.

"Our universe is about to be destroyed, and it will take away the glory that our civilization has continued for hundreds of thousands of years. Unlike the countless disasters we have experienced, this time, we have nowhere to hide, but we are also fearless."

"If you can see this conversation, it means our final means have failed, our struggle has been ruthlessly crushed, and our race... has no survivors."

"What has fused with you is the last hope of our race, the hope that our race's greatest warrior, Muer, exchanged by sacrificing everything of his own."

"The sequence has been executed to the final process; everything is now irreversible, and my time is running out. Intelligent lifeform, on behalf of all my fellow countrymen of the civilization, I request you: if you have fused with the core, please find an opportunity to let our civilization be known, to let others know that outside your universe, there once existed a civilization that challenged the universe! Even if it means being smashed to pieces, let the light of civilization pass through the cosmic membrane!"

"We are all warriors; this is a war between our race and the universe. We may not necessarily win, but we are fearless!"