Chapter 783 Residue and Inertia
The fine sand in the hourglass continued to flow downward, as if it could continue for a long time. Duncan held the hourglass carefully in his hand and talked with the ancient "god".
The gods are rotting - this is not the first time he has heard this sentence. The Popes of the Four Gods once said this to him, and they also said that the rotten breath of the gods has gradually penetrated into the world and is interfering with the world. The apocalypse is eating away at the world together.
But this was the first time he heard these words from one of the "gods", and he realized that the current situation was the result of them delaying the process as much as possible.
"This hastily built shelter has too many flaws... Everything is temporary, the curtain, the 'sun', the cornerstone of the archipelago, and ourselves - before the first long night begins, we In fact, it has already reached its end.”
In the "spirit world" composed of monotonous black, white and gray tones, the ancient Queen Leviathan whispered softly, but this terrifying giant beast had a gentle voice, which was like a dream floating in deep water, slowly moving toward Duncan tells all about the past——
"It took us a long time to realize our 'death', and it took Bartok a long time to figure out what was happening in our 'dead' state.
"We are the 'inertia' of the old world."
"The inertia of the old world?" Duncan frowned immediately, with some speculation in his mind.
"You should already know what destroyed our world, those many worlds - then you should also know that the Great Annihilation did not completely destroy everything in those worlds. There are always some 'residues' from the process of impact from the world. It has survived, and those of us called 'gods' are also part of those remnants.
"But residues are residues because they are no longer whole. When sand peels off a boulder, it is just sand and not a boulder. The same is true for us - the impact of the Great Annihilation has forever changed our nature, strictly From that day on, we have also become part of those hot 'ashes'...but unlike the ashes, we have retained our 'self'.
"We know what we once were - this 'knowledge' allows us to rise again from the ashes, and even reshape some of the remaining ashes into what we 'remember'.
"At the beginning, this made us think that we had the opportunity to reshape the whole world and restore all the ashes. But it didn't take long for us to realize the limits of this 'reshaping' and also realize our own continuous weak……
"We are not really alive, we are just the remaining obsessions among the corpses. The 'knowledge' of ourselves and the 'memory' of the old world are the only reasons why we can continue to move, and this 'knowledge' and' Memory'... wears away over time.
"Bartók, the one who knows the most about 'death' among us, called this phenomenon 'the inertia of the old world,' arguing that we survive not because of our own will or individual strength, but because 'the world does not want to The old world was destroyed in the Great Annihilation, but the fact that they once existed turned into the 'inertia' after the end, and became the various residues that still exist after the Great Annihilation - into "
"The 'knowledge' of self and the 'memory' of the old world..." Duncan held the hourglass with one hand and rubbed his chin with the other hand, thinking thoughtfully, "So, this is the 'shelter' The basis of birth?”
"Yes," the gentle voice said to him, "We use our own memory and cognition to reshape the original 'foundation' from the ashes. This is why there are many specious and paradoxical stories pointing to the Great Annihilation left in the world. 'Records', but we have never been able to find any 'evidence' that can truly prove the Great Annihilation, because there was no 'evidence' from the beginning, and even the entire Infinite Sea was picked up from the ashes by us. It is formed by the accumulation of residue...
"But even those remnants will continue to decline due to the wear and tear of our 'cognition' and 'memory'... This is where the 'life limit' in the original design of the shelter comes from."
Duncan listened to Gemona's story attentively, sometimes falling into thought, and then speaking to himself while thinking: "'Inertia' will eventually subside... so eventually the survey team will inevitably encounter that 'limit' , no matter how perfectly they fulfilled their mission, the 'end of the world' was already doomed as early as the day the world was born..."
He suddenly recalled what "Crete" told him:
"There is no point in continuing the asylum..."
"Yes, there is no point in continuing the sanctuary," Queen Leviathan repeated softly, "but there is a higher level of explanation to this sentence - there is no point in continuing to 'delay' the apocalypse."
Duncan's eyes changed slightly. He raised his head and looked at the pale body lying on the edge of the pool. He saw that the body was gradually raised, and the eyes slowly opened from its surface.
"Remember? The end of the world brought about by the Great Annihilation has not ended. It has been proceeding slowly in the lowest logic of all things. The conflict of rules and the encroachment of chaos are just its appearance. In essence, it is 'inertia' The confrontation between ' and 'Doomsday' - as long as our 'inertia' still exists, as long as the shelter still exists, the Great Annihilation will never stop. It will continue until everything in the world is crushed to pieces. Fan, by then...the world will be over."
The pale limbs drooped slightly, and the eyes that were not human, but seemed to be full of humanity and intellectual brilliance, also drooped.
"Yes, Fire Usurper, it is precisely because the 'world' refuses to die that the end of the world refuses to stop. It is precisely because we still exist that the Great Annihilation continues to this day, and even to this moment... it is still higher Hanging over the heads of all living beings.”
"Hang high above the head of the whole life..." Duncan reacted instantly, "You mean the creation of the world?!"
"... That crack is how it appears to the observer. It is essentially a 'result', a... 'focus' that leads all possibilities of all worlds to the same 'collapse fact'. ——It is the ‘end’ of the boundless sea.”
Gemona's voice stopped, but Duncan remained silent for a long time. After a long time, he spoke softly as if talking to himself: "So, on the day this 'world' was born, its 'end' was It’s hanging high above my head.”
After a while, he looked into Gemona's "eyes" again and broke the silence: "So, no matter what plan is finally adopted, we must first solve the 'never-ending doomsday' and find a way to destroy the Great Annihilation first. End—but the only way to end the Great Annihilation is..."
He paused for a moment, but Gemona's soft voice said the answer for him: "Let the end of the world be 'completed'."
The temple fell silent, as dead as the universe.
After a long time, Duncan exhaled softly: "This is probably not the 'conclusion' you are going to tell me in the end - there are other things that you haven't told me yet."
"Yes, there are other things - there are many ways to 'complete' the end of the world, but within the scope of our knowledge and ability, 'annihilation of all things' is the final result of all paths, but as I said Yes, this is only a conclusion 'within the scope of our knowledge and ability'..."
The pale limb drooped down again, and then a hazy shadow suddenly appeared in front of it - it was a girl wearing a long skirt and a veil. She stood in front of the pool and looked deeply towards Duncan. Bend deeply.
Many, many years ago, she learned to use this form to talk to her "land friends", and she would only appear in this form on very solemn occasions.
"Fire Usurper, you are not within the scope of our knowledge and ability. Strictly speaking, you are not even within the scope of the Great Annihilation - even though you are the first among us to arrive, even though you have been sleeping in the first ashes. Yes, but... you are not 'residue'.
"We can't understand what you are, but Pilot 2's calculations show that you are the only 'healthy' individual among us - perhaps, you have a way to protect those in the old world when the 'end' occurs. shadow."
Duncan didn't speak, he just frowned tightly, his expression tighter than ever.
Then, he suddenly thought of something - the "collections" that appeared in his room!
He heard the voice of "The Girl from the Sea of Tranquility" continuing to ring in his ears:
"...observation and cognition, memory and information, these seem to be the cornerstones of the world's existence. Pilot 2 once told me that it comes from a brilliant and advanced civilization, and its creators have almost touched the universe before the end. The basic laws of operation, and in the most advanced and profound research of that civilization, some scholars once put forward a conjecture.
“This conjecture is the most impressive part of Pilot 2’s memory bank——
“Information is everything, and everything is an expression of information.”
"Information is everything... everything is the expression of information..." Duncan repeated this sentence subconsciously. In a daze, he seemed to hear a "roar" coming from deep within himself, as if he suddenly understood many things. The scene in front of him was shaking, with scattered starlight filling the edge of his vision, and then these illusions gradually dissipated - the voice of "The Girl from the Sea of Tranquility" came to his ears, the voice was hazy, as if a thick layer had suddenly separated him. Thick draperies:
"... Pilot 2 is still thinking about this sentence to this day. Its creators seem to have touched the threshold of truth, but they only had time to throw out this conjecture. With the resources at the disposal of us 'residues', Based on the existing conditions in the shelter, Pilot 2 believes that it may never be able to turn this conjecture into a usable theory and 'means', but your presence... made it aware of one thing.
"Perhaps there was a civilization, a civilization more advanced than the creators of Pilot 2, that had crossed that threshold."