In the temple at the base of the sacred tree in the city of Doma, the fireflies flying in the air are like a pair of eyes that gather and close.

Sitting cross-legged on the rattan wooden bed, Ye Shi's eyes looked straight at the sky, and his eyes seemed to pass through the flickering fireflies, and also through the rattan wall that could block all light.

It was something he had never felt before.

It's like when you are flipping through a villain book, you suddenly meet the eyes of the villain in the book.

But unlike before, this time he was not the one who turned the book.

He was stared at by the eyes beyond the pages of a book as thin as a cicada's wings.

“…… I see. ”

In an instant he finally understood why he said that Gaia and the tree of Insov were both Him and not Him.

And even more than that-

He also understood why He said it was a meaningless answer to them.

"You broke the 'fourth wall'......" Yashi blurted out.

That's a word that foresters would never understand, like theories about dimensions.

After all, the process of their civilization has only reached the period of primitive tribes, and those brilliant ideas have not yet been born.

There was a chuckle in the darkness, and the sound seemed to come from the scattered fireflies.

He has always been here.

And always has been.

"That's right, clever little clever ghost...... Congratulations on finding the answer, but unfortunately there are no trophies. ”

Yashi's eyes widened.

A creepy sensation crept up the back of his head, as if someone in a TV series had suddenly crawled into his living room through a screen.

He was eager to take off his helmet immediately to make sure there was no second person in his bedroom.

But he soon realized that it was stupid......

It's just a game.

Even if it's realistically done in every way.

“…… What's behind the wall? Ye Shi stared intently at the mural and asked.

The flickering fireflies replied in an inaudible voice.

"Nothing."

Ye Shi was stunned.

“…… Nothing? ”

The voice replied slowly, or perhaps the answers to everything were already written on the wall.

It's just that he reads it too slowly.

"Yes, there's nothing here, but it has everything. Detached from matter, we have become eternal, our destiny is no longer at the mercy of possibility, and we have completely left this wild universe...... And this is exactly what we are willing to devote all our lives to after knowing everything about this universe. ”

Reading this information from the flickering light, the shock in Ye Shi's heart was beyond words.

I see.

Either Gaia or the Tree of Insof is used to describe His existence without rigor.

Humans have only been to the outer world of Nanmen II, so they subconsciously believe that his footprints only appear on the third planet of Nanmen II's AB main-sequence star.

Gaia is just a trace of what he left on the planet, including the "Tree of Insov" that appeared later, which may be some kind of "ecological maintenance system with autonomous consciousness".

The Three Years' War was never a war between humans and Gaia, but an upgraded version of the war between the Foresters and the Valley People, and Gaia was at best a hole card in the hands of one of the warring parties.

And the weapons of the warring sides have also changed from spears and bows to "neutron torpedoes" and "Gaia seeds".

The so-called mother nest of the slime fungus variant has been the product of artificial breeding from the very beginning.

A researcher at the institute named "White Dove" has provided abundant experimental evidence to corroborate this matter.

Even the brood called Thea in the center of Qingquan City, it is impossible for it to fly to Earth on its own without interstellar navigation capabilities.

From the very beginning, it was a biological weapon developed by the colonists using the technology they learned from Gaia, and even its memories were most likely artificially instilled.

In fact, this is not difficult to prove, for example, Xiao Yu is the best example.

Its memories were also taught to it by the people of the Alliance, but in a very different way.

The catastrophe ended in the destruction of both sides, and both the colony and the Federation of People were drowned in the dust of history because of their own limitations, and could only be commented on by future generations.

Now a new civilization has been born on the planet Gaia, and the Earth of the solar system has also rekindled the fire of civilization.

As for Him—

Referring to Gaia as a one-sided name for him is indeed one-sided, including the tree of Insov discovered by the crew of the Twins.

If Night Ten were to rename Him, perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him a "pioneer."

It is a civilization that has a history far older than humans, and the time interval between the two existences in this universe may take hundreds of millions or tens of millions of years.

For their own reasons, they chose the latter between material and spiritual, and after the prosperity of both material and spiritual reached its peak, they completed the ascension within the scope of civilization and soared to another dimension.

Nope-

Maybe it's not just another dimension.

It is one-sided to describe their existence in terms of dimensions, after all, both low-dimensional and high-dimensional universes are part of this universe, and what they break is the fourth wall.

To define their existence may require a whole new vocabulary.

For example, "Void".

It is the world outside the horizon of all living beings in this universe, that is, the world beyond the "fourth wall".

If you compare this universe to a computer game, then what they pass through is the screen of a monitor.

They burrow a small hole in the screen, or open a big hole, and in any case go to another universe with a very different Planck constant.

But then again, does it make any sense?

When they go to another universe, they may have lost their former form, and even their mass no longer exists, leaving only a beam of light or an electromagnetic wave.

And the universe outside the "window of vision" also has its own "window of the world", just like a nesting doll, it also exists in its own void.

Relative to the universe in which they were once in, they undoubtedly completed their final ascension and met their "Creator".

But compared to their own infinitely prosperous existence, it is not a kind of collapse.

They turned from giants to dust.

Night-Ten couldn't understand why they were doing this, and he could sense from his answer that he knew the outcome from the beginning, and much more so than he knew about himself like an ant.

But He didn't care.

To ask why-

Because that's what they've been asking for all their lives.

They burned all the selves in the universe in which they were originally located, and turned into a light outside the universe......

"We passed through the 'Window of Vision' and found our Creator and said hello to him."

"He couldn't see us, but we all saw him...... That's enough for us. ”

"Since then, our story has not been in this universe, and what you see now is nothing more than the aftermath of the Big Bang."

"As for Gaia, the branches of the tree of Insov...... It's just a trace of our existence. ”

"Your compatriot is clever enough to have found the answer, and I'm sure you've noticed. Like I said, 'You're not unsuccessful anyway.'" ”

"The answer begins with the mural in front of you, and the child named Dora reads to you the part she can read. And what you see at the moment is exactly what she can't understand. ”

After figuring it all out, Night Ten heard this voice in his head.

Both seem to be happening at the same time.

In the process of contemplating the mural, he gradually "saw" everything that the crew who had seen through it all had experienced, and all that was completely recorded on the growth pattern.

The unbelievable thing made his heart more and more shocked, and he couldn't help but doubt the essence of this game.

Staring at the brighter fireflies, he couldn't help but blurt out a question.

"How did you do that? What's that ascension...... Including travel to the Void. ”

The voice in the darkness did not answer.

Or maybe He had answered, but he couldn't hear it, and he couldn't understand it.

After all—

They are in this conversation, and there is an unknown number of thousands of years between them.

The experience aboard the Orion has proven that teleportation across time and space is not a panacea.

They can only press the teleprompter in each other's hands, and can only prompt each other to know each other's existence.

He spoke slowly, leaving one last message.

"We've communicated enough, and knowing too much won't do you any good."

"If I have to say, I have only one piece of advice—"

"Unless you make the exploration of the spiritual world your life's desire, do not try to break the fourth wall."

"Not everyone can get through it smoothly, and there are a lot of messes trapped in the walls, and even a glance from a distance can cause you a lot of trouble...... You should be glad that it was me. ”

"By the way, there was a fool among you who begged me to take him to 'heaven', but he didn't realize that 'heaven' also has a 'heaven' labyrinth. Just as there is a new universe beyond the universe that you have already understood, there is a new horizon beyond the horizon...... Truth is endless. ”

"Good luck in short, stupid materialist."

"Maybe we'll meet again."

The voice was gone.

Ye Shi looked at the fireflies above his head blankly, and he only felt lost in his heart, and he couldn't let go of it for a long time.

After spending nearly a month in this temple, he thought he had succeeded in breaking the fourth wall, but he didn't expect it to be a little close.

All he saw or heard was the reverberation of an explosion that had shattered into the void and left in the world many thousands of years ago.

That's all there is to the information left on this planet.

The crew of the Gemini has documented their findings on the frescoes of the temple.

If you want to find more clues about the Pioneer, you'll have to travel to other galaxies in the universe.

“…… Although it is a bit far-fetched to blame the pioneers behind Gaia for the destruction of the Human Union, the price of excavating this ruin is also very heavy. ”

Thinking of his past experiences, Ye Shi couldn't help but smile bitterly, and it was difficult to evaluate for a while.

Of course.

In the process, human civilization has not gained nothing.

In addition to the gains in biotechnology and aerospace engineering, they also have a lot of gains in the field of sociology.

They will be more resilient and stronger than they once were.

As for himself, he has gained a lot from this expedition.

Although he couldn't determine the level of the sequence without VM, he could clearly feel that his perceptual attributes had strengthened a lot, and he had jumped up three or four levels, to say the least.

And that's not all.

Night Ten suddenly found that he could read the growth streaks on the walls of the temple smoothly.

In addition to this, the fireflies have become able to understand his voice, as well as the insects that resemble crickets.

His "psionic energy" seems to have awakened.

……

Just when Night Ten was surprised by the changes that had taken place in him, the war between the foresters and the valley people also entered the final high.

The coalition army composed of the forest tribes, under the leadership of Tunnan, fought successive battles and victories, and the strange plots were frequent, and the defenders of Qiu who were deployed along the ridge were defeated and retreated, and fled in despair.

Especially in a recent battle, Tunnan, who was wearing power armor, was like an ancestor descending to earth, invulnerable to copper skin and iron bones, riding a giant bear on a rampage, and still entered a no-man's land in the Qiu army, and even the bravest warriors of Qiu were killed on the battlefield.

Countless soldiers did not dare to look at him, let alone stop it, and they threw away their armor and fled.

Power armor appeared on the battlefield of primitive people, which can undoubtedly be called a "dimensionality reduction strike".

As for how Tunnan mastered the use of power armor, it was not a difficult thing.

As long as he connects with the past through "psionic energy", it is not a difficult problem for him.

That battle became the battle of the gods of Tunnan, and he single-handedly broke thousands of soldiers in the Qiu Kingdom!

The situation on the battlefield was precarious for Qiu Guo, but the elders had no way to take the "invulnerable" Tunnan, so they could only pray for the protection of the ancestors.

Seeing that the Qiu people were about to be destroyed, at this precarious moment, a warrior named Qiu Ling suddenly stood up.

Previously, he appeared at the meeting of the Senate with the prophecy of the Ancestors, and went to the depths of the Forbidden Forest on behalf of the Qiu people to find the lost relics of the Ancestors.

Although he has not found the holy relic now, he has passed the trial of the ancestor and brought back the prophecy that the ancestor had left behind.

The ancestor, Qiu Shiye, told them that their mission was to go to the end of the world, and that they were to keep walking until there was no more way ahead.

The will of the ancestors is like the rain after a long drought, which relieved the Qiu people who could no longer support it.

They had been tasked with guarding the Forbidden Forest Valley, and now they could finally leave this land of right and wrong, which was becoming more and more difficult to survive.

Qiu Ling brought back not only the prophecy of the ancestors, but also the hope of escaping.

He not only reorganized Qiu's army, but also led the reinvigorated soldiers to thwart several attempts of the forest tribe to encircle and annihilate several times, and covered the old and weak women and children in the tribe, and took livestock and means of production over the mountains and mountains to break through and escape into the uninhabited eastern mountains.

It is the lower reaches of the Nameless River, connected to a calm sea.

According to the Heavenly Ancestors, if you climb the mountains beneath your feet, cross the hot rainforest all the way east, and cross the vast deserts and grasslands, they will find a land far more fertile than the Forbidden Forest Valley.

It was a resting place given to them by their ancestors.

They will build countless cities in that land, build an infinitely prosperous kingdom, live there in peace, and explore a world far beyond the Forbidden Forest.

Qiu Ling persuaded his people to go on the road with peace of mind, and then left behind the pass in the eastern mountains with 500 cavalry.

Although Tunnan had already obtained the Forbidden Forest Valley, he was obviously not satisfied with the victory in front of him, and wanted more.

Ignoring the prophecy of the temple maid, he led the 3,000 elites of the Doma clan and the 2,000 elite young warriors of the tribes to follow the retreat of the "sinners" to the foot of the eastern mountains, and launched an attack at dusk.

Qiu Ling has been waiting here for a long time.

He ordered his men to cut off the vines that were wrapped around the logs, and let the stones and logs roll down the hillside.

The stones and rolling logs that poured down were like a collapsing torrent, instantly crushing the five thousand tribal warriors under Tunnan's command.

Where have the inhabitants of those forests seen the horror of landslides, they only regarded it as the heavenly punishment descended by the ancestors, and their heads were not smashed by stones, and they were also frightened by the scene of the sky and the earth cracking, and they scattered and fled.

With the organizational prowess of the tribal era, it was almost impossible to reorganize once morale collapsed.

Not letting go of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Qiu Ling led his 500 lizard-ridden warriors to immediately charge.

The wild lizards that poured down the rubble and rolling wood became a haunting nightmare for the foresters.

Looking at the scattered soldiers, Tunan couldn't wait to grit his teeth.

Although he knew that the defeat was decided, he still didn't want to stop there, but relied on the invulnerable "iron armor" on his body, and rode the giant bear to the high place alone.

At this moment, a crisp sound of breaking the air poured into his ears, followed by a crisp sound of "bell".

Before he could come to his senses, an arrow pierced his kneecap.

It was an arrow shot by Qiu Ling.

What he was holding in his hand at this moment was the Divine Bow given to him by the Ancestors!

As for the arrow, it was nothing special, but it was just an arrow made of dark green crystals.

Tunnan screamed and fell off the bear's back, tumbling and falling to the foot of the mountain.

Only then did he remember the prophecy that the temple maid named "Dora" had brought back from the forest!

Although he misunderstood the true meaning of the "Arrow of Punishment" in every sense, in his eyes at this moment, the arrow piercing his knee was undoubtedly a warning to him.

"Retreat!"

Swallowing the humiliation into his stomach, he finally gave the order to retreat and retreated into the forest with the remnants of less than 300 men.

At the same time, Qiu Ling, who shot down the hillside with one arrow and blocked the "hundreds of thousands of troops" without wasting a single soldier, has become a myth in the eyes of the Qiu people and a new legend in this land.

However, he did not stay in this land of right and wrong because of his greed for victory, like Tunnan.

They're going farther away.

They will set foot on the shores of the ocean, and sow the seeds of civilization in every corner of the land.

"Forward!"

He raised his longbow in his hand, yelled at the morale-raising soldiers, grabbed the lizard beneath him by the neck, turned around, and led the group into the depths of the mountains.

Although he didn't want to let go of this group of guys, Tunan still swallowed his hatred into his stomach.

The sudden fiasco shattered his plan to dominate the forest.

Even if the Doma tribe succeeded in retaking the Holy Land, it would have been greatly damaged.

After that, he and his people had to face punishment from the ancestors.

With the support of his subordinates, he felt weaker than ever, and the swelling and pain of the wound even made him feel that his time was numbered.

He was left with only regret in his heart, regretting why he insisted on going his own way in the first place, regretting why he didn't listen to persuasion, regretting why he didn't let those "sinners" live and give himself a chance.

But at this point, it's too late to say anything.

After the sun sets, each side declares its victory and heads to the future they agree on.

As for what happened after that, it was another tortuous and long epic......

(End of chapter)