Abnormal Doomsday Records

Chapter 188 38. The world is just a huge slice!

"He didn't choose to come back with you, but to stay there and face his own fate. Very good, just as I expected."

When Zhou Ke returned to the Time Lost Man, he heard the old man say those mysterious words, which made him curl his lips and couldn't help asking:

"So, you can see the past and the future. Is there a future in which Qiao Shan will choose to be a coward?"

"Well, you want to talk to me about 'possibilities'. Good, I like this topic."

Professor Walsenk looked at Zhou Ke. He continued to lead the way with his cane in hand, and said slowly with one hand behind his back:
"Many people believe that there should be countless possibilities in the field we call 'the future'. They think that different choices made by each person at each moment will give birth to a different future, but in fact I think they think too much.

To give birth to a completely new possibility is like releasing a butterfly from tens of thousands of meters away, and the butterfly flaps its wings and, after a series of complex circumstances, creates a storm right where we are.

This possibility is not impossible.

But its low probability makes it impossible for ordinary people to accomplish it in reality. Do you think that even in this era of evil land, Qiao Shan's importance is enough to make him transcend the category of "mortals"? "

"So, Qiao Shan's future is set, and he will definitely make this choice at this time?"

Zhou Ke asked, and the time-lost person nodded and said:
"Future development follows the accumulation of the past. The education he received since childhood, the character he developed, the habits he has adopted and his experiences together have shaped him. These shapings are like a constantly accelerating flywheel, which will eventually accumulate enough kinetic energy to push him into that predetermined path.

This is how the human world works. Countless such predetermined paths converge to form an unshakable destiny.

For those who want to change their destiny, what they need to do most is not to seek great power from some existence, but to start by changing themselves.

As for the possibilities we are talking about.

The prerequisite for its appearance is that the timeline of our world must be healthy enough and the civilization must be prosperous enough to withstand all kinds of turmoil and evolve into an immeasurable future.

However, the moment eternity comes, when we accept the blessing of eternity and use that power to lead human civilization forward, our future has already been locked.

What we see is the result of being cunning and sly in matters concerning the foundations of civilization. In this dark sea of stars, this is the only way left for us to move forward.
There is no possibility, Zhou Ke.

Such a weak world can no longer support more possibilities, whether it is the branch timeline 01 where we are now, or the main timeline you came from.

Civilization has exhausted all its efforts in the fight against monsters and the masters behind them.

Civilization is dead.

They just stubbornly refuse to fall, and you and I are their last breaths."

"You're sounding more and more like a pessimistic nihilist."

Zhou Ke complained:
"Who would have believed that you, a person who keeps saying 'there is no hope', are actually the original planner of the 'Sacred Benchmark' project? Can you share with me the idea behind this project?"

他 说:

"How on earth did you come up with the brilliant idea of escaping into the past when the future was bound to deteriorate?"

"Maybe because I'm a historian? Maybe because I'm used to learning from history?"

Professor Walsenk thought for a moment and said:
"My original idea was actually very simple. If the future of the world is destined to be destroyed by a force called 'The End', then by constantly going back in time, we can constantly 'refill' the little time we have left.

We can establish a base in the safe past where we can study the End.

We can accumulate strength for the 'present' under the protection of the 'past' and ultimately defeat the bleak 'future'.

Just like the theory of 'personal destiny' I just described to you
Our continuous efforts in the past are like a rotating flywheel, which can accumulate enough potential energy through repeated accelerated rotations, and eventually push the world across the trench called "the end".

From a theoretical point of view, there is nothing wrong with my idea. The only mistake is that we use the power of chaos to intervene in time.

This is exactly what 'Eternity' wants to see.

In the first experiment of the 'Sacred Benchmark' project, the moment I stepped into the timeline with confidence using the power I was given, the moment the first stone was thrown into the turbulent river and caused the first ripples, the contamination happened.

On the night I entered Branch Timeline 01, when I first looked up at the autumn sky of Anno 2168, I witnessed with my own eyes that the moonlight here turned into the ugly form of the Fetal Moon in just a few breaths.

I knew then that eternal blessings were just poison.

The more we use it, the deeper our civilization will sink into the quagmire.

He used me to pollute our time, causing countless possibilities to vanish that night, forcing us to walk on this path that is accelerating towards the abyss.

"So if this world and civilization are destroyed in the future, then they'd better erect a statue for you on the last day with the words 'culprit' written on it."

Zhou Ke said maliciously:

"Do you have any objection to my verdict?"

"No, your comment is spot on."

The Time-Lost One shook his head and said:
“I am the least prominent of the Eternal Seven, yet I have caused the most damage, and old Acholi has been here for thirty-eight years just to clean up the mess I left behind.

He tried to complete the "Sacred Benchmark" project here, trying to break through the "absolute time point" of the night when eternity descended, and bring the locked fate back to the past era with countless possibilities, and bring the world back to the era that had not yet been polluted by eternity and watched by the end.

Compared to the determined old Acholi, I am more like a coward who did something wrong but has no courage to admit and make amends. "

"But you did something, sir."

Zhou Ke reached out his hand and patted the Time Lost on the shoulder. He said:

"If you were really a coward, you wouldn't be waiting here to take me to see some wonderful things. I think you are probably the kind of 'struggler' who says everything is hopeless and he wants to lie down, but secretly he is more desperate than anyone else.

Because of this, I can imagine how amazing what I will see in a moment will be.

Don't tell me that what you hid in the depths of time was a damn 'final battle weapon against chaos' or something like that. I've been here for a long time, and I've spent more time digging for the truth step by step. I finally realized the dilemma you and I are facing now.
This is not a problem that can be solved by force.”

"Yeah, it's not a problem that can be solved by force. Wouldn't it be great if we realized this from the beginning?"

The time-lost man smiled.

He no longer answered, but continued to move forward with Zhou Ke. Finally, when they reached the depths of chaotic time, a door appeared in front of them without any warning.

“Welcome to the ‘Time Lost’s Hut’, a shelter built by a vagabond hiding in the depths of time. If nothing goes wrong, here you can enjoy the moment when the entire world and civilization enter eternal silence.”

Professor Valsenko made a "please" gesture and said:

"What I'm going to show you is right inside there. Don't be on your guard. I mean no harm to you."

"If a 'Child of Chaos' of your level had any ill intentions towards me, I probably wouldn't be alive today."

Zhou Ke acted very casually. He reached out and pushed open the door. What came into view was indeed a small bedroom. But in addition to a simple bed, it was filled with various books, a working computer and several servers.

There's even a fishing rod next to the bookshelf.

For an old man living in the apocalyptic era, this living environment is quite good.

He strode in and poured himself a cup of tea in a very familiar manner. Then he noticed the wall in front of him. It looked like a projection screen or a constantly switching monitor. All kinds of strange things flashed on the wall.

A huge city still in the civilized era, a well-organized manufacturing factory, high school girls talking and laughing on the street on their way home from school, strange birds flying in the sky, and a brightly lit and orderly research institute.

Zhou Ke initially thought that these were some memorable fragments captured by the time-lover in time, but as he watched, his expression became serious.

Under the silent gaze of the time-lost man, Zhou Ke stood up and walked to the wall with the cup of tea.

He stretched out his hand towards the wall where the images kept changing, as if he was diving deep into the water and even causing ripples. After one grasp, he took out a cup of freshly made milk tea.

It has warmth and is very real, and doesn't seem like some kind of imaginary creation at all.

Zhou Ke looked at the things in his hand, then raised his head to look at the picture on the wall. There, a confused purple-haired milk tea girl stared at the workbench at hand, explaining to the impatient customer in a daze why the milk tea she had just made disappeared.

"So, what is this 'Time-Lord's Little Magic'?"

Zhou Ke casually threw the milk tea back, giving a "surprise from heaven" to the unhappy customer who was making things difficult for the milk tea lady in the picture.

He turned around and looked at the Time Lost Man, who did not hide anything and explained briefly:
“I call it ‘time slicing’. I slice the world of a certain moment or a period of time on those ‘abandoned’ timelines, and make it circulate continuously in a closed circle of time, so as to ensure the ‘vitality’ of the time slice.”

"Um"

Zhou Ke narrowed his eyes and said after a few seconds:
"So, after the Acholi Consortium's last Sacred Baseline project failed, they used large-scale 'time cutting' to ensure that the situation would not collapse to the end of the world. You were also involved. Everyone thought that those cut timelines were abandoned, but in fact they were not!
Did you save them?
How many slices are there here? " "The answer is 65432. "

The time-obsessed man stepped forward and waved his hand. The rotating images on the wall were stretched out in an instant and turned into an orderly arrangement like a computer folder. Zhou Ke saw the densely packed marks on it. Out of the habit of a historian, Professor Valsenko classified these slices and arranged them together according to the advancement of the timeline.

周柯看到了其中一个被标记为“分支时间线01-纪元2189年-9.25/9.27-阿尔福金海岸恶土保留区毁灭前记录-450万人”的文件名。

He let out a long breath at this moment, clapping his hands while saying to the expressionless Time Fan:

"The past has not perished. The past has always been here. The past has always been well protected by a kind person in a discontinuous way. You have used the power given to you by Chaos to do the best you can in this doomsday era.

You have preserved your civilization with your own hands.

Just what I saw with my own eyes is enough for me to pay tribute to you, Professor Walsink.

To be honest, before I saw all this, in my eyes you were just an old man who used your power recklessly and brought about the end of the world, but felt guilty about it.

But now, I know for sure that you really want to make amends.”

"It's useless, Zhou Ke. If this is all I can do to save the past and the world, I wouldn't have to come looking for you."

Professor Valsink stretched out his hand and sighed in front of the wall that sealed more than 60,000 time slices. At this moment, he no longer concealed his old age and powerlessness.

他 说:

"I can only freeze them before the situation gets worse. I can't really reverse time. I just 'freeze' them at the second before the end of the world, letting them repeat the experience of that day in a limited time.

It's a sad cycle, and I even doubt that 'Eternity' knows what I'm doing.

He did not stop me because there was no need. He was expecting me to be crushed by this feeling of powerlessness and eventually fall into darkness, along with these slices I protected, into chaos.

after all
Zhou Ke! The future of these people is determined!"

The time-obsessed person switched the scene to the perspective of the milk tea girl and the grumpy customer who were teased by Zhou Ke just now. He pointed at the people on this street and said to Zhou Ke:
"You are now crossing the surface of the Bad Land and heading to the continent across the Waste Sea. You will most likely still find the ruins of this milk tea shop in Canning Town, which has been occupied for thirty-eight years. However, she and he have already become monsters and are now rampant in their former hometown.

These are not true!

Zhou Ke, it is just a faint possibility that I try my best to preserve.

Either we want to bring them back from the past to reality, or the Sacred Baseline Project succeeds and takes us back to the absolute point in time to ensure that all this does not lead to the terrible doomsday we are facing today.

Otherwise, we can only start from the source!

The Moon of Fetal Movement locks all possibilities on branch timeline 01, and it locks the direction of all time within its coverage.

If you can get rid of that thing."

The Time-Lost One heaved a sigh of relief and said:
"I can try to 'glue' these preserved slices to the timeline that is no longer bound, and bring those people from the past back to the Bad Land in a reversed way."

"But isn't it the despair and pain of Thoth the Enlightener that is conceived in the Birth Moon?"

Zhou Ke said:
"And that thing is almost complete. According to the information I have so far, it will most likely be completed when the second experiment of the Sacred Benchmark Project begins, which is four months from now."

“Yes, the Moon of Fetal Movement is a terrifying thing that can be caused by the Eternal Sample under extreme circumstances. It stems from the Inspirer Thoth’s persistence in his faith.

He is a very nice person.

But unfortunately, he, like me, had become the most terrible destabilizing factor when he was chosen by eternity."

The Time Lost nodded and said:

"The Fetal Moon is the rift where the Subspace and the material world directly meet. If it can be destroyed, although it will not end the erosion of Chaos, the isolation of the material world and the Subspace will make everything on this land away from the source of chaos, and the timeline will no longer be locked.

However, the 'absolute time point' that old Acholi was determined to break through was not so easy.

On the night when the seven of us received the eternal blessing, the seven 'locks' were already locked on the 'sacred timeline', which is a special timeline. It is the foundation of all possibilities in the time field and the main body of all derived timelines.

The Sacred Baseline Project aims to influence the most fundamental timeline, just like a pair of hands pushing us to move on the scale of time.

Unfortunately, with the absolute time point blocked, it is impossible for old Acholi to push everything back to the good old vanilla era. He can only get infinitely close to that night, but can never truly cross the 'day of the advent of eternity'.

I have enough reasons to suspect that Eternity knows very well what old Acholi is doing, but He lets it do nothing just to make old Acholi accept the reality after repeated attempts and failures.

He and we can try as many times as we want, but we cannot face the twin threats of Chaos and the End at the same time.

I am not a fatalist.
But I can tell you clearly, Zhou Ke, after the advent of eternity, the future leading to doomsday has been established, and everything we are doing now is just a struggle in despair.

The Sacred Benchmark Project, the Eternal Singularity Project, and all the other conjectures and experimental projects that never even made it to the implementation stage are just the death struggle after the noose is put around the neck.

I've always wanted to see this!

Our struggles and pains bring Him joy and excitement. The Chaos Lord from the Warp is clearly a tragedy lover.

You, me, and even this world are just chess pieces that He uses to fight against His archenemy, the End.

Perhaps, our pain and despair nourish Him. After all, we cannot expect a ghost place like the Warp to give birth to any evil spirits that pursue truth, goodness and beauty.

From this perspective, perhaps we have never accepted the blessing of eternity, and allowing this world to be frozen and destroyed by the end would be a quick death for us. Unfortunately, we are no longer qualified to even ask for death. "

The Time Lost One shed a tear that shone with an ochre-colored light.

It disappeared in the glory of time the moment it dripped. The cruel eternity seemed not to allow the guy blessed by it to be so weak. It would not even give Professor Valsenko the power to express his sorrow.

Zhou Ke took a sip of tea.

He listened to everything the Time Lost described with a blank expression and a lack of "empathy". After the latter's emotions recovered a little, he asked:
"So, what do you want me to do for you by telling you this?"

"Why should I teach you how to save Rhine?"

The time-lost man raised his head and said to Zhou Ke:
"Don't you understand? You can 'record' a life that is about to fall into the contaminated subspace and take her back to the human world from the hands of Chaos. That also means that you can also 'record' the more than 60,000 slices I left here!
In my continuous study, I have confirmed that the symbol of the power of the end is not just destruction. Countless extinct civilizations and worlds have already been recorded in that pale and cold corona of light.

What He represents is a kind of cosmic law, which is the foundation of the universe!

If all the universes are self-growing living things, then the end represents the god of death they will see before they die. He will evaluate and destroy everything according to his own standards. There is no generous pardon in his hands, but if it is a sufficiently outstanding civilization, it will be preserved and recorded.

Perhaps after the demise of this season's cosmic civilization, in the time singularity of the next cosmic explosion, those recorded civilizations and lives will have a precious second chance.

He is not evil!
Chaos isn't actually evil.

The power and symbol of the foundation of the universe always has its two sides. For example, I have always believed that if there is an end, then there must be a corresponding symbol of the universe of "departure" or "development".

They are like a pair of twins, one starting from the origin and the other starting from the end. At the moment they meet, a complete cosmic era can be established.

That is the final establishment of the 'Sacred Timeline' which has a beginning, an end and is absolutely unique.

From this point of view, the universe system we are in may really be very young, because the end and the development have not yet met. Of course, all of the above are just the fantasies of an old man who brought about the end of the world himself when he was bored. Just listen to it for fun.

Anyway, this is what I beg you to do.”

The Time-Lost One bent down in front of Zhou Ke and pleaded:

"When everything is irreversible, please use your power to 'record' these slices into your symbol, just like the shadow warriors you use. Even if 99.9% of the lives in these slices are not qualified to serve you, they are still worth remembering one last time.

I also have a similar 'slice library' on the main timeline. If you can reach there in the future, please take on more responsibilities."

"Oh, so, what you want me to do is to become the 'corpse collector' of your civilization?"

Zhou Ke curled his lips and said:
"This is really an unlucky job, and I think you don't have to be so desperate. Maybe there will be a turnaround in the future? Okay, I'll take this job. If that day really comes, I will record them all and let them sleep forever in that pale, cold light crown.

But, Lao Deng.

You need to pay people for work. You gave me such an unlucky offer. If the deposit for this job is too little, believe it or not, I will file a complaint against you to the End of the World Labor Bureau right now?"

"Haha, I wouldn't feel comfortable if you didn't discuss some conditions for such a big thing. I've already prepared the deposit for you."

(End of this chapter)