Who let him join the Sword Sect!

Chapter 474 Things from the very, very, very old years
The turbulence of the plane woke Zhang Ze up. He opened his eyes and found himself sitting on an airplane.

A pretty flight attendant was squatting down beside him, politely asking if he felt unwell anywhere.

"I didn't, I..." Zhang Ze stopped mid-sentence, realizing that the scene seemed somewhat familiar.

'Before I traveled through time, I think I was on an airplane.'

The memory became clearer, the firelight seemed to be right in front of him, and Zhang Ze turned to look at the flight attendant's uniform.

XX Airlines, exactly the same.

He raised his hand to look at his watch; the time was 12:29.

And one minute later, a plane crash will occur.

Instinctively, Zhang Ze grabbed the flight attendant's wrist under her 'Are you a pervert?' gaze, wanting to inform the crew of the impending disaster and try to take some remedial action.

Before Zhang Ze could even speak, the plane suddenly stalled, the engines stopped, and it plummeted toward the ground.

Amid the screams of the passengers, the plane began to disintegrate, and at the same time, a golden light enveloped Zhang Ze.

A golden light flashed before his eyes, and Zhang Ze lost consciousness.

Exactly the same as I remember, nothing has changed.

But when Zhang Ze opened his eyes again, he found that he had not risen from the coffin, and the surroundings were not the birdsong and fragrant flowers of the Four Continents.

Instead, he was standing on a bridge with a floor-to-ceiling porthole in front of him.

Outside the porthole lies the boundless universe, where that blue planet rests eternally.

An accident involving a small man-made aircraft seems to have no impact on the planet itself.

Before Zhang Ze could even process what was happening, the beautiful blue planet, like the airplane, exploded into fragments right before his eyes.

It shattered completely, shattered brilliantly.

Because it happened so suddenly, by the time Zhang Ze realized what was happening, there was no longer any chance for reflection. All he could do now was mourn and remember.

Of course, it wasn't just Blue Star that was shattered, but also the bright red sun, the cratered moon, and everything else in this star field.

It's as if an invisible wind is blowing across this universe.

Wherever it passed, everything turned to nothingness.

"Is this true?" Zhang Ze asked the air.

“It really happened before,” Ah Li’s voice rang in Zhang Ze’s ears.

Ali appeared out of thin air and sat steadily on Zhang Ze's shoulder. Leaning against Zhang Ze's head, she pointed to the porthole and explained.

"This is not reality, but a dream made up of our memories."

You can think of it as us having the same dream.
"By the way, your leg is on my stomach," Ah Li said, hooking her tail around Zhang Ze's neck.

Looking at his and Ah Li's shadows in the porthole, Zhang Ze suddenly asked a question, seemingly lost in thought.

"So you're the one who blew up my house?"

"Is the alien invasion of Earth, the abduction of a handsome, aloof man, and the destruction of Earth also part of the plan?"

"Give me back my home."

Ah Li, "?"

"No, can you be normal for once? How did you make that connection?"

Zhang Ze: "Isn't that how it's always portrayed in science fiction movies?"

Ah Li sighed, raised her hand in a gesture of invitation, and let him see for himself.

The scene outside the porthole began to recede, and the blue planet reappeared. As the camera zoomed in rapidly, Zhang Ze saw the plane that had crashed before he traveled through time.

The plane was frozen in mid-air, its nose exploded into a ball of sparks, and the entire plane broke in half.

Looking down from the point of breakage, you can see a clearly defined line.

On the right, there is peace and tranquility; on the left, there are ruins.

“It was the Earth Sea that blew up your house,” A-Li said. “The rising tide of the Earth Sea blew past your house like a gust of wind, and then your house exploded.”

"It wasn't just your house; many people's houses were destroyed, including mine."

As she spoke, Ah Li waved her little hand, and the scene on the porthole began to change again.

A golden planet appeared before Zhang Ze.

"This is my home, isn't it amazing?" Ah Li looked at the golden planet in front of her with some unfamiliarity.

"I don't know the exact name of my home, but you can call it Amber Civilization."

"That's what everyone called us during our time in exile."

Zhang Ze said, "I understand. It must be because you evil alien pigs were trying to study the ultimate secrets of the universe that you brought about the cataclysmic disaster."

"And in order to resolve the disaster, you kidnapped a handsome, intelligent young man from Earth, attempting to use an evil ritual..."

Before Zhang Ze could finish speaking, Ah Li grabbed his head and bit him.

Ah Li, "Shut up, let me finish."

Zhang Ze: "Oh."

After spitting Zhang Ze's head out of her mouth, A Li told Zhang Ze a somewhat uninteresting story.

The beginning of the story is relatively bland. Like most civilizations, the Amber Civilization also began with the first life underwater.

After a long evolution, a race resembling half-dragons was the first to develop intelligence. They then left the ocean, conquered the land, conquered the sky, and finally left the cradle called their mother planet.

After leaving their home planet, the Amber Civilization developed rapidly, conquering its own star system in just 40 millennia.

After that, the progress of civilization did not stop. The entire empire united and continued to expand, until finally the empire's flags were almost everywhere in the universe.

Ah Li spoke very briefly, without going into detail about the past glories, and quickly got to the point.

Ah Li, "At the height of civilization, our scholars confirmed the existence of the Earth Sea."

"We called it the primordial tide back then."

"Of course, you can call it something else. It has many names: Black Barrier, Subspace, Deep... I remember you also have a similar theoretical model concept called the Dirac Sea, although it's not accurate, it's close enough."

"But the past is the past, and the present is the present. Let's still call it Earthsea."

"In short, after confirming the existence of the Earth Sea, our scholars studied it, and the results were both exciting and frustrating."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ze interjected, "The Earthsea will change the form of matter, thereby affecting reality and causing uncontrollable consequences."

Ah Li was sitting across the long table in the conference room. Perhaps feeling it was a bit far, she flew over and sat on Zhang Ze's shoulder again.

"That's right. Scholars have observed the rising of the Earth Sea and believe that it will soon 'submerge' our universe, which has caused divisions within the Empire."

"Some leaders believe that we are invincible and that the mere rise of the sea is nothing to worry about. They believe that the empire can overcome and conquer everything, as long as we are prepared."

"Another group of leaders believes that we should float on the sea of ​​earth and migrate to other universes before affecting reality."

"So, you two had a fight?" Zhang Ze asked.

Ah Li shook her head. "No, we separated peacefully."

"Because jumping to the new universe to expand the empire's territory was part of the plan."

"Whether it was a coincidence or a tragedy, we had just crossed the boundary of the universe when the Earth Sea suddenly rose up and 'submerged' the entire empire."

"My house was blown up."

"You didn't resist?" Zhang Ze asked curiously.

Ah Li said, "I resisted, but it was all in vain."

Ah Li, recalling those memories that were too distant, simulated a piece of metal in this dream she shared with Zhang Ze.

"Raman alloy was the hardest material our civilization could produce at that time, but it was meaningless in the face of the Earthsea, no different from paper."

"It didn't last long before our universe was submerged, and the empire ceased to exist."

"We only learned about this a few years later when a surviving fleet caught up with us, bringing news of the Empire's destruction and some valuable intelligence about the Earthsea."

"After that, we began our life of wandering."

Ah Li sighed. Although it was a story from a very, very, very long time ago, before it was even born, it still made her feel somewhat depressed. To soothe her sadness, Ah Li conjured up an elbow.

As it gnawed, it said, "Although we escaped, that damned Earthsea is still chasing us."

"Its ascent time varies in every universe. But it never stops. Once it reaches a certain critical value, everything in the universe will change, and all civilizations will be reduced to nothing."

"To perpetuate civilization, we have traversed between universes, saving many civilizations in the process, and attracting many equally powerful civilizations that, upon discovering the dangers of the Earth Sea, joined us. However, some were also annihilated before our very eyes."

As Ah Li narrates, the surrounding dreamscape changes once again.

The conference room disappeared, and Zhang Ze was led by A Li to the outside of the starship.

Zhang Ze also got a clear view of the entire exiled fleet.

A bizarre fleet, consisting mainly of giant golden ships and supplemented by all sorts of strange flying machines, stretches endlessly, like a galaxy.

They are currently hovering above a planet.

To exert strong control over that planet.

The civilization on that planet was quite advanced, far more advanced than the Blue Star Zhang Ze remembered. The star rings they built shimmered like hula hoops around the red planet.

Ah Li and her fleet seem to be negotiating with this civilization.

Persuade this civilization to join the fleet and set sail with them.

But clearly, ignorance is bliss, and children never have any reverence for the sea.

Most thriving civilizations are somewhat arrogant; abandoning everything and leaving at will is simply incomprehensible.

Perhaps because Ah Li and the others were too easy to talk to, the negotiation seemed to have the opposite effect.

The entire planet was immersed in a fanatical fantasy of "give me liberty or give me death" and "never be a lackey of the giant golden alien."

Finally, as if to fulfill a task, only a few dozen small aircraft left the planet's atmosphere.

Those seated there were criminals of this civilization, losers in political competition, and religious figures who had voluntarily devoted themselves to the cause.

They always believed that it was all part of an evil alien's plan, and that Earthsea was a lie.

But soon, the Earthsea arrived.

Moreover, it came somewhat suddenly and ahead of schedule.

Upon noticing the anomaly, the fleet abandoned its negotiation plan, and the entire fleet began to flash a red alert light, while a golden barrier began to spread, covering the entire fleet.

Then the fleet vanished just as suddenly as it had arrived, and that stubborn and proud civilization was 'submerged' by the sea thirty minutes later.

It was as if it had never existed.

"In the beginning, this was the case most of the time; we could only save a small number of people."

"So in the later stages, we gave up on negotiations. We only assessed the civilizations, and those that were not at a high enough level were randomly selected to be rescued."

"Those who are mentally ill will be abandoned."

Zhang Ze: "So, is my family either mentally ill, or simply not of a high enough social standing?"

After finishing the braised pork knuckle, Ah Li wiped her hand on Zhang Ze's collar and continued speaking.

"Don't rush, we haven't gotten to your home yet, let's talk about the Earth Sea first."

This time, the surrounding dreamscape changed again.

Zhang Ze and A Li appeared on a beautiful island, where the sky was sunny and the sea was surging.

There is a small mountain in the center of the island.

"To put it simply, you can think of the material universe we live in as this island, while the Earth Sea is just as its name suggests, the beautiful sea right in front of you."

Ah Li picked up an empty seashell and threw it into the sea. Without making a ripple, the seashell was swallowed by the waves.

"Although the sea is beautiful, all the people on the island are landlubbers; they can't swim at all."

"Therefore, as the tide rises, we can only move further inland from the island. Sometimes, if we can predict the arrival of the waves in advance, we will be safe and sound."

“And sometimes, if you’re too late, you’ll pay the price.” As she spoke, Ah Li led Zhang Ze toward the center of the island.

"The sea is boundless, but the area of ​​an island is finite. As the water level gradually rises, the space we can move around in becomes less and less."

"In the end, we will have nowhere to escape."

Ah Li was now riding on Zhang Ze's neck. The two arrived at the mountain peak, but the island had been swallowed up, leaving only a small section of the mountaintop where they could stand.

"But how did it continue in the end? The Four Continents are proof of that. What miracle happened later?" Zhang Ze asked, rubbing Ah Li's little tail.

“There are no miracles, life just finds its own way,” Ah Li said.

"As we fled, after paying a heavy price, we gradually began to adapt to Earthsea, and we were also passively changing."

"Many technologies have been forgotten, and many technologies have started to go astray."

"Those amber crystals actually came about by accident."

"An unexpected event led us to discover the method for preparing this crystal, but at the cost of losing half of our fleet."

Ah Li conjured up an amber-colored crystal and held it in her hands.

"It can temporarily slow down the erosion of the sea."

"In the later stages of our escape, we were often in a situation where we had nowhere to go."

"The safe universe is divided by the Earth Sea. To escape, one can only rely on the protection of these crystals to traverse those fragments that have been eroded by the Earth Sea but have not been assimilated."

"It is precisely because of the protection of these amber crystals that the fleet has been able to remain safe and sound most of the time."

"But everything comes at a price."

Ah Li rubbed her tummy and sighed.

"Because of the frequent and repeated tests of the edge of danger, our life forms have also begun to change."

“You are like us; we were all long and narrow.”

Ah Li said in a serious and solemn tone.

"But in order to maintain the protection of the fleet, we abandoned our bodies, became amorphous, and could change and merge with starships and various machines."

"This kind of mutation occurs in every race of the exiled fleet."

"Some are good, like us, after the transformation, we can produce more amber crystals."

"If something breaks down in the fleet, we can simply be used as a spare part and then replaced when it's repaired... or become part of the starship forever."

"But some mutations were bad, and even nearly caused the complete annihilation of the fleet."

"But no matter what, in order to survive, in the end, we all became people we didn't even recognize."

Ah Li waved her hand, and the conference room disappeared again, while the starry sky reappeared.

Zhang Ze saw a fleet approaching from the opposite direction.

Compared to the original golden fleet, it was much smaller and had become somewhat strange and terrifying.

Except for a small portion that remains in its original state, most of them are covered with golden amber.

Beneath the amber lies an inorganic, rock-like substance, where rock and bio-sized, fleshy organisms are fused together, with only a few metallic specks scattered throughout like sequins.

They are ugly in countless ways, and each type of ugliness is unique.

The current fleet is less of a fleet and more of a group of creatures migrating through the stars.

Zhang Ze tilted his head and looked at the fleet in front of him, feeling that some of them looked somewhat familiar.

He quickly realized what was happening.

"Could these... be the primordial deities from the ancient times?"

“Yes.” Ah Li nodded. “Those gods are civilization itself.”

Zhang Ze: "But that shouldn't be the case. You've survived countless years of fleeing, so why did you turn out like that during the primordial era?"

Ah Li scratched her head. "This is the second story. And to tell this story, we have to start with the Four Continents."

Switching back from space to the conference room, Ah Li sat cross-legged on the table, rocking back and forth, looking into Zhang Ze's eyes, and asked another question.

"By the way, Zhang Ze, do you know where Sizhou is?"

Zhang Ze shook his head. "I can't guess."

Ah Li, "Sizhou is actually your home."

Zhang Ze, "I...I, um? Didn't my house explode too?"

"Yes, it was blown up, but Sizhou is your home."

Ah Li resolutely refused to leave the railway.

(End of this chapter)