Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 448 Life Forms Proliferating in an Infinitely Abnormal Way (4k)

The underworld quietly took shape, and the news of Shan Qing's fall had spread throughout the solar system. The immense power of faith he had inspired surged into the underworld like rivers flowing into the sea, becoming the driving force behind its evolution.

The mountains and rivers, originally adorned with golden threads, gradually lost their brilliance and transformed into verdant peaks. The clouds rising from the boundless grasslands also slowly merged into this newly born underworld, making its structure increasingly clear.

The underworld exists outside the material world, existing as a non-quantum world, non-microcosm, non-high-dimensional space, and non-supermembrane space, thus becoming an inseparable part of the present universe.

The maturation of the earth's veins has made Earth the only beacon for cultivation in the vast universe. Everything seems unchanged, yet it also seems to have become completely different.

"We won!"

Inside Tsinghua University, the dying Einstein was jolted awake from a dream.

"What? You won?" the old wife asked in confusion.

"I dreamt of a faraway place where everything was engulfed in war... but we won the war." Einstein clenched his fist, somewhat excited.

Old wife: "I think you must be getting senile. The Trisolarans' spaceship hasn't even reached Earth yet!"

Einstein said, "It's not a matter for the Trisolarans. Sigh, you wouldn't understand even if I told you."

...

Boom!

Another earthquake has struck, marking the 10th or so global earthquake to hit the Earth in a short period of time.

Global earthquake monitoring networks have recorded yet another release of energy originating from the Earth's core. Mountains are adjusting their breathing, ocean currents are shifting, and the Earth is undergoing a subtle structural reorganization according to the will of the Earth's veins.

The federal government is trying to investigate the cause of the earthquake at its source, but it has apparently not found anything. Since there has never been a global earthquake before, this has inevitably caused widespread panic.

After failing to reach Luo Ji through consultation, the federal government decided to launch a plan to explore the Earth's core, naming the project "Project Sunset." With technological breakthroughs, the once extremely difficult task of reaching the Earth's core is no longer so challenging.

The research team of "Project Sunset" drew inspiration from the white dwarf fish, a species that can freely swim in solid environments. With the help of strong interaction technology, it is not difficult to build an underground spacecraft similar to the white dwarf fish that can travel deep into the earth.

The federal government also believes that since humanity has already achieved the dream of "reaching for the moon and capturing turtles in the ocean," it is time to explore the land beneath our feet.

Delving into the Earth's core to explore the mysteries of its continuous energy release, which causes global earthquakes, is also essential work.

What humans don't know is that every tremor of the earth's crust is another extension of the earth's ley lines' sensing range.

Initially, the range of the earth's veins was limited to within one hundred astronomical units. However, with repeated expansions and the infusion of faith, it has now extended to beyond one hundred and twenty thousand astronomical units.
This extends all space within the Oort Cloud's range to the Earth's ley lines, including the Trisolaran Second Fleet, the First Earth Refugee Fleet, Starship Earth, the Trisolaran First Fleet, the Four-Dimensional Fragment, and the First Deadline.

The earth's veins thus sensed a large number of 'extraterrestrial intelligent life,' with a total number of life forms of no less than 20 billion.

In addition to its direct coverage of two light-years, the Earth's veins can extend their sensing capabilities into outer space, ultimately forming a detection range with a maximum radius of ten light-years.

Within this range, more than ten star systems, including the 'Four Bodies' galaxy and the Eridanus galaxy, as well as the Second Dead Line, the God's Retirement Fleet, the Bubble World Fleet, and so on, are also included in the Earth Vein's perception.

The earth veins' perception transcends time and space; all material information becomes part of the total information they possess. As an existence on par with the 'Heavenly Dao,' from the moment the earth veins mature, this space already has an 'owner.'

Next, within the area covered by the ley lines, the more faith power there is, the greater the influence of the ley lines will be.

As the earth's veins continue to spread.

The thinker also sensed the abnormality 'within the body'.

But at this moment, it simply didn't have the 'energy' to deal with these things. Just using the power of the universe, along with the thousands of Black Forest deities, to deal with the hostile life forms in that dead-line sphere in the Milky Way's halo region had almost exhausted all its subjective initiative.

The opponent's self-destruction, which resulted in mutual destruction, not only caused the siege of the gods to be almost wiped out, but also rendered the Thinker an almost unconscious being.

It is precisely because of the complete loss of subjective initiative that dark matter and dark energy, which originally account for 95% of the total mass-energy of the universe and were about to be used by thinkers, have once again lost the opportunity to condense.

After the subjective initiative of thinkers was extinguished, the universe returned to the control of objective laws. Without the guidance of thinkers, the god of the dark forest in the heavens also fell into defeat.

The ultimate goal of the Black Forest Gods was also to prolong the lifespan of the universe as much as possible, but because the Black Forest Gods believed that all life would accelerate the end of the universe, they resorted to the Dark Forest Strike. Originally, the Thinkers, as the Black Forest Gods' new hope, were enough to guide them and barely unite the Black Forest Gods.

But as the Thinkers lost all agency, a chain of suspicion instantly enveloped the Dark Forest faction. The true Dark Forest God began indiscriminately attacking all nearby gods, even those who had just been allies. Meanwhile, the false Dark Forest God seized the opportunity to flee the battlefield in an attempt to preserve himself.

Without the constraints of thinkers, the concept of "unity" would never have arisen in the Dark Forest God.

Therefore, in that distant battlefield, the Dark Forest faction suffered a crushing defeat, while the Light Ocean faction swept away the Dark Forest gods with overwhelming force.

True Black Forest Gods like the Star God Civilization, facing an almost endless siege by the Light Sea Gods, mostly chose to persevere to the end and ultimately perished.

The pseudo-Black Forest God, who escaped quickly, immediately hid in the corners of the universe, completely losing the qualification to fight against the Light Ocean faction.

Since the war in the eleventh-dimensional universe, this is the second time that a god-level civilization has waged a war that has engulfed almost the entire universe. This first war between god-level civilizations in the three-dimensional universe era ultimately ended in a complete victory for the Light Sea faction.

After eliminating the obstacles posed by the Black Forest God, the Zeroers and the Risk Removers began to join forces to convert dark matter into observable matter and dark energy into thermal energy, attempting to prematurely stop the continuous expansion of the universe and change the fate of the universe to the Big Crunch.

The step of converting dark matter into observable matter is relatively simple.

As dark matter accounts for 27% of the total mass-energy of the universe, advanced civilizations are already very familiar with its existence. Dark matter is composed of massive particles moving at speeds far below the speed of light, and it is deeply involved in the formation of the universe's structure across various dimensions. However, for the same mass, dark matter can produce far less gravitational effects than observable matter.

Unlike observable matter, which is concentrated in galaxies, dark matter exists in the form of "dark matter halos" that surround galaxies (such as galactic halos) and is evenly distributed throughout the universe.

Hundreds of Zeroers, thousands of Risk Removers, and the vast majority of powerful Rule Gods, including tens of thousands of God civilizations, have devoted themselves to the task of transforming pieces of dark matter into observable matter.

Only in this way can the gravitational effects caused by observable matter be enhanced on a large scale.

According to the gods' plan, it is estimated that in about 397 million years, 1% of dark matter will be converted into observable matter.

Compared to dark matter, dark energy is the most troublesome thing for the gods.

Although both dark matter and dark energy have "dark" in their names, they are not related at all.
Dark energy, as the culprit causing the accelerated expansion of the universe, accounts for about 68.3% of the mass-energy of the universe in the standard cosmological model. Dark energy also has negative pressure, which manifests as an anti-gravity effect, driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.

It is evenly distributed in space, does not clump together on a cosmological scale, and does not become diluted due to the expansion of space.

Because it accounts for the majority of mass-energy, the negative pressure effect of dark energy is far greater than the gravity that caused the formation of the observable universe, which causes the universe to expand rather than contract.

Even if all dark matter were converted into observable matter, making up 31.7% of the total, the gravitational effect would still be no match for the negative pressure effect of dark energy.

Only by converting dark energy into thermal energy, or other forms of energy, so that it is ultimately less than the gravitational effect of observable matter, making dark energy unable to counteract gravity, can the great goal of the Zero-Returners—"to shrink the universe and bring the singularity to zero"—be achieved.

This is also the fundamental reason why the Bright Ocean faction launched this Great Cosmic God War.

At this very moment, the thinker, having lost all agency, is like a person suffering from severe depression, forced to watch helplessly. It watches as dark energy is transformed into heat energy bit by bit, and dark matter evolves into new observable galaxies, all under the manipulation of these gods. Every cosmic second, at least one galaxy of the Milky Way's mass is born.

At this rate, in at most 50 to 60 billion years, the total gravitational effect of observable matter will exceed the sum of the total negative pressure effect of dark energy.

The universe will once again fall into an endless cycle.

Thinkers are unwilling to do so.

But as I was thinking about it, the earth's veins shook once again.

The thinker, having exhausted its last bit of initiative, glanced in the direction of the Laniakea Supercluster, seemingly wanting to know what was happening there.

Wasn't that stubborn, anomalous life form from the Milky Way already completely wiped out at such a cost?

Is there more?
At the same time, the earth's veins also vaguely sensed the gaze of the heavens.

The tendrils of the earth's veins made some kind of contact with the thinker's gaze.

But this contact only lasted for one Planck time.

[Earth's Ley Lines: Who?]

But no one can answer it anymore.

At the same time, the two Zero-Returners also discovered the Thinker's almost paralyzed 'body'. While calling on their friends, they directly set up two Zero-Return microcosms with diameters of several light-years and smashed them towards the Thinker.

The microcosm struck the thinker's 'body' precisely, without the latter showing any intention of dodging. The collision between the thinker and the microcosm occurred; physical rules were annihilated, mathematical logic shattered, but the latter remained 'paralyzed' there, completely still.

This stunned the two who had returned to zero.

Zeroer Alpha: "What's going on?"

Zeroer β: "It seems a bit dead."

Zeroer Alpha: "Continue the attack?"

Zero-Returner β: "Even if only a corpse remains, it cannot be destroyed by the microcosm; it represents the entire macrocosm."

Zeroer Alpha: "So we're not going to fight then?"

Zeroer β: "It could revive in an instant, but it didn't. This is a new signal. Go and inform everyone. Also, the reason for the defeat of the Black Forest Gods has been found."

The two Zero-Returners cast tens of thousands of death lines, weaving them back and forth to form a massive spatial cage, trapping the Thinker who was too lazy to escape. They then summoned other Sea Gods of Light.

The Thinker's consciousness, lying in the cage of death lines, fluctuated slightly. The brief contact with the ley lines made it realize that the threat posed by the ley lines was greater than that of any god. Under normal circumstances, it should have immediately eliminated this abnormal being.

But it doesn't want to move right now.

It began to recall everything from the past.

It was his own derivative, the 'Will of the Stars,' that betrayed him. It was because of the erroneous information from the Will of the Stars that the Thinker decided to gamble all his subjective initiative to kill Luo Qing, who was trapped in the death line. Although Luo Qing died, judging from the other party's memories, the abnormal phenomenon did not end with the death of this visitor from another world.

The ley lines are the seeds he left behind.

It won; Luo Qing died.

It lost; it lost all initiative.

Without the intervention of thinkers, the actions of the Ocean of Light will lead the universe down a path of no return, repeating the Big Bang singularity, while the ley lines, like cancer cells in the universe, will lead the entire universe toward a conscious collapse.

But compared to the terrifying future of 'conscious collapse,' the Thinker prefers to repeat the cycle of the singularity. Since he is powerless to intervene, the Thinker can now only hope that the weak ley line will naturally decay.

Through the memories of the deceased Luo Qing, the thinker has come to understand all of this: as long as that weak civilization perishes, the earth's veins will also perish; that tiny Earth is now determining the fate of the universe.

Having lost all subjective initiative, the thinker's subconscious, carrying its lingering thoughts, shrouded the entire Laniakea Supercluster like a thin layer of mist.

"Thank goodness... thank goodness I killed that infinitely proliferating life form. If it had been a few time particles later, I probably wouldn't have been able to defeat it even if the entire universe had fought. I saved the universe."

Thinking of this, the Thinker smiled with satisfaction before falling into a coma.

Shortly after the thinker lost all consciousness, more and more gods of light and the ocean arrived at the scene.

“It seems… to be asleep,” one of the risk takers said.

"No wonder the Black Forest God's lines collapsed at the first touch," the remnant will of Nebula said.

"This was originally a great opportunity, but unfortunately we weren't prepared beforehand, which caused the most troublesome unifying will within the Black Forest God to escape," said the Entropy Civilization.

"Killing it is harder than killing the will of a star." The God of Rules was still shaken.

"Don't worry, it alone won't amount to much," Lan Yiwen said.

"Friends, compared to those Dark Forest Gods, don't you think it's more important to put the will of the universe into a slumber?" String Civilization pointed to the Thinker in the Death Line.

An old God stroked his beard, pointed at the risk-taker, and asked a question:
"Who did it?"

“I don’t know who did it, but I do know that since the thinkers fell asleep, the universe has been free from subjective initiative to disrupt things, leaving only objective laws.” A Zero-based individual stepped forward.

It joyfully proclaimed to all the gods: "And an objectively regular universe is what we have always dreamed of. In short, we have won this battle, a return to zero is within reach, and a beautiful pastoral era is just around the corner."

"Compared to the cycle of returning to zero, I am more curious about why the thinkers are asleep. I am going to seek the truth." The civilization of truth left the scene and flew into the inner universe.

"The task of converting dark energy and dark matter is now yours. I'm going to have some fun too," said a cat god, before leaving as well.

"I'm going to hunt down the remaining Black Forest Gods," said the Cube Civilization.

More and more of the Light Ocean Gods left the scene, leaving only a group of Light Ocean Gods who had a strong sense of responsibility for the universe, including civilizations such as Zero, Risk Relief, and God.

Each of the god-level civilizations has its own reason for existence, and the gods who remained have long known this. Therefore, they did not demand that their former comrades-in-arms do some boring and arduous work with them.

God conjured a shovel and brandished it, addressing the remaining gods:

"The universe's subjective initiative is gone, but our subjective initiative remains. It's time to dialectically unify our subjective initiative with the objective laws of the universe through practice. In short, let's get to work! Only through hard work can we change the universe into the way we hope, starting with transforming every drop of dark matter!"

(End of this chapter)