Chapter 431 Past History (Two Chapters Combined)
The original cycle plane was not inherently a meat grinder-like war fortress.
It once gave birth to a unique civilization, a group of creatures who accidentally ignited the spark of wisdom from among ignorant insects.
They are resilient, united, and possess an amazing ability to learn and evolve.
Intelligence brings technology, and technology drives development.
They emerged from their underground lairs onto the surface, established city-states, explored the mysteries of the stars, and eventually turned their gaze beyond the planes to the vast unknown known to wizards as the "Endless Chaotic Void."
The first expeditionary force was formed, and the first attempt, filled with hope and trepidation, was to leave the cradle that nurtured them and head towards the stars and the sea... This should have been a glorious coming-of-age ceremony for civilization.
Then, disaster struck without warning.
On that day, the endless void, which had been following a certain chaotic rhythm, suddenly began to boil.
The terrifying energy turbulence, material storms, spatial folds, and even time ripples, which exceeded the limits of the civilization's understanding at the time, were stirred up by an invisible giant hand and turned into a destructive tidal wave that swept in.
The expeditionary fleet, which had just broken free of the dimensional barrier and had not yet set sail, was annihilated in an instant like a candle flame in a storm, leaving not even a wreckage behind.
The terrifying aftershocks even shook the plane itself, causing continental plates to shift, ley line energy to run rampant, and the ecosystem to the brink of collapse.
For this fledgling civilization, this was nothing short of a catastrophe.
The repair of the severely damaged plane alone drained almost all of the civilization's resources and the scientists' efforts.
An even more despairing deduction then emerged from the most elite group of scientists: based on the trajectory and characteristics of that devastating impact, it was not a natural phenomenon, but most likely the aftermath of a battle that occurred at an unimaginably distant unknown entity.
A mere leak, a shockwave that traveled countless light-years, nearly destroyed their entire civilization.
Panic spread like a plague.
Fortunately, a certain collective and disciplined instinct of insect civilization came into play, forcibly pulling society back to order from the brink of collapse.
After a long and painful debate, the high-level council finally made a decision: since there was such a terrifying threat from the outside that could destroy them again at any time, they must have the power to confront it.
Since the plane also needs a complete overhaul to repair its damage, why not... forge the entire plane into an unprecedented super weapon?
A grand, even insane, plan was launched.
With the combined power of the entire civilization, they transformed mountains and rivers, rewrote energy circuits, and attempted to turn the plane itself into a war fortress capable of proactive defense and even counterattack against "cosmic-level catastrophes."
The process was extremely arduous, fraught with technical barriers and sacrifices.
But with their indomitable will, they stumbled and struggled to the end.
However, just as they were about to complete the project, the scientists in charge of the core system brought them devastating news: due to a lack of fundamental theory and the limitations of materials technology, their initial vision of a "super weapon" capable of influencing the outside world and launching proactive attacks... had failed.
The final system had its core functions severely stripped down, leaving only one: when it detects that a civilization within a plane is facing an insurmountable threat and is on the verge of extinction, it initiates a forced time reversal covering the entire plane, resetting everything to a "safe point" before the threat occurred.
This means that they created an incredibly sturdy "turtle shell" that could only confine them inside.
Once they leave that plane, they remain those fragile insects, so vulnerable they could be destroyed by even the slightest aftershock of a battle.
The more fatal problem is that the power to reverse time cannot exempt them from it.
Each reboot resets their memories, technology, and social structure, sometimes even causing civilization to regress.
Such an endless cycle is no different from slow suicide.
To resolve this paradox, a civilization whose technological capabilities were already stretched thin ultimately chose an extremely cruel "solution."
Abandon the physical body and unite the spirit.
They forcibly stripped away the consciousness, memory, wisdom... the "soul" of the entire nation—the very essence of civilization—using the highest technology available at the time.
Then, through fusion and datafication, it was injected and solidified into the "core will" of the core control unit of the time paradox generator.
Then, their bodies underwent large-scale biological modification, transforming them into "biological weapons" with basic combat instincts and a certain learning ability—the prototype of the Scythe-Skull Clan.
In theory, the "sphere's will," possessing an independent timeline and hiding place, can be immune to the effects of time reversal and remotely control an army of bodies in the outside world through some kind of spiritual connection, conducting endless cycles of trial and error.
It doesn't matter whether the physical body dies or is reset, as long as the will of the sphere remains, the spark of civilization will remain, and it can continuously "optimize" its armed forces through reincarnation.
The scroll of memory ends here. In order to survive, a civilization chose to collectively "upgrade" into ghosts within machines, and drove its "remains" into an eternal war.
Consciousness struggled to rise from the deep sea, breaking free from the viscous and tragic torrent of data.
Jemin suddenly "opened" his eyes, instinctively gasping for breath, as if he had almost drowned in that vast and desperate sea of memories.
As his consciousness broke free from its immersion in history, a complex mix of emotions swept through Jemin's mind.
But this feeling lasted only a moment.
Jemin’s eyes regained their clarity and sharpness.
Now is not the time for lamentation. The most crucial weapon right now is the massive amount of technical information he has simultaneously acquired from the information stream, in addition to the history of this civilization, including the sphere's architecture, energy circuits, firewall nodes, and operating protocols!
He took immediate action.
Consciousness manipulates mental power, precisely injecting streams of energy signals with specific frequencies and codes into several specific energy flow hubs on the surface of the sphere, following the method it had just "learned."
Buzz...
A burst of light flashed rapidly across the surface of the sphere, and then, a virtual operating interface composed of complex three-dimensional patterns and energy lines was projected out of thin air in front of Jemin.
The interface style is completely different from Wizard Runes, full of geometric beauty and a sense of fluidity like bio-circuits, but its basic input, output, control, and storage logic is the same.
Jemin's hands flew across the keyboard, his mind and actions synchronized, as he quickly input commands onto the interface.
The technical information I had just acquired in my mind now became a sharp weapon for cracking the code.
The progress of breaking through the firewall of the sphere's internal system was advancing rapidly under Jieming's flying fingers.
With its "active defense" capability lost and its internal protocols being specifically cracked, the sphere's defense system suffered repeated defeats.
"No!!!"
Just then, a massive will, a mixture of anger, terror, and despair, erupted once again from the depths of the sphere, directly impacting Jemin's consciousness.
This time, it was no longer a chaotic torrent of information, but a roar of emotions.
"Stop! Intruders! Cease!" Will roared. "We just want to live! We've given up our bodies, given up our freedom, just to survive in this cruel void! Spare us! We can negotiate! We can hand over some of our technology! Stop hacking!"
The wailing and pleading, so different from the cold and grand will before, appeared humble and desolate.
Despite the mental turmoil caused by the roar, Jemin's expression remained unchanged.
Without pausing, the progress bar for cracking the code continued to climb.
However, to prevent the other party from constantly interfering with him, he separated a wisp of his consciousness, carrying a hint of mockery, and sent a message directly "back" to them:
"You say you want to live? But hasn't your civilization already perished long ago?"
The will within the sphere suddenly froze, as if struck by the truth it least wanted to face, and experienced a brief "shutdown".
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Jemin accelerated his efforts and broke through two more layers of encryption protocols while continuing to transmit information, his tone as cold as a knife:
"The one who currently occupies this plane, is the main force in the war, possesses a social structure, and struggles to survive in constant death and reincarnation, is the Scythe-Skull Clan."
"These are the bodies you 'abandoned' back then, which, under the influence of the long passage of time and the laws of reincarnation, have been reborn as new life in this plane, possessing their own naive yet resilient collective consciousness."
“And you,” Jemin’s voice continued mercilessly, “you call yourselves the masters and perpetrators of civilization, but in the observation and definition of us wizards, you are nothing more than aggregates of remnants of consciousness imprisoned by your own fears, parasitic in this machine, a withered branch that has been deliberately cut off from the tree of civilization’s evolution but still thinks it is part of the trunk. You are the scraps that civilization has ‘abandoned’.”
"Nonsense! Insolence! Bastard! We are the essence of civilization! A sublimated form!" The spherical will was utterly enraged.
Perhaps because its sore spot had been hit, the roar became even more frantic and shrill: "It's you! It's you foreign invaders! You destroyed our homeland! You interrupted our path to advancement! You are the destroyers!"
Despite the accusation, Jemin remained unmoved. Instead, his decryption process accelerated due to the other party's intense emotional fluctuations, allowing him to find several more logical loopholes.
"Invaders? I admit it, that's true. The wizarding civilization came with the aim of conquest and the pursuit of knowledge, and that's not something to deny," Jemin replied frankly. "But it was never us who destroyed this world."
At this point, Jemin's mockery wasn't just evident in his mindset; he couldn't help but reveal a sarcastic smile on his face.
"What will destroy this world is yourselves. Or rather, it is the part of 'you' that has chosen to escape, fear, and self-imprisonment."
"You... what did you say?!" For the first time, the spherical will's anger was mixed with an uncontrollable tremor, the fear of having its deepest secret exposed.
“That historical record is beautiful and tragic, but it’s full of loopholes.” As he performed the final firewall dismantling operation, Jemin calmly stated his reasoning.
"As an advanced civilization with independent will, is the social chaos after the plane is damaged really quelled naturally by 'insect discipline'? When it is discovered that the super weapon project has essentially failed and only a time cage can be created, does the entire civilization really agree to carry out the cruel ritual of 'spiritual sublimation' in such a 'united' and 'selfless' manner?"
"Furthermore, based on our actual research, lower-ranking Scythe-Skull Clan members primarily rely on pheromones and instinctive communication at the soul level; they are more like independent newborn life forms. Only a few higher-ranking individuals exhibit characteristics similar to 'remote control' or 'memory implantation.' And if your so-called 'mental connection to manipulate the body' is truly perfect, why are there so many uncontrollable, even contrary-to-your-will, 'war-weariness' and 'fear' emotions spreading among the Scythe-Skull Clan?"
Jemin's reasoning is like a jigsaw puzzle, piecing together scattered clues to form a cruel truth:
"Therefore, I speculate that the original Scythe-Skull civilization must have experienced a severe split in the face of disaster and despair. One faction, perhaps called the 'exploration faction' or 'resistance faction,' may have insisted that they should continue to study and repair the plane, believing that they should eventually go to the stars, even if they faced unknown dangers."
"And the other faction is you—the 'closed-off faction' or the 'fear faction,' who were utterly terrified by that disaster and believe that only by completely sealing off the entire plane and transforming it into an absolute defensive fortress... even if it's just a time prison, can we achieve 'safety.'"
"The so-called 'spiritual sublimation' and 'physical transformation' are not voluntary feats of the entire civilization at all, but are most likely the cruel suppression and transformation carried out by your 'closed faction' on the losers after you won the struggle!"
"You shattered or imprisoned their consciousness, and transformed their bodies into the original, most basic weapons of war for the Scythe-Skull Clan, serving as cannon fodder and consumables for you to protect the 'turtle shell'!"
“And you yourselves,” Jemin looked at the trembling mechanical sphere whose light was gradually dimming, “the so-called ‘sublimation’ is probably just transferring the consciousness of your collective fear into this relatively safe control core, so that you can eke out a living in another form and deceive yourselves into believing that you are still the masters of civilization and are still waging a great ‘survival battle’.”
“Those high-ranking Scythe-Skull Clan members may indeed be some of the ‘control terminals’ you left behind, but most of them are probably ‘deformed products’ that have been re-evolved from those modified bodies during the long cycle of reincarnation, bearing some of the original memory imprints.”
"No...no...you're talking nonsense! We are the saviors of civilization! We have saved..." The roar of the spherical will became chaotic and broken, filled with the exasperation and frantic denial of having the most unbearable truth exposed.
But its reaction precisely confirmed Jemin's deduction.
Beep!
A crisp system notification sound, indicating a change in permissions, rang in Jemin's ears.
The final core firewall has been removed.
(One more chapter.)
The data stream and operational permissions representing the highest control over this "time paradox generator" opened their doors to Jemin like an unguarded treasure.
(End of this chapter)
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