Chapter 782 - 781: It's All Connected, Everything Is Connected
Then, a ball of fire rose up.Yu Sheng saw a sudden flicker of light emerge in that uniform gray and white, like a lamp being lit in the fog. He then saw countless restless shadows suddenly manifest throughout the mist after that light appeared—the originally cooling down, information-void ruins of world clusters were abruptly awakened.
Yu Sheng looked around and saw nothing but endless pale mist, with countless shadows spreading within it, surrounding that light. He felt his vision pulling back rapidly, yet no matter how far it extended, he couldn't see the end of those shadows.
At this moment, two flickering starlights on the opposite side of the mist made Yu Sheng regain his senses. He heard the Captain's voice echo in his ears again—
"They're everywhere, innumerable in quantity. They don't just lurk in this Sea of Annihilation; they are the annihilation itself—a countless number of worlds break and reform here, with silent dying remnants after the apocalypse and some like the precursor to our Universe briefly sustaining as an ark of doom.
"Now, they are drawn together by this flame, a mathematical machine which began to operate anew after the annihilation of all things, like a waterhole left in a dried-up ocean for those remnants on the verge of suffocation."
"Please have some tea."
The silver-haired Puppet lady stepped into the mist, the illusion crumbled beside her and was collected back into the transparent glass sphere. Several cups of hot tea were placed on the counter, with steam curling up elegantly.
Yu Sheng looked down, startlingly seeing his cup filled to the brim, with the steeped tea leaves standing like a little mountain at the rim. He didn't even notice the water at first glance—coming out of the shock from the surrounding annihilation, he instantly fell into another layer of shock.
Yu Sheng then saw the Captain opposite him wearing a somewhat delicate expression. The Creator looked a bit awkward: "Alice's tea-making skills are a bit unstable... Actually, she practiced before, but she hasn't entertained guests much these years, so she reverted back..."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Hu Li was already thrilled. The demon fox girl directly pulled out a rice spoon from her tail, blinking her expectant big eyes at Yu Sheng: "Savior, are you going to eat it? If not, I'll eat it~"
Yu Sheng had just nodded halfway when his cup was already in Hu Li's hands.
"Oh my," Erin belatedly exclaimed, quickly scrambling onto Yu Sheng's shoulder, "So does that mean outside our Universe, there are as many Dark Angels as... Yu Sheng, as what?"
Yu Sheng: "As the hairs on an ox."
"Ah, right, as the hairs on an ox..."
The Captain and Puppet lady on the other side glanced at the Little Puppet skillfully climbing onto Yu Sheng's shoulder with a subtle expression. Holding back for a while, the Captain finally couldn't help but ask, "Don't you usually manage her?"
Yu Sheng's mouth twitched twice: "She... she bites."
Captain: "..."
And then Yu Sheng overheard the Captain and the silver-haired Puppet nearby start murmuring:
"I told you back then not to let her play with Shirley..."
"But that couldn't stop it, and the plan wasn't for her to interact with Gou after all."
"An oversight..."
"Let's talk about the Dark Angels," Yu Sheng interjected halfway, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead and quickly pulling the topic back, "I generally understand the situation now. When dealing with the Dark Angels before, I also realized that they were twisted remnants of other destroyed worlds, but I didn't expect the scale to be so large..."
As he said this, he saw the Captain in front gently shake his head: "The 'invasion' of the Dark Angels itself isn't actually the issue."
Erin's eyes widened at this: "...Huh? This isn't the issue?"
"Most of the Dark Angels are very fragile—the destructive power they manifest upon entering the real Universe is primarily due to informational pollution caused by incompatible laws. But before entering the real Universe, the majority of them have already self-disintegrated."
The Captain spoke slowly, his fingers tracing a glowing circle in the air, then tapping several small, glowing dots beside it.
"Moreover, for the world I've created, the mass and information density carried by the Dark Angels isn't sufficient to structurally influence the underlying order of the Universe—at least not in the short term.
"Finally, and most importantly... in a sense, we now actually need the power of those 'angels.'"
The tiny glowing dots surrounding the circle grew increasingly numerous, finally merging into a dense mass, resembling a swamp.
Hu Li, who was holding a spoon eating tea leaves, immediately looked up at these words, her eyes wide with two leaves stuck to the corners of her mouth: "Huh?"
The Captain nodded and repeated, "We now need the power of those Dark Angels."
The formerly silent Luna, who had been quietly a background attendant for half the day, broke the silence: "What do you mean?"
"Look, this is the world where all beings exist today, it's trapped in a quagmire made up of remnants and ruins," the Captain raised his hand and pointed to an illusion he sketched in the air, "The 'invaders' from beyond the world are endless, and whether they are powerful or weak, the most dangerous part is actually this sea of annihilation itself.
"The harsh environment of this ruin is continually eroding the order of the entire Universe, and the invasion of those Dark Angels is merely an expression of this process. Fundamentally, this heap of cooling ashes itself does not welcome the existence of a thriving Universe...
"A drop of water won't evaporate in the ocean, but if the ocean is completely evaporated, then the last puddle remaining on the dry seabed will evaporate at an unimaginable speed.
"This is the trouble we are facing."
Yu Sheng furrowed his brows tightly, vaguely thinking of something: "So, you mean..."
"The dry seabed itself is the greatest and ultimate threat, being the only puddle on this seabed, we have only two paths: either we bring the entire ocean back, or we leave this place to head to another ocean.
"The difficulty of the former is unimaginable, it means we have to reshape countless worlds, we would need to widely recreate the miracle of a 'Second Singularity Explosion' in the midst of the Dark Angel cluster, frankly speaking... this path is almost impassable, so in reality, we only have one path to choose.
"And that is to leave this dry seabed and seek out another abundant ocean."
"Another abundant ocean..." Yu Sheng frowned, "Does it really exist?"
He added a sentence: "It's not that I'm pessimistic, it's just that I've seen what you showed me, beyond the world there's only ashes, what if, when looking from afar, there are only remnants, let's make the worst assumption... what if this Sea of Annihilation is endless?"
"It has an end," the Captain laughed, though his face always gave a gloomy feeling, when he smiled, the brilliance from his deep-set eyes always inspired trust, "I can be sure of it."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, and in that smile, he instantly understood, "Is there any crucial evidence?"
"In fact, until decades ago, I hadn't found any evidence," the Captain nodded lightly, his voice low and calm, "For a long period, my 'long voyage' plan was only supported by limited data obtained from extensive long-term observations of the Sea of Annihilation, and a series of vague deductions with unclear results— but decades ago, evidence appeared."
Yu Sheng instinctively adjusted his sitting posture, leaning slightly forward, listening to the Captain speak in a deep voice—
"In the endless void, I observed a bright trail."
"A trail?!" Yu Sheng was astonished, "What do you mean? Are you saying another ark has already flown out?"
"No, it's not flying out, it's flying in."
The Captain shook his head.
"That trail was very brief, and since my observation technology wasn't mature at the time, I couldn't capture much information, but I can be sure that it came in from somewhere beyond the Sea of Annihilation.
"That trail carried information characteristics completely different from those of the Dark Angel or 'Doomsdays Ark' like the Endless Sea, its existence was simple and orderly, and although it started disintegrating in the void, its core part still shone brilliantly—it originated from a place where order is stable and all things flourish, wherever it is, it must be outside the Sea of Annihilation."
Yu Sheng's eyes widened halfway through listening, the Captain's description of the trail strangely moved something in his mind, followed by an uncontrollable surge of bold and amazing conjectures.
He suddenly turned his head, seeing Hu Li, who had a mouthful of tea leaves, also lifted his head almost simultaneously, he swallowed the stuff in his mouth with effort, his large golden-red eyes flickering with indescribable brilliance.
Their reaction naturally caught the Captain's attention.
"Why are you two showing that expression?"
"Hu Li landed at my place on a spaceship!" Yu Sheng quickly said, "We've already confirmed, that ship is from beyond the Universe— the time should be over 70 years ago!"
The scene instantly fell silent, even the Captain opened his eyes slightly wider, and it took several seconds for the silence to be broken by a strange soft "pop."
Yu Sheng saw a silver-haired head plop and fall onto the counter, rolling to the floor, and the "Puppet Progenitor" standing nearby hurriedly reached out in a panic, randomly grabbing at the rolling head, which issued a series of cries for help: "Captain, save save save save save..."
Seventeen saves per second.
Yu Sheng was dumbfounded on the spot; he had heard from Marin about the Alice Puppet having unstable joints due to the "blessing from the Ancestor," but seeing the Puppet Progenitor herself performing a joint dislocation was entirely different.
Thus the originally serious atmosphere was instantly shattered by the falling head, Erin reacted swiftly, immediately jumping from Yu Sheng's shoulder to the counter to intercept the head, but missed her footing and instead kicked it, the Puppet Progenitor's head was kicked straight into the Captain's face, who quickly caught it and then clumsily tried to reinstall it on Alice's body...
Sitting in the midst of this noisy commotion, Yu Sheng was dazed for three to five seconds before suddenly breaking into a smile, finding the Captain's place to be unexpectedly full of life and talent...