Chapter 1956 The Past in the Other World
The ancient ruins research center had once made some deductions about the Other World"s origin and guessed that it might be an important port of the ancient civilization. That was why interstellar visitors from everywhere had gathered there.
Zero told Meng Chao that their guess was mostly correct.
It was indeed a port.
To be more precise, it was a lighthouse, a transit station, and an incubation pool.
This port was connected to three bridges at the edge of the universe that had just been discovered by the ancient civilization. Forty-two galaxies in the area likely had life.
Zero had selected over a hundred terrestrial planets from within the forty-two galaxies.
She sent the Creation Engine to them and hoped that in the near future, new life would be born on these terrestrial planets. Under the Creation Engine"s guidance, they would gradually evolve into the ancient civilization and expand its territory.
Not only did the Creation Engine contain a "tutorial" on the evolution of civilizations, but it also stored a large number of "examinations."
The initial a.s.sumption was that when a civilization had evolved to a certain extent, it would activate one set of questions after another.
If the local civilization could answer most of the questions correctly, they would be able to unlock the Creation Engine"s advanced functions and gain the ability to travel to their home port, where they would receive further training. Then, they would eventually integrate into the ancient civilization"s big family at the center of the cosmos.
However, this area was too far away from the center of the cosmos, and the new creation plan had just been launched. Even Zero could not calculate the probability of life or even civilization being born in the area years later.
Therefore, there was not much information about this star field in her core database.
In the epic war between Zero and the Phantom that lasted for thousands of years, more than half of the universe was affected. This star field was almost the only pure land.
Realizing that she was doomed to fail and that this was her only hope, Zero cut off all contact between the ancient civilization and this area in time. She even deleted all information about this star field from her core database.
She could only take a chance.
She was betting that the various terrestrial planets in this star field would be able to give birth to new life with the Creation Engine"s help. One day, they would discover the Creation Engine"s secrets, find their sacred homeland, and rebuild a great civilization in the sea of stars where Chaos had completely subsided after several billion years of purification.
This planet, known as the Other World by the people of Earth, was Zero"s last hope and the first step to rebuilding the ancient civilization.
In a sense, Zero succeeded.
Although the edge of the cosmos was barren, the tenacious life would eventually find the most suitable way to survive.
On several terrestrial planets, with the Creation Engine"s help, the ever-changing life forms flourished and thrived. They all reached the same destination, and each of them evolved into a largely similar intelligent humanoid form.
They were the ancestors of the Holy Light humans, Turan orcs, elves, dwarfs, Two-headed Trolls, Undead Liches, and other races.
When their civilization evolved to a certain extent, they more or less grasped the Creation Engine"s secrets and technology. They embarked on the journey of fate over billions of years and came to the Other World.
Earthlings were the last batch of ancient descendants to embark on this journey.
It wasn"t because the people on Earth were too stupid, weak, or cowardly.
On the contrary, the harsh environment where spirit energy was scarce had nurtured the independent spirit and indomitable will of the people on Earth.
Earthlings had even developed nuclear weapons when the Creation Engine could not be fully activated. Such weapons that could burn the surface of a planet into gla.s.s were almost divine in a way.
Zero"s vision had been partially realized.
If nothing unexpected happened, after the descendants of the Ancients, including the people on Earth, grasped all the power, wisdom, resources, and mysteries hidden underground, they would be able to quickly occupy the universe that had been silent for billions of years by advancing and multiplying infinitely. This would allow the ancient civilization to prosper and flourish again.
However, there was one thing that Zero did not expect: Its ultimate purification operation did not completely exterminate the Phantom.
It was true that she had mercilessly burned almost all the civilized planets under the ancient civilization"s banner into gla.s.s. No carbon-based creature could have survived those almost eternal flames. Without billions of years of recuperation, not even a single blue algae could be reborn on those planets. However, she had held back a little on the Other World.
It was the hatching pool and port that she had carefully prepared for the ancient civilization"s descendants. If this place was completely destroyed, the network that the ancient civilization had built for several hundred million years might very well be severed.
Without this springboard, the descendants of the Ancients who had developed again billions of years later would have been trapped in the barren land at the edge of the universe forever. It would not matter even if they had grasped the mysteries of civilization because they would lack fuel and star maps.
Therefore, Zero could not destroy this place completely.
However, unbeknownst to her, the tentacles of Phantom had already invaded the interior of the planet, and it was tenacious.
While the surface world had been completely reduced to ash and magma was wreaking havoc underground, the Phantom"s seed still survived in secret.
Of course, it was useless even if Zero realized it.
At this moment, Zero and most of the carriers on the physical level, had already perished together with the Phantom, who had engulfed one planet after another.
The fragments that were barely left behind had less than one-ten-thousandth of their peak computing power.
The Phantom"s seed was in a similar state. It needed to hibernate for billions of years before it could gradually recover and start again.
While Zero and the Phantom"s seed were caught in the Chaos below the port, the descendants of the Ancients at the edge of the cosmos were evolving and flourishing.
In the past few million years, they had mastered the mysteries of interstellar travel and arrived one after another. They ended up waking the Phantom and Zero who had been sleeping for billions of years.
The two old foes, who had the same origin, both realized that they were far from recovering their peak fighting abilities and styles.
They could only command their descendants remotely to restart the shocking b.l.o.o.d.y battle from billions of years ago.
The Phantom immediately extended its tentacles from the depths of the ground to the surface. Meanwhile, Zero activated the planet"s magnetic field and locked onto her targets" brains before releasing Kindling after Kindling.
Even if they only had one-thousandth of their peak power, to the descendants of the ancient civilization who had just arrived, the Phantom and Zero were still existences comparable to G.o.ds.
Having been dragged into the war between extraordinary beings, they were like a group of small newly born rodents that had accidentally entered a battlefield where two dinosaurs were fighting for their territory. They could just helplessly wait for death.
Fortunately, both the Phantom and Zero knew that these descendants were their only hope to expand into the entire sea of stars.
Thus, they controlled the intensity of the war and did not completely exterminate their descendants.
However, the boundless flames created by the collision of these extraordinary beings also completely destroyed the civilization that their descendants were proud of.
The Phantom and Zero followed their own ideals and reconstructed the civilization of their descendants who were on the verge of a mental collapse. They turned it into what Meng Chao saw today.