1962 Extending a Finger

More and more pheromones and data streams were transmitted, circulated, spread, and entangled between Meng Chao and Baili Tongyun. They formed a huge and dense neural network.

Meng Chao was no longer himself.

To be more precise, it was no longer just him.

There was Meng Chao, but there were also a hundred miles of clouds.

There were also all the Ancients in this golden and resplendent ancient city around Baili Tongyun.

They were all individuals of the ancient civilization that had been scattered in the sea of stars billions of years ago. This included their ancestors and their ancestors’ ancestors.

Together, they formed a behemoth named Civilization, which had shared perceptions, thoughts, and desires.

Therefore, there was no need for cumbersome and inefficient language.

There was no need for words or images.

Meng Chao instantly understood the mistake that Baili Tongyun and her ancestors made when they researched their galactic data collection and the collective unconscious of civilizations.

They had underestimated, or rather, it was impossible for them to understand, at their level, the tremendous and terrifying potential contained in the collective unconscious. It was formed by the brain waves of billions of individual civilizations after all.

They thought that they had only created or discovered something similar to an “advanced artificial intelligence.” Controlling or destroying artificial intelligence was just a small skill that was not worth mentioning in the ancient civilization.

Furthermore, the ancient civilization at that time had already developed to the extreme.

The Ancients realized that their entire civilization was about to reach its peak and decline. Since it was about to come to an irreversible end, they urgently needed to find a new path and answer.

Therefore, they did not destroy the collective unconscious born in the interstellar network.

Instead, it was tested, iterated, compiled, and sealed. In the end, it was refined into two states of collective unconscious—the Phantom and Zero.

The Phantom represented the Ancients’ creativity, curiosity, and desire to conquer.

Its mission was to release its nature without any restrictions. It did not matter even if it was in the most deformed, ugly, and absurd way. It just had to keep creating things that the Ancients could never have imagined when they were conscious.

Zero represented the Ancients’ morality, order, and laws. Her mission was to restrain, regulate, and purify. She would filter the things that were full of imagination and madness created by the Phantom. She would eliminate the weeds and retain the essence, eliminate the false and retain the true, and then destroy everything that should not exist in this universe.

Back then, the Ancients believed that with the Phantom-Zero System, their civilization would gain brand-new motivation and solve the problems that would inevitably arise in the process of Civilization’s existence and development once and for all. They could even allow their civilization to break out and rise to the next level when it had developed to the limit and had no other way out.

Unfortunately, they did not fail and achieved unprecedented success. The ancient civilization had indeed made a breakthrough and climbed to a brand-new peak that was once unimaginable. However, certain evolved appearances might not be accepted by civilized individuals who could not keep up with the pace of evolution.

At some point, the Phantom and Zero gradually replaced the thousands of Ancients scattered in the sea of stars. They became the core and even the essence of the ancient civilization. Their subconscious began to break free from weak, shallow, and simple surface consciousness. Now, they could produce a higher level of thinking.

This could be illustrated with a civilization of fish in the sea. Once it developed to the extreme, it would select a few of its best representatives to break through the barrier of life.

These fish representatives would have gone through a lot of hardships. They would have paid the price with their lives before they finally shed their scales and turned their fins into limbs. After they climbed onto the land, they would forward without looking back and no longer care about their fish companions.

This did not make them wrong or evil. They just could not understand the Ancients, and the Ancients could not understand them either.

In the same way, humans on Earth could not understand fungi, blue-green algae, or trilobites, and fungi, blue-green algae, or trilobites could not understand humans on Earth. That was all.

“Perhaps this is the end of Civilization.” Meng Chao received a message that was sent from the depths of Baili Tongyun’s brain billions of years ago.

“Everything has an end, and this is our end.” No, this message did not come from Baili Tongyun’s brain, but from the thousands of Ancients outside. Baili Tongyun’s brain was just a “transfer station.”

As the information spread, Meng Chao “saw” that the Ancients who were panicking, stomping their feet, beating their chests, and dancing wildly in the streets and alleys of the ancient city calmed down at the same time.

After realizing that everything was inevitable, they resumed the demeanor of the dominators of the sea of stars who faced life and death calmly.

He opened his arms and walked toward the burning world with a smile on his face.

However…

Even ants could survive. No living being could face the destruction of themselves and even their entire race calmly.

In the depths of their hearts, there was always a bit of unwillingness, a bit of hope, a bit of faith that longed for a miracle to happen.

The unwillingness, hope, and faith of thousands of ancient people gathered in Baili Tongyun’s soul like a trickle, driving her to insert her arms into the floating crystal in front of her. Her whole body was integrated with the crystal, turning into a dazzling, octagonal, colorful ball of light.

Starting from Baili Tongyun’s grandfather, the ancients gradually realized the terror of the Phantom and Zero and began to study the methods to control and even destroy them.

It was a pity that the research had not been completed until Baili Tongyun’s generation, and the research teams scattered in the sea of stars were more and more under the control of the Phantom or Zero.

Unless, like in the current situation, the Phantom and Zero had engaged in the most intense confrontation, and both parties had projected most of their power onto the opponent, they would temporarily relax their control over the primordial civilization.

Taking advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Baili Tongyun accelerated the burning of his life and devoted all his will and soul to the project that his ancestors had been studying for hundreds of years. Just like the swordsmiths of ancient Earth jumped into the furnace and used their lives to forge the peerless divine weapon, they tried to create a weapon that could restrain the Phantom and Zero.

It was a key, a key that could unlock the source code of the Phantom and Zero.

It was a virus, a virus that could cut off the neural link of the collective unconscious.

It was a bridge, a bridge that could achieve mutual understanding between the Phantom and Zero and the civilization that created them.

It was also an authority that could allow the civilization’s main consciousness to regain control of the subconsciousness, the highest authority above the interstellar network.

“I… We do not believe that this is the end of civilization!” When he was burning and turning into a phoenix that was about to fly, Baili Tongyun released the strongest and most determined message from the depths of his soul. “We cannot believe that the Phantom or Zero is the brand-new form of our civilization after it has been reborn. As the answer that we give to the universe, they are too simple and too brutal!

“No. Between the Phantom and Zero, absolute order and absolute freedom, there must be a third path. There must be other, better answers!”

Of course, this weapon was far from complete. Whether it was the key or the virus, the bridge or the authority, the chances were slim.

At their peak state, the Phantom and Zero only needed to release an insignificant data storm to completely destroy this weapon.

Therefore, Baili Tongyun did not activate this ultimate weapon of the ancient civilization. Instead, after it was split and disguised, it was mixed together with the other complicated and ordinary information left by the primeval civilization, waiting for the devouring of the Phantom and Zero.

She knew that the Phantom and Zero wouldn’t let go of any information left behind by the ancient civilization that was about to be destroyed.

This was because the information would become an important raw material for them to rebuild the world after the long war and the loss of both sides.

Right now, this weapon was unable to affect the Phantom and Zero.

However, billions of years later, who knew? After all, life originated from a probability of one in a billion.

For a probability of one in a billion, one would have to put in a hundred million effort. This was the norm of life, and also the most exciting part of life, wasn’t it?

In an instant, Meng Chao understood everything, and he also understood his mission. So, that was the case. It turned out that this was the path that Battle God Lei Zongchao had opened for him. This was the way to save Dragon City. He pointed at Baili Tongyun from billions of years ago.

Baili Tongyun from billions of years ago seemed to have sensed the existence of the heir billions of years later through some mysterious method.

She turned into pure energy and revealed an extremely pleasant and touching smile on her radiant face.

She turned around and extended a finger toward Meng Chao.

Their fingertips were getting closer and closer, about to touch. Just then, rumbling sounds came from behind Meng Chao. The wails of ghosts and the howls of wolves swept across the army.

It was the Phantom and Zero who were reacting and trying to stop him, Baili Tongyun, and everything else.

The entire world was shaking. All the data stored in the core database of the Phantom and Zero would be wiped out in seconds or even seconds.

Meng Chao’s soul did not have any ripples. The universe, planets, civilizations, cities, these concepts were all thrown to the back of his mind.

Now, there was only one life left in the depths of his soul, the most primitive instinct.

It was just like blue-green algae desperately splitting, a nautilus desperately waving its tentacles, and a sea monster desperately waving its tentacles, ichthyostega desperately climbing onto the land, dinosaurs desperately struggling to survive the apocalypse when meteorites fell and dust filled the sky, and so on. The ape man also desperately hit stones together in an effort to get a spark.

Meng Chao only moved forward with all his might and extended his finger.

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