by <unknown>
"The super experts might have been the humblest person of his Sector, but they seemed to be blessed with unimaginable luck and simply skyrocketed miraculously!
"For such experts, they would run into anonymous experts who would teach them techniques when they were on the street, find ancient secret treasures when they fell off a cliff, and when they bought a random pet, they would find out in the end that it was the best beast of the best beasts!
"It was like that the wheel of fate had decreed that they should emerge and change the world!
"Therefore, Liu the Prier called such people 'Children of Destiny'.
"In the research journal, Liu the Prier listed three examples.
"Long Fentian, the second son of a minor family in the Dark Fire Sector. His family went bankrupt, his father was crippled by his enemy, and his own fiancée broke up with him. There couldn't be a more miserable person in the entire Sector!
"However, within a few years, the man rose to fame miraculously and became the best expert of the Dark Fire Sector. He distinguished himself in the war between the Dark Fire World and the Crescent Moon Sector by slaying the seven top experts of the Crescent Moon Sector by himself. In the end, he helped the Dark Fire Sector defeat the Crescent Moon Sector, whose overall capability was ten times higher!
"Ye Xinglong was originally an unknown soldier in the coalition army of the Cultivation sects of the Windy Sun Sector. At that time, the Windy Sun Sector was involved in a chaotic war among dozens of Sectors. It was the weakest of all the participants of the war and could have perished at any moment.
"But this guy, Ye Xinglong, boasted unbelievable charm and made countless beauties of many other Sectors bend for him. Not only did he sleep with the beauties of various Sectors, he also accrued abundant resources and techniques through the girls. In the end, he rose from a private to the commander of the coalition army of dozens of Sectors!
"Xiao Han used to be a servant of a small sect of the Furious Flames Sector. It was said that he was a cripple whose veins were all broken. But he had an extremely rarely-seen talent that allowed him to communicate with ghosts. Wherever he went, he could always meet countless ghosts and discover the techniques and the information about ancient treasures through the ghosts. He also quickly rose to fame in only several decades and helped the Furious Flames Sector defeat almost a hundred Sectors. At the end of the First Civil War of Cultivators, the Furious Flames Sector became the well-accepted ruler of the world!
"The Dark Fire Sector, the Windy Sun Sector, and the Furious Flames Sector were all insignificant Sectors before those people appeared. They were essentially 'underdeveloped civilizations'. Yet, because of the miraculous rise of the 'Children of Destiny', they crushed the Sectors that were far stronger and more developed than themselves!
"Based on that finding, Liu the Prier put forward the last half rule.
"During the competitions between high-level civilizations and low-level civilizations, the former is unassailable in general, but there are factors that can change the outcome, which are the Children of Destiny.
"If a Child of Destiny who boasts unbelievable luck emerges in an underdeveloped civilization, it is possible that the civilization will pose a certain threat to a highly-developed civilization, if not completely defeating it!
"Therefore, even if a high-level civilization is faced with a harmless low-level civilization, since the former does not know if a Child of Destiny will suddenly appear someday, it will simply choose to… destroy everything!
"But since the samples for observation are too few and restricted to the civilization of human beings, there is no telling whether or not the rule applies to the entire universe. Therefore, it is only a 'half rule'."
Li Yao found it hard to believe. "Luck? I don't believe in such things."
"Neither do I," Bai Xinghe replied. "You may just consider such a phenomenon as 'possibility'. It's like the lottery whose winning odds are one billionth. But after billions of tickets are sold, somebody will win the lottery sooner or later. It is not because the guy is particularly lucky but because the mechanism of probability takes effect."
Li Yao thought for a moment and found the explanation irrefutable.
Pondering briefly, Li Yao finally thought everything through. He said, "So, the minor apocalypses are weapons to 'exterminate' the Children of Destiny?"
Bai Xinghe nodded and said, "Even if the 'Child-of-Destiny Rule' does not exist, it is undeniable that all the experts slain by minor apocalypses are the essence of mankind and the best of their generation, isn't it?
"So many unparalleled experts failed to pass through the test of the apocalypses. It was an unbelievably heavy loss for the human beings!
"If the apocalypses did not exist and they continued their training, they might've been able to invent more techniques and secret arts. The civilization of mankind might be hundreds of times stronger right now!
"If we consider it from that point of view, the minor apocalypses have indeed slowed down the development of our civilization. That is definitely categorically true."
Li Yao felt goosebumps rising on his skin. "Do you mean that, for tens of thousands of years, countless strong civilizations have been watching over us silently and wiping out the experts among us in order to eliminate the possibility of our development?"
Bai Xinghe shook his head and replied, "According to the notes of the ancient Cultivators, the methods of attack of every apocalypse and their outcomes were different. They did not seem to be arranged by the same civilization.
"However, it is not very logical that hundreds of other civilizations have been monitoring the civilization of mankind all the time. After all, a hundred thousand years back, the civilization of mankind was still in the primitive phase. There was no reason for so many powerful civilizations to be coveting us.
"Therefore, Liu the Prier made the judgement that the minor apocalypses were not set to attack us on purpose but released by a civilization a long time ago with certain conditions as the trigger and spread all over the universe.
"When one of the conditions is met, the apocalypse will be activated and launch the attach automatically.
"It means that the minor apocalypses only attack randomly. Some of us are only unlucky enough to run into them."
Li Yao found it confusing. "Why?"
"The universe is too vast," Bai Xinghe explained. "Even if civilizations similar to mankind or even far more advanced than ours do exist, they must be very far away from us. It is possible that they are millions, if not billions, of lightyears away from us!"
Li Yao nodded. It was quite true.
When the civilization of mankind was in its prime, it had crossed through a large area of the universe and conquered a lot of alien species. But most of the species did not have a systematical civilization.
In the ancient classics, the alien species were sometimes referred to as elves, goblins, and gnomes. In fact, they were merely natives of foreign planets.
In the vast territory that human beings had explored, there was not a single civilization as developed as that of mankind. Therefore, if such civilizations did exist, they must have been extremely far away from mankind.
"Let's say the two civilizations are a million lightyears away from each other," Bai Xinghe said. "When the hostile civilization sensed the civilization of mankind, it immediately launched a powerful apocalypse at the speed of light, which marched toward the civilization of mankind unstoppably!
"But it would still take a million years for the apocalypse to arrive, wouldn't it?
"A million years!
"Think about it. It took us only a hundred thousand years for us to evolve from creaking monkeys to what we are today!
"Imagine where we would have been in a million years. Would we even be scared of the so-called 'apocalypse' by then?
"Chances are that we would even have calculated the trajectory of the apocalypse and found a way to counterattack!
"For the civilization that laun
ched the attack, was it trying to kill a civilization, or was it trying to get itself killed?"
Li Yao nodded his head. The points seemed pretty solid.
"Therefore, the more reasonable approach would be to release countless 'minor apocalypses' after setting certain hibernation and wake-up conditions. They would float in the endless universe aimlessly and slowly. When some of the conditions were met, they would be triggered immediately and perform the attack! That way, it would be faster, more reasonable, and less costly.
"Why did the apocalypse only visit the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators who were breaking into the Divinity Transformation State in the world of ancient Cultivators?
"I assumed that, when a Cultivator summoned all the spiritual energy in the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage to break the threshold of the Divinity Transformation State, the immense spiritual waves that they released might have been perceived by a 'minor apocalypse' that happened to be drifting nearby. It would then be activated immediately!
"In the world of ancient Cultivators, there was also a theory called 'integrity quotient'. It was said that, if a Cultivator did good things such as helping the weak and the poor, they would avoid the fate of the apocalypses. Some people even claimed that a certain great man of an honorable sect who had accumulated enough positive karma was safe and secure when he tried to break into the Divinity Transformation State without suffering from any apocalypses.
"Hehe. The real reason is much simpler. The guy was lucky enough that there happened to be no minor apocalypses near the Sector he was in when he was trying to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage!"
Li Yao clapped his hands and said, "That is a very reasonable explanation!
"The major apocalypses are 'strategic weapons' of a civilization. They are costly and difficult to be launched. After all, they are powerful enough to destroy a planet and even a Sector. I believe that, even for the alien species that are far more developed than mankind, they cannot launch them randomly.
"The minor apocalypses, on the other hand, are 'tactical weapons'. They are cheap, easy to utilize, and very inconspicuous. Therefore, they launched as many as possible without caring about anything, all in order to stall and even block the evolution of other civilizations!"
Chapter 744: The Last Flying Star Citizens |
Bai Xinghe stared at Li Yao in silence. The image of stars and apocalypses blinked on his face. Beneath the shadow of the universe, there was no telling whether he was crying or laughing.
Li Yao's head was a mess.
He had once discussed the origins of the apocalypses with Xiong Wuji on Iron Plateau and listened to Yan Xibei, who was apparently possessed by the Blood Stripe Virus, explaining why the Blood Stripe Virus initiated the apocalypse on Iron Plateau.
Right now, everything that Bai Xinghe spoke was neatly aligning with their theories.
Was it possible that everything was true? Was the universe really a dark forest?
Li Yao gritted his teeth and shook his head.
He felt that the Dark Forest Theory had loopholes, very big ones, intuitively. However, he could not tell exactly what they were.
Maybe, it was because he did not like the Dark Forest Theory from the bottom of his heart, or a universe that was so cold and cruel!
Again, Li Yao remembered what Huangpu Xiaoya and Xiong Wuji once said.
"Even if the universe is truly nothing more than a bloody, shadowy forest, we Cultivators will burn all that we have to give out a single spark!"
"If there are no roads in the dark forest, then just set a fire and make your own road!"
Only after Li Yao learned the truth did he realize the tremendous confidence between the lines.
Taking a long breath, Li Yao held his head high and looked Bai Xinghe in the eye. He said, one word after another, "I don't like the Dark Forest Theory. Not at all."
Bai Xinghe laughed in amusement. "The laws of nature have nothing to do with your personal feelings. Like it or not, the dark forest is right here around us."
"We seem to have gone off topic," Li Yao said coldly. "How is the Dark Forest Theory, whether it is true or not, related to the Immortal Cultivators?"
Bai Xinghe's voice turned even more ghostly as he continued his explanation. "Like I said, the dark forest is right here around us. It is not just among different civilizations. A dark forest can appear anytime inside a civilization, too!
"Have you ever heard of a bunch of people named 'Fire Stealers'?"
Li Yao was suddenly alarmed.
Of course, he had heard the name before.
Five thousand years ago, when the Flying Star Sector encountered an apocalypse, the citizens of the Flying Star Sector were divided.
One group of people constructed an enormous space fleet, hoping to shift their entire civilization into the starships and flee from the planet. They were known as 'spacers'.
The other group planned to concentrate all the resources of the Flying Star Sector on 'Iron Plateau', the capital planet, in order to build a planetary-level defense array to resist the apocalypse. They were known as 'homers'.
Although the spacers and the homers held completely different ideologies, they were compatriots after all. Therefore, ostensible peace was maintained until the end. After negotiations, all the techniques, Cultivation arts, and the training facilities were divided into two halves, and the two groups were supposed to go their separate ways and develop on their own.
But as it turned out, a bunch of radicals among the spacers believed that Iron Plateau could never resist the apocalypse. They held the belief that it was better to keep the Cultivation arts and techniques to the spacers so that their future development would be smoother than to let those classics be buried together with the homers forever.
The radicals made thorough plans carefully for decades and eventually stole the vast majority of the Cultivation arts, techniques, and resources that were left on Iron Plateau!
Those people believed that their endeavors were to make the torch of the civilization of the Flying Star Sector burn brighter. Therefore, they called themselves 'Fire Stealers'!
"It appears that you do," Bai Xinghe said casually. "That's understandable. You are the best warrior of the six tribes of Iron Plateau. How could you not know those guys who made the Iron Plateau natives unable to train normally and have to turn into 'qi-trainers'?
"However, have you ever thought of one question?
"At that time, after the Fire Stealers took away abundant Cultivation arts, techniques, and training facilities, they left Iron Plateau in advance and retreated to the edge of the Flying Star Sector.
"By logic, the Fire Stealers had a lot of crystal warships. They were made of the experts among the spacers. Besides, they were not struck by the apocalypse from the front because they were at the edge of the Flying Star Sector.
"But today, while the offspring of the Iron Plateau natives and the space fleet, who were struck by the apocalypse, managed to survive and thrive in every space zone of the Flying Star Sector, why did the Fire Stealers who hid themselves in the edge of the Flying Star Sector vanish into thin air?"
Li Yao was dazed for a moment. It was indeed an unanswered question.
Of the three forces at that time, the homers and the spacers all endured destructive strikes, and the fleet of the Fire Stealers couldn't have suffered more damage even if they were affected by the blast of the apocalypse, too, considering that they were hiding at the edge of the Flying Star Sector.
Where did they go in the five thousand years that followed?
After a long sigh, Bai Xinghe said, "Let me tell you what happened. After you hear the story, you may realize that 'apocalypses' are not the most terrifying things in the universe!"
Li Yao listened attentively and somewhat nervously.
"The radicals among the spacers, when starting Plan Prometheus, were actually not evil or shameless guys.
"On the contrary, many of them were determined and of high integrity. They were willing
to sacrifice themselves for the continuation of their civilization at any time.
"They implemented Plan Prometheus with the thought of 'one for all' in mind.
"After stealing tremendous Cultivation arts and techniques from Iron Plateau and fleeing to the edge of the Flying Star Sector, they had maintained contact with the main fleet of the spacers at all time, claiming that they would join the main fleet when the apocalypse passed and everything was settled, and that they should be punished according to their crimes.
"Many of them even made Blood Oaths that they would kill themselves immediately after they returned.
"All the sins will be shouldered by us, with the hope that the humans of the Flying Star Sector will live long and thrive forever!"
"That was the slogan of the Fire Stealers at that time.
"It sounds selfless, ambitions, and decent, doesn't it?"
Wearing a weird smile, Bai Xinghe continued coldly. "Then, the apocalypse arrived. However, instead of lunging at Iron Plateau, it divided into two halves and attacked Iron Plateau and the space fleet simultaneously!
"For a moment, the overwhelming apocalypse swept the two cores of the Flying Star Sector. Iron Plateau and the space fleet were each mired in the swirl of destruction. The Flying Star Sector was caught in chaos and did not recover until a thousand years later!
"The fleet of the Fire Stealers, while hiding at the edge of the Flying Star Sector, observed the arrival of the intimidating apocalypse and detected that the cores of the Flying Star Sector were wreathed in destructive strikes. Naturally, their connection with the main fleet was cut off, too, because the main fleet was crumbling and struggling in the rampant cosmic storms!
"After a certain amount of time, maybe several years, of observation and analysis, the fleet of the Fire Stealers made sure of something, which was that Iron Plateau and the space fleet had been both destroyed in the apocalypse!
"After ascertaining the 'fact', other than shock and grief, they were also overjoyed after the catastrophe.
"Because they had survived!
"They still boasted a fleet of a reasonably large scale as well as many experts. More importantly, they boasted countless techniques, Cultivation arts, and training facilities!
