Chapter 339: Life and Death Realm

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Following his words, the translucent plants covering the observation platform began to tremble slightly.

The veins that looked like blood vessels expanded rapidly and intertwined together. A large amount of unknown liquid gathered at the place where the veins were knotted and gradually formed a large bulge.

The bulge grew bigger and bigger, like a bud that had yet to bloom. It gradually grew to the size of the Lightchaser Leader, and its translucent skin was no longer transparent. No one knew what kind of changes were happening inside.

It didn’t take long for a heartbeat to sound inside the bud. From its initial faintness, it became strong and powerful. In a daze, the Lightchaser Leader seemed to smell a floral fragrance.

In the next moment, the petals surrounding the flower bud began to fall one by one. A figure walked out. The leader recognized it as the Solar Engineer who had sacrificed himself.

But he also knew that it was just another life that looked exactly like the Solar Engineer.

It walked out just like that and looked at the Lightchaser Leader wordlessly, as if they were both waiting for him to speak first.

In the end, it was the Lightchaser Leader who couldn’t hold it in any longer and asked first, “Who, or should I say, who are you?”

“We’re Ashes. To use a term you’re more familiar with, we’re the Firechaser.” The topic was unveiled by the Lightchaser Leader, but it was the Firechaser who went on and on.

“From the memories of our genes, we have roughly understood why we were revived after death.”

“There’s a certain… talented scientist in your race. He sensed the secret in your bodies and tried to revive us by activating this gene.”

“He’s not a good person. He’s only doing this to control and integrate into this gene that’s everywhere. He’s controlling all life in the form of pure consciousness to complete his so-called goal of becoming a new God.”

“In order to achieve his goal, he first experimentally used this gene to control others. After realizing that it was feasible, he controlled a portion of people to hijack this spaceship silently.”

“During this process, someone realized that something was wrong and tried to resist, but he only paid the price of a few corpses to completely control this spaceship.”

“After that, he sprayed a large amount of catalyst here and began to trigger the atavism phenomenon in the genes. He successfully transformed all the lives on this spaceship into… us.”

“And he himself is no exception. He has also become a plant.”

From the Firechaser’s words, the Lightchaser understood what had happened on the spaceship. He did not expect that it was the people in their civilization who had caused all of this.

Even if he didn’t want to believe it, the Firechaser didn’t care. He continued, “But he clearly underestimated the power of genetics. How could he control so many genes with just his consciousness?”

“As a result, his consciousness, like the others on the spaceship, was torn apart during the process of plantification, leaving only a large group of plants that maintained their consciousness.”

“This mass of unconsciousness is still a little short of forming a true consciousness, so they spontaneously began to attract the creature closest to them through genetic correlation. This… Solar Engineer is the last drop of water that fills this mass of unconsciousness.”

“From being unconscious to having consciousness, this is a huge change from zero to one. From then on, this mass of unconsciousness has become ‘life’.”

“And the memories in the genes will become the dominant of this consciousness. We will recover from there.”

“So, this is the resurrection plan you’ve devised for yourselves?” the Lightchaser Leader couldn’t help but ask. This was what he was most concerned about.

To his surprise, the Firechaser shook his head.

“No, we never thought of resurrecting. The people on this spaceship don’t have any relevant memories, but 1 think as the leader, you should have already learned about our origins through other channels.”

“We are ghosts from the previous era. We should have died before the explosion.”

“While our other companions were trying to save their help for the next era at the cost of their own destruction, we went into hiding, in the name of using our own methods to bring light to the next world.”

“But in fact, we chose to escape. Would others not think of this method? They have much higher technology than us. If this is feasible, why don’t they do it?”

“In the end, we understood that everything in the previous era had completely perished with that explosion. This is the rule of the Universe Restart, and we are no exception.”

“We modified all the planets here and left behind all kinds of ancient technology, especially faster-than-light technology because we found that the civilization here is severely restricted by the speed of light.”

“But our intelligence is beginning to be lost. Our bodies are beginning to decay. We’re being killed by this universe. It’s sweeping us into tombstones that belong to the previous era.”

“We also panicked and searched for a way to save our lives. We realized that we were not used to this universe, so we began to study the method of Dimensional Adaption.”

“But in the end, we found that this possibility could not apply to us because our numbers were too great.”

“This huge number almost made us the criminals of this universe. It also made us realize how much danger our avoidance brought, and how much suffering we caused by what we thought of as pioneers.”

“This galaxy is shrinking, and the space-time structure here is extremely weak. There are still many dangers here that you haven’t discovered. This universe is using the methods it can use to eliminate us. The source of your suffering comes from us.”

At this point, the Lightchaser Civilization already knew about this past history.

At the same time, he also understood that their birth originated from the Firechaser, and their suffering also originated from the Firechaser. This contradictory mentality made him look at the Firechaser with a much more complicated gaze.

“In the previous era, our civilization was responsible for collecting and preserving genes, so we tried to replicate those lives here.”

“The dimensional erosion did not affect you because you were ultimately created in this universe. You are not considered the remnants of the previous universe.”

“But since the creation of life always inevitably involves the use of our primitive genes, this leads to… the most tragic suffering.”

The Firechaser’s face was expressionless, but his voice was unwittingly sad.

“All the creatures that have been mixed with our genes have become targets of elimination. When we realized this, it was too late. Although you are very adaptable to this universe, you have still been marked by the universe as elimination marks. No matter where you escape to, you will be eliminated by this universe.”

“And we can’t even remove this gene because it’s the cornerstone of your life. All other genes can be modified, except this one. Moving this part means killing you, and we… can’t do this…”

No one knew how much the Firechaser felt about their creation, but one thing they showed was that at least they didn’t treat creation as some kind of experiment or ornament, but as a truly independent civilization.

They had no right to decide the life and death of these civilizations, even if they knew that the final outcome would definitely be extinction.

“We had already foreseen the terrible scene that would happen in the future, so we retreated again. We chose to seal ourselves and no longer resist dimensional erosion. As long as we perished first, we would not see that day.” “But we still didn’t expect that there would be a time when it would revive by accident…”

The Firechaser’s tone was extremely depressed. It was hard to imagine that this was something a civilization from the last era could say.

The Lightchaser Leader was also affected by this depressed tone. He asked sadly, “Then, why did you let me come here this time?”

“…Do you think there is still hope for such a world?” the Firechaser replied.

“The end of extinction is predetermined and irreversible. Is there a need to continue living such a life? You are the leader of this civilization. You may not be able to represent everyone’s will, but we think that we only need to ask you one question.”

“Can you guys still continue on?”

At this moment, the entire world seemed to fall silent. Listening to the Firechaser’s words, the Lightchaser Leader began to ask himself, “Can they really continue?”

After fighting their way out of the 460 former companion civilizations, their hot blood had long become as cold as a glacier.

Even his will to live had become numb after witnessing countless failed struggles. Now, he was asking himself, even if they became the final victor, what could they do?

Even the Administrator, who wanted to provide them with assistance, couldn’t find a way to get them out of there. Their future outcome was most likely to be reduced to dust in the shrinking world.

Since the outcome was already decided, what was the point of their struggle?

At the moment, the Firechaser was still waiting for the Lightchaser’s response. In his peripheral vision, he couldn’t tell what the Firechaser was thinking as he pretended to be a Solar Engineer.

However, the Lightchaser understood that at this moment, the survival of the entire civilization was on his shoulders. The Firechaser had the method to detonate the genes in their bodies. He believed that as long as he said that he could not go on, the Firechaser would definitely turn all of them into plants without hesitation and stop them from suffering.

But…

The Lightchaser Leader also remembered that the Firechaser did not directly destroy their civilization. Instead, they were asking for his opinion.

His memories began to rewind, from adult to child, and from child to the past.

He had never experienced that era, but it was as if he was present on the spot and saw his ancestors when they first entered space.

Their curious ship was violently driven away by a group of plant spaceships and warned them not to do it again.

However, there was a complete set of archaeological technology and extraterrestrial exploration technology in the database of this batch of spaceships that had been driven away. It was as if they were encouraging them to go to the distant space.

Finally, the Lightchaser Leader raised his head and gave his answer.

“The starry sky is vast and endless. We can’t just stop here..”