dream plane.
Although it has been severely damaged in the "world collision" a long time ago and has become a vassal plane of another universe, the dream plane is still a vast and boundless world to most mortal civilizations. In the sky, there are countless ancient galaxies and newborn stars, as well as countless dark spaces buried in the deepest space that no one has ever set foot in.
In the center of the universe, the ancient nebula has almost all been converted into waste heat, and the once brilliant galaxy is now only a large piece of lifeless shadow and ash remnants, the light is fading, and here it becomes an extremely precious thing: the stars that are falling into extinction one by one In this deep darkness, there are few rays of light, and each cluster of sparks is a fortress. These barely collected and lit stars in the exhaust gas of the nebula are extremely rare, and they are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of light-years away from each other, and their candlelight cannot illuminate this forgotten and gradually Even entering the dead deep space of the universe, it is also unable to nourish any life, at least conventional life.
Without life, there is no movement of the mind, no thought activity, and the evil forces in the cage have no possibility of escape.
So this cage has been silent for thousands of years, watching the passage of time silently.
But it wasn't entirely devoid of any life.
Those "night watchmen" who guard the cage in the dark live here. They set up fortresses around clusters of spark embers, monitoring the dark abyss in the deepest part of the dead space, and listening to even the slightest thing around them. Little voice.
It is as quiet as death, this is the normal state of this cage. Not only is there no sound in the cold and dead space, even the tremors of starlight are strictly controlled, and there are no mortal races living here, so the ringing between the hearts is naturally out of the question All together—everything is to prevent the suppressed force from breaking through the blockade. But even so, the Night's Watch has its own way of communicating with each other.
These ancient beings have learned the knack of protecting their hearts, and are blessed by the gods. When they talk through the resonance between the stars, the evil forces suppressed in the depths of the cage are powerless.
A lonely star located on the boundary of the outer event of the dark abyss became a little brighter, and sent out a series of super-light-speed messages that were incomprehensible to ordinary species. Stellar reply.
"S-26, control your frequency and don't engage in unnecessary conversation."
"Reply S-26, not an unnecessary conversation, has been mentally shielded, this tremor is safe."
"What have you found?" A message from the middle layer of the dark abyss interrupted.
"The founding star has been extinguished for more than a hundred time units. According to the agreement, the time will start now."
"Has there been any changes in the outside world?" The signal source in the middle layer of the dark abyss continued to ask.
"It's quiet, very quiet. It is estimated that more than 90% of the lights of life have been extinguished, and a small number of deep space areas are quiet as if they are at a critical point."
The stars are silent for a period of time, which can be as short as a few seconds or as long as days. At the critical point of the dark abyss, the passage of time has become very strange, and the night watchmen are not even used to recording things through time. For them, the passage of time is the progression of one event after another. In the long silence between, time is meaningless.
If it wasn't for recording how long the war had passed, the night watchmen would have abandoned the concept of "time".
After a period of silence, the border monitoring station S-26 suddenly sent out another message: "W-17, I heard a noise coming from the deep space. What's wrong there?"
A signal came from the middle layer of the dark abyss: "It is trying to break through the outer wall."
A new signal came from a star millions of light-years away: "More and more often."
"There is still no news about the ark and fire left by the Goddess of Creation. The guardians she created have not returned to normal. It seems that the pollution that leaked out was more serious than expected," W-17 said abnormally. He said for a long time, "We must be prepared, the situation may continue to deteriorate."
"The situation will continue to deteriorate," S-26 agreed. "We must cherish the use of manpower, and don't do things that are not suitable for us. Within a hundred time units, we have lost many guards."
"But the necessary inspections should continue," W-17 said. "This universe is still changing, and something we don't understand has happened and is spreading. S-26, remember what you once discovered something?"
"Yes, I'm impressed with them - the rate of expansion is astonishing and highly disciplined, even more so than ours. Now they have spread to thousands of galaxies, and the rate of expansion increases dramatically with the extent of the spread , I am afraid that one day, they will cover the entire universe."
"What do we know about them?" asked another source from the middle layers of the dark abyss. "How do they make themselves?"
"In an incomprehensible way, those things seem to be able to reproduce themselves continuously without material resources. Whether in a barren star area or a rich star area, the expansion rate never slows down. I have observed that in a matter without any celestial bodies Thousands of those things popped up out of the void—almost out of nowhere."
"What is their purpose? Are they harmful?"
"It's impossible to tell, they seem to be highly intelligent life, but lack the purpose of intelligent life, they are just constantly expanding, and set up a large number of incomprehensible nests and outposts in the universe, but in the process , they neither attack anyone nor occupy any planets—they seem to be more interested in staying in space and observing than landing on planets. So I can't judge whether those things are harmful, only that they are threatening."
Just after the S-26 message was sent, another outpost on the border also responded: "There is supplementary information. I have observed that they have a considerable degree of force. In some accidents, they can easily destroy The wandering celestial bodies in their lairs, and the proportion of these armed individuals in their entire group is rapidly increasing. Perhaps the expansion of those things has reached a certain critical point, and now they are gradually turning into the armed mode."
S-26 also spoke again: "Supplementary intelligence, observed that their expansion direction has changed, and they are changing from aimless expansion to directional expansion. Their vanguard seems to be heading here."
The new supplementary information silenced all the night watchmen. After a brief silence, W-17 sent a message: "Their behavior patterns are changing, and I think they should be monitored more intensively."
"Perhaps a more proactive response?" asked one of the border outposts, "such as a counterattack."
"This should be an action of the last resort, S-77," W-17 said. "We want to keep the internal defenses stable. Once 'it' breaks through the walls, the harm will far outweigh any disaster."
"Agree." "Agree." "Agree."
In the silent cage of the dark abyss, the resonant conversation between the stars gradually calmed down, and this star area that was not observed by anyone and had never been visited by anyone returned to dead silence again, as if the past, present, and future of this place were not There is no life in general.
And in the silence, the last whisper-like sound suddenly broke the silence: "W-17, what's the situation in the deepest critical point?"
"There is no sense at all in the critical point, 'it' has completely occupied its cell, there is only endless screaming and noise, but the post on the last line of defense is still sending back news that N-66 is leading The other outposts seal off the cell."
"...W-17, my brother, do you still remember this pastoral era of peace and harmony in the universe?"
"...S-26, my brother, I, like you, have forgotten."
"For the gift of forgetting."
"For the gift of forgetting."
The conversation of the night watchmen was over, and they returned to the tranquility, continuing to wait for the almost meaningless "time" to enter the next node worthy of discussion.
And far away from this eternal prison, in another cosmic starry sky, a new drone lair is gradually starting up. In the depths of the lair's criss-cross alloy frame that looks like biological tissue, red and blue The colored light began to pulse like breathing.
An ever-changing face emerged from the surface of the lair, and the collective consciousness of the drone swarm looked at the dark and deep universe. In that darkness, everything was abnormally silent.
The deep space of the universe is indeed silent, but it is somewhat unreasonable to be so silent.
After a moment of thinking and calculation, the cluster consciousness issued a series of new production expansion plans.
It has only one mission: to expand, to continue to expand, to the depths and ends of an expanding universe! (to be continued~^~)