Chapter 1384: Chapter 1233: Ultimate Mission

No! No! Something’s wrong!!!

Five bloodshot eyes opened wide to their limits. Finally, after vaguely perceiving a trace of the dream origins, Omnia Cicada’s eyes nearly burst as they suddenly raised their hand and desperately covered their mouth.

Yet, even though their strength was so immense it nearly crushed their cheekbones, a sound still managed to seep out from Omnia Cicada’s tumultuous Heart Lake, slowly emerging from the depths of their soul.

"She is the only one among all the root remnants who has lived from the past to the present!"

Lived from the past to the present?

In the midst of Omnia Cicada’s utter despair, Leon’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. He then opened his mouth to continue inquiring:

"I don’t understand what you mean, can you explain it a bit more?"

No! No!! No!!!

"I can."

As if experiencing a "sleep paralysis" of the soul, although Omnia Cicada’s mind had already noticed something was wrong, their soul still drifted aimlessly like a corpse afloat on the sea, enveloped by the vast origins of the dream.

The information that they had desperately buried in their heart, unwilling to reveal even unto death, began to flow out little by little from Omnia Cicada’s soul as the dream origins silently eroded it.

"If one considers the power of a root remnant as the ’body’ and regards their memory and will as the ’soul,’ then the current root remnants are no longer their original complete selves.

The revival of other root remnants is not true revival but a form of ’fusion’ and rebirth with the chosen race. The existing other root remnants are more like a new entity born from the old ’body’ after their ’soul’ has perished.

However, the revival of [Mother] is different. While passing down their ’body’ like other root remnants, she also managed to transmit her ’soul’ through the lineage of hope you humans possess. After the two completely merged, she has once again become her complete self."

Body... soul... becoming complete again...

So it means that the root remnants are like a second-hand computer, others have wiped the "data," leaving only the hardware for the next user. Fredri managed to retain all the "data," and once the computer arrived at its destination, figured out a way to copy her memory back into it?

Quietly noting down Omnia Cicada’s abstract descriptions, Leon continued to suppress the beacon mark on Omnia Cicada’s hand while hastening his pace of questioning:

"What about the ultimate mission? What, in the end, is the ultimate mission of all the root remnants?"

"Well... I only know part of it..."

"Tell me as much as you know!"

"Alright then..."

As the light of the beacon mark flashed more and more urgently, Omnia Cicada’s soul, squeezed by the frenzied pressure of the dream origins, began to slowly reveal all they knew.

"It all begins with the origin of the root remnants, including [Mother]. All the root remnants hail from an ancient race known as the ’root,’ whose existence is extremely peculiar, vastly different from all current races.

The total population of this root race remained almost unchanged, with every individual born from corresponding laws, existing wherever those laws could reach. You could say they never existed, yet also say they are omnipresent.

If I were to comment on it, they would be the only species on Earth worthy of the label ’perfect’—powerful, beautiful, wise, eternal..."

"Skip all of that!"

The beacon mark’s pulsation grew increasingly frantic. Struggling to maintain control, Leon hesitated but then directly interrupted Omnia Cicada’s lament, urging:

"Get straight to the point! What happened to this race, and where did everyone else go? Why are there only fourteen root remnants left in the end?"

"Alright..."

Cut off midway, a pained expression flickered in the hollow eyes of Omnia Cicada, but finally, they nodded begrudgingly, explaining:

"To put it in terms you can understand, you could say that all of the root race people are dead. Including [Mother] and the other thirteen root remnants, they were ultimately poisoned to death by time in the past."

"???"

Poisoned to death by what? Time? How come the more I listen the less sense it makes?

"It’s not hard to understand. For the living, death is the ultimate poison for all things; for goodwill, malice is the corrosive poison for all things, and for humans who need to breathe, an endless ocean is also the deadly poison for all things."

Gazing at Leon’s face flushed with shock, Omnia Cicada, whose will had collapsed and fallen back into the dream, continued their dreamlike, arrogantly mocking sneer:

"You don’t consider time to be poisonous, not because it is harmless, but because species unable to resist the ’toxins’ brought by time were long eliminated the moment time was ’secreted’ by the world. Only those who adapted to time could survive.

Moreover, if time were truly harmless, then why do you humans gradually age and ultimately tread step by step towards death as time passes?"

"Uh... because of telomere shortening, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and chronic inflammation?"

"..."

Telomere what, oxidative what? What on earth are you talking about?

Sapped into silence by the completely incomprehensible bizarre response, Omnia Cicada awkwardly paused, then was left with no choice but to skip over the question, summarizing with a drooping face:

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