The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1091: Brain Itches

“Children, stop playing! Time for class!”

By the bonfire, War Tiger raised his megaphone and exclaimed.

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The group gathered around a real fire rather than Gao Yang's conjured one. War Tiger had insisted on preserving Gao Yang's energy for the likely prolonged battle ahead. He'd sent Nainai and Hong Xiaoxiao to the town across the river, where they'd "borrowed" supplies using Invisibility and Scale.

They'd brought back firewood, warm blankets, drinks, and snacks. War Tiger had requested peanuts to go with the alcohol, but when the supermarket Nainai infiltrated had none, she'd grabbed rice crusts instead.

They huddled closer around the fire, seeking warmth against the chilling world.

Nursing a coffee, Baili Yi spoke when everyone seemed ready, “Now that you all understand Zero Probability, I’ll give you a brief rundown of what happened. Of course, this is merely the hypothesis my mentor and I came up with, not the absolute truth.”

“Stop with the humility, Brother Baili. If even your hypothesis is wrong, what the hell do we do?” Zhang Wei raised his can of cola. As someone with Confidence, he was quick to recover from any emotional low.

“It’s not humility, but being conscientious!” Dr. Jia had an admiring look on his face. He was already a fanboy of Baili Yi.

“Alright, stop interrupting!” War Tiger intervened.

Firelight danced in Baili Yi’s eyes. “A long, long time ago, at least ten thousand years ago, the world was perfectly fine. One day, suddenly, the Gluttonous Snake appeared. No one knows what It was, where It came from, and what It wanted. It suddenly began Its attempt at Zero Probability, turning the world into a dual state of both good and bad.”

“Sidenote, good and bad are merely defined for humanity. In essence, the world isn’t good or bad.”

“Consider the area covered by the Mist as the world with Zero Probability. Humans can intuitively sense the existence of space, but not time. In fact, the time of the good world has been hit with Zero Probability as well. Again, it’s not that the world will no longer exist, but humans will. And when Zero Probability becomes complete, humanity will have never existed.”

Baili Yi gave them some time to digest the information. Then he continued:

“To make it easier to understand what I’m going to say, let’s simply consider the Mist the Gluttonous Snake. It’s been gradually devouring the world’s space and time.”

“I’ve got the image now!” Zhang Wei nodded vigorously.

Murmurs of understanding rippled through the group.

Baili Yi continued, “Ten thousand years ago, the Mist appeared. Humans didn’t start out paying too much mind to it since it covered only a small area. People considered it a mysterious region they would soon be able to explore.”

“As time went by, humans realized that the Mist-covered areas were popping up all over the world at random, impossible to explore. The Mist was taking over bigger and bigger space, and creatures within were gone.”

“Humans realized the terror of the Mist and started to study it. Left unchecked, the Mist would sooner or later devour the whole world.”

“For your information, the Heavenly Way has always been around. Consider Them the guardian of the world—akin to the Creator in mythologies.”

“The myth about the Heavenly Way is a familiar one: the Heavenly Way created the world with Their life and gave rise to twelve gods. The twelve gods left behind twelve scepters after their death. Those were the twelve Rune Circuits.”

“Ugh, my brain itches,” Gregor couldn’t help but comment. “One second, we’re listening to a sci-fi story. Then it takes a mythological turn.”

“It’s only my way of helping you understand. You may also think of it as a higher civilization creating the world and leaving behind twelve advanced technological artifacts.”

Baili Yi smiled. “The history is lost. No one knows the truth. If you don’t have any other questions, should I continue?”

“Please do,” Gao Yang said.

“Because of the twelve Rune Circuits, humans from ten thousand years ago could already use the energy of the Heavenly Way, meaning they were the earliest awakeners. Some remarkable ones were able to travel through time and space. They found out that they could not return to a further past. It was still impossible even when they attempted time travel as simple observers. It seemed that the world’s past was gone.”

“But what’s gone isn’t the world’s past, but humans’ past. Is that right?” Vermilion Bird asked tentatively.

“Yes. That day, humans finally realized the true crisis.” Baili Yi turned to Gao Yang. “Take your round for an example. Alcoholic had Time-Space Spirit, but she could only travel within a hundred years. That’s because all the time before the hundred years has been devoured by the Mist. Then naturally, no human can go back further.”

“Once Zero Probability is complete at the end of the hundred years, there won’t be humans around. Thus, similarly, no one can travel further in the future. As a result, you’re effectively trapped in the hundred-year cage of the Mist’s making.”

“Excuse me, allow me to interrupt.” Ke Yo raised her hand, having been listening with full concentration. “I just remembered something.”

“Go on,” Baili Yi said with a smile.

“The underground ruin in Ni Nation doesn’t belong to our round, does it?”

Baili Yi nodded. “It doesn’t. And it wasn’t from our round, either, but further in the past. The mummy was clearly a life monster, and the unborn child was the Malediction. The Malediction could not be erased before it was born. Thus, the mother sealed it by committing suicide. By accident, you caused its birth, but it wasn’t as powerful as the Malediction should be since it didn’t enter the round it belonged to. The child turned into a mutated abomination.”

“If its round had been devoured by the Mist, why was it spared?” Ke Yo asked.

Baili Yi adjusted his glasses. “Think of it this way: the Heavenly Way and the Gluttonous Snake are dueling. Both suffered injuries. The Heavenly Way was more badly hurt. It bled, got its front teeth knocked out and even the hair pulled out. In the end, the Heavenly Way was declared the loser, and they entered the next round. One of the Heavenly Way’s hair dropped on a corner of the arena. No one noticed it. That was the ruin in Ni Nation.”

Ke Yo nodded. “I don’t have any other questions.”

Baili Yi conjured an energy chalk and waved it. A line segmented into seven parts appeared above the bonfire once more. He pulled the shortest segment on the right end to his fingers. “You can only act within the hundred years, and those before you could only act in their segments. That’s the ‘rounds’ I talked about. I did cheat and jumped rounds. I’ll get to that later.”

“Well, I do understand you, but something doesn’t feel right.” War Tiger frowned, trying to pinpoint what was bothering him.

“There is an inconsistency.” Nine Frost realized it too. “It makes sense that our round cannot travel further forward, but why not the previous rounds?”

“That’s right.” Vermilion Bird made the same observation. “Mr. Baili, I understand why your round could not travel to the previous rounds as the Mist has devoured humanity’s past, but isn’t our round right after yours? In theory, the time travelers of your round should be able to travel to our round.”

“Good question.” Baili Yi nodded. “Commonsense and experience dictate that the past comes before the future, and a cause leads to an effect. However—”

“That’s according to the limited scope of a three-dimensional world,” Dr. Jia took over with self-satisfaction. “It’s not the case for a four-dimensional world. A four-dimensional being may die and then be born, pick the fruit and then plant the tree. Things don’t follow a chronological order for them.”

“Yes,” Baili Yi continued. “The Mist, the manifestation of the Gluttonous Snake, hasn't been devouring the world chronologically. We see this in its consumption of space. The isolated islands scatter worldwide. The Mist takes over space randomly rather than encroaching toward a center point. The same applies to time. There's no pattern to how the Mist is claiming it.”

“Ah.” Vermilion Bird nodded. Then she had another thought.

Lying Wood beat her to it. “Mr. Baili, if the Mist has been devouring time randomly, why are there different rounds? Isn’t that contradictory?”

“Yes, and the Mist isn’t going to contradict itself.” Baili Yi smiled.

Lying Wood caught on after a beat. “Ah, it wasn’t the Mist’s doing.”

“So what else could it be?” Baili Yi prompted.

“Oh!” Lying Wood called out in realization. “The Heavenly Way!”