socalfunplaces Page 73
Page 73
Lin Ye clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white: "We have to find a way to stop this!"
Alice pulled up data on higher-dimensional civilizations and spoke at breakneck speed: "The data says that the universe's entropy quiescence is unavoidable, but there is a way to slow it down—find the source of entropy and rebalance the energy!"
"What is an entropy source?" Wukong scratched his head, his face full of question marks.
"It's the most chaotic place in the universe in terms of energy; the root of entropy increase lies there," Alice explained while typing. "Finding it might just turn things around!"
Lin Ye's eyes lit up. "Okay, let's go!"
The starship set off towards the entropy source location that Alice had calculated. The closer they got, the more erratic the surrounding space became, and time seemed to pass in a jumbled mess.
"We've entered the entropy-increasing zone!" Number 18 stared at the dashboard. "All the electronic devices are moving at a snail's pace!"
Lin Ye nodded, feeling his mind become sluggish. Suddenly, the starship trembled violently, as if it had hit something hard.
"We've crashed into the boundary of the entropy source!" Alice's voice was filled with shock. "It's a massive energy vortex, full of turbulent currents!"
Lin Ye stared at the energy vortex before him, feeling a tightness in his chest from the immense pressure: "We have to go in!"
Vegeta snorted, his blond hair standing on end: "What are you afraid of! We've already beaten Omega to a pulp!"
The starship plunged into the energy vortex, and Lin Ye and his companions were instantly enveloped by the chaotic energy flow. Their bodies felt as if they were being torn apart by countless hands, and their consciousness began to blur.
"Hold on!" Lin Ye shouted at the top of his lungs, trying his best to pull his consciousness back.
After drifting for an unknown amount of time, the starship finally broke out of the energy vortex and arrived at the core of the entropy source. There wasn't a single trace of matter here, just a chaotic sea of energy.
“That’s the core of the entropy source!” Alice pointed at the black singularity in the center of the energy sea, her eyes wide open.
Lin Ye took a deep breath. "Vegeta, Goku, let's go together!"
The three of them rushed out of the starship at the same time, flying towards the black singularity. But the chaotic energy flow was like a wall, blocking them back, making every step they took extremely difficult.
"This energy is too intense, I can't get close at all!" Wukong cried out anxiously.
Lin Ye gritted his teeth and raised the Stardust Crystal: "Stardust Crystal, fuse all the energy together!"
The stardust crystals suddenly emitted a dazzling light, resonating with the chaotic energy flow. Lin Ye felt a tremendous force surge into his body, helping him withstand the energy erosion.
"Now!" Lin Ye led the charge toward the singularity, with Vegeta and Goku close behind.
As soon as their energy collided with the black singularity, the core of the entropy source vibrated wildly, the black singularity began to shrink, and the chaotic energy flow slowly became more regular.
"It's done!" Wukong jumped up excitedly.
But before they could celebrate for even two seconds, the black singularity suddenly exploded, and an even more powerful energy shockwave sent Lin Ye and the others flying.
When Lin Ye opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on a strange planet. The surroundings were eerily quiet, exuding a deathly stillness.
"Where is this?" Lin Ye struggled to get up, only to find that all his strength had been drained away.
"You're awake." An old voice came. Lin Ye turned his head and saw an old man in a tattered robe sitting next to him.
"Who are you?" Lin Ye asked warily, his nerves on edge.
"I am the last living person on this planet," the old man sighed. "This is the end of the universe, a world devoured by entropy."
Lin Ye looked around and saw that there were indeed no signs of life; it was a desolate wasteland.
"Entropy...has it spread all the way here?" Lin Ye's voice trembled.
The old man nodded: "The increase in cosmic entropy cannot be stopped; sooner or later, everything will return to nothingness."
Lin Ye felt a wave of despair. Was all his effort in vain?
“But you bring hope,” the old man suddenly said. “The aura of stardust on you is the power that gave birth to the universe.”
Lin Ye looked down at his empty hand; the stardust crystal had long since exploded and disappeared.
"The stardust crystal shattered when the core of the entropy source exploded." The old man seemed to be able to read his mind. "But the power has merged into your body."
Lin Ye concentrated and indeed sensed a faint stardust power within his body.
“Use this power,” the old man’s eyes gleamed, “to ignite the last spark of hope!”
Lin Ye nodded, understanding the old man's meaning. He concentrated all his energy, guiding the stardust power within his body.
A faint light rose from Lin Ye's palm, not as bright as before, but full of vitality. The light illuminated the barren planet, and tender green shoots sprouted from the ground with a "whoosh".
"That's wonderful!" The old man beamed with joy. "The seed of life has been sown!"
As Lin Ye watched this scene, hope rekindled in his heart. Even if the threat of entropy still existed, as long as there was life, there was hope.
"Thank you so much, sir," Lin Ye said sincerely.
The old man waved his hand: "You should thank me for handing this desperate world a lifeline."
Just then, Alice's voice exploded in Lin Ye's mind: "Lin Ye! I found you!"
Lin Ye looked up and saw the starship slowly descending. Vegeta, Goku, and the others rushed off the starship, their faces beaming with joy.
"Lin Ye, how are you?" Wukong ran over, rubbing his hands anxiously.
Lin Ye smiled and said, "It's nothing!"
Vegeta stared wide-eyed at the green sprouts on the ground: "This...is life?"
Lin Ye nodded: "Yes! As long as there is hope, life can overcome anything!"
Everyone looked at the scene before them, their eyes filled with tears.
"Where are we going next?" Bulma asked loudly, wiping away her tears.
Lin Ye gazed at the distant starry sky, his eyes so resolute they could pierce the universe: "We will travel to every corner of the universe, sow the seeds of life, and keep the flame of hope burning forever!"
Everyone nodded vigorously, their eyes shining.
The starship set sail again, carrying the hope of life, heading towards every corner of the universe. Lin Ye stood before the observation window, gazing at the planets outside gradually regaining life, his heart filled with strength. He knew that as long as they existed, the universe would not truly fall into entropy stagnation. The power of life would forever fight against entropy increase to the bitter end! But no one noticed that after they left, the old man, gazing at the starry sky, slowly removed his tattered robe, revealing the entropy stagnation core patterns on his back, gleaming with an eerie light…
Chapter 198: The Cocoon of Reincarnation
Outside the starship's porthole, the Milky Way flowed like shattered glass. Lin Ye's fingertips traced across the control panel, and the power of stardust stirred up pale golden ripples on the control panel—they had just evacuated from the abandoned star system numbered 734, where the last Tree of Life had just sprouted a tender bud in the core of that planet.
"Anomalies in spacetime detected." Alice's mechanical voice suddenly turned shrill, and the data stream on the holographic screen exploded with red light. "The source... is the solar system, Earth's coordinates!"
Vegeta slammed his hand on the edge of the control panel, leaving fingerprints on the metal surface: "Are you kidding me? How could Earth..."
“The spacetime structure is collapsing.” Alice interrupted him, her voice trembling like never before. “The gravitational field disorder index has exceeded the critical value, and the orbit of the Earth-Moon system is… twisting into a spiral shape.”
Lin Ye's pupils contracted sharply. He pulled up the real-time footage—the blue home planet was enveloped in a distorted halo, like a glass ball being crumpled by an invisible hand, and the clouds near the equator were being torn apart at a visible speed. Even more terrifying, in the void surrounding Earth, fine black cracks spread like a spider web, each crack emitting a ghostly blue light.
"What is that?" Wukong pressed close to the porthole, his golden hair flickering in and out of the distorted light from outside. "It looks like...like someone slashed space open with a knife."
“It’s a spacetime rift.” Lin Ye’s voice was as deep as lead. “Alice, zoom in on the Earth’s Arctic region.”
The moment the image zoomed in, everyone gasped. Above the North Pole, a cocoon-like structure, larger than the distance between the Earth and the Moon, was slowly rotating. The cocoon's shell was composed of flowing purple light bands, interspersed with countless tiny stardust particles. Each pulsation caused the surrounding spacetime rifts to expand slightly. On the surface of the cocoon, veins resembling biological blood vessels could be vaguely seen, continuously drawing in the gravitational waves emitted by the Earth.
“The Cocoon of Reincarnation…” Alice’s voice module seemed to pause for a moment. “According to the ‘Final Log’ left behind by a higher-dimensional civilization, when the entropy of the universe reaches its extreme value, the Cocoon of Reincarnation will be born in the core of the original universe to execute… a reset program.”
“Reset?” Bulma jumped up, the wrench slipping from her hand. “You mean… everything has to be reset to zero? The planets we saved, the civilizations we found, all of them…” Her voice trailed off, finally drowned out by the buzzing of the control panel.
Lin Ye stared silently at the giant purple cocoon. He recalled the high-dimensional civilization crystal he had found three hundred years ago in the Sagittarius wreckage; the blurry image within it was a similar cocoon-like structure devouring galaxies. At the time, they thought it was some kind of cosmic anomaly, but they never expected the prophecy to come true so suddenly.
"It must be destroyed!" Vegeta's battle suit suddenly glowed red, and he flung open the hatch. "What right does this damn thing have to decide the fate of the universe?"
"Vegeta, wait!" Lin Ye reached out to stop him, but it was too late. The Saiyan's figure shot out of the starship like a red meteor, the energy wave gathered in his palm brighter than the sun—"Galicore!"
A purple beam of energy tore through the void, striking precisely the surface of the cocoon of reincarnation. However, the next second, the energy wave was instantly deflected as if hitting a rubber membrane, trailing a long tail of light as it plunged into Jupiter's orbit, blasting a vortex tens of thousands of kilometers in diameter into Jupiter's atmosphere. Even more bizarrely, at the point where the cocoon was struck, the purple light deepened, the vein-like structures pulsated violently, and the spacetime rift on Earth's surface suddenly expanded tenfold.
"Did you see that?" Alice's projection flickered beside Lin Ye. "The cocoon's surface is covered with 'Causality Armor,' which converts any offensive energy into its fuel. According to calculations, the attack just now increased the cocoon's maturity by 0.3%."
Vegeta rushed back into the capsule, panting heavily, the energy in his fists still crackling: "Impossible... how could such a thing exist?"
Goku walked to Lin Ye's side, his golden cudgel unconsciously spinning in his palm: "Lin Ye, are we... really helpless?" His voice was soft, yet carried an unprecedented heaviness. Three hundred years of fighting side by side, they had endured Frieza's destructive beam and withstood Buu's energy storm, but never before had they felt so powerless.
Lin Ye closed his eyes. The power of stardust within him suddenly stirred, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, rushing wildly toward his heart. Countless images flashed through his mind: the first ray of light from the Big Bang, the heavy elements ejected during a supernova explosion, the division of the first single-celled organism in the oceans of primordial Earth, and... the scenes of countless civilizations being annihilated before the cocoon of reincarnation.
“It’s not destruction.” Lin Ye suddenly opened his eyes, golden stardust swirling in his pupils. “Alice, bring up the section about ‘reincarnation’ in the ‘Final Log’.”
Obscure, high-dimensional text appeared on the holographic screen. Alice quickly translated: "'The Cocoon of Reincarnation is not a tool for destruction, but a mechanism for the metabolism of the universe. The energy and information of the old universe will be compressed into 'seeds,' nurturing a new universe within the cocoon.'"
“Information…” Lin Ye murmured to himself, stardust power condensing into a point of light between his brows, “Memory, emotion, the imprint of civilization… these non-material energies cannot be destroyed by entropy increase.” He suddenly looked at Alice, “The essence of stardust power is a ‘carrier of cosmic information,’ right?”
Alice's eyes flashed blue as she performed a rapid calculation and exclaimed, "Yes! The quantum state of stardust particles can store imprints of consciousness! If memories are encapsulated as 'information seeds' before the cocoon explodes, theoretically it's possible..."
“We can be reborn in the new universe.” Lin Ye continued, his tone resolute and determined. “But we need to enter the core of the cocoon. It’s the node where the energy of the old and new universes is converted, and it’s the only place where we can implant information seeds.”
The starship rocked violently amidst the energy turbulence on the surface of the Cocoon of Reincarnation, the purple light outside the portholes resembling boiling lava. Alice's voice blared through the loudspeaker: "Temporary portal coordinates locked, stabilization time only 17 seconds! All personnel, prepare for jump!"
“Hey, Lin Ye,” Vegeta suddenly grabbed his shoulder, “If this thing really is a universal law, wouldn’t it be…”
“There’s no other choice.” Lin Ye interrupted him, his gaze sweeping over Bulma, Android 18, and Goku. “Even if the universe is reset, we must bring the evidence that it ‘once existed’ with us.”
The moment the passage opened, an irresistible suction force pulled the starship in. The inner passage was like a tapestry woven from billions of light bands, each band flowing with images from the birth of the universe to the present: hydrogen clouds collapsing into stars, planets colliding to form rings, intelligent life lighting the first bonfire, interstellar fleets traversing light-years... Lin Ye felt his consciousness being assaulted by countless streams of information, and heard whispers in his ears, a mixture of billions of languages.
"Stay awake!" Number 18's voice crackled with static. "My energy is being broken down!"
Lin Ye gritted his teeth and channeled the power of stardust into everyone's energy circuits: "Follow me! The core area is just ahead!"
Passing through the vortex of light, the group finally arrived at the core of the cocoon. Here lay an absolutely pure white space, devoid of up, down, left, or right. Suspended in the center was an energy sphere the size of a basketball, its surface flowing with iridescent light—the seed of the new universe. Around the seed, countless tiny points of light swirled, each carrying energy information from the old universe.
"Now!" Lin Ye raised his hands, and the power of stardust surged out like a golden tide, condensing into a vortex in his palms. "Infuse your memories and emotions... into the stardust with your will!"
Goku was the first to respond, his golden hair spurting out and golden flames erupting from his body: "The will of the Kamehameha! Kakarot's pride! Get in there!"
Vegeta snorted coldly, but closed his eyes: "The glory of the Saiyans, the legacy of Planet Vegeta... and that idiot Bulma's nagging..."
Bulma smiled through her tears, the wrench transforming into a data stream that merged into the stardust: "Capsule Corporation's technology, Earth's ramen, and... the three hundred years we've spent together."
Android 18's energy became gentler than ever before, and she lightly touched the stardust vortex: "The freedom of the androids, Android 17's smile, and... the feeling of being alive."
Alice's projection transformed into countless particles of light, merging into it: "All recorded data of civilizations, all calculated star maps, and... the honor of traveling with you."
Lin Ye took a deep breath and poured all his memories from the past three hundred years—from an Earth boy to a guardian of the universe, from the pain of losing his companions to the joy of saving civilization—into stardust. The golden vortex grew brighter and brighter, eventually coalescing into a seed the size of a walnut, its surface adorned with fragments of everyone's images.
"Implant the seed!" Lin Ye shouted, pushing the memory seed into the energy ball of the new universe.
The moment the seed touched the energy ball, the entire pure white space trembled violently, purple light poured in from all directions, and the cocoon began to hum under the strain.
"Run!" Alice's voice was urgent. "The cocoon will explode in 10 seconds!"
Everyone turned and rushed towards the passage, but Lin Ye couldn't help but look back. He saw the memory seed completely merge into the energy sphere, a familiar golden glint flashing within the seven-colored light. At that moment, he suddenly understood that reincarnation was not the end, but another form of inheritance.
The explosion came just as the starship broke free of the Cocoon of Reincarnation. Everyone turned to see the giant purple cocoon burst open like fireworks, countless rays of light shooting into the depths of space, each ray giving birth to a new galaxy, a new star, a new planet. At the center of the light, an infant-like universe was slowly rotating, radiating a soft white light.
"A new universe..." Goku's voice was filled with awe, "It's breathing."