Chapter 237

The valley resembled a wrinkle casually scratched into the earth's surface by a giant's fingernail, deep and narrow, with nearly vertical rock walls on both sides.

Light struggled to shine directly in; there were no plants, only sporadic patches of fleshy, thick moss poking out from rock crevices, emitting a faint phosphorescence that made the faces of those gathered flicker like floating ghosts.

There were not many people, perhaps twenty or thirty, scattered across the relatively flat gravel ground at the valley floor.

They wore various attire; some were in rough outfits suited for wilderness movement, while most wore hoods or face masks, revealing only pairs of eyes—alert, bewildered, anxious, and wavering eyes.

They maintained a subtle safe distance from one another, forming a loose, wary circle.

No one spoke; there were only heavy or suppressed breaths, and the occasional faint clatter from stepping on loose stones.

Wade stood right in the center of that open space.

He did not deliberately project pressure, nor did he assume any aggressive posture; he simply stood there, dressed in a well-tailored dark gray suit, like a professor from some university.

He did not look at anyone; his gaze seemed to pierce through the rock walls, directing itself toward a more distant, more essential dimension. Yet this very fact made every person present feel that he had seen through them from the inside out, as if he were merely scanning and evaluating them.

Wade finally spoke, his voice not loud but unusually clear, drowning out all the whistling of the wind in the valley, entering directly into everyone's eardrums, even the depths of their minds: "The fact that you all could accept this invitation proves one thing."

His voice carried a peculiar rhythm, like the chanting of some ancient ritual or the rhythm of celestial movement, calm yet unquestionable: "You... at least harbor a precious openness toward 'Absolute Truth'."

A very slight commotion rippled through the crowd; someone shifted their feet uneasily.

"Absolute Truth?" A hoarse male voice broke the silence, coming from a middle-aged man with an unusually strong build and a fierce look in his eyes. "Stop the mysticism here! We risked coming here not to listen to your preaching! What the hell did you mean by 'another path to survival' and 'an acknowledged order' in your previous message? That woman Yang Yi may be crazy, but her fists are hard enough, and her plan was reasonable..."

"Reasonable?" Wade slowly turned his head, his brown-black eyes looking at the burly man.

The burly man's voice cut off abruptly, as if choked by an invisible hand, emitting a faint hiss.

"Her plan looked very promising? Is that so? Heh! Like... a child trying to block a tsunami with a wooden board..." Wade's lips curved into a faint, almost pitying arc. "Courage is commendable, the intention is lamentable, but the outcome... was destined long ago."

He took a single, light step forward; this step seemed to freeze the air, and the whistling of the entire valley appeared to stagnate for an instant.

"Let us face that truth, a truth that terrifies you, that Yang Yi tried to fight against, and that my Masters... oh, I'm afraid you do not know, the Evil Gods are not just one; They are spread throughout the entire universe!"

Buzz—With these words, a clamor immediately erupted throughout the valley.

"What does that mean?"

"They? More than one?"

"Alarmist nonsense!"

Wade ignored their shock, raised one hand slightly with his palm facing up; without any light or shadow effects, everyone's consciousness "buzzed" as if forcibly dragged into a cosmic scene fast-forwarded by billions of times:

Stars were born, burned, expanded, aged, collapsed, and returned to silence;

Civilizations flashed like sparks, leaving brief trails of light on the dark curtain before being erased by an invisible "tide," with energy returning to a cold cycle.

There was no good or evil, no meaning, only an unchanging trend—sliding from order into disorder, where any local prosperity defying the trend would be regulated by a grander mechanism.

The scene vanished, leaving behind a deeper chill and a sense of void.

"The universe is a living entity, a living entity constantly... aging."

Wade's voice sounded again, pulling everyone back from the cold cosmic scene. "The 'Evil Gods', the 'Dead Stars'—what you call with words full of fear and contempt—are merely the... digestive and metabolic systems necessary for this living entity to maintain its own health. They are not evil; they are simply silently executing the maintenance of cosmic order!

"And the various intelligent civilizations in the universe are merely parasites within this living entity! They sustain the operation of their entire species by consuming the energy of this living entity, a process that accelerates the death of the universe as a living entity!

"Of course, a mere Earth is as insignificant as dust in the universe, but the disorderly expansion of countless such civilizations will cause increasingly greater entropy increase.

"The more civilization groups there are, the more disorder they release into the universe, accelerating the overall entropy increase of the entire universe.

"Their task is to periodically clean up those overgrown, over-consuming, colony clusters that cause local 'inflammation'—oh, this process, you humans call it excessive entropy increase.

"Human civilization, unfortunately, or rather, naturally, has grown into such a colony cluster that needs to be cleaned up.

"This is not war, not conquest, not even malice; it is merely a... physiological regulation."

Pale or iron-green faces, individuals standing stiffly as if frozen, looked at each other in bewilderment.

Wade's expression was gentle and refined; those unsettling eyes—now, deep within the pupils, faint nebula-like lights slowly rotated; when gazed upon, it seemed one could see the miniature of stellar birth and extinction.

"What Yang Yi did was attempt to make the 'colony' learn to fight against the white blood cells and digestive enzymes within the host body. The more successful she is, the faster human entropy production soars due to technological explosions and waves of awakening; the brighter the 'inflammatory area' she marks on a cosmic scale, the more intense and thorough the 'immune response' she attracts will be.

"She is not saving you; she is booking for you a... most painful, specially attended-to—cleansing."

The wind in the valley lost its direction, whistling against the rock walls, sweeping up scattered withered leaves and gravel.

A middle-aged woman wearing glasses, looking like a scholar, spoke with trembling, her voice sharp due to excitement: "Then according to your words, we... we can only wait to die? Or like livestock awaiting slaughter, make no resistance at all?!"

"Wait to die? Resist?" Wade shook his head lightly, as if correcting a child's childish grammatical error. "You have a third option. A... option allowed, even 'appreciated', by the laws of the universe itself."

He paused, letting the word "appreciated" settle and ferment in the silence of the valley.

"My Masters—those existences you fear—They do not take pleasure in torment or destruction; They have no emotions, merely executing cleaning and recycling. For a civilization that understands... cooperation, understands maintaining order at the last moment, and can even actively organize and archive its most valuable parts, They will grant a certain... respect, and, extremely rare—permission."

"Permission?" Another voice sounded, from a thin man whose tone revealed shrewd calculation. "What permission? Permission to drag on a miserable existence?"

"Permission to preserve the spark of civilization." Wade's voice suddenly became clear and powerful, like a bell or chime striking the soul. "Permission for the core of human civilization—the most exquisite parts of your history, culture, science, and art, your species' genes and consciousness—to avoid energy recycling."

This statement struck like lightning, hitting those in the crowd who were not merely afraid of death but carried a heavier, more responsible burden.

The middle-aged woman who looked like a scholar suddenly raised her head, her eyes behind the glasses bursting with an unusual light. Several others who appeared relatively calm also began to breathe heavily.

"And the key to obtaining this permission," Wade's voice was full of seductive rhythm, "is voluntary submission. Prove that your civilization possesses the qualification to be managed, prove that you understand and respect the supreme laws of the universe. Not like Yang Yi, inciting a futile resistance destined to invite the most severe punishment."

"What must we do?" A tall, thin figure with a face hidden in the shadow of a hood asked, his voice dry.

Wade smiled; that smile remained pitying, yet carried a hint of barely perceptible satisfaction.

"The first step, and the most crucial one: eliminate the... error that is dragging the entire civilization onto the path of resistance and destruction." He slowly spat out that name as if expelling a poison thorn. "Yang Yi."

"Overthrowing her is not merely for your personal probability of survival." Wade's gaze swept over those whose eyes burned with the fire of hope. "This is a 'pledge of loyalty', a credential proving to my Masters that within human civilization, there exist enough who are clear-headed, rational, and willing to accept the arrangement of a higher order. When the Masters descend, these collaborators, and the sparks of civilization they select, will obtain that precious permit."

"But... Yang Yi's strength..." someone whispered, fear still lingering.

"Strength?" Wade seemed to hear the most amusing joke; he raised his hand and lightly snapped his fingers.

From the darker shadows deeper in the valley, three people walked out. They wore ordinary clothes, their faces even somewhat pale, their eyes slightly empty.

But when they stopped and slightly released their aura—an aura different from the energy fluctuations of Earth's awakeners, more condensed, closer to some origin—spread out.

One of them had a cluster of pure black flames dancing at their fingertips, having no temperature yet seeming capable of burning the soul;

Another had the hard rock beneath their feet flowing and shaping like water waves, instantly transforming into a rough statue brimming with primitive power;

The last person merely raised his eyes, looking at a spot on the rock wall; the rock and moss there instantly aged and weathered, shedding a rustling dust as if a thousand years had passed.

"I know him... Weiklai! He... was only C-rank before..." Someone in the crowd recognized one of them and cried out in shock.

"That is Bruno Dorn! His superpower is time, an extremely rare ability, yet he was only C-rank... able to control only a single blade of grass to bloom! But now..." someone shouted in disbelief.

"This is the 'Gift'." Wade's voice was like sweet rain, sprinkling upon those souls dried up by thirst for power, "A trivial sharing of knowledge and authority from a higher dimension, proving the value of allegiance."

The last trace of hesitation in the eyes of those Awakened was replaced by greed and the will to survive; some even burned with a sense of noble sacrifice.

Deep within Wade's eyes, light like a nebula flickered silently.

The bait had been cast, the net spread.

"Unite, purge the errors, prove your worth! And then..." His voice dropped, like a devil's whisper yet carrying the solemnity of an oracle, "Welcome the... new birth belonging to the truly awakened!"

The wind in the valley seemed colder.