Chapter 1356: [Y-012]

[Y-012]

Hearing Chen Ling's question, that person hesitated for a moment, but still slowly spoke:

"Forget it, you'll have to know sooner or later anyway, there's no harm in telling you now... Follow me."

After that person finished speaking, he turned and walked towards the depths of Civilization Embers.

Just as Chen Ling and Wu Yi were about to follow, that person spoke again:

"Let your subordinate wait here. Its body is too massive; it will be torn to shreds if it enters the depths of the embers."

Wu Yi turned its head to look at Chen Ling. Chen Ling didn't hesitate much and had it wait in place.

Although this Angel of Silence's strength was stronger than his current self, he had no ill intent towards him, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to great lengths to save the two of them from the collapse... Moreover, he seemed to know many secrets about the Red Star, and Chen Ling was very interested in these.

The two walked shoulder to shoulder along a broken street, shuttling through the bizarre and twisted city ruins. The grayish-white snowflakes continued to fall flutteringly, and the surroundings were deadly silent.

Chen Ling had also discussed the exact same question in depth with Teacher Ye when he was in the Integration Faction. Without thinking much, he gave his own answer:

"Is it candlelight?"

"?"

That person suddenly stopped in his tracks.

The youth turned his head to look at Chen Ling in surprise, seemingly not expecting him to state the answer right off the bat: "They told you?"

"... Who are 'they'?"

"If they weren't the ones who told you, how did you know?"

"A long time ago, I met a Doctor surnamed Lin, and he mentioned this concept to me... However, this should have just been him talking nonsense casually." Chen Ling answered truthfully.

"A Doctor surnamed Lin?" The youth was stunned for quite a while, his expression continuously changing.

"What's wrong?"

"... It's nothing." After pausing for a moment, the youth continued, "You are correct. Every world can be seen as a ray of light... born from a Candlelight, extending infinitely into nothingness. These rays of light originate from the same source, but their directions of extension are all different, and they will never intersect with each other."

The youth pointed to the ground beneath his feet,

"This world, which is the Gray World in your mouths, and the world where the Human Domains are located, are actually two adjacent rays of candlelight."

Following his finger, Chen Ling looked over and suddenly spoke:

"So, human civilization really did exist in the Gray World?"

"Of course. The more adjacent the rays of light are, the higher the similarity between the worlds. This place used to be like your world; not only did it have human civilization, it also had similar geological environments, similar countries, and even similar histories...

In some movies and television works, you can see the concept of shuttling through parallel worlds. After unexpectedly experiencing some things, a certain person would arrive in another almost exactly identical world. There would also be similarly prosperous cities, cultural concepts that didn't differ much, and one could even find people in the other world who were extremely similar to those in their original world.

The relationship between you and the former Gray World is exactly like this."

After seeing the situation in Civilization Embers, Chen Ling had actually guessed that human civilization might have existed in the Gray World, but he fundamentally didn't expect that this place was once a world just like Earth.

The eternally unchanging lead-gray clouds, the barren and desolate black earth, the eerie contamination harmful to the human body, and those ferocious and terrifying Calamities... No matter how you looked at it, everything here couldn't be connected to the former Earth.

"Then how did it become like this?" Chen Ling couldn't help but ask.

"[Y-012]."

"What?"

"The serial number of that meteor." The youth paused for a moment, "In the words of your Human Domains, it's the Red Star."

Chen Ling was stunned,

"The Red Star... has a serial number??"

"Yes, it was specially classified and numbered by the Vice-Captain to distinguish them."

Just two short sentences brought Chen Ling an unprecedented impact. For a moment, he didn't know where to start asking... He could only pick out his most urgent question and ask:

"Them?? The Red Star... is more than one???"

"Everything in the universe is a unity of opposites. With the 'Candlelight' that birthed everything, naturally there will also be 'darkness' where the light cannot reach... Outside the Candlelight World, there is a Meteor Shower approaching." The youth spoke slowly,

"No one knows where this Meteor Shower comes from. The only thing we know is that the target of this Meteor Shower is the source of the worlds, which is the 'Candlelight' itself, and the Red Star in your mouths, which is [Y-012], is a part of this Meteor Shower.

Every meteor in this Meteor Shower possesses different characteristics. For example, G-series Meteors contain pure destructive power, and will explode the moment they touch the Candlelight World, directly blowing the entire world line to pieces; J-series Meteors can influence the thoughts of all living beings, typically plunging the corresponding world line into war, eventually leading to self-destruction...

K-series Meteors will bit by bit nibble away at the world line in the form of special life forms until it is completely devoured, such as... Mythical Invasion.

And Y-series Meteors are an extremely special existence among all meteors. It doesn't inherently possess the absolute destructive power like the G-series, nor does it possess a physical body like the K-series. What it affects is 'Civilization' itself.

After [Y-012] arrived at the Candlelight, it head-on pierced through the Candlelight World belonging to the Gray World. Tens of thousands of years of human civilization collapsed with a loud crash, like a super vortex appearing in the long river of history, swallowing all traces of human existence... The Civilization Embers you see now is the hole where [Y-012] pierced through the Candlelight World in the past, and it's also the place where this world's final civilization legacy is buried."

The youth paused, and added another sentence,

"After [Y-012] pierced through the Gray World, it brushed past the sky above the world where the Human Domains are located. Although it didn't directly crash into the Candlelight you are in, its special force field still caused an impact on the world you are in.

Your civilization began to regress, and because the barrier between you and the Gray World was pierced through by the Red Star, the creatures in the Gray World also invaded your world through the continuously expanding hole."

As the youth's voice fell, Chen Ling's mouth opened slightly, his mind already incomparably shocked.

He never expected that with just a few simple sentences, the youth before him would completely solve the mysteries that had troubled the Human Domains to this day... The origin of the Red Star, the appearance of the Gray World, and even the civilization regression itself, all found their answers with the appearance of the "Meteor Shower" and "[Y-012]".

Chen Ling recovered for quite a while before fully digesting the youth's words. Immediately after, as if remembering something, he asked right away:

"That meteor that brushed past Earth... which is [Y-012], will it still come back?"

"Theoretically speaking, the trajectory of a meteor is irreversible." The youth gave Chen Ling a somewhat complicated look, "But [Y-012] is an exception... Or rather, your world is an exception.

It, is about to return soon."