In the forest camp, a military tent made of beast skin, the once invincible king of Doma City lay weakly on the bed.

It had rained all night last night, perhaps the rain had aggravated his wound, making it more swollen.

It seems that not only the Ancestors, but even the great Tree of Yenshof stood with the Qi people.

But why?

Those people clearly couldn't hear the voice of the Tree of Yenshof, yet they gained His favor.

Lying in bed, Tunnan was puzzled, yet his consciousness began to gradually blur.

At this moment, he was still unaware of his own insignificance in the grand scheme of things.

The one who defeated him was never the Qi people, nor the Ancestors, nor the Tree of Yenshof, but his own deep-seated pride and greed.

He thought he had comprehended the secret of the Tree of Yenshof, but did not realize he was merely an ant at the foot of the great tree, what he comprehended was not even the surface, just some withered leaves and bark.

However, this was not his fault.

The limitations of the era destined him to see things only from the perspective of an ant.

The giants among the forest tribes had not yet appeared, and the awakening of thought had not yet begun.

Perhaps in time, when his descendants finally walk out of this forest, and truly ignite the fire of civilization, stepping into the starry sky, and re-recognizing the Tree of Yenshof... there may be a different understanding.

But that would be a matter of countless millennia in the future.

If their civilization can withstand the test of time and reach that day...

Looking at the weakened leader, Saquai sitting beside the bed sighed gently, saying in a trembling voice.

"...The prophecy has ultimately come to pass."

Flames, corpses, death...

That was the revelation he obtained by connecting with the Tree of Yenshof, and he had foreseen it before the war began.

And indeed, it all happened.

The all-knowing, all-powerful He seemed to have penetrated through causality, or perhaps He was causality itself!

Trembling at the horrendous karma, Saquai pressed his left hand against his chest, holding a pinch of beast ashes in his right hand, scattering them into the fire, mumbling tirelessly, confessing and praying to the great Tree of Yenshof and the Ancestors.

Tunnan, with eyes slightly closed, suddenly opened his eyes, his angular but weak face showing a rare trace of piety.

"I have seen the Tree of Yenshof... He is calling me."

Upon hearing this, Saquai's face changed dramatically, holding the young leader's hand, a trace of pleading in his voice.

"Please don't leave us."

Tunnan sighed, his breath weak as a thread, spoke slowly.

"I don't want to, but my time is short... Not heeding the Ancestors' advice was my greatest mistake, the descendants of Doma City should remember this profound lesson."

At this point, his weak face suddenly flushed with a tinge of color.

As if it were his last blaze of glory, he raised his arm, grasping Saquai's wrist.

"I need to return to Doma City, take me before the Ancestors... I want to apologize to him in person."

It was his final wish, also the revelation he saw through the Tree of Yenshof.

That was the last thing he could do for his people.

Seeing the sincerity and determination in those eyes, Saquai choked with tears, nodded his head, agreeing to the dying leader's request.

"Alright."

Escorted by 300 remaining soldiers, the warriors of the Doma Tribe traveled day and night and finally brought the barely surviving Tunnan back to Doma City before the Sun set for the third time.

At this moment, outside the temple at the root of the Sacred Tree, devout believers were prostrating beside the roots as thick as mountains.

Thousands of fireflies circled under the majestic and graceful canopy, turning the night into day, illuminating the green leaves into gold.

Witnessing this incredible scene, warriors returning from the front lines widened their eyes, and the priests accompanying the army were even more incredulous.

Even Tunnan, the most powerful in "Spiritual Energy" in their tribe, couldn't drive such a large number of "Holy Light Worms."

Ordinary clansmen who had awakened Spiritual Energy could only command dozens to a hundred or so at most.

Yet at this moment, the "Holy Light Worms" here lit up the entire Sacred Tree!

The number had increased beyond the language of the Tree of Yenshof's people to describe!

"Golden Tree..."

Saquai muttered, staring at the seemingly glowing canopy.

He recalled an ancient legend.

It was said that at the distant dawn of the primal era when everyone on this land lived in the Forbidden Forest Valley, the Sacred Tree that initially sheltered all life shone in such fashion!

Now that long-gone spectacle had reappeared in this forest, and descended upon the Sacred Tree of the Doma Tribe.

In addition to the ecstasy, Saquai's heart was filled with confusion.

What exactly is happening?!

Just then, he saw the temple maiden praying at the temple entrance—

Dora, who delivered the prophecy in place of the Ancestors.

Steadily, with trembling steps, he walked past the winding roots to the temple entrance.

Kneeling beside her, the old man joined his hands in prayer, establishing a mental connection with her and asked.

"What has happened here?"

With her eyes closed, Dora's devout face remained unchanged, echoing in silent reflections through a tranquil heart like a lake.

"...The Tree of Yenshof has performed a miracle, and the Ancestors have heard His voice once again."

Saquai was stunned at her words, then his face suddenly changed.

"The great Ancestors are still inside?"

Dora nodded gently.

"We asked him to come out, but he refused..."

Saquai stood there dazed, then quickly got up from the ground and walked towards the entrance of the temple.

Dora did not stop him, only opened her eyes, watching as his figure vanished into the temple entrance.

It didn't take long before the elderly priest walked back out of the temple with vacant eyes.

His face was filled with confusion, shock... which gradually turned into panic and fear.

He was clearly walking deeper into the temple! Yet as he walked, he found himself back at the entrance!

Dora looked at him, speaking in a silent language.

"No one can enter the temple..."

"Without his permission."

Before this, she had already tried many times...

...

Outside the temple, it was as bright as day, and inside the temple, it was equally brightly lit.

Sitting on the vine-covered bed, Night Ten quietly observed the mural on the wall, feeling his spiritual world more fulfilled than ever.

It was a wondrous feeling.

As if running two alt accounts on the same computer, with one entering the instance.

He had experienced this wondrous feeling once before while in the hyperspace passage, but had to leave in a hurry without scrutinizing it closely.

Now, with his consciousness submerging into the surrounding environment, allowing his spreading spiritual perception to extend outwards, that sense of consciousness traversing time and space returned to him!

And unlike before, this time his consciousness in the "main world" did not fall asleep, but remained awake along with his consciousness in the instance.

However, relatively speaking, this time he couldn't touch anything within the instance, only through a layer of flickering mist could he watch things happen quietly behind the mist.

This was probably "Spiritual Energy".

Initially, Night Ten felt a little helpless with such a bizarre situation, but now he could skillfully control this ability and independently choose the target to connect with.

For example, at this moment, he connected his consciousness to the Sacred Tree of Doma City, allowing a part of his consciousness to return to over 150 years ago, when the towering tree was just planted in this forest, through the growth rings engraved at the root of the Sacred Tree.

As he speculated, the Sacred Tree in the forest was indeed planted by the crew of the missile cruiser of Gemini.

Not only that—

After some testing, Night Ten was overjoyed to discover that he could not only establish a mental connection with the murals at the root of the Sacred Tree, but even continue to activate his ability while entering the instance, using the target in the instance as a "springboard" to enter a new instance!

In other words, he could drag the "progress bar" forward! To over 200 years ago before the Sacred Tree was planted!

Of course, such iterations cannot continue indefinitely.

When he used the target in the duplicate as a springboard to enter a new duplicate, the things he could see were already quite blurry, as if a denser layer of mist enveloped outside the fog.

Through that voidish mist, he could only see blurry shadows, and he could only hear occasional snippets of words. There was no way to find a new "springboard."

However, even hearing and seeing only snippets were quite good enough.

At least for Night Ten, it was sufficient to help him piece together the historical reconstruction of the past two hundred years of this planet based on the information on the temple mural!

At the end of the Three-Year War, Gemini and Hunter respectively received command orders about the "Final Battle" plan.

As Captain Zhao Tianhe had anticipated, they received entirely different orders from Gemini, the sister ship.

The Hunter was the executor of the Final Battle Plan, responsible for rebooting Earth's ecological system and thoroughly cleansing the remaining harm of Gaia's Seeds to better help the refuge reconstruct the order of the Human Alliance Era.

As for Gemini, which was low on ammunition, it was the supervisor of the plan, tasked with overseeing Hunter's execution of the orders.

The two sides, in fact, had no choice from the beginning.

Especially since Gemini realized that Hunter would probably not carry out its mission, they had to preemptively strike to survive.

And even if they struck first, their chance of survival was still quite low, at best leading to a mutually assured destruction.

Such a victory was meaningless, even worse than failure.

Thus, Captain Song Yuchuan of Gemini made an extremely risky and bold decision—

Which was to upload the minds of the entire crew to the circuit board!

They would kill themselves before the opponent could kill them and revive after mutual destruction with the opponent to continue executing the orders in the form of bio-androids.

This was the optimal solution they could come up with.

Between Survivors and the United Human, they chose the United Human without hesitation.

This plan was agreed upon by most, as they originally had no better choice, and besides, most of their families were also in the refuge.

However, a small number believed that uploading the mind to the circuit board equated to suicide, and the "Final Battle" plan established by the Lagrange Point Space Station was extremely foolish.

The proper method should have been to talk with Hunter, as they believed there must be a way for everyone to survive.

Night Ten could not see more information about how this argument unfolded and ended.

Through the voidish mist, this was all the history from 200 years ago he could perceive.

After all, for the Sacred Tree above him, truly understanding the memory of "the sky" wasn't easy.

Moreover, the crew who planted it apparently didn't wish to recall those "old era" matters.

Seventeen crew members were eventually put into the Sleep Cabin, shot into geosynchronous orbit via a landing craft.

What happened afterward needs no elaboration, being roughly the same as what Night Ten had seen on the Hyperspace Passage and the Hunter wreckage.

Gemini fired a lander filled with a neutron bomb and the "souls" of the entire crew at Hunter, while Hunter fired a neutron torpedo at the former at the moment of entering the hyperspace passage.

The wreckage of Gemini remained in Gaia planet's orbit, while Hunter, carrying crew members in an uncertain state of life and death, leaped five light years away.

As for the seventeen crew members "exiled" in the Sleep Cabin, they slept in geosynchronous orbit for nearly forty or fifty years, finally awakening at the end of the primitive era.

They landed on Gaia planet in their landing craft and discovered the colonizers' descendants on this planet—namely, the green-skinned Gaian people.

In their study and observation of the Gaia people, they gradually realized that the United Human's understanding of Gaia planet contained errors.

Even completely erroneous!

Whether this error was due to deliberate misguidance by "radical forces" in the colony or due to the inherent arrogance and prejudice of the United Human is no longer known.

After studying the living habits and cultural customs of the Gaia people, the seventeen crew members finally concluded—

An infinitely prosperous civilization once existed on this planet.

And, unlike the United Human who had just stepped into the starry sky,

This advanced civilization's prosperity wasn't merely confined to the South Gate Two star system; its footsteps had even far exceeded the scope of human civilization's comprehension!

As for Gaia—

It was merely the "ecological maintenance system" left on this planet by that advanced civilization.

In truth, this discovery was indeed fascinating.

Whether it was the existence of that advanced civilization itself or pondering on where they ended up going.

Because if even this "Pioneer," whose achievements far surpassed human civilization, finally could not escape self-destruction, the decline of human civilization seemed nothing to bemoan after all.

All things live to die, and die to live, but this is fate destined.

With curiosity about the "Pioneers" and a desire to uncover the "Cosmic Truth," seventeen crew members temporarily gave up returning home and, with limited tools, conducted a series of investigations on the Gaians and their Sacred Tree.

And after a series of explorations full of twists and turns, they finally discovered Its existence!

This was an event on the eve of the "Awakening Era," initially discovered by the physicist Qiu Shiye of the Fifth Division.

These fellows, usually deemed useless, always manage to prove their worth unexpectedly, even if the utility isn't apparent.

In short, after years of research, he finally deciphered the "Spiritual Energy" possessed by the Gaians and, after awakening his spiritual energy, discovered the existence of the "Tree of Yenshof," which he further explained using dimensional theory!

This information is all preserved in the temple murals.

After Night Ten understood the content on the murals, he naturally also inherited these clues and, like Qiu Shiye, who had once "succeeded," engaged in direct dialogue with "It"...

It was precisely this dialogue that drove Doctor Qiu Shiye completely mad, plunging him into hysterical insanity.

Or in other words, he became possessed.

He learned from the Pioneers that a "creator" exists in this universe and that everything, including himself, is merely a character in a book or a mural on a wall.

The only way to seize control of their fate is to break the "Window of Vision"!

Which means breaking the fourth wall!

In Doctor Qiu's view, this is a destiny all civilizations must ultimately face — they will confront their creator!

And an example lay before him — the "Pioneer" who once existed in this universe had successfully shattered the barrier between them and their creator!

To achieve this goal, he needed further experiments with the reactor on the Missile Cruiser of Gemini, for which the reactor needed to be dismantled and brought to the ground.

The other sixteen crew members naturally opposed this insane plan, as it was their only hope of returning home.

To the other sixteen crew members, they had successfully unearthed the entire ruin, and it was time to leave.

Moreover, they had experienced the troubles caused by madmen, and for this, they were kicked off the ship.

To prevent this black sheep from doing something outrageous, they tried to imprison him, but unfortunately, he escaped into the forest with his followers.

These people later became known as the "Qiu People" — the "materialistic" natives who couldn't perceive spiritual energy.

The events that unfolded afterward became the "Second Judgment Day," familiar to all the natives of this forest —

A burning palace fell to the ground!

It is worth noting that the murals in Doma City Temple were not left by Doctor Qiu but by one of the other sixteen crew members.

They brought the seeds of the Sacred Tree into the forest and, with the help of the awakened spiritual energy natives, nurtured a new Sacred Tree and recorded this history in its roots.

Because of this, the mural's content actually carries strong subjective colors.

From a third-party perspective, Night Ten tried to unravel the clues on the mural and was suddenly surprised to find that this history was so similar!

The seventeen crew members were divided over whether to follow the path of the "Pioneers," resulting in a fierce fight.

Qiu Shiye, who led the "Sinners" to conquer the Forbidden Forest Valley, undoubtedly won, yet also undeniably failed completely.

If the fourth wall were so easy to break, the "Pioneer" civilization wouldn't have spent so much effort.

Though not recorded on the mural, Night Ten had already guessed the subsequent events.

Like himself.

Doctor Qiu Shiye ultimately discovered the final truth.

"It" indeed broke the fourth wall, but did not become the "almighty" creator he fantasized as a materialist.

The voice he heard was not from "It," the "creator predecessor," but merely the echo of "It" left in this universe.

He never truly conversed with "It."

He merely greeted the shadow of "It" left in this world...

"Damn! Isn't this just like the 'First Judgment Day'?"

Survivors of the Three-Year War fought again on Gaia planet for the truths they believed in, even after the war ended.

History is like a circle, events repeating over and over, even right under his nose.

Thinking of that rain, which delighted all the natives, and the self-smart Tunnan, Night Ten felt a mix of laughter and tears, finally understanding the meaningful sarcasm "It" had upon first meeting him.

You are always like this—

"Pardon my laughter."

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