The Definition of the Ultimate Void

It couldn't be the Ultimate Void!

Absolutely impossible!

What was the Ultimate Void?

Previously, it had been said that the Ultimate Fear was an objective law, while also being a state of intelligence and thought.

No matter how the Main Biological Civilizations within the Known Universe developed, they would always encounter an even more powerful, irresistible force and head toward destruction;

civilizations under the Shenhe Technology System were incapable of overcoming such forces.

Put another way, the universe could not contain the highest intelligence of life in the Main Biological World. Their intelligence could not transcend the universe, so they could not understand the true universe.

The most direct way to express this state of thought was still this: the will of civilization could never rise above the will of the universe.

Civilization was always contained within the universe. No civilization could step outside the framework of the Known Universe to think.

Unable to break free, unable to transcend it, they could only develop and think within this framework, and only to a limited extent.

Under these conditions, the universe was divided into the Known Universe and the Unknown Universe, giving rise to a whole set of Shenhe ethics and related civilizational ideals.

Under these ideals and conditions, civilizations based on the Shenhe Technology System seemed so extreme—and ridiculous.

The Shenhe Civilization had let its own stars be destroyed. It would rather wander collectively and establish the Super Seminary, helping develop and build a Main Biological World for God River Body life, than defy this law.

The Deno Civilization had gone to war over a minor dispute, bringing about mutual destruction.

The Lieyang Civilization had stubbornly guarded its homeworld, half a planet, and refused to leave for tens of thousands of years.

In their eyes, each civilization was bound to the planet where it had been born.

If an irresistible force of the universe was going to destroy them, then whether or not they left their homeworld, they would ultimately be destroyed by it.

If the universe did not want them to perish, then even if that irresistible force left them with nothing but half of Lieyang Planet, their civilization would endure.

Only when they had no other choice, when they could no longer hold on, could they abandon their civilization's birthplace like the Shenhe Civilization and wander the universe in search of another home.

The Angels and Demons had made some progress in their thinking by comparison, but it was limited. They fought bitterly over nothing more than the dispute between justice and evil.

In their eyes, the universe's framework was fixed, and they could not change it.

And because they saw justice and evil as naturally opposed, they regarded one another as the irresistible force that threatened their civilization's survival within that framework.

Only by eliminating this force could they devote themselves fully to developing their own civilization.

In short, civilizations under the Shenhe system were a group of backward civilizations, developed under the "Ultimate Fear," and sharing a common lineage—extreme and conservative.

The so-called God-level Civilizations were nothing more than a joke: monkeys wearing crowns, unaware of their own foolishness.

Under the conditions of the "Ultimate Fear," the development ceiling of these God-level Civilizations was completely locked in place. Their limits of intelligence and thought were almost entirely locked in place, too.

The shackles on their thinking were imposed not only by the objective factor of the "Ultimate Fear," but more importantly by the Shenhe ethics and related civilizational ideals on which their civilizations had been built.

Many civilizations in this universe had never realized this. Even when they did, they were powerless to escape this state.

Carl, however, had made an original leap beyond these outdated frameworks. Building on the theory of the "Ultimate Fear," she had proposed the following revolutionary definition—

In the state of the Ultimate Fear, all existing knowledge and assumptions could be entirely wrong.

For example, as a civilization's technology advanced and its explorers reached the edge of the universe, that technological achievement meant its highest level of intelligence had reached its limit;

when the most intelligent minds of that civilization explored this boundary, they would discover that no scientific theory, nor the knowledge accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years, could define the universe's precise edge.

In theory, the true universe should be infinite. Yet in the realm of perception and actual observation, this infinite universe really did have an edge.

This circular theory gave rise to a paradox that seemed impossible to break.

Therefore, there had to be knowledge unknown to civilization that could resolve this paradox—knowledge that could pierce through everything even the highest Main Biological intelligence could not, and reveal the boundary between the Known Universe and the Unknown Universe.

Carl defined a civilization like this as the "Ultimate Void"!

No so-called God-level Civilization could compare to such a civilization!

No civilization like this had ever appeared in the Known Universe—or, at least, none had ever been discovered.

Carl devoted herself to researching the primordial force of the Void because she wanted to bring such a civilization into existence, or to explore and discover it.

She wanted, in this way, to overturn the civilizational ideals and outdated worldviews that had endured since the founding of the Shenhe Civilization.

She would reject the entire Main Biological World, allowing every civilization in the universe to be destroyed and reborn.

And Carl herself would take the "Ultimate Void" as her foundation, usher in a new era, and become its great pioneer!

This was the goal Carl truly longed for.

When the Human Federation suddenly appeared in the Milky Way, Carl initially believed it was the "Ultimate Void."

The unknown technologies used by the Federation, and the tremendous power it displayed, surpassed everything in the Main Biological World!

Even the once-mighty Shenhe Civilization could not compare to this Human Federation.

Even the powerful Angel Civilization could not stand against it.

What else could a civilization like this be, if not the "Ultimate Void"?

But before long, Carl realized that this wasn't the case.

The Human Federation still had some basic desires familiar to them, such as expanding its territory.

Carl had secretly watched the Human Federation's great expedition across the Milky Way through the Great Clock.

Carl was disappointed.

In her eyes, blindly expanding one's territory was misguided.

A civilization that desired to expand its domain was necessarily limited in some way, still confined by the framework of the Known Universe, and therefore could not be the "Ultimate Void" she had defined.

Even God-level Civilizations didn't care about the size of their territory.

There was no need to.

The universe was so vast, yet there were no civilizations above their level.

No matter how small their territories were, it didn't stop these God-level Civilizations from freely commanding all kinds of resources in the Known Universe.

After all, no one was going to stop them.

Why would the true "Ultimate Void" care about expanding some so-called territory?

A civilization that could roam freely across the vast universe, freely harvest its endless resources, and freely alter its many laws—that, in Carl's eyes, was what truly met the standard of the "Ultimate Void"!

The Human Federation was probably just a super-civilization that had surpassed the bounds of God-level Civilizations to some extent, but still fell short of the "Ultimate Void."

As for why such a civilization had suddenly appeared in the Known Universe, without ever being noticed by the other God-level Civilizations, Carl had no way of knowing.

The Great Clock could offer no definitive answer, either.

The Federation might have some connection to the Ultimate Void, but it definitely wasn't the Ultimate Void.

If the Human Federation wasn't the "Ultimate Void,"

then could those cosmic phenomena that destroyed entire galaxies in an instant have been caused by the "Ultimate Void"?

Carl dismissed that hypothesis as well.

Carl didn't know the "Hunter" existed, nor did she know how truly terrifying the "Hunter" was.

But she knew that even the destruction of a galaxy meant little in the vast Known Universe.

The "Ultimate Void" should be an ultimate existence capable of breaking through the boundary at the very edge of the universe!

As for the unknown crises and strange new civilizations that had suddenly begun appearing with increasing frequency in the Known Universe—

things like the "Human Federation," the "Hunter," the "Presolin Zerg," the "Final Defense Protocol," the "Purification Protocol," "Cyberlex," and so on...

No matter how world-shattering they were, no matter how great their threat and danger, in Carl's eyes, none of them could possibly fit the definition of the "Ultimate Void."

Carl was moved by the sudden appearance of these strange new things, but that was all.

The Ultimate Void she had sought all her life could not be these mundane things, still confined within the framework of the universe.