The heat death theorem based on increasing entropy only held if the universe was a closed system.
If the universe was a closed system, then as entropy continued to increase, it would eventually fall into lifeless stillness, an absolute standstill with no change over time.
But the confirmation of parallel universes had made Reilo realize that the universe was definitely not a closed system. Its vastness seemed to far exceed the Academic World's imagination—not only in the immensity of time and space, but also in its boundless depth, where infinite collisions of probability gave birth to countless possibilities.
Different parallel worlds underwent tiny exchanges of mass, like the pores of skin. This was what people called breathing.
But on the vast scale of the universe, each breath was clearly not a fleeting process. It was a long one.
It could take thousands, even tens of thousands of years, for a single exchange to occur.
There was no doubt that the window Reilo had accidentally opened was now in the exhaust phase of the world he inhabited. He did not know how many years it had already lasted, or how many more it would continue, but the phenomenon it produced was entirely different from what the Gamma Civilization had experienced. Not only had he received no energy from the mysterious vortex, but he was steadily losing it.
Perhaps another parallel universe was enjoying the same bliss the Gamma Civilization once had, basking in an endless supply of energy.
"π, infinite and non-repeating."
Reilo looked at the Gamma script on the bronze fragment. He now clearly understood that the Gamma Civilization's mathematical work had involved trying to incorporate this special number into the constant series and convert it into an eleven-based system. In the course of this unceasing process of transformation, they