Changes in the Past

(PS: Seeking recommendations, monthly passes, and tips. It's Monday, and all rankings are being recalculated. This new seedling book needs everyone's help. We finally have a recommendation slot this week after ten days of being in the new book period, which was really tough. Please help.)

Lu Yuanming knew he had glimpsed a sliver of the secrets of this Dark Matter World.

When the material world where Humans reside descends into the Dark Matter World, not only do Humans themselves fall, but Human Civility also descends with them.

It's easy to understand the fall of Humans as sentient beings. Whether it's himself or the people around him, they died once, their souls materialized, and became Humans in the Dark Matter World. This is the fall of Humans.

The fall of Human Civility is much more subtle. For example, this New York City, now as ruined as a battlefield, belongs to the fallen part of Human Civility. This is the manifest aspect. Then there are the monsters. These monsters are actually all parts of fallen Human Civility, but they are the chaotic, dark, and malevolent aspects.

The Man-faced Dogs, Monster Spiders, and Bat Monsters, their forms can all be seen to carry the shadows of monsters from certain regions and certain civilizations.

Therefore, these monsters can never be killed off. Because as Humans and Human Civility fall, they will inevitably respawn and revive until Humans and Human Civility, along with the Earth, have completely fallen into the Dark Matter World.

This is not the entirety of Human Civility.

Human Civility, since its birth until now, has accumulated over thousands of years. Its religious myths, legendary epics, historical depths, urban legends, and even the information explosion of modern civilization, with novels, movies, animations, and comics that have tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of fans... all of this will fall with the descent of dark matter.

Perceptions from the material world will transform into tangible power in the Dark Matter World!

Lu Yuanming deeply understood this point. His Colorless Light Particles were a concrete manifestation of material world perceptions transforming into Dark Matter World power. Now, he also had a powerful piece of armor to prove this.

This indicates that if a way can be found, Human Civility, as it falls from the material plane to the dark matter plane, can gain power from it, immense power.

However, compared to the monsters that exist in the Dark Matter World, both Humans and Human Civility are still insignificant.

Through the fragments of Human Civility essence from before, Lu Yuanming glimpsed the existence of Unnamable monsters in the Dark Matter World. Merely seeing them, merely knowing of them, was enough to cause him harm. This terror surpassed Lu Yuanming's imagination, already akin to the concept of Great Old Ones in the Cthulhu Mythos.

They lurked in the wilderness outside this New York City.

More precisely, they were outside the collective entity of fallen Humans and Human Civility. Unknown forces prevented them from approaching for now. According to Lu Yuanming's guess, perhaps a part of the material world's influence still existed, preventing them from getting close to the material world, and thus unable to destroy the current New York City and Humans in the Dark Matter World.

Then... what if Humans and Human Civility completely fell, and even the Earth fell?

Once these Unnamable beings descended, Humans would face absolute annihilation.

This would be the true doomsday!

This was the secret Lu Yuanming had glimpsed.

The true doomsday was not the fall of Humans and Human Civility from the material world to the Dark Matter World.

As Alfred said, as long as there were enough crops to continuously produce food, the difference between Humans in the material world and the Dark Matter World would not be significant. Although called souls, one was composed of material elements and the other of dark matter elements, their functions were unchanged, and they could still reproduce.

Therefore, this could not be called doomsday. It was merely a massive social upheaval, coupled with the ineffectiveness of the scientific and technological advancements of Human information civilization. They would simply have to redevelop in this Dark Matter World. As for those monsters... as mentioned before, unless monsters the size and power of Godzilla appeared, or supernatural Undead Ghosts emerged, those monsters were merely enhanced beasts. As long as Humans organized themselves, they could easily crush them like insects.

This was not doomsday.

The true doomsday comes from the wilderness of the Dark Matter World, from the Unnamable within the unknown!

"There are still three years left."

Alfred had told Lu Yuanming before that the scientist team in the Material Universe had predicted the time limit for the dimensional fall. In at most three years, Humanity and Human Civility would completely fall into the Dark Matter World.

In other words, in the most pessimistic estimation, Humanity and Human Civility would face their end in three years.

Unless... they could escape!

They could escape the encirclement formed by these Unnamable monsters, and then flee far into the depths of the Dark Matter World, similar to deep space in the Material Universe.

Only in this way could Human Civility possibly be preserved!

Lu Yuanming understood all of this. He immediately left the bank and ran towards the park.

Alfred was leading over a hundred people in Central Park, New York, to open up new farmland. This was almost something he did daily. Compared to organizing and building, he spent more time farming.

On his way to Central Park, Lu Yuanming was also observing and thinking about the current organization. When he found Alfred, Lu Yuanming immediately asked, "Alfred, what's outside New York City?"

Alfred was discussing planting matters with an agricultural expert by the field ridge. Hearing Lu Yuanming's question, he casually replied, "You mean outside this New York City we are in? That would naturally be the wilderness of the Dark Matter World."

"What is this wilderness like? Is it a vast, boundless land? Or an endless deep sea? Or is it a void similar to the universe? Are there any creatures?" Lu Yuanming asked again.

This time, Alfred sensed something was off. He told the experts to go guide the farmland first, and then he went to the side with Lu Yuanming. He asked, "Did something happen? Why are you suddenly asking about outside the city?"

Lu Yuanming did not intend to talk about the monsters in the wilderness. The monsters he saw in the thick fog were incomparable to the monsters in the city, like Star Terrans compared to wild animals on Earth, worlds apart. What was most terrifying was his intuition that discussing these monsters directly was dangerous; it was dangerous for the listeners and equally dangerous for the speaker.

"It's just for long-term consideration. We will inevitably have to venture outside the city," Lu Yuanming said.

This was not entirely a lie, so Alfred didn't think much of it and said, "Our exploration outside the city is very limited. We have indeed dispatched Explorer teams multiple times. Except for one return, all Explorer personnel disappeared. And that one return brought about a major change... Mr. Lu, this New York City in the Dark Matter World wasn't this dilapidated at first. At least it didn't look like a battlefield ruin."

Lu Yuanming immediately thought of the monsters in the thick fog and asked, "What happened then?"

Alfred casually found a stone to sit on, and Lu Yuanming sat beside him. Alfred then said, "As I mentioned before, we initially obtained this piece of Dark Matter because souls reacted with it. Afterwards, we moved this Dark Matter to a secret experimental base beneath New York. Our initial research objective was actually immortality."

"Immortality?" Lu Yuanming asked with a frown.

Alfred was unconcerned and continued, "Before this Dark Matter appeared, Humanity could not find any evidence of the Afterlife, nor any evidence of the existence of souls. This is a problem everyone must face: death. But since everyone faces it, it's not really a problem. It's just about living longer, or investing in longevity potions, etc. But when we first saw and confirmed souls, and knew that souls could exist eternally in the Dark Matter World, the thought of immortality became unstoppable. At that time, we made a plan for the Dark Matter World. The name of this plan was Artificial Paradise."

"The world's top Tycoons, capitalists, financial magnates controlling the global economy, high-ranking government officials, economic oligarchs, etc., provided funding, manpower, material resources, and immense political convenience. When New York City in the Dark Matter World first appeared, we dispatched over five hundred thousand personnel into this city. Research on the nature of the Dark Matter World and external exploration, etc., this information basically came from that period."

"Five hundred thousand people!? How did they get down here?" Lu Yuanming asked in surprise.

Alfred didn't speak, just shook his head slightly. Lu Yuanming immediately came to his senses.

This was the Dark Matter World, also the Afterlife. The only way to get down here was to die in the Material Universe. The direct death of five hundred thousand people to come down here was an astonishingly large undertaking, involving countless social elites and researchers.

Alfred saw the shocked expression on Lu Yuanming's face and knew that Lu Yuanming understood how those five hundred thousand people had arrived. He said, "Five hundred thousand people... for us who controlled the entire world, it really wasn't much. But soon, we stopped sending more people down. At the same time, the first round of external exploration began. The reason was the Food problem. We tried every method, thought of every way, scientific, religious, miscellaneous, like genetic engineering, but in the end, we couldn't bring down a single plant. This meant that the more people came down, the faster they would starve. So we had to dispatch personnel to leave the city and explore the wilderness outside. We hoped to find native plants and food in the Dark Matter World."

"But it failed. No matter how many personnel were dispatched, how many elite soldiers or agents were sent, as soon as they left the city limits, they would immediately lose all trace. Gradually, external exploration was considered a death wish. But even so, the personnel below still spontaneously launched explorations outside the city, because they had already come down. If they didn't want to starve to death in the end, they had to find a source of food."

"At that time, the city wasn't so dilapidated, and there were more supplies within the city. Although external exploration had reached a dead end, the hundreds of thousands of people below could still live well, until... finally, some explorers returned."

Speaking of this, Alfred's face turned a little pale. Lu Yuanming immediately asked, "And then? You only vaguely mentioned it before, saying that based on the information they obtained and calculations in the Material Universe, they came up with the conjecture that there was once a civilization on Mars. These people returned, and then what?"

"They were no longer human."

Alfred said, "I don't know what they were, but they were no longer human. From the information I know, a total of three people returned. At that time, to prevent the environment outside the city from being a vacuum or a toxic environment, they were wearing spacesuits. After they returned, the staff below found the records they wrote on their spacesuits, and through calculations, confirmed that in a certain direction outside the city, there was a Civilization Graveyard of an Alien Civilization. Then they entered the base of the personnel below, and a terrifying disaster and catastrophe erupted..."

"Everyone was gone. We don't know if they died or something else. Nearly half a million people were gone, including soldiers, staff, researchers... and the people above."

"The people above!?" Lu Yuanming immediately asked, "The people above are also gone? What happened?"

Alfred trembled slightly. He lowered his head and said, "I don't know. I wasn't directly responsible for all of this at the time. The government personnel who were directly responsible, more than half of the researchers and scientists, more than a hundred Tycoons, the heads of more than five corporations, and related personnel... they all disappeared. Afterwards, it was speculated that at least over two hundred thousand people in the Living World vanished."

"Wait a minute." Lu Yuanming was even more confused. He asked again, "What do you mean by speculation? If they died, they died. If they are gone, they are gone. Even if they are directly missing, you can know the exact number after statistics. Why is it speculation?"

"Because we lost all memory of these disappeared people, including their surviving relatives, including their files in the computer, and even all traces of their existence in human society. All gone."

Alfred spread his hands and said, "It's as if they never existed. If it weren't for the lack of personnel positions, the lack of government functional positions, and the lack of heads of major corporations, we would even doubt if these people truly existed. Afterwards, according to our simulations and deductions, all these people either had direct information exchange with the Dark Matter World or had seen information transmitted from the Dark Matter World during the return of the explorers. They disappeared along with the half a million people dispatched to the Dark Matter World. Oh, and the forward base that the dispatched personnel built in New York City also disappeared. We can't find the location of this base anymore. Everything has disappeared."

"After that incident, the Dark Matter New York City became the current post-war ruin. We never sent any official government personnel down again. We also suddenly realized that descending from the Material Universe to the Dark Matter World might be the end of humanity and human civilization. It was from then on that our main research direction shifted from developing the Dark Matter World to preventing the descent into the Dark Matter World. This has not changed to this day."

Lu Yuanming was silent, carefully considering the change Alfred had described. He was absolutely certain that this terrifying disappearance was definitely related to those Unnamable beings in the wilderness.

"Yes, the end..."

Lu Yuanming stood up. As he walked towards the direction of the base, he muttered, "The end is coming."

"But the end is not descending into the Dark Matter World, but..."

Lu Yuanming did not say the rest of his words.