Zhao Cheng's understanding of "now" was the manifestation of a force—a powerful converging force called spacetime!
Put simply, it was a powerful point of convergence for spacetime, causality, fate, matter, energy... everything, whether tangible or intangible.
The so-called past, once drawn into convergence, was included within this powerful "point." When everything reached its end and dimensions and spacetime alike perished, the "mass" of this point would also reach its peak. Then it would explode with a boom, everything would begin anew, and another new dimension would emerge.
Nor did this point explode evenly. At its very center, a converging force equal to the force of the explosion would form. Under the effect of this force, the timeline began to roll...
Of course, this was merely one of Zhao Cheng's many conjectures about the form of the dimensional universe, based on the phenomena he had observed thus far.
But now, when linked to this disparity, that conjecture had leapt to become the likeliest possibility—bar none.
For if the factor of the apocalypse was added in—if the source of the apocalypse did not lie within the dimensional universe, but came from outside it—then as it approached the dimensional universe, the first thing affected would be the "future" that had yet to be converged.
In the model Zhao Cheng had built around this hypothesis, the dimensional universe was like a point light source. Yet it was not emitting light. All the light had already scattered in the instant of the Big Bang; the dimensional universe was reclaiming that light.
When the dimensional universe possessed only one core, there was naturally only one present. But before the dimensional universe had reclaimed all its light, should another existence of equal mass—such as the "apocalypse"—approach it...
Then a second core point would emerge, and with it,