The departure of the hidden civilizations had to be traced back to a failed civilizational experiment conducted by the Hui Civilization eight hundred million years ago.
The core purpose of the Hui Civilization's experiment had been to verify whether a cosmic-level civilization with subjective initiative could suppress the law of "civilizational probability distribution."
By analogy, for humanity, it would have been like verifying whether humans possessed the ability to suppress Earth's natural forces.
The failure of that experiment also demonstrated to the hidden civilizations that the subjective initiative of cosmic-level civilizations could not suppress the law of "civilizational probability distribution."
Before the Hui Civilization conducted its experiment, another hidden civilization had likewise nearly been driven to destruction by the law of "civilizational probability distribution."
With those two cases combined, no cosmic-level civilization dared question the power and danger of the cosmic law known as "civilizational probability distribution."
With survival at stake, powerful cosmic-level civilizations began investing heavily in research aimed at solving the problem of "civilizational probability distribution."
One hidden civilization proposed demarcating fixed regions of the universe and exterminating all life within their jurisdiction, thereby ensuring the probability of survival for the cosmic-level civilizations themselves.
Once such a plan was fully accepted and implemented by cosmic civilization society, the entire universe would become utterly silent. Cosmic-level civilizations transformed into agents of destruction would effortlessly wipe out all life as if sweeping away garbage, sparing not even single-celled organisms.
At that point, the entire universe would become a vast dark forest.
However, reality proved that such actions were meaningless.
On one hand, single-celled organisms had structures that were far too simple. Even if they were exterminated now, they would reemerge after some time. Besides, there were many forms of life, not merely carbon-based ones.
On the other hand, the probability