"It is despair," Scobio answered, his voice steeped in sorrow. "A civilization's last struggle in the face of death. He doesn't want to harm other universes, but he has to survive."
Just then, the Transdimensional Entity launched his attack.
The conceptual structure of the entire Multiverse began to warp. Time, space, causality-all the fundamental laws changed under the influence of this transdimensional being.
The Void Ark's defense systems overloaded instantly. Designed to handle conceptual problems within a single universe, they proved exceedingly fragile against an attack on a multiversal scale.
"Warning! Concept reboot program forced to activate ahead of schedule!" The Void Ark's core consciousness sounded an urgent alarm. "The system will begin purging all conceptual structures in three minutes!"
"We have to stop him!" Lin Ye conveyed his resolve to the other three through the network.
But something even more terrifying happened. The Transdimensional Entity began manipulating causality, and the time stream began to reverse.
The four-person network felt its own existence being undone. Their encounter with the parasites, their discovery of the Void Ark, even the first awakening of their constellation marks-all vanished as time flowed backward.
"He's trying to stop us from ever coming together!" Leo roared through the network, his Leo Mark desperately resisting the reversal of time.
"Hold on!" Astria's Libra mark struggled to maintain the network's balance. "If our connection breaks, we'll never be able to rebuild it!"
At the critical moment when the four-person network was about to collapse, the Void Ark's core consciousness made a startling decision.
"I understand now." The old man's voice rang out in Concept Space, filled with the calm of release. "The experience of more than seventeen hundred cosmic cycles has finally found its true purpose."
"What are you going to do?" Augustus felt a surge of unease.