Huang Liang carried Hong Kui's heavy corpse and followed closely behind Qingmu, trudging forward across the desolate icy plain.
Horemheb was left far behind, lying on ice, half-dead. Nine Sun shone on him, and his body gradually froze, becoming one with the earth. The muscles on his face had long since solidified, and the blood in his veins beneath his transparent skin had stopped flowing. Only his dry eyes stubbornly stared at the sky, waiting for the suns to dissipate or to devour him with their blazing flames.
Not far from him, Itjenetjer's body had long since withered and frozen into a block of ice, like a salted fish that a farmer had dried in the sun after the New Year.
The Boss Coal was preoccupied with the question of why it was the only one that was black. It stayed atop Qingmu's head the whole way, maintaining a thoughtful posture, and didn't utter a single croak, even though the journey was very long.
The road across the ice field seemed endless, and the Sun in the sky seemed to have never moved.
They didn't know how long they had been walking. The initial hunger and cold gradually numbed them, and it eventually became a dreamlike journey, as if only their spirit was being consumed, while their bodies were merely an illusion.
Time loses its meaning here.
Until one day, they saw some black dots in front of them. The black dots were so real, like a hungry person seeing several large meat buns.
They moved quickly toward the black dots, which clearly saw them as well, and soon they met.
Only then did the Crow awaken from his preoccupation, Guagua: Su Huilan, Ivan, Petru, Mrs. Larry, Alice, Duwa...
It rattled off those names as if they were its own treasures, but as it counted, something felt off, and it began to shout, "Where's Hanran? Where's my Hanran?"
After the initial surprise of their encounter, Su Huilan was somewhat flustered, since the cat had been following him all along. She truthfully told the Boss Coal about her experiences during this time and how the cat disappeared in the Sacred Land of Fire.
The Crow cawed sadly.
Qingmu said, "Perhaps she went home."
The Crow perked up, "Caw! Yes, yes, yes, it must be back! We can return to Earth from the Altar of Wood, and he can return to Earth from the Altar of Fire too. Yes, that must be it."
It flew up, circled a few times atop the Qingmu, but then landed back down, asking with some concern:
"Hey, Petru, where is the Sacred Land of Fire? Is it the Egypt pyramids?"
Petru nodded.
The Crow fell into thought again, " Guagua, the pyramids are in Egypt, and Egypt is in Africa, so far away. Will she know the way home? She doesn't have wings, how will she get home? What if she gets sunburned in that godforsaken place, Africa?"
Hanhan's Hanran disappearance made the reunion less than perfect, but it couldn't hide people's joy. They told each other about their experiences after being separated, like family members scattered in the flames of war, reunited in another place, some with tears in their eyes.
Qingmu gave Pedro half of the Soul of Fire and told him the story of his ancestors' past and present.
Petru received the Soul of Fire, overwhelmed with excitement. He was proud of his ancestors, but also regretful and uneasy for missing the opportunity to fight alongside them.
He knelt in the direction of Horemheb, sobbing uncontrollably, until Mrs. Larry came to help him up, at which point he stopped crying and stood up.
People continued on their way.
A towering structure appeared before the earth, entirely constructed of crystalline ice blocks, its shape identical to other altars in Ramla, resembling half an unfinished ice pyramid.
Everyone knew they had arrived at their destination— the Altar of Ice.
People already knew their purpose was no longer to activate it. But they still walked towards it without prior arrangement, just to behold that sacred light.
Soon, they arrived at the outer wall of the altar and began to climb. The ice steps were very slippery and not easy to walk on, especially since Huang Liang was carrying a heavy corpse on his back. Ivan offered to help him, but Huang Liang refused outright.
When everyone had struggled to climb to the top of the altar, they saw that a person was already standing there.
He held a silver cane in his hand, looked up at the Sun in the sky, and seemed to be deep in thought.
People called out his name with delight: Mr. Stone...
Situ looked at the faces of everyone who approached, one by one, until finally settling on Qingmu's face, and said, "We were wrong."
Qingmu said, "Yes, we were wrong."
Is there any way to remedy this?
I think so.
Qingmu once again repeated the prophecy spoken by Horemheb: humanity will ultimately be unable to prevent Gaia's arrival, but there is hope of defeating it. Every era has its heroes, and every hero may make mistakes, but as long as we persevere, we will surely see hope.
They began to review the events, piecing everything together, from the past of the Awakeners' Alliance, from the invasion of Parasitic Consciousness, from their entry into Ramla, from Ronald Cohen's deception, from the activation and successful restart of the four major groups, peeling back the layers bit by bit until they vaguely saw the truth.
The truth is hidden in the dark corners of the universe, hidden in the nebulae, but enough information has already revealed its face, just like the scenery outside a car window on a foggy day, which becomes clearer and clearer as the sun shines through.
Finally, Mrs. Larry, combining the research her husband, Mr. Yeger, had conducted, pieced together all the clues and reconstructed a seemingly plausible and complete story:
Long, long ago, in some corner of the Milky Way, a Boltzmann Brain was born. This corner may be located within the Orion Nebula.
It possesses great intelligence and the power to control the mind; however, it is trapped within a nebula and unable to move through the universe because it is merely a brain.
It began to use the laws of the universe to create life, and this life became its tentacles. Wherever life spread, its tentacles reached out.
It created countless lives, and through the spread of life, it explored a wider universe.
These life forms gradually developed various written and illustrated civilizations. One of them, called the Gendaya civilization, migrated to Earth through the Ramla Ant Nest.
Another possibility is that Earth itself migrated from afar. A civilization capable of establishing the Ramla Ant Nest would naturally have the ability to carry a piece of Earth on a journey to distant lands.
The so-called Holy Land is a stable wormhole connecting Earth and Ant Nest.
Earth is connected to the consciousness of the Mother through the Ramla Ant Nest. The Gendaya People call their spiritual Mother— the Boltzmann Brain hidden in the nebula —Gaia.
Gaia knew long ago that the universe would eventually face heat death. Perhaps she didn't care, or perhaps she was seeking solutions, such as expanding life to break through the edge of the universe. As long as the universe is not a closed system, it can maintain low entropy by inputting energy from the outside.
However, Gaia's experiment failed. Life feeds on negative entropy, and the spread of life would only accelerate the heat death of the universe. So she decided to eliminate all civilizations and reclaim the life she had created.
But life has already been formed, so how can it be taken back at will?
Just as a mother gives birth to a child, how can she arbitrarily take away the child's life?
The right to life is granted by the universe itself, and every individual life is sacred.