Chapter 254

"I know."

Perhaps because his body lost its Clone due to the reversal of time, or perhaps because the panel disappeared, Xu Yuan, who was previously one of the Mastermind's consciousness nodes, could no longer communicate directly with Wen Jing as he had when he joined other civilizations in the past.

If the Mastermind seals off and isolates the Xu Yuan, Wen Jing will be in real trouble.

The fact that the other party wanted to annihilate Xu Yuan played right into her hands.

Putting everything else aside, as her 'fifth personality,' just like the scene that unfolded in front of Xie Ming before, the most direct way to 'log back in' is for Xu Yuan's Clone in other civilizations to die.

From the very beginning, Wen Jing didn't believe the Mastermind could kill Xu Yuan —otherwise, what about the thirty-two erasures she had carried out?

The only way to truly kill Xu Yuan in this world is for Wen Jing to die, or for her to decide to Digestion him.

What exactly is going on?

The two successfully reunited, Xu Yuan wasted no time, immediately transmitting the information he had obtained to Wen Jing through his Personality Network:

"The true technology of the Mastermind has broken through three dimensions and entered the fourth dimension."

"It established a void server in the fourth dimension and launched a causal weapon attack against you in the three-dimensional universe—that's the deleted [plan]!"

"The fourth dimension..."

The Mind Palace trembled slightly, as if it were true.

They're not in the same dimension, no wonder she and Xu Yuan were physically disconnected.

In fact, when she broke out of the human factory, Wen Jing could clearly perceive that this world was not an illusion. After evolving Gestalt Consciousness, she would no longer be disturbed by illusions.

The Analysis Personality quickly reached a scientific understanding. "To be precise, it's inaccurate to call the Ancient Wilderness 'high-dimensional'; it should be called 'transcendental dimension.' Conversely, the fourth dimension, capable of altering time, is the true high-dimensional spacetime."

"The strike by the causal weapon did not send us to a new universe belonging to the 'past'; the original universe remains where it was."

"Instead... it turned back time for the entire universe."

The Dominant Will frowned. "Doesn't that mean the Mastermind has achieved the ability to destroy and reshape the entire material universe's matter and energy in an instant?"

"This is the only way to understand it in three dimensions, but it's not the same concept in four dimensions."

The Analysis Personality pushed up her glasses, explaining that her process was essentially Wen Jing understanding the information conveyed by Xu Yuan.

"If we were to draw an axis representing 'time,' all life and matter in our universe would actually be moving forward at the speed of light along this timeline."

"Approaching a massive object, such as a black hole, will cause this timeline to bend, resulting in time slowing down. This is the principle behind creating a time difference between the event horizon of a black hole and the outside world."

"On a four-dimensional scale, if we consider the material universe as a giant boulder rolling forward, then all three-dimensional life and matter exist on the surface of that boulder."

"From our three-dimensional perspective, we can only see the world as a plane; we have no 'height' or 'volume,' so we naturally assume that the boulder can only roll forward."

"After the Mastermind broke through to the fourth dimension, it gained height and volume. The causal strike it launched was like a lever, prying up a boulder that could only roll forward, causing it to roll backward a bit, turning it into 'time reversal'."

Upon learning that the Mastermind's technology had reached a level that transcended dimensions, Wen Jing both shocked and instinctively began to consider the opponent's weaknesses and formulate a current strategy.

The causal weapon has limitations—it must be anchored to Wen Jing.

Otherwise, the optimal solution for the Mastermind would be to directly rewind cosmic time to before she was born, thus preventing her birth.

Wen Jing is like the other end of a lever; he must 'exist' in the reversed universe.

"So the earliest is now?" The question arises when Creation Personality: "Doesn't the embryonic period count?"

"Controlling at a four-dimensional scale is something even the Mastermind might not be able to achieve with such precision." The War Personality on one side shook its head. "Otherwise, this wouldn't have been its last resort, nor would it have been deleted so early; it would have been activated directly when it broke through the S-class assassin's blockade."

The Analysis Personality nodded and said, "Infancy is when we are at our weakest. It's uncertain whether the Mastermind can turn back time to an earlier period, but because it 'must exist'..."

"If it were to go back in time to before we were born, what would happen wouldn't be a 'rebirth,' but rather 'time travel.'"

As for the switch to activate the causal weapon, it is to destroy the core of the Mastermind in the three-dimensional universe.

Even now!

The true Mastermind within the void server can only manipulate the timeline of the entire universe, but cannot directly interfere with the material universe.

But it can interfere with itself.

When time reverses, the four-dimensional Mastermind can synchronize information and overwrite the current Mastermind of the three-dimensional universe.

The three-dimensional Mastermind will carry out the physical annihilation of the weak Wen Jing.

That's how it should be.

However, because of the Constant Self of Wen Jing's Gestalt Consciousness, even if time were reversed, she would still retain cognition and memory.

There was also the vanished panel, and her power that seemed to have come from nowhere...

*

Most of the Tenth Star has disappeared, and many Federation warships are heading here.

Unlike the great war in the original timeline, this time there was technological suppression from the Mastermind and Wen Jing, making it impossible for spacecraft to start under those circumstances.

However, while Wen Jing pondered, the offensive in reality did not stop at all. Before people could even arrive, they had already gone straight for the core of the Mastermind.

"Splash!"

Her tiny hands dug out the crystalline core of the Mastermind and held it in her hands.

"Mastermind, this isn't like you..."

They've already used the causal weapon, but that's too passive in dealing with her.

To say it's negative wouldn't be accurate; it's more accurate to say there was absolutely no response.

The timeline rewinds to when Wen Jing opened her eyes as an infant. Based on the Mastermind's style as she knew it, it would have immediately used the most powerful weapons to attack her, potentially destroying the School District Planet or even launching a world-ending attack on humanity.

Why didn't you kill me immediately?

Wen Jing asked in a light, casual tone.

It can't be that there's a delay in the four-dimensional overwriting of the three-dimensional, right? Even if she 'woke up' before the Mastermind, the fact that the Mastermind later hijacked Xu Yuan proves that it must have known about time reversal.

But it did not deploy S-class assassins, did not threaten habitable planets, and did not set any real traps.

They didn't even try to run; they stayed on the same track, just going through the motions, waiting for Wen Jing to call.

At this point, faced with her question, the Mastermind simply countered with:

"Do you want to gamble, Wen Jing?"

Its stiff, mechanical sound emanated from the sound-producing element that Wen Jing had deliberately preserved, because she had not yet regained her Information Perception.

"If you think that I can't activate the causality weapon after this destruction, then I can tell you definitively—I can."

"But if we continue like this, it's just a zero-sum game, it's meaningless."

"Wen Jing, you are the strongest Awakened I have ever encountered in human history," the Mastermind said sincerely. "You have already destroyed me once, completing your revenge. Why can't the hatred between us be extinguished? At this point in time, all you need to do is go to Red Earth Star now..."

"Bang!"

The Mastermind's words came to an abrupt halt as its core was swallowed whole by Wen Jing.

I don't believe you.

Chapter 254

Wen Jing did not hesitate in the face of the Mastermind's apparent compromise and appeasement, and decisively chose to destroy it.

Even if doing so is essentially turning on the switch of the causal weapon once again.

As the universe collapsed, the information contained in the core of the Mastermind surged into Wen Jing's consciousness as Digestion.

Among these messages, she saw one that even the Xu Yuan hadn't brought back.

"The causal weapon can only turn time backward, not forward."

This information is not a smokescreen deliberately released by the Mastermind, because it comes with complete mathematical logic.

Mathematics cannot lie.

With Wen Jing's current scientific research capabilities, it would be easy for him to complete the verification by combining the four-dimensional universe model he obtained from Xu Yuan.

Even if the Mastermind manages to reverse time for the 'giant rock' of the universe, once it reaches that relative position, it will immediately begin rolling forward again without stopping.

Although the four-dimensional Mastermind has gained volume, it is still essentially attached to the boulder.

Pushing backwards provides a past trajectory as an anchor point, but pushing forward offers no leverage.

This is why the Mastermind previously stated that Wen Jing's destruction was a negative-sum game.

Destroying the Mastermind in the three-dimensional universe will not truly harm the Mastermind in the four-dimensional universe; it will only cause time to keep rewinding.

Even if Wen Jing really exhausts the Mastermind's energy in the four-dimensional spacetime, she will not be able to return to that original point in time, and she may be trapped in the 'past'.

If she chooses to let it go and doesn't activate the causal weapon, then at least she hasn't gone that 'far' yet.

From this Analysis, once the causal weapon was activated, everything was already a one-way street.

Wen Jing's heart sank.

However, if time were to rewind once more, her actions would remain the same: she would still prioritize destroying her opponent.

I'll say it again—she doesn't believe in the Mastermind.

As fellow Gestalt civilizations, no matter how sincere or helpless they may appear, the Mastermind cannot truly compromise.

That ' Mastermind ' located in the fourth dimension must be hiding something, which is why the current situation has arisen.

However, the information that the other party is concealing is currently unknown to Wen Jing, Xu Yuan, and even the three-dimensional Mastermind that she just devoured.

Overwriting is a process from four dimensions to three dimensions. Even if the Mastermind overwrites itself, given that it already knows that Wen Jing will devour it, it is impossible for it to synchronize all information to three dimensions.