Chapter 213: Breakaway

"They must... have some kind of connection."

When Sharin's clone carefully investigated the remains of civilization, he discovered something very interesting.

This group of civilized creatures has been exploring the farthest space.

After the Collapse of the Collapsed Void, most of its space merged into the Normal Void, and it is said that some of it directly...'passed through' the Normal Void and went to a very distant place.

These civilized creatures collect data from these collapsed spaces by investigating various spaces.

They store most of the data and keep some for their own use.

That is to simulate many different environments and put them in the 'light column', and then experience them yourself.

The clone discovered that these civilized creatures did not choose those good environments to enjoy... but to "test" themselves.

When these civilized creatures simulate a space environment, they will temporarily forget their own memories and live in this environment in a state of ignorance.

However, their main purpose is to find all the spaces and collect the data in these spaces.

The final goal... is the farthest space.

Civilization has been trying to approach this space and collect environmental data there, but without success.

And in the end they... also perished.

Because they were attacked.

There was a kind of creature that invaded this civilization, and the civilization also recorded the entire process. The invasion of this creature was quite special.

They initially appeared in various spatial environments simulated within the civilization light column.

These space environments generally have ecosystems composed of a large number of space creatures that they also simulate.

The initial invading creatures disguised themselves as species within these simulated spaces and began attacking the civilized residents who were experiencing life.

These invaders use a rather special way to attack civilization. They do not directly cause harm to civilized creatures, but instead cause their perception to be...delayed.

The invaders will cause a kind of mental interference to civilized creatures, causing some delay between the 'reality' they see and the real reality.

At first it was a very short time and the civilized creatures didn't feel it much, but with their interference, the delay slowly became longer and longer.

And civilized creatures have also noticed this.

Everything they saw happened several seconds or more later in 'reality'.

This will cause a lot of trouble in their lives. In fact, the most direct trouble is that they find that they cannot touch the things in front of them, but they can touch them again after a while.

They found themselves out of sync with the things around them, and the condition of these civilized creatures was called "chronostasis" at the time.

They are treated as a specific disease.

Although those civilized creatures who were experiencing life did not know what was going on because they had no memory of the past, the space managers at the time had already noticed this situation.

So they started trying to treat this needle shape.

As they continued their investigation, they also noticed the intruders.

These invaders were disguised to be very similar to the original space creatures, but they still showed their special qualities at times.

Civilized creatures then set about seeking out and killing these invaders.

After that, the invaders also began to launch direct attacks on civilized creatures.

Because these invaders were very good at hiding, and the original civilized creatures did not want to destroy the space environment they simulated, which prevented them from quickly eliminating the invaders.

The invaders hid in these spaces and developed slowly, while also killing many civilized creatures that were chasing them.

However, the main reason that prevented them from being completely wiped out was their strange technology.

Their own direct combat capabilities are relatively weak, and they cannot cause any damage to the armed forces of civilized creatures.

But they can create a lot of 'illusions'.

For example, making an area display scenes from the past or future to interfere with civilized creatures looking for them.

Civilized creatures that fall into this illusion also have a high chance of suffering from 'time out of phase'.

The number of these invaders is increasing, and their existence seriously interferes with the simulation space of these civilized creatures.

As a result, civilized creatures began to take some more drastic measures, such as shutting down the entire simulated space and killing any suspicious objects inside.

Although their actions eliminated many invaders, many civilized creatures were unable to recover well from the 'time out of touch' syndrome they had acquired.

They can 'see' further and further into the future.

Some creatures that are so far away from the present time are completely incapable of living a normal life and can only survive if they are fully cared for.

However...these creatures suffering from time out syndrome can also be used.

Because most of the future they 'see' is actually what will happen.

Although these creatures suffering from chronotropism cannot perceive anything in the 'present' and cannot communicate with other creatures of the same kind, it is still possible to determine what time they are in and what they see by monitoring their thoughts.

So, this civilization gradually took advantage of these individuals with chronobia and used them to learn about some future... dangers.

When the invaders were completely eliminated, these individuals with chronotype remained the same, with their thoughts moving further and further into the future.

Then something rather strange happened.

These individuals with chronobia were previously able to see different times. Some were tens of seconds in the future, some were several years in the future, and each one was different.

But at some point, their time suddenly integrated together, and the time they saw became exactly the same.

And what they saw... was the scene of their own civilization being destroyed.

In their "future perspective", they can see that their space is slowly being squeezed and finally completely shattered.

What is squeezing their space is... another space.

This space is a 'time defender'. For some unknown reason, it wants to attack this civilized space.

It wasn't necessarily an attack, it could have just been a collision for some reason.

After discovering this situation, the entire civilization was put on edge.

To prepare for this possible future, they entered a state of full alert.

They decided to take an emergency measure to avoid the space being crushed.

This measure...may be related to Ersh's "birth".