Chapter 283 We Are All Porcupines

"..."

Mikael took a deep breath and slowly closed his eyes.

"The power of erosion..."

In this way, Mikael finally understood the meaning of "it's a bit late now" in Mei's mouth.

Logically speaking, Corrosion is only the twelfth Herrscher. After [Corrosion] ends, humans will still have an unknown length of time to construct the so-called Paradise of the Past.

But first, judging from the current process of four collapses occurring in four months, how much time will humanity have after the [erosion] ends?

Furthermore, in the face of the end that will come at an unknown time, the Past World Plan will inevitably consume a lot of resources, which will inevitably affect other war preparations.

This kind of misappropriation of resources does not matter from Mikael's point of view, because trying to defeat the end with quantified combat power is itself an "impossible mission"——

From the perspective of the fusion warrior itself, even if Kevin is as strong as the original, he is just a big ant in front of the end. A blow that can light up half the moon with all his strength can only win the victory for the entire civilization. A half-day respite.

As for building more weapons, such as more Moonlight Throne engines, to convert the Honkai energy in the body of the end, this is another endless loop problem:

The so-called collapse itself has two parallel explanations, one is the traditional theological explanation, and the other is the scientific interpretation. Both are descriptions of the phenomenon, but they use different languages ​​and perspectives. From a scientific perspective, everyone’s initial interpretation of the collapse phenomenon was “a manifestation of entropy increase.”

Human civilization, including the Key of God and the Moonlight Throne Engine created by human civilization, are all part of negative entropy.

According to the principle of entropy increase, as negative entropy expands, the entropy increase will also intensify. In other words, this criterion legally denies the possibility of directly defeating the end. For example -

Although the overloaded output of the Moonlight Throne engine can convert 30% of the Honkai energy of Terminus, it seems that humans only need a few Moonlight Thrones to completely decompose Terminus, but the power of Terminus will also increase accordingly and remain at all levels. Before the Moonlight Throne is burned, it will only be weakened by 30% of its Honkai energy.

Even more, considering the law of diminishing marginal benefits, this number will decline further.

But Mikael knows this, and Mei knows this, but that doesn't mean everyone understands this.

What's more, even if we understand this, human sensibility will not give up the possibility of defeating the end head-on. Just like in many occupied areas, people know that they cannot defeat the Honkai Beast with daggers and shovels, but this does not prevent them from holding these weapons and using them to fight hard when there is no way to escape.

The more I think about it...the more it turns out to be a bad debt.

Mikael rubbed his eyebrows, and when he raised his head, he saw a trace of confusion in Mei's eyes. This was an unprecedented scene.

"What's wrong?"

Mei did not answer, but wrote a word on the paper with a ball pen, and then circled it.

Mikael looked at "SAKURA" on the paper and fell into deep thought.

After a while, he shook his head and smiled bitterly, carefully pulled the paper out from under Gnius, then roughly tore it into pieces and threw it into the trash can.

He said half helplessly and half sarcastically:

"To be honest, Mei, I regret telling you the so-called [script]."

Only then did Mikael realize that the [Leader] sitting in front of him was actually a girl, a girl the same age as him and Ellie.

She will also be decadent, she will be confused, she will also be at a loss, and she will succumb to fate.

She will also question herself in her heart: "Since our civilization is destined to be destroyed, why is it struggling in such pain?"

This kind of struggle constantly tries to obliterate the sensibility of every human being. It prevents lovers from dying together and even kills each other for the survival of more people. It makes most people in the world live like slaves. In life, only extremely high-intensity work that is unimaginable in peacetime can be exchanged for materials to barely survive...

Such a struggle, such a life worse than death, if only there could be a happy ending in the end...

Like those people who drag their eroded bodies in the occupied areas and fight the Honkai beasts with crude weapons. The reason why they keep fighting and fighting for the right to live to the next second is just because they have a heart. Hope - maybe if you leave the occupied area and go to a place controlled by Fire Chaser, you can get treatment and return to a peaceful life.

And those who work more than ten hours a day in the controlled area, and see familiar comrades dying around them every day due to overwork, hunger, or oppression. The reason for them to linger is simply to "defeat Honkai" with the Fire Chasing Moth. The promise serves as a hope that normal life can return to normal after the collapse.

What about the Fire Chaser warriors? They have to face the infection of Honkai Disease and kill their comrades who have become dead warriors or Herrschers. What is their hope? But Mei told them that there were only thirteen Herrschers, and humans had already defeated the eleventh.

But if we tell everyone right now that we have no possibility of defeating the end, and our final outcome is destruction, then who is willing to struggle any longer?

After all, at this point, everyone can no longer hold on, whether psychologically or physically.

If even the last hope is cut off, it’s hard for that person not to think so——

Since everything will be destroyed in the end, living one more minute in this world is suffering, so it is better to end it early.

What? Defeat the collapse in the next era?

Don't be ridiculous, even if there is such a possibility, what does the civilization of the next era have to do with this era?

The Neanderthals became extinct, and the late Homo sapiens shaped the current civilization. This is a victory for humans, but not for Neanderthals, and Neanderthals will not be pleased with it.

This is what Mei thinks.

Selfishness, escape, weakness, despair, the bad nature of human beings will not be reduced by half because she is Mei. After all, it is the carrier of human beings, not Mei as an individual, that determines these.

As long as you think of yourself as a human being, it is impossible to escape the influence of these bad natures, or in other words, if you don't have these bad natures in your heart, then whether you can exist as a human being will be a big question mark.

For Mei, she just buried these emotions in her heart forever, and then used the stakes called rationality to tamp down these parts that are usually regarded as weak.

However, no matter how well they were buried or how solidly they were rammed, when an earthquake started with the [script] and the message of "myself" 250,000 years ago, these things were still easily overturned.

And who could Mei show these emotions to?

She looked around blankly. Whether it was the anti-entropy or the ordinary warriors, she could not let these unswerving fire-chasing moths see their leader... before they had exhausted their last glimmer of hope, let them see that their leader had already been deeply desperate before the end came.

Even Kevin... couldn't do it...

Because of the loneliness and coldness of the long night, a porcupine wanted to snuggle with another porcupine for warmth.

But when the two porcupines leaned against each other, they were afraid of being pricked by each other's thorns, and they were afraid that their own thorns would hurt each other, so they alienated again.

And the tragedy of loneliness in life is that they want to snuggle with another person for warmth like crazy, and show each other everything.

But when they really have such an object, they find that they can't show all of themselves to each other - no matter who it is, they will consciously or unconsciously conceal from another person for various reasons, even between May and Kevin, even between Mikael and Ellie, no exception.

In the final analysis, humans want someone to fully understand themselves, but they don't believe from the bottom of their hearts that there is another person in the world who can fully understand themselves. And showing all of yourself to someone who doesn't fully understand you will inevitably face doubts and accusations, and even the possibility of the connection that has been established with great difficulty collapsing.

Even... For some people, it's more than that. For them, "there is someone in this world who knows everything about you" is far more terrifying and unacceptable than "no one in this world understands you".

So they chose loneliness themselves.

Fortunately, May's loneliness is not without an outlet, because there is another her in the world bubble - since you don't think others can fully understand you, then you should be able to do it, right?

Judging from the current situation, it is not a question of whether it is possible or not, but "too good to do it". Mei really knows Mei too well, so the two Meis gradually become completely synchronized. But this is not a good thing. When the synchronization rate reaches a certain height, Mei will find that the conversation with the other Mei is nothing more than talking to herself.

And the dead cycle of all this was ruthlessly exposed by Mikael at this moment.

She suddenly remembered the self-abandonment of the man in front of her two years ago. It turned out that he just put this irresponsible idea into action.

"Mei, about this matter... You are a wise man, you should also see that we have actually changed a lot of fate, right? Apart from anything else, you did not wear the blank key as in the [script], and then your body was left with irreversible damage."

Mei was silent. Of course, what Mikael said was undeniable, but to put it bluntly, this was just "two perspectives on the interpretation of half a glass of water."

Facing the same half glass of water, whether it is "Why is there only half a glass of water left" or "There is still half a glass of water", they actually point to the essential phenomenon of "half a glass of water", and choosing one of the two perspectives is actually also hinting at the other.

Just like "We have changed a lot of fate", it actually means "We have not been able to change most of the fate".

For example, from the perspective of principle, the power and selection of the Herrscher should be random, but why, apart from the selection of the Herrscher, why has the power not changed at all after Mikael intervened so much?

Even Mikael and Mei have seen the God's Keys left by earlier civilizations under the craters of the moon, most of which are exactly the same as the corresponding God's Keys today.

Well, the so-called fate is that what may happen will definitely happen.

Although the real world is far more random than cold numbers, no matter how powerful a god is, he cannot guarantee that every fate he weaves is unbreakable. Even if the probability is increased to more than 10 to the power of negative fifty, which can be basically defined as "impossible" in mathematical terms, it will still bear fruit in the desperate reality.

But Mei is not conceited enough, not arrogant enough, not to think that such a miracle among miracles can bloom again in this era.

"Hehe..."

In fact, for Mikael, if he wants to change Mei's mind, he only needs to use the power of the Eighth Herrscher to make this little girl sober up.

Now that things have happened, he no longer feels that this is some kind of taboo - as long as no one finds out.

But he didn't do it because there was no need.

Nowadays, he is more able to understand Aponya's prophecy - being able to see the threads of fate is not a good thing, but it is not entirely a bad thing.

Just like now, May has repeatedly exposed a weak part of her, but Mikael is not worried about it. He knew that all this was only temporary, and she would soon be able to untie her knot and fill her consciousness with reason again.

What Mikael has to do and can do is to provide some trivial guidance to prevent her from falling into irreversible despair with a small chance.

"Mei, you are a sensible person."

Mikael repeated this sentence again.

He actually wanted to tell Mei directly that after countless deductions, he finally found the possibility of saving this era.

Although it is extremely small, although it is only a prototype, it even has the possibility of reversing everything, and the price is only...

Tell Mei this possibility and give her [hope], just like she gives hope to all humans.

He originally wanted to talk about this, but he didn't speak after all.

“What you want to believe in during this process will determine what you get when you get to the end.”

Forget about the fragile and powerless general public, Mikael didn't want the wisest and most rational person among them to hold on until the end for such a hope.

This is a kind of deception that puts the cart before the horse. Moreover, once that possibility finally becomes impossible, it will only make the person who was deceived fall into deeper despair.

But...does his current confidence and optimism come from this hope? He couldn't even explain it himself.

"Mei, you should have guessed that the future I know does not only include this era, right?"

"……Um."

“Some words were born in the future, but I think they can also serve as motivation for us in the past to move forward.”

He held out three fingers:

"That's what the future Ellie said: Even if the future cannot be changed, I will decide the process of reaching that result myself. And her successor said: Even if the fate cannot be changed, I will use my own hands to confirm it, because That would give the ending a completely different meaning.

"Of course, the last sentence actually has something to do with you and Kevin. Was it something another person said to your descendants, or was it said by your descendants? I can't remember clearly - as long as a person passed by He made a well-thought-out decision, and even if he deliberately catered to his so-called destiny, it was by no means a life controlled by external forces.

"Mei, think about it carefully, do we humans only live for the result of living?

"It is undeniable that the destiny spun by the gods seems to be impeccable. No matter what, it will lead to the worst ending, just like people will definitely die. But if we only focus on the fact that people will definitely die, then why do people still live?

"Mei, maybe the fastest way to cheer you up is to give you hope, but what I want to say is - even if we don't achieve anything in the end, so what? Is the meaning of human reproduction to this day? Is it just to defeat Honkai? Will civilization be meaningless after Honkai wipes out all the civilization developed by mankind? "

"I……"

Mei pursed her lips.

"I have no idea."

"It's only right that you don't know. I don't know either."

Mei's eyes instantly turned a little angry, and Mikael quickly covered it up with a silly smile.

"Why do people live and why do birds fly? This kind of speculation about meaning is meaningless in itself, but it is meaningful.

"If we talk about meaning, isn't it the most meaningless thing that Sisyphus did when he pushed the stone up the mountain? Whenever Sisyphus pushed the stone to the top of the mountain, the stone would roll back to the bottom of the mountain unstoppably, and Sisyphus So he pushed it up to the top of the mountain again, and so on, but Sisyphus may not be unhappy, and he may not think this process is meaningless, right? "

As if feeling that the atmosphere was too heavy, Mikael suddenly smiled narrowly:

"Haha... In my capacity, I can only say this. I miscalculated. I should say these words to Kevin first, let him memorize them, and then relay them to you. Wouldn't the effect be better? "

"Ahem!"

Mei suddenly coughed twice, and Mikael raised his eyes to look at her, only to see that Mei opposite him was also a little confused.

"This type of thing, if it doesn't come from my mouth, Kevin usually can't remember it."

The two of them turned their attention to Gnius at the same time.

"That's right, Mikael. I will think about your words carefully. But now, let's return to the Herrscher of Corrosion."

Mikael suddenly smiled, and Mei didn't seem to say anything, but just brought the rhythm of the conversation back on track.

But in fact, her attitude has already said everything.

It's not that she didn't understand what Mikael said.

There were even many words that she said herself, and then spread to Mikael's ears through Kevin, Hua, or Su, and finally were magically modified and blended by him before being passed to her ears.

The words were indeed interesting and not meaningless, but the most important thing for Mei was that she could feel that someone was standing with her.

Whether it was Mikael who said these words, or Kevin, Hua and Su who took these words to heart and relayed them to Mikael...

In short, this is a satisfactory description, but it is difficult to define.

It was also a long cold night. They sat together as a group of porcupines, neither too close nor too distant. Everyone consciously kept the most appropriate distance, and then revealed everything about themselves to others little by little.

When they began to do this, the thorns on their bodies began to soften and fall off. The long night was still a long night, but they had evolved from porcupines to a group of primitive people with sparse hair.

At this time, I don’t know who started it, and everyone lit a bonfire, so the night was no longer cold and lonely. Just to prevent the hard-earned bonfire from being blown out by the night wind, everyone still sat in a circle. They no longer had to keep too far apart to prevent the pain caused by the thorns, but they would not get too close when others didn’t need them.

They have a scale from the heart, which can measure the distance between hearts with tacit understanding, get close when the other party needs it, and consciously stay away when the other party doesn’t need it.

Suddenly, the night wind died down a little, and everyone held hands and danced happily around the dim and flickering fire.

For primitive people, the social meaning of "home" might be formed in this way.

Mikael gently exhaled the breath he had taken before, and then stopped thinking about it.