Chapter 456 The End of the World

The situation of world fragments is more complex than we imagine.

The previously released probes have touched the edge of this broken world, and this morning, Shadow City sent back processed detection data. As expected at the beginning, the size of the world fragments is limited to this unknown city. city ​​and a fairly small area outside the city. Within the city, the entire fragment remains basically stable, while in the edge area, near the end of the world, drastic changes are always taking place, and the degree of chaos of all information there is On average, it will increase nearly twenty times for every one meter extending outward. The entropy value skyrockets from normal to the limit of maintaining world stability in less than half a kilometer. Matter and energy lose stability directly outside that turbid boundary. , turned into a pot of thick soup in heat death. In the vague description map drawn by the probe, this fragment of the world is like a mass of "objects" whose density decreases sharply from the inside out. Its urban interior is stable. Solid, the suburbs outside the city are turbulent but still tangible liquids, the edge areas outside the suburbs are chaotic air masses, and beyond... there is the end

This bizarre phenomenon gave Tavel a strong research interest, but it completely negated a relatively simple world model that we (well, in fact, it was my sister and Sandora's imagination) that we had guessed before.

In our original idea, the world fragment should be a self-explanatory information collection with a shell similar to the world barrier. This model is called a "self-enclosed" world, and the information inside it is bound because The collision of the two worlds caused partial leakage, which affected our real world. In this case, as long as a tiny void shock can be triggered in the void plane, the two worlds can be separated, thus interrupting the pollution of the law. But the current situation Yes, the world that was originally set to be closed has become open, and the pollution of the law has changed from piercing to diffuse...

Don’t understand? Well, to put it in simpler terms, which one is more difficult: pulling a needle out of your arm, or turning the needle into iron sand, mixing it into the meat, and then picking it out one by one?

Sandora used this example to make me understand what diffuse law pollution is...

The worst scenario at present is that the two worlds have not actually collided. They are still floating at two infinitely close and infinitely far points in the endless void, and the fragments of the world that have lost the restraints of the world barrier are evaporating. , the information it emits evaporates in the form of a super macro wave (an enhanced version of the world information projection, compared with the latter, the super macro wave is like a 100M optical cable standing proudly in front of a dial-up connection), Radiating to any world in the void that has information characteristics similar to its own, that is - the earth plane.

Since there is no concept of distance in the void, and all "closer" and "faraway" are based on the approximation of the world's laws, then this radiation must have simultaneously contaminated every plane similar to the earth in the endless void, even if they The "distance" between them was so far that it could make both Asida and Asidora vomit blood from exhaustion.

This bad suspicion was soon confirmed. The imperial task force stationed in the forbidden world sent back reports of abnormal events occurring around the world. Those events were originally thought to be caused by the activities of magicians or superpowers, but After we passed the conjecture of "large-scale pollution" to the shadow base, Sandora ordered those task forces to re-analyze every anomaly in the forbidden world. The results proved that except for 10% of the incidents and magicians, In addition to being related to people with super powers, nearly 90% of the abnormal events may be contaminated by world fragments.

Ruiko and Laura also reported to us in the morning the abnormal events that occurred in Academy City and the British Puritan sphere of influence. Those large-scale and worrying anomalies and their strange characteristics that cannot be detected by ordinary people made the two This girl (well...let's just assume Laura is seventeen forever) is very uneasy, and due to the special force composition of the forbidden world, the abnormal phenomena that pervade the world may trigger the magic that has just softened the relationship at any time. Conflict broke out again between the masters and the superpowers. Currently, Lola and Aleister Skeleton Walker, who has become our slave, are being ordered to appease the warriors under their respective forces. Ruizi is also helping. That girl was killed because of the original star attack. The identity of the "Alien Envoy" that was exposed at that time now also has a lot of influence in Academy City, even faintly surpassing the limelight of a group of Level 5 people. As a place where a large number of superpowers gather, Academy City has long been faintly rumored There was a rumor that the world was abnormal, and Saten Ruiko, who is a student herself, stepped forward to appease people. It was obviously very helpful for Villaresta. To be honest, I really didn’t expect the vitality of the man who went to the Shadow City to see the mermaids all day long. This girl can actually play such a big role.

Putting aside the big trouble that multiple worlds may be threatened, another thing is equally troublesome, and compared to the former, the latter is more urgent:

The fragments of the world Artemis and the others live in are evaporating.

We don’t know how the world fragments remained stable before, but now its evaporation is absolutely abnormal. According to this trend, it won’t be long before the entire world fragments are completely destroyed. In fact, during the detection of the probe, , the size of this world has shrunk by about one percent compared to when we first arrived, and the rate of shrinkage is still accelerating.

Fifteen days later, the volume of the world fragment will only be one block. If its evaporation is uniform, this block will be exactly where we are now. In other words, even with the most optimistic estimates, Artemis and the others There are only fifteen days left.

Putting aside the clueless separation of the world, the second action that we just put on the agenda encountered unprecedented resistance before it even started: how to save Artemis and her friends?

Regarding the basic mechanism of the birth of world fragments, Tavel has recently deduced the most likely model. That is, the main material plane suffered high-intensity attacks from destructible laws in a very short period of time, and all existence was destroyed in an instant. It was separated into free information, but due to unknown reasons, this information did not dissipate, thus forming world fragments.

In other words, Artemis and the others are now like a radio signal that has been sent out from an antenna (this metaphor may not be appropriate), and then the antenna that can continuously strengthen the signal and continue to transmit suddenly fails, and only The original radio wave is still left wandering in space. Although the radio wave has not dissipated, it has inevitably begun to attenuate during transmission.

The only difference from radio waves is that the ghosts in the world fragment cannot be received by a wireless network card and then saved to the hard drive...

Regarding the samples we collected from the fragments of the world (that is, those unconscious "citizen" ghosts), both Bubble and Tavel expressed their helplessness. Such ethereal information collections are already dead things in the strict sense. They are even It doesn't count as an existence, but just a memory. No one can physically preserve a memory that is about to disappear - how about sending a task force to capture Shirou Emiya and try to bring him back?

Uh, I admit that I was serial again just now.

In short, it is impossible to preserve information ghosts like Artemis and the others in conventional ways. It is just like if you say "tomatoes with braised noodles", then the sound of this sentence cannot be true halfway through the transmission. It’s like turning into a bowl of noodles and dropping a pair of chopsticks on the table (note: the above is a magical metaphor from Sandora).

The fact that the ghost samples we collected dissipated within a few seconds after entering the main material plane also indirectly proves the unreliability of using simple means to connect Artemis to live in the shadow space. It is impossible for fragile radio waves to survive forever in a strong magnetic field. This is how my USB flash drive died... I am off topic again.

In short, there are many difficulties, the savior is really not a human job!

"You are no longer human!"

Lilina, who was sitting next to her with sleepy eyes, turned her head to complain to me even in her daze. As a result, I hit her with a knife and screamed.

"Well...you don't care about lolita. A lolicon who only pats and doesn't feed her is not a good lolicon!"

Just for Dingdang's sake, just keep some of the moral integrity of being a clergyman for me! My lord Dingdang is deceiving the whole world, bastard!

"Hmm... My head hurts... Daddy, Lilina wants a hug..." After being honest for less than a minute, Lilina mumbled again in a daze, and then groped towards her.

"Hey! I'm driving!" I tried my best to hold the steering wheel while resisting the little arms and legs of a certain pseudo-loli who was confused because of a hangover. "There's..."

"Boom!"

"Wow..."

The 700 billion with the nether energy shield slammed through the unlucky store blocking the road, moving forward unabated, and behind us, the store with a big hole had begun to slowly recover.

Okay, now there's nothing ahead.

"Hehehe...Qi Qian Yi Mighty said..."

What a headache. How could I deal with such a difficult host like Lilina? God knows why this girl drinks so weirdly. She's fine after drinking that night, but she gets drunk the next morning and goes crazy?

In comparison, my sister, who is still sleeping in the room because she was pulled by Lin Xue to take a sip of beer, is much cuter. Even though she was drunk, Lin Xue tricked her into telling countless embarrassing experiences about my childhood. This is a very regrettable thing - I am 200% convinced that this was all premeditated by Miss Lin! Not everyone knows about onee-sama's amazing drinking capacity.

While driving the 700 billion in the predetermined direction, I had to always be on guard against the shocking moves of the drunken loli next to me. I was fighting with Lilina in the driver's seat along the way. Even though the road was flat and the traffic was sparse, I felt like I was driving a Hollywood car battle blockbuster!

I really should have watched this girl carefully last night. As a lolita, you have to have a lolita consciousness. She obviously doesn't have a good drinking capacity, but she went drinking with the group of awakeners. In the end, if Suzune hadn't come over quickly Report, this guy may have to give himself a stomach bleed. Thinking about the scene where Lilina, who turned back to continue drinking, stood on the table in front of the bonfire and drank the wine in one gulp while standing on the table in front of the bonfire and collapsed, I still feel that Liver pain.

"Hmph...Boss, I am an adult, of course I can drink...well, don't start the sentence, and say it lovingly to Loli..."

Forget it, let this idiot with no moral integrity get drunk until the end of the world!

Even if we didn’t turn on bug engines like space jump to enjoy the joy of driving, with the astonishing speed and maneuverability of 700 billion, we still approached the suburbs in less than half an hour after leaving the bustling road in the city. It was still the result of me obeying traffic rules all the way. If Pandora was driving, she would probably aim in one direction, step on the accelerator to the bottom, follow the rule of the shortest straight line between two points and rush directly to the destination. As the surrounding buildings gradually become sparse, More and more large wastelands that can only be found in the suburbs appeared in front of me. I reached out and patted Lilina, who was sleeping soundly on my shoulder again: "Girl, wake up, we are here!"

"Well...Daddy, give me a hug..."

This girl's transformation in her confused state is really speechless. Even though the malicious and cute Priestess is quite loving, Lilina in her natural dark state at least has a pause switch, right?

With a black thread on my head, I didn’t care about Lilina, who was squirming like a big insect. I just pushed the door and got out of the car, and then I slipped the confused Priestess out from the other side and threw her away. He opened his arms and swung a certain loli around in the slightly cold morning wind in the suburbs.

"Wow! Boss, boss! I was wrong! Don't dump me! It will definitely fly out...ah!"

Ah, it really flew out!

Lilina, who went out in a parabola, finally did not forget her old profession. She waved her hand in mid-air and immediately summoned a huge lotus out of thin air above her - huh? Above?

I watched speechlessly as Lilina hit the ground with a series of exclamations, and then was attacked by the huge lotus that I had originally summoned as a buffer but turned into a rock due to a mistake in its position. I was almost surprised. The entire life system is in despair. Is this girl here today just to be cute?

After stupidly climbing up the lotus and floating over, Lilina scratched her head in embarrassment: "Hey, that was an accident just now."

"Are you awake?" I looked at Lilina's big, shrewd eyes in surprise. Just now, this girl was dizzy due to a hangover. How come she is now resurrected with full health?

"I just remembered that the divine power of life can cure hangovers." Lilina continued to scratch her head.

"You're laughing at me!" I slapped the opponent with a hand knife. Since I know how to hangover, you should remember it earlier! Do you know how many festivals you have sold along the way?

"This place is really desolate." Lilina ignored my hand knife and looked around at the surrounding suburbs. "Ah, boss, why did you hit me?"

Are you cosplaying Sylvia?

This is already the edge of the world fragment. It is located in a hilly area on the western outskirts of the city. About a hundred meters in front of us is a confused fog. In the fog, we can vaguely see the mountains extending from here. The road twisted into a weird spiral shape there, extending into the sky. There were many blurry shadows beside the road, which could not be seen clearly due to the fog.

And just at the junction of the stable space and the white fog, a truck parked there demonstrated to us the danger at the end of the world more intuitively: its front half was still intact on the road, and then Half of the car body is a pile of parts floating in mid-air, giving witnesses a sense of fragmentation and flesh flying everywhere.

Lilina didn't need to be reminded by me and had already started her own ritual. She jumped to the ground lightly and took out a large handful of black and green balls from her portable space. The tender green vines grew automatically from the little girl's feet and began to grow rapidly. The ground spread around, and soon a magic circle with a radius of more than ten meters was formed. This magic circle composed of divine magic was completely different from the ordinary magic circle. Mysterious runes slowly emerged from the nodes of its branches. When it came out, a spherical rune structure gradually formed. According to the magic common sense that the other party told me when I chatted with Jaina before, the three-dimensional structure of the magic circle is extremely difficult to master. I used energy to draw the second layer of runes in mid-air. It was enough to obtain a high honor in Dalaran, and even Antonidas could not master the four-layer three-dimensional runes. Now, although the circle created by Lilina has a radius of only more than ten meters, Such a dizzyingly complex structure... Oh my god, this means it takes a day to render using 3D modeling, right?

Shedding her usual quirky appearance, Lilina, who used magic, now looks a little serious. The little girl is suspended in mid-air and throws several black balls in her hand to the inner wall of the spherical circle. On several key points, he then snapped his fingers when he was done, and while throwing green beans into his mouth, he turned to me and asked me for credit: "Boss, it's done... eh? Why is there no response?"

Me: "...What you are eating now are the seeds of life, idiot! Didn't you realize that the ones floating in the circle are chocolate beans?!"

"Ah...haha...mistake, mistake," Lilina scratched her hair in a cold sweat, and then used a rough method that would scare the shit out of any professional mage to pluck out the chocolate beans on the magic circle and replace it with the hidden ones. The seed of divine power.

"Yeah! It's done this time!" Lilina clapped her hands happily, "As long as the layer of white mist comes into contact with this magic circle, the Temple of the World Tree can immediately trace the path of information evaporation in reverse. Maybe we can use this Find ways to stop evaporation."

"Yeah," I nodded, but I focused my gaze on the white mist not far away. Now it's a little closer. The half-devoured truck just now has all turned into floating parts, in the white mist. The boundary floated slowly, "I was wondering, should we go over and have a look?"