145: Chapter 145 The Eve of the Final Rounds: Rules are meant to be broken.
Multiverse Civilization Racing, Fourth Stage Entrance—[Entropy Corridor].
If the first three stages tested cognition, space, and Karma, then this fourth stage leading to the final circle tests the thing all civilizations fear most—time and decay. This is a gray, endless waterway. Here, the flow of time is chaotic. A ship might have only been flying for a second, yet its internal parts have aged ten thousand years; a pilot might have just blinked, only to turn into withered bones. This is a rehearsal for the heat death of the Universe, the manifestation of the destination of all things.
"Warning! The Final Circle is about to open!" The voice of the Star Alliance broadcast became more serious than ever before, even carrying a hint of trembling (likely frightened by the scene of Li Mo beating the Arbiter at Midway just now). "Fourth Stage: Entropy Corridor. Stage Rule: Resist time erosion. Only civilizations with the 'Eternal' attribute or those capable of reversing entropy increase can reach the Place of Origin alive." "Current remaining competing civilizations: 128." "Good luck... to everyone."
pangu-003, Tianhe Command Room.
The atmosphere was strangely relaxed. Li Mo sat in the command chair, playing with the [Logic Core] he had plucked from the Arbiter (now modified into a glowing stress ball). The T-9 robot was giving General Gu (the Corpse Soldier commander) a final full-body maintenance, applying a thick layer of [Anti-Time Corrosion Wax] to its bronze armor. Meanwhile, Lumina (the Star Spirit Navigator) held a cup of milk tea and looked at the gray starry sky outside the window, her eyes filled with both fear and excitement.
"Captain, this place isn't right." Lumina pointed at the waterway ahead. "I can see the ripples of time. Every grain of dust there is aging frantically. Even energy lifeforms like the Light Spirit Race would have their energy decay and extinguish if they entered." "Can our assembled ship... really hold out?"
"Assembled ship?" Li Mo laughed. "Lumina, you need to have confidence in our 'chimera aesthetic.'" "Besides, speaking of 'time' and 'aging'..." Li Mo turned to look at General Gu, who was applying lubricant to a mechanical arm. "Old Gu, you lay in a tomb for tens of thousands of years. Do you think time is a scary thing?"
"Scary my foot!" General Gu laughed raucously, revealing a mouth full of big gold teeth (made of Titan alloy). "We old brothers have been dead for ages! How much older can we get? Turning into fossils just makes us antiques, even more valuable!" "Exactly! As long as there's enough engine oil, we're still heroes after a bit of polishing if we get rusty!" T-9 chimed in from the side.
"See?" Li Mo spread his hands. "On this ship, we not only have 'dead' undead and 'tireless' machines, but also..." He pointed to the group of Abyss creatures in the corner playing cards with their tentacles. "And these 'indescribable' things. There is no concept of time in the Abyss; they can live as long as they want."
"As for this planet itself..." Li Mo stood up, his gaze penetrating the command room to look at the land beneath his feet. Driven by the titan core, supported by the Kunlun Dragon Bone, and bolstered by countless rules, the current Cultivation World was no longer an ordinary planet. It was the corpse of an Ancient God. Ancient Gods are existences that transcend the long river of time. Mere entropy increase isn't even qualified to give an Ancient God a scrub.
"All hands, hear my command!" Li Mo waved his hand grandly. "No need to slow down! No need for protection!" "Turn on all broadcasts and play that song, 'Borrow Another Five Hundred Years from Heaven'!" "We're... charging through!"
BOOM——!!!! Accompanied by the stirring BGM, the pangu-003 started up again. This time, it didn't activate any energy shields. Instead, like a blue meteor, it crashed nakedly into that gray nebula representing death and aging.
Inside the Entropy Corridor.
Zzzzt—! Just as they entered, a terrifying time storm swept over them. Several alien warships traveling nearby were instantly struck by disaster. The hull of a biological civilization's mothership shriveled and rotted at a speed visible to the naked eye, finally turning into a cloud of fly ash. A mechanical civilization's ship was instantly covered in rust, its engine stalling due to aging circuits, floating in the void like scrap iron.
But the pangu-003... "This feels great!!" General Gu stood at the bow, spreading its arms to welcome the baptism of the time storm. The storms that could instantly rot ordinary matter blew against its body, which had undergone "Industrial Necrotic" modification, and actually blew away the surface rust, revealing the shiny bronze base underneath. "This isn't a storm! This is clearly an automated polishing machine!"
As for those Tentacle Monsters, under the effect of time acceleration, they actually split even faster. Originally numbering only a few hundred, they split into thousands in the blink of an eye, crowding the deck. "Boss! We have enough manpower! The barbecue stall can open branch stores now!"
The most ridiculous ones were the Scrap Iron Clan robots. T-9 discovered that in the entropy-increasing environment, the quantum processors inside them actually underwent some kind of mutation. [Warning! Processor aging... iterating... evolving!] [Congratulations! Your CPU has evolved from 'Pentium' to 'Quantum'!] "This works too?!" T-9 was stunned. "So the tech tree that would have taken us tens of thousands of years to evolve is completed here in a few seconds?"
Tianhe Command Room. Li Mo watched all this and calmly took a sip of tea. "This is called 'things turning into their opposites when they reach the extreme.'" "When something gets old to the limit, it becomes a myth." "System, add an annotation to this area."
Li Mo took out the spring and autumn brush and wrote a line in the void: [Entry: Theory of Relativity (Cultivation Version).] [Effect: One day in heaven, one year on earth. Within the range of the pangu-003, the flow of time is determined by the Administrator's mood. If the mood is good, accelerate cultivation; if the mood is bad, pause it.]
Hum—! Golden rules descended. The originally violent entropy storm suddenly became submissive the moment it approached the pangu-003's atmosphere. They no longer corroded everything but instead turned into a stream of pure "Aura of Ages," merging into the Heavenly Dao cycle of the Cultivation World. The old Cultivators who were originally stuck at a Bottleneck broke through one after another under the wash of this aura. "Thank you, Dean, for the blessing! I'm about to form my Nascent Soul!" "My Lifespan has increased by another five hundred years!"
On the Star Alliance jury. Several judges who were waiting to see the pangu-003 turn into a fossil now had their jaws nearly hitting the floor. "Cheating... this is definitely cheating!" "They are using the Entropy Corridor to Cultivate?!" "Turning a cosmic dead zone into a blessed land? Is this something a carbon-based lifeform can even do?"
"Chief Judge, should we activate the ultimate defense mechanism?" "Activate my ass! Didn't you see that even the Laws of Time are avoiding them?" The Chief Judge closed his eyes in despair. "Let them pass... hurry up and let them pass..." "I just hope they hurry up and get to the finish line and stop ruining my racetrack."
...
Entropy Corridor Exit. The pangu-003 rushed out unscathed, even looking brand new. And ahead of it, an incredibly massive white planet emitting an eternal light finally appeared. That was the destination of the multiverse civilizations—the [Place of Origin].
But before reaching the finish line, there was one last barrier. Or rather, one last "roadblock."
A triangular warship, pitch black all over with no reflections and as deep as a black hole, was quietly hovering in the center of the waterway. It flew no civilization's flag. But the pressure it emitted was hundreds of times stronger than the previous Arbiter. That was... the [High-Dimensional Hunter].
"Beep! Abnormal variable detected." "Target: pangu-003." "Instruction: Capture. Sample recovery."
Li Mo looked at that black warship and put down his teacup. His gaze became serious for the first time. "Is it finally here?" "The real... 'Administrator' (Inspector level)." "It seems this final showdown needs a different way to play."
He closed his little notebook and picked up the walkie-talkie: "All hands, prepare for Level 1 combat." "This isn't a race this time; it's... a hunt." "Let's show all of our 'trump cards'."