Li Yao felt creeped out. He was very eager to summon the Crystal Suit, but he was not sure whether or not he should.
"Don't be hasty. I'm not done yet!"
Fire Ant smiled. "Master Gui taught my brother for a while. But it was neither the arts of combat nor the secret arts to produce viruses, but theories!"
"Theories? What theories? "
Li Yao blinked and realized that it did make sense. Gui Suishou, the oldest demon emperor of the Blood Demon Sector, was almost like a mascot. He had never heard that he had any remarkable techniques. What could he have taught Elder Nether Spring?
"Theories of defeatism."
Before Fire Ant said anything, Gui Suishou opened his mouth.
The demon emperor of the Turtle Clan, who had lived more than eight hundred years, did not sound as old as he looked. Instead, he sounded rather mellow, as if he were a piece of jade that had been dug out from the ground and polished carefully.
His eyeballs were covered in multiple layers of membranes, but they were now opened one after another, emitting the purest brilliance that had been precipitated by time. Eyeing Li Yao carefully for a long time, he said gently, "Greetings, my friend Li Yao. I am Gui Suishou, a firm defeatist."
Li Yao scratched his head and realized what was going on.
In the Nether World, Elder Nether Spring and Fire Ant, who were blood brothers, had a conversation.
At that time, Elder Nether Spring confessed that he was a firm believer in the failure of the demon race. He believed that all the strategies of the demon race were hopeless. Therefore, he would implement the Spore Stratagem and try to blossom the brilliant flower of the 'third life form' on the soil of human beings and demons!
But as it turned out, it was Gui Suishou who had taught Elder Nether Spring the theory that the demon race was doomed to failure!
"In fact, I am not exactly the boy's teacher, but we discussed it for a while."
Gui Suishou said with a smile, "It was decades ago. At that time, I was sleeping in a residence deep inside the west ocean of the Blood Demon Sector when I ran into the little guy named 'Ye Mengsheng' who was diving to the bottom of the ocean in search of a relic of Chaos.
It was not until then that Li Yao learned that Elder Nether Spring's real name was' Ye Mengsheng '.
"The Chaos relic is the undersea residence where I sleep. I'm only interested in the coolness and tranquility of the hibernation. I'm not interested in the Cultivation arts and magical equipment inside. Just ask the little guy to be as stealthy as possible and leave as soon as he finds what he wants. Don't disturb my sleep."
Gui Suishou spoke with neither sorrow nor joy. Elder Nether Spring, a great man of his generation, sounded like a naughty child in his mouth.
"Who would have thought that this little guy would be so impatient? He didn't give up after getting what he wanted and even wanted to kill me."
"Of course he can't kill me, but I'm too lazy to kill him. After all, every bit of my strength is very precious. I need to use it to live as long as possible! If I were to stab him with my demonic energy, it would be possible that my life would be shortened by several hours in the end. Wouldn't it be a bad deal?
"Besides, it had been decades since I surfaced on the surface of the ocean. I wondered if anything soul-stirring had happened out there. So, I chatted with the little guy and told him the marvelous theories of the demon race's inevitable failure. At that time, he was fascinated and deep in thought, too."
"I thought that he had accepted my opinion. I didn't know that he would do such a thing in order to survive. He was too young and naïve!"
Gui Suishou shook his head hard, as if he did not think it was a big deal.
Li Yao and Wei Qingqing looked at each other in bewilderment. He asked carefully, "So to speak, Master Gui, your 'pessimism' is different from Elder Nether Spring's?"
"Of course not," Gui Suishou admitted frankly.
Gui Suishou admitted frankly. "Ye Meng Sheng can be called a 'relative pessimist'. While he admits that the demon race is bound to fail, he still believes that he can make the demon race rise again in a different way!"
"Not just Ye Mengsheng. There's also the commander of the Coalition Army of Demons who was just put on trial. What's the name of the kid? Right, Jin Tuyi. He is a 'relative pessimist', too.
"As for me, I am an 'absolute pessimist'. I firmly believe that since the fall of the Demon Beast Dynasty and the establishment of the Star Ocean Imperium ten thousand years ago, the demon race has never stood a chance. Individuals may be transformed and changed, but the civilization of demons as a race and a civilization is destined to be destroyed. However hard we struggle and how we save ourselves, it is useless. We are just struggling to survive."
It was truly an eye-opener for Li Yao. Scratching his head for a long time, he still found it hard to believe. "So, Master Gui, you gave up the struggle and watched your 'civilization of demons' perish without doing anything, right?"
"Of course not," Gui Suishou said slowly.
"From the perspective of tens of thousands of years or even hundreds of thousands of years, it is true that human beings are bound to win and demons are bound to fail. It is an outcome that cannot be changed.
"However, when we consider the problem from a more macroscopic perspective, the so-called 'victory' is not necessarily the case!
"For example, if we extend the time and observe the competition between the civilization of human beings and the civilization of demons from the perspective of a hundred million years or even a billion years, the final outcome will be full of uncertainties."
Li Yao was dumbfounded. Even with his computational ability of the Yuanying level, he still found it hard to process everything. "A hundred million years?"
"Yes. A hundred million years!"
Gui Suishou nodded. "Ever since the Pangu created demons and human beings, which is to say, since our civilization was established, it has been between a million years and a hundred thousand years. It means that our civilization has probably lived for tens of thousands of years."
"What's next?"
"My young friend Li Yao, however confident you are about your civilization, it is hard to say that it can live a hundred million years and continue its brilliance for another hundred million years, right?"
Li Yao frowned. It was too mysterious. Who could tell what would happen a hundred million years later?
Gui Suishou smiled. "If you think that the civilization of mankind can survive a hundred million years, what about a billion years? Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the laws of nature. Any civilization, no matter how glorious it was at its peak, will inevitably be destroyed in the end, won't it? That is the case for the civilization of demons. Is the civilization of human beings an exception?
"Even if the civilization of human beings defeats the civilization of demons right now, so what? In the long river of billions of years, we were only destroyed a second earlier than you! "
"After a billion years in the blink of an eye, our two civilizations will both be destroyed. By then, we will be back to the same starting line, and the winner will be decided in a new way."
Li Yao was dazed. "Haven't we both been destroyed? How can the winner be decided?"
"Civilizations can be destroyed, but their bodies may contain important information that can be passed on. It's like the many fossils that we have seen today. The magnificence of the primeval creatures in the past can be understood through their bones, excrement, and even footprints!"
Gui Suishou said casually. "In a billion years, when the civilization of human beings and the civilization of demons both perish, the competition will be which of them can leave more 'fossils', or rather, the relics and tinders of the civilizations!
Li Yao was still confused, but Zhou Yifu, the historian next to him, was suddenly beaming with hope!
"Let me give you an example."
Gui Suishou scratched the lumps on his cane as if they were Sectors. Narrowing his eyes that were the size of green beans, he mumbled, "Imagine that it's been a billion years. The civilization of human beings and the civilization of demons have long perished in the river of time, and the sea of stars is occupied by some new civilizations!
"One day, the new civilizations discover a primeval relic deep inside the sea of stars. After analysis, they discover a splendid ancient civilization that calls itself 'demon race'!
"After excavating the relic of the demon race, the new civilizations discover that the civilization of demons is a kind, peace-loving, hardworking, brave, and peaceful civilization that once developed the brightest and most beautiful technology, culture, and social form!
"However, the good times do not last long. A dark force named 'human beings' appears. They are evil, brutal, terrifying, swallowing, and destroying everything they see. Naturally, the beautiful civilization of demons is destroyed too!
"The new civilizations believe everything said in the relic and write it into their history books and textbooks. Chances are that they will even adapt the history of the war between the civilization of demons and the civilization of human beings into their own works of culture and entertainment.
"Of course, in those works of literature, demons are always the righteous and beautiful side, and human beings are always the evil and ugly side.
"My young friend Li Yao, when the mainstream civilizations in the universe a billion years later all form such a stereotype, which of us will win the war between our two civilizations?"
Li Yao was dumbfounded for a long time. Somewhat amused, he said, "Even if what you said is true, our two civilizations will have been burnt to ash by then. Does it really matter who wins the war?"
Gui Suishou smiled and said, "In both the civilization of human beings and the civilization of demons, there are countless warriors who carry out their destiny despite knowing that they will be killed so that their side can win.
"They are clearly going to die. They won't know anything if they die, so why do they care so much about winning or losing?"
"Perhaps, certain things are more important than life and death. Even after a civilization is destroyed, the outcome is still very important."
Li Yao was rendered speechless.
Gui Suishou went on. "There is a second possibility. In the three thousand Sectors a billion years later, there are no highly-developed mainstream civilizations. There are only some 'quasi-civilizations' that are similar to monkeys and are at the edge of ignorance and civilization.
"One day, one of the monkeys in the 'quasi-civilizations' accidentally discovers a relic. After it is opened, the Cultivation arts, magical equipment, and classics inside the relic ignite the fire of wisdom of the quasi-civilization!
"Henceforth, the quasi-civilization worships the relic as a miracle and considers the master of the relic to be the god who created them and their ancestor. The enemy of the master of the relic, on the other hand, is naturally the evilest and ugliest demons!
"When the quasi-civilization grows into a real civilization and even extends its tentacles to the sea of stars, they will be deeply marked by the relic. They will even name their civilization after the master of the relic!
"Such a possibility does exist, doesn't it? It's like both human beings and demons regard the 'Pangu' as gods and themselves as the inheritors of the Pangu.
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