Faced with Li Yao's reprimand, the voice was silent for a long time. It even gave Li Yao the feeling that the voice had cut off the thread and run away.
The voice — or to be more exact, the Primeval Civilization who set up the program billions of years ago — seemed to have never foreseen that such an audacious tester would appear one day and criticize them so brutally.
Li Yao heard gloomy sighs echoing inside his sea of consciousness, as if countless ghosts of the Primeval Civilization were sighing regretfully.
"Perhaps you do have a point, but it's too late now."
The voice finally struggled to say, "There's no chance to correct the mistakes that were made millions of years ago. We can only walk down the bloodstained, thorny path without looking back."
"The best time to correct a mistake is the moment when the mistake is made. The second best time is now, billions of years later!"
Li Yao declared resolutely. "Even if it is a mistake made by our predecessors, how do you know that it can't be changed when you never tried to change or make up for it?"
"Because there's no time."
The voice smiled bitterly. "Just like the emergence of the Primeval Civilization did not leave any time for the alien species and the low-level civilizations to evolve, the arrival of the Flood did not leave any chance for us to change or make up for it at all. The terrifying Flood almost swept across the entire sea of stars and spread to every sub-universe governed by the Primeval Civilization."
"Oh?"
Li Yao's soul was refreshed. "Go on. This should be the final test, right?"
Inside his sea of consciousness, a brand-new challenge began.
As expected, although the territory of the Primitive Civilization had expanded by hundreds of millions of times and almost encompassed the entire Universe Ocean, the resources and fleets under his control had shrunk instead. Moreover, from the images, the planets that had been fertile and peaceful were now suffering from the flames of war. They were a little devastated and looked like there were many things waiting to be done.
It was obviously the result of World War IV, the super civil war of the Primeval Civilization, which led to the Great Split and the Great Decline.
Because the branch of the primeval race that had fled to the Pangu universe was from the universe of Cultivators with black hair and black eyes, Li Yao could only manipulate this branch of the primeval race to deal with the challenges. The best he could do was to get the overview of the few sub-universes nearby. In the sub-universes further away, the development overview and the real-time communication of the 'universe of magic' and the 'universe of fighting' had long been blocked by the fierce war and the long distance.
No one knew the origin of the Flood.
Perhaps a few different branches of the Primeval Civilization developed a new 'ultimate weapon' during the civil war, and it went out of control.
Perhaps a certain alien race or a low-level civilization that had been driven to the edge of the universe by the Primeval Civilization finally had a 'technological explosion', or perhaps a rare unparalleled expert, the so-called 'Child of Providence', emerged and led the entire civilization to a drastic change in only a few hundred years. Then, it united all the other carbon-based intelligent lives that had lost their home, family, and glory and gathered them into a terrifying coalition army.
Of course, it was also possible that the expansion of the Primitive Civilization had caused a very obvious change in this Cosmic Ocean, which finally attracted the interest of an unfathomably powerful existence from beyond the Cosmic Ocean, casting an incomparably tyrannical shadow on this Cosmic Ocean.
All in all, because of the isolation of information and distance, when the branch of the Primeval Civilization that the voice belonged to discovered the existence of the Flood, the trend of destruction had already been set. The Flood had already become an unstoppable and invincible force.
It was hard to tell what the real body of the Flood was. Most of the time, it appeared in the form of an overwhelming 'invisible fog'. It was the vassals and accomplices of the Flood that really brought slaughter and destruction. They were the Flood's vassals and accomplices, or the 'Flood Legion' that Li Yao and the rest of them referred to.
It was not hard to imagine that the alien races and low-level civilizations that had their homes and families destroyed by the Primeval Civilization and had to flee to the edge of the universe were the main force of the Flood Army.
They had been defeated by the Primeval Civilization in the first place, and there were only a few remnants of them left. Logically speaking, they were not enough to cause fatal damage to the Primeval Civilization. The Primeval Civilization even hoped that the remnants of the Flood Army would gather together so that they could wipe them all out.
However, the alien races and low-level civilizations that drove the Flood to seek revenge were no longer as weak and stupid as they used to be. They had also mastered advanced technology, excellent tactics, and a large-scale industrial production system that was as endless as a torrent of steel. They even had their own starships — starships that were even more mysterious, weird, and powerful!
What the Primitive Race was most worried about had happened.
Their enemy had indeed experienced a 'technological explosion'. In only a few thousand years or even a few hundred years, the technological gap between the two parties had been closed and they were even more advanced than the Primeval Civilization.
The alien races had extremely high individual combat ability in the first place. Together with the enhancement of the advanced technology and the large-scale industry, the combat potential that they unleashed was barely something that the Primeval Civilization could resist. Even though the Primeval Civilization occupied the most prosperous sub-universe and abundant resources in the universe and boasted an initial troop that was a hundred times larger than that of the Flood Army, it was impossible for the Primeval Civilization to unite as a whole. They were all in a state of disunity, and the war was very difficult for them.
As the war went deeper and deeper, another shocking truth was discovered. A lot of the Primitive Race were mixed in the Flood Army, and it was those Primitive Race members who provided tremendous technologies to the alien races and the low-level civilizations, helping the alien races and the low-level civilizations achieve a 'technological explosion'!
The unbelievable news threw a powerful stun grenade into the hearts of all the Primitive Race members who considered themselves the 'supreme beings of the universe'.
They couldn't figure out why some of their people would 'degrade themselves' and cooperate with the alien races and the low-level civilizations. They even transmitted their precious technologies to the alien races and used them to deal with their own kind.
Even though they had just experienced an earth-shattering civil war, and the flames of the civil war in many sub-universes hadn't completely died down yet, they shouldn't have cooperated with the alien races and the low-level civilizations, right? Wouldn't that be equivalent to digging their own graves?
The Primitive Race had once captured some 'defectors', who were the Primitive Race members who had joined the Flood Army.
They had thought that those Primitive Race members had joined the Flood Army because of the hatred of the civil war or because of the conflicts of interests. However, the results of the interrogation and research showed that this wasn't the case.
It seemed that the defectors and the alien races and the low-level civilizations who had joined the Flood had all been brainwashed by a mysterious and powerful being and believed that they were part of the Flood. They had all been connected to some sort of enormous network or 'consciousness' and congregated into a brand-new civilization of bees!
The Primitive Race, the alien races, the low-level civilizations … From the moment they joined the Flood, the hatred of the past was forgotten, and the barriers between the races were gone. They were no longer independent individuals but tiny cells on the Flood Army. Everything they did was for the Flood Army, and the Flood Army was above everything else. Naturally, all the technologies, techniques, and information could be shared without reservation.
"That explains a lot!"
Li Yao was greatly enlightened when he learned that. No wonder the voice hated 'bee civilizations' so much. As it turned out, the Flood Army was a certain strengthened version of a bee civilization!
However, the regular bee civilizations, such as the 'Houyi Clan', were developed from the same carbon-based intelligent life on the same mother planet. The best they could do was to absorb the genes of other races and mutate them, but it was barely possible for them to directly convert other races into their arms.
The Flood, on the other hand, could be converted and absorbed regardless of race. It seemed that they had retained the naturally-endowed techniques and wisdom of their original race. On second thought, if they had the techniques and wisdom of a thousand or even ten thousand races, they would be almost invincible!
"The most dreadful thing about the Flood is the power of brainwashing and conversion."
The voice gnashed his teeth helplessly. "If they were just a combination of defectors, alien races, and low-level civilizations, they would've been nothing more than a bunch of mobsters. However divided we were, we would've been able to crush them.
"However, the Flood is not an enemy in the conventional sense at all. They are viruses, plagues, and burning flames! It is often the case that after a protracted battle, we achieve a difficult victory at the cost of countless sacrifices, only to discover that a lot of our own people have been corrupted by the Flood and reduced to members of the Flood Army. All our technologies and secrets have been inputted into the Flood, resulting in the collapse of the entire rear defense line. How can we fight the war if such a collapse is repeated thousands of times? "
As the voice moaned, Li Yao recalled the scenes where countless planets under the control of the Primeval Civilization were caught by the Flood.
Li Yao had mixed feelings as he watched the scenes. He did not know which side he should take.
The war where the Flood corrupted the Primeval Civilization was somewhat like a replica of the war between the Holy League and the Imperium, or rather, an 'enhanced version'.
Naturally, the Primeval Civilization's expansion to the entire universe was not glorious at all. It was even full of cruelty and brutality.
However, during the long period of colonization and development, the primeval races of different races had also developed colorful new civilizations in the various sub-universes. The new generation that was born and raised here also had the right to live a happy life and free will.
Li Yao could not say that the new generation of the Primeval Race born in such an environment must've been burdened with 'original sins'.
Even if they were really trying to atone for everything that their ancestors had done, the punishment of 'betraying their own civilization, abandoning free will, and self-awareness, joining the Flood, and becoming a cell on the Flood' was too miserable and unreasonable!
It was not until this moment that Li Yao finally understood why the wizardly civilization that A Boxing Champion belonged to, including the 'voice' before his eyes, were so scared of the arrival of the Flood.
It was true that free will was the most precious thing for a human being. If he were in the environment at that time, he might've scoffed at what the Primeval Civilization did, but he would've definitely fought the enormous' beehive 'to the end even if he had to die!
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