Only I Walk Alone

Every individual, every industry, and every organization must follow one rule: if you do not advance, you will be eliminated.

This is also true for the church. If the church continues to lack a sense of crisis, it will be difficult to make further progress. Therefore, Wu Ge and Yu Yi discussed the reform of the church.

As the discussion went on, three days gradually passed, and they arrived at the Alpha Centauri star system.

Upon arriving at the Alpha Centauri star system, Wu Ge immediately went to the fragmented planet. Both Wu Ge and Yu Yi did not need any protective suits; they were completely exposed to the vacuum of space but remained unharmed, even capable of using electromagnetic waves to communicate with others.

Many followers, upon seeing this scene, knelt down and prayed devoutly to Wu Ge and Yu Yi.

Hu Kong was also terrified by Wu Ge’s power. In the former demon kingdoms, there had never been a being with such power. Frankly, in his eyes, Wu Ge was indistinguishable from a god!

After arriving at the scene, Wu Ge asked, “Where is the metal plate you found?”

Hu Kong respectfully said, “To report to His Majesty the Supreme Emperor, the content on the metal plate is being deciphered.”

Wu Ge said, “No need, I can read it.”

With Wu Ge’s current strength, he could decipher the text on the metal plate himself. He only needed to probe the spiritual force remaining on the metal plate to understand what was written on it, and he could even restore the situation and mood of the creator at the time.

Indeed, this was like having a tool for doing reading comprehension. In fact, many antique enthusiasts have similar abilities, but they are far from comparable to Wu Ge.

The scientists brought over the metal plate, wearing protective suits since they could not survive in the vacuum of space otherwise.

The metal plate was huge, covering at least 1,500 square meters, with dense symbols written all over it that no one could understand.

Upon seeing the metal plate, Wu Ge simply waved his hand, and the metal plate was suddenly laid flat. Then, a faint shadow appeared in the upper left corner of the plate. The shadow lay on the plate and used an object similar to a pen to inscribe a series of characters onto the plate.

Everyone was stunned to see the shadow, as it was only the size of a palm, and the characters it wrote were about one-third smaller than our commonly used fonts. Nonetheless, for an individual the size of a palm, this text was still slightly too large.

Wu Ge understood the creator’s feelings. He said, “This is not a diary, but a time-sensitive announcement, similar to news. The creator wrote it, and then the device would set the metal plate upright, allowing other individuals to see it, so the font had to be larger.”

Hearing Wu Ge’s explanation, everyone immediately understood.

Then, Wu Ge began to understand the content of this time-sensitive message, which read: “In the year XXX, on day XX, our race encountered an unprecedented disaster. Our planet was thrown out of the star system.”

Wu Ge said, “This civilization also uses the concept of one orbit around the star as one year, and one rotation of the planet as one day, but they do not have the concept of months or seasons.”

Different civilizations have different understandings and methods of calculating time. This unknown civilization only had years and days, without months, as the concept of months was actually invented based on the moon’s cycles. Since this civilization’s planet had no moons, they did not invent the concept of months as a unit of time measurement.

Wu Ge also understood the event of the planet being thrown out of the star system.

The star system of this civilization is a triple star system, with three stars engaging in unpredictable three-body motion. The planet was tossed among the three stars, orbiting one star for a few years and then another.

This was like baseball players passing the ball: I pass it to you, you pass it to him, and he passes it back to me.

But one day, there was a mistake among the baseball players, one of the players failed to catch the ball, and that’s what happened to this planet.

During the handoff process, the planet’s velocity exceeded the gravitational pull of a star that was supposed to catch it, causing the planet to be ejected from the star system. But this alone was not enough to cause the planet to disintegrate.

Wu Ge continued reading, and the second section began to explain the reason. It read: “In the year XXX, on day XX, the energy of the divine artifact began to diminish because we are getting farther and farther from the star. If this continues, the energy of the divine artifact will be completely exhausted, and we will all die.”

Wu Ge felt the bleak emotions of the writer. Yu Yi asked, “Would the time-sensitive reporter of this civilization report such a thing? Aren’t they afraid of causing social unrest?”

When a civilization knows it won’t be long before it ends, it wouldn’t be surprising what the crumbling individuals might do.

This led some to speculate, could it be that the individuals of this civilization completely collapsed, eventually leading to a great war that destroyed the planet?

But as soon as this viewpoint was raised, it was refuted: “If they had the strength, why not leave the planet? The sadness in the text suggests they had not developed interstellar travel technology.”

This person was right; this unknown civilization indeed had not developed interstellar travel technology. They hadn’t even considered leaving their planet.

Wu Ge read on, the next section was written: “In the year XXX, on day XX, according to calculations, the divine artifact will exhaust its energy in another hundred years. At that time, our entire race decided to live out these hundred years according to our usual habits, but to stop procreation in the fortieth year.”

After translating this passage, all the scientists and explorers present were stunned, even Wu Ge was somewhat surprised. He said, “This civilization calmly accepted their impending extinction. They decided how to live normally, so they would live out these last hundred years in the same way.”

Even Wu Ge couldn’t imagine, a civilization upon learning of their certain demise chose to face it calmly. They didn’t go mad, there were no riots, no fratricide, but they also didn’t try to solve the problem, didn’t try to escape their planet.

In short, their entire race chose a resigned end.

Wu Ge continued reading, the following information was relatively unimportant, merely detailing how much energy the divine artifact lost each year, how far the planet had drifted from the star system, how many years they had left, who died of old age, and so on.

The individuals of this civilization faced death with equanimity, feeling sad about the impending extinction of their civilization but not despairing.

Until the fortieth year, when the last child of this civilization was born.

This civilization had an average lifespan of sixty years, so they had decreed no procreation after forty years to prevent their descendants from suffering through the dreadful end. In fact, from the thirtieth year onward, there were no births, but by accident, this single infant was born.

He would soon become the only individual of his race.