ALL NOVEL Chapter 624: Me?
From the very moment that the time started… I realised that it didn't change absolutely anything at all. Or rather, I was humble enough to acknowledge the fact that with how things were going at the current rate, my sanity would be long lost if I were to wait for anything even close to life to appear in this world.
In fact, in how insanely vast it was, even if is instantly forwarded to the period where there were some forms alive in it already, the insanity remained.
After all, how would I be better than an entire technological civilisation when it came to looking through the endless emptiness of space?
Surely, I had some advantages. Given how I existed on an even greater plane than this entire universe, to begin with as it was nothing but an object of my imagination with the net sum of energy equaling to zero, I didn't need to obey by its laws. Just like the laws in-game does not affect the laws in reality, I could mould and interact with this world however I wanted…
But it didn't change anything.
I didn't receive some inhuman power that would allow me to send some kind of signal that would track any lifeform and then receive or rather… Process all the information that I would receive back. I didn't have the complicated web of satellites and supercomputers working in my favour.
And as much as a human mind would find it problematic to wrap its understanding around the scale of the universe, I was forced to acknowledge how enormous it was as well. Even with my ability to freely move through it, unconstrained by any limits, I could appear at any point with just the thought.
But what did it change?
In the face of the endless expanses of space, just the local group of stars that already contained an abnormal amount of places that I had to check, was nothing more than a microscopic speck when compared to how vast the rest of the infinity was.
And with that many objects to inspect, no matter how great my speed was, by the time I would find its habitat, the entire civilisation would be most likely gone.
Then…
Or was I allowed to even say that?
At some point of my endless journey through the empty expanse of space where even the most basic particles have yet to form, I noticed something.
It wasn't anything tangible. Given my state, I was unable to touch, taste or sense in any other way, anything that this world contained. I just felt that something appeared somewhere.
Given the infinitely large thingness that surrounded me, locating this strange presence should be hard… But with how much my mind was devoid of any stimulus, this one instant when this strange presence appeared…
It felt as if my mind split in two, with one part still wandering through the infinity of space, while the other one basked in that foreign presence.
Huh?
Even though I had no way to interact with this strange thing, I was perfectly certain of one thing. This presence there was old as the rest of the universe that surrounded it. It seemed that the universe itself had to grow big enough to engulf the area where this remnant of personality remained.
And I could tell whose personality attempted to manifest in this world.
"Look at what became of you, brother…"
Floating in the nothingness of space, I couldn't even caress this strange thing. It existed as a strange arrangement of the magical currents, gently flowing through the fabric of the universe itself. But as little as I could do with it, there was something that this entire situation made me realise.
Ever since my personality split, I wasn't really able to sense anything from the cradle of the universe, where my original self resided!
But this realisation lasted for just a fraction of a second - as long as I could even talk about such small denominations of time in this strange universe. As soon as the topic appeared in my mind, it seemed as if my current self, the one analyzing these strange remnants of Bonger's presence, merged back with the original one.
It didn't feel as if my other self died. More like it reunited with the core, allowing all the memories to merge, just ever-so-slightly altering my true self, in the way that any other thing would.
But what this situation meant, was that I could create several copies of myself, splitting my point of view in the attempt to look for life in this endless universe.
And what was better to fight off against infinity if not another infinity? With an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of potential copies, the infinity of worlds that could potentially give birth to a sane civilisation didn't seem to be as scary as before.
"Okay, let's try it…"
Even though the idea was there, I still couldn't be sure whether the execution would back this idea up. But as strange as it was to succeed at something as quickly as in the first try, it actually happened. Before even a single doubt of plausibility of this idea could appear in my mind, I could sense another me right in front of me.
Or rather, the original me.
"So I'm still sensible…"
Given how our characters were identical, our situations identical and what we experienced after the split, also identical, our reactions were exactly the same. But maybe because of the imperfection of perceiving the world and the related butterfly-effect, it took only a single instant for our actions to deviate from each other.
But the next thought that appeared in our heads also had to be the same. Before anything else could happen, two more copies appeared one on the side of both the current me and the original me.
And I managed to quickly learn how big the differences between each self of mine were when all four of us returned back to being just a single self.
While the differences were not that big, with just four selves of mine, the things each of me noticed or realised… were different.
And as inhumane as turning my own personality into a machine could be, wasn't that the best way to find the ultimate answer to any question I would ever have? Just by creating a hive with enough different me in it?