Observer, the Nature of Space

Pfft!

With a sweep of Bai Cangshu’s right hand, Qingyun’s stiff face went flying end over end, instantly reduced to char by the terrifying heat and flames.

Blood sprayed from his neck, but the face on his chest showed no reaction whatsoever.

"You know perfectly well that doing this is meaningless."

"Life and death are merely two states of information. To us, there is no difference."

The Multi-Faced Star People made no movement, yet a new head had already appeared. Its features had changed into another face Bai Cangshu had never seen before.

"This is my third attempt to communicate with lifeforms such as yourselves. I believe that this time, you will not be marked by the great existence that governs you."

Bai Cangshu realized that the Multi-Faced Star People’s first two attempts were likely the two previous occasions when the space had determined that reincarnators needed to be purged.

In other words, contact with the Multi-Faced Star People was some kind of taboo. Moreover, the Multi-Faced Star People could exert intense interference upon reincarnators, even rendering the space’s eradication rules ineffective.

Eradication was the space’s most fundamental means of control over reincarnators. It was the fundamental governing force that ensured reincarnators continuously carried out various missions according to the space’s will.

Thus far, Bai Cangshu had never heard of any ability or item capable of exempting one from eradication. Compared to a reincarnator’s abilities, the space’s eradication was probably a designated instant-death ability with an extremely high priority. Because it possessed the information of every reincarnator, the space could, according to its rules, designate certain reincarnators who had failed to complete their missions for instant death.

In Infinite Horror, another work that could be considered one of the Original Infinity works, once one broke through the fourth-stage Heart Demon of the Gene Lock, the Main God could no longer eradicate them.

Then perhaps, within the Infinite Dimensional Space, there was likewise some rule capable of resisting eradication.

Moreover, what the Infinite Dimensional Space had always needed most—or rather, the foundation of all its abilities and items—was information.

Singularities were special information, and the reincarnators’ Scarlet Drop Cards were likewise cards that recorded all of a reincarnator’s information.

The Multi-Faced Star People’s hyperdimensional technology and the Infinite Dimensional Space’s rules both converged upon information, to some extent.

"Your so-called eradication is merely the deletion of information. The method I used to prevent those two from being eradicated was also simple. We merely needed to alter the information so that the great existence behind you could no longer identify where those two sets of information were, making direct eradication impossible."

"But at the same time, modifying their information also made it impossible for them to be recalled. Thus, they lost their value to us."

The Multi-Faced Star People’s use of information was astonishingly advanced. Beyond the Goddess of the space, this was another existence capable of completely reading Bai Cangshu’s thoughts.

Bai Cangshu greatly appreciated their manner of communication. It was far more efficient than that Goddess’s, with none of the riddle-speaker nonsense. He did not even need to ask questions; they explained everything he wanted to know one by one.

Bai Cangshu did not need to speak. He only needed to think, and he would receive an answer.

His thoughts shifted quickly as well, and he immediately realized that the Multi-Faced Star People bore him no "malice." They needed him, and specifically needed him to be able to return to the space. That was why they said that this time, he would not be recognized by the space.

To that end, nuking Osaka and Tokyo was their method of disrupting the space’s perception.

"An emotion such as malice is merely a reaction produced when low-dimensional organisms like humans are stimulated by neurons and hormones. Inefficient and meaningless."

"Nuking the two cities of Tokyo and Osaka will cause the deaths of large numbers of humans and completely disrupt the worldline, generating enormous amounts of computation and change. This will place the great existence behind you under temporary full load. Therefore, we have thirty-eight seconds left to communicate."

From the Multi-Faced Star People’s utterly unhurried manner of communication, Bai Cangshu knew that they had fully prepared for a transaction with him.

Therefore, they were not worried that thirty-odd seconds would be insufficient to persuade him. Bai Cangshu thus had no intention of continuing to dwell on such tedious questions as what they wanted him to do and whether he should do it.

The initiative in such matters would always remain in his own hands.

"Can you tell me what purpose the great existence behind us, as you call it, actually has?"

"Or rather, why does it fear communication between us and you?"

This was a question that would almost never receive an answer in other worlds.

Few reincarnators still cared about what the Infinite Dimensional Space truly was or where it had come from.

Perhaps it was because they could never obtain an answer no matter what, or perhaps because Infinite-type works had permeated people’s minds through countless channels over the years, causing reincarnators to more or less accept the concept of "Infinity."

But at this moment, the Multi-Faced Star People might have a different answer.

"As a race in the process of becoming Observers, we are currently incapable of observing an Observer from another universe. Therefore, I cannot answer this question."

The Multi-Faced Star People did not directly answer Bai Cangshu’s question, but they had introduced the concept of an Observer. That was likely the identity—or perhaps status, authority, or something similar—that the Infinite Dimensional Space held in the Multi-Faced Star People’s eyes.

"One final question, Multi-Faced Star People. If you can answer it, then regardless of the terms you offer, I will make a deal with you."

There were probably fewer than ten seconds left. Bai Cangshu looked at the human face on the reincarnator’s chest and asked a crucial question that many reincarnators and Plot Characters had repeatedly asked him since he entered the space.

"Since you believe humans are not special and life is not precious, then in your understanding, what is the heart? Does this so-called heart truly possess a power that transcends the material world?"

Faced with this question, the Multi-Faced Star People clearly paused for a moment. Whether they were thinking or searching through information, this question was more difficult for them to answer.

As Bai Cangshu asked this question, he was also thinking about whether the things that people like Corey, Shigeo Kageyama, and Saitama cared about still held meaning for a race like the Multi-Faced Star People, one that had evolved to such heights that it had completely eliminated the human concepts of good, evil, and ethics.

To the Multi-Faced Star People, bombarding two major cities with nuclear weapons and killing millions or even tens of millions of humans was probably no different from a human child pouring hot water into an anthill out of curiosity.

Then, did having other thoughts because of such matters—because of humans who, like ants, could be so easily killed, discarded, revived, and created—carry any different meaning?

Bai Cangshu was very curious. He wanted to truly see whether those people’s strength came from this heart, or whether it was merely strength that granted them the leisure to possess a so-called noble heart.

Bai Cangshu felt the high temperature on his body beginning to fade. The aftermath of the nuclear blast was about to dissipate, while his body had suffered a considerable degree of radiation and mutation.

For an ordinary person, it would have been enough to kill them quickly.

But for Bai Cangshu, it merely meant spending some time recovering.

If necessary, he could destroy his body bit by bit, then use his immortality to regrow it.

"According to our current understanding, the so-called heart is merely a resonance pattern triggered by quantum vacuum fluctuations within a carbon-based vessel. All discussions of free will, moral intuition, or aesthetic experience are, in essence, poetic misreadings of a particular manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics."

"But the information of those twenty-one grams in humans undergoes unknown changes because of this thing."

The Multi-Faced Star People’s body began to disintegrate. At the end, he extended a hand. Bai Cangshu simultaneously canceled the passive defense of the Limitless Cursed Technique, and the Multi-Faced Star People’s finger touched Bai Cangshu’s body.

"The weight of your soul exceeds the ordinary. Your so-called heart is that weight…"