Myriad Paths

"What happened when he suddenly disappeared?" Li Qi was a little confused.

The man smiled and said: "I don't know. I was just as confused as you at first. I just slept for a while, and then when I got up, everyone disappeared. Only Suya and I were still there."

"Everyone in this world has disappeared."

"If it's what you said, then you are really... calm." Li Qi looked at the other party's reaction in surprise.

As soon as he woke up, everyone disappeared, leaving only one ship girl and him to depend on each other.

Then, suddenly he met another living person.

To be able to be so calm is really an impressive feat for a mortal.

"Are you calm? Haha, if you were here in the first three years, I would probably go crazy with joy, right? But it's been so many years, no matter what happens, I shouldn't be surprised, right? Then, young man, how is your body? How? Can you still eat?" the middle-aged man asked.

"It's hard to live alone in this world, isn't it? I opened a vegetable patch over there, and there's no shortage of food. I'm going to build a canal here. It's under construction right now. Let's come together." The man grinned and said.

Li Qi looked at the other party and nodded slightly.

A man digs a ditch...

Ah, this person used labor to relieve the troubles in his heart, so he survived. Well... the weak ship girl next to him probably also relied on his strong willpower to survive with only one person's soul.

"It's amazing. A person has lived for so long and can even support the existence of a spirit." Li Qi sighed.

"Haha, if I were alone, I would definitely not be able to live this long. Fortunately, there is Su Ya. Rather than me supporting Su Ya, it is better to say that Su Ya supports me." The man said.

"I understand." Li Qi said.

At the same time, Li Qi's dharma body has also appeared all over the world.

Almost everyone who remains has welcomed a 'Li Qi' who belongs to them.

Li Qi lived with them for about a week and listened to their stories.

There are middle-aged men living alone, and there are useless young people immersed in the virtual world.

There are young girls trying to survive in the wilderness, and there are old women who have run out of lamps and oil and are waiting for death.

various people.

But without exception, they are all alone.

Some of them are accompanied by spirits, and some are not.

The only similarity is their experiences. Although they encountered many different things, without exception, they fell asleep once, and when they came together, everyone in the world disappeared.

Li Qi tried to guide these people to meet each other.

However, what surprised Li Qi was... they couldn't see each other.

They can discover what the other person is doing. For example, if a man dug a ditch today, the woman will see the ditch appear.

But the two sides just can't see each other, just like psychological invisibility.

What's happening here?

Li Qi used his third-level magical power to figure out the truth, but found that he couldn't.

This was definitely related to the Death Demon, but he didn't know why or what the Death Demon had done.

Incomprehensible.

It is really unimaginable that there are mysteries that the third level cannot understand, and it seems that they still need to be studied.

But...this is the result Li Qi wants.

It's a good thing to be able to understand, and it's also a good thing not to be able to understand...

This shows that there is something to understand, and Li Qi believes that his wisdom can thoroughly study it in a short time.

After all...it's just the aftermath of a dead demon's remains.

If you can't figure this out, then you'd better stop messing around and explore the world of desire and go home to wash up and sleep.

So, start researching.

Li Qi immediately began research. He divided the remaining thousands of people into groups, and then used thousands of Dharmakayas to classify them into categories, setting up experimental groups and control groups. Through the exploration of true knowledge, he conducted profound and detailed observations on each person.

His dharma body lives with these remaining people, becoming their companions and friends, working, entertaining, and living their daily lives with them.

Perhaps because Li Qi was so capable, many of the men and women had feelings for Li Qi, but Li Qi was still indifferent to this. However, this feeling also caused more impact, but it was subtle enough that Li Qi noticed the disturbance, but did not notice it. Knowing what the consequences were, he prepared to move on to more profound observations.

Observation continued until...

Let everyone die of old age, then this civilization will end, and I should be able to observe death.

Just thinking about it, Li Qi accompanied everyone, and those who were alone suddenly had a partner.

Some are happy, some are dull, some are wary, and some are admired. Thousands of people have thousands of different reactions, but generally they are all those emotions.

Li Qi accompanied them at his own pace and told them that there might be other people in the world.

Subtly, more than ten years passed.

Then... some people suddenly became aware of the existence of other people.

This part was ecstatic that they finally met——

Then, they discovered that Li Qi disappeared.

It didn't matter to Li Qi what they thought after that. Li Qi just wanted to be a control group.

He no longer observed, and even actively closed off his senses to detect these people, and then focused on another group of mortals who could not see other people.

Then, in this way, and through subtle and exquisite psychological guidance, Li Qi separated the two groups of people.

After about twenty-six years, the last person who "lived alone" died. Li Qi collected his body and held a funeral.

Then, Li Qi glanced at the control group.

After the initial chaotic battle royale, they have stabilized social order and begun construction

So, he closed his perception.

He wanted to know if there would be any changes in these people without his own observation.

Li Qi returned to the mountain again and closed his eyes.

He decided to get up once every ten years and observe the development of this last civilized settlement.

In the first ten years, things were booming, and everything was moving in a good direction. A large number of newborns were born, the population more than doubled, and people who had lost their jobs began to appear in the settlements, and craftsmen and teachers began to be reclassified. position.

In the second decade, the newborns in the settlement had replaced the old people, and the settlement had grown stronger, now numbering tens of thousands.

In the third decade, the population continued to expand. Using the heritage of previous generations of civilization, they had begun basic mechanized planting. Food was not a problem at all, but the problem was that industrialization could not continue to progress, and they could only continue archeology and rely on old equipment. maintain lifehood.

In the fourth decade, they disappeared.

Once again, disappeared into thin air.

Li Qi didn't even understand what the fluctuations were in these four decades.

But fortunately, he made a detection device this time.

That's right, although Li Qi himself did not conduct any observations, he left behind some things that could passively record images.

It's not a video recorder or something that records subjectively, but a 'mirror'.

That's right, it's just a mirror.

He installed a mirror in the sky, which reflected the world below all the time.

The reason why a mirror can reflect light is because the light hits the mirror surface and is reflected out.

Then, just by observing the reflection and deflection of each molecule on the mirror surface, you can trace the path of each photon and form an image.

Although it sounds nonsense, the third grade can indeed do this kind of thing.

Li Qizhen was able to trace every trace left by each photon on the mirror in the past ten years, so that he could deduce what happened.

Li Qizhen did just that. He clearly traced all the photons and learned what happened.

"He suddenly disappeared while sleeping." Li Qi came to a conclusion after calculation.

It's exactly what was expected.

When everyone is ‘lonely’, they disappear into thin air without even realizing it.

Everyone is lonely?

When there are many people, society will inevitably begin to divide labor, and thus moral disorganization and interpersonal alienation will occur.

Only when he has become estranged from his other companions, when it becomes obvious to him that others are connected with him only because of private interests, only because of the social division of labor, when the feeling that he cannot withstand even the smallest test When the hypocritical connection completely disappeared, it was only at this time that the alienation of interpersonal relationships began.

The decoupling of the personal and the public world, the dissolution of the social attributes of physical space, and the change in the perspective of time have made people confused about how to find their own way of living.

In other words, they are trapped in their own world, as if they were dead and could survive alone.

They all fell into their own world, and briefly thought that all life in this world except themselves was gone.

then……

They really disappeared.

In other words, once civilization develops to the level of atomization, they will disappear. Is this death? Or...what about something else?

But, this isn't right.

Even if it is atomized, in fact, the connection between people in society is closer.

For example, a dead otaku thinks that he is the only one in the world. He lives alone, eats alone, curls up at home playing on his mobile phone, and makes a living by playing games and selling gold coins.

So, people who buy gold coins, game operators, mobile phone signal base station maintenance personnel, network cable operators, and the unmanned supermarket downstairs where one person buys things.

Goods will not grow out of thin air on the shelves. In this atomized society, although you are not aware of the existence of others, your connection with other people is actually very sophisticated.

Compared with those societies that are not atomized, such as 'villages' or 'communities', they seem to be very close, but after all, most of the people they can come into contact with are only relatives or people in the village. Before leaving this land, "family" and "village" were everything in society.

Living in rural areas and living in apartments, the former is actually much more alienated from the entire society than the latter.

So why does the former not disappear but the latter does?

Li Qi was quite confused, but also very happy.

He realized that this was the point where the power of the Death Demon intervened.

Li Qi was very strong, so strong that it was almost impossible for him not to detect the cause. If there was a place that he couldn't detect, then this place must be where the power of the Death Demon intervened.

Then, the result is obvious.

"This is where death takes effect." Li Qi nodded gently at the top of the mountain.

There is no longer a living person in this world. He has been here for hundreds of years, from the age of steam to the extinction of civilization.

He had already found the place that had been changed by the remains of the Death Demon.

"There is no beginning of the foundation of life and death. Now, with all sentient beings, the conditioned mind is the self-nature. The two have the beginningless pure body of Bodhi and Nirvana. Then now, the essence of consciousness and the clear energy can give rise to all conditions. What is left behind by the conditions. All sentient beings have left this behind. Even if you practice this enlightenment all day long without realizing it, it will be in vain to enter the various realms." Li Qi thought about what he had understood and let out a long sigh.

‘Fate’, or ‘connection’.

Human essence is the sum of all social relations.

It is determined by all social relations, among which production relations play a decisive role.

Without social relationships, you are just an object, not a 'person' living in society. Without social relationships to fill it, you are an empty shell.

If there is a person who lives outside society and no one knows him or knows him, then does this person exist?

Philosophers have already given the answer. If a thing cannot be seen, touched, or smelled, and does not affect anything and will never be discovered, then this thing does not exist.

The same goes for atomized individuals. To others, they are invisible and intangible, so they do not exist.

The same is true for this world. This is the so-called "what is left behind by fate is left by all sentient beings."

According to Buddhism, the world is 'caused and conditioned'. The world is full of cause and effect. Everyone has his or her own cause and effect, and the lines of cause and effect touch each other. The point where they touch is 'condition', and this is 'dependent origination'. When the line of cause and effect separates and the two sides no longer intersect, it is 'destiny'.

Therefore, when a certain person's "destiny" is destroyed, it is also the time when this person dies.

The Death Demon just turned this step into a reality, and he truly realized the 'annihilation of fate'.

When these mortals stepped into the starry sky, the power of the dead demon had quietly invaded them.

When someone's "destiny" is destroyed, this person will disappear.

In the same way, when the fate of all sentient beings is exhausted, the world will disappear.

This civilization has practiced this perfectly.

"This is the power of the Death Demon, so... what if it is the third level?"

"If there is a real entity like the Third Grade that can generate its own 'fate', will it die if its 'fate' ends?" Li Qi thought.

Or, if you can maintain your own 'fate', can you resist this dead devil's remains?

He felt that he had found the truth about the Death Demon, so he could try to contact the remains of the Death Demon, right?

Give it a try.

With this thought in mind, he left this dead world and headed towards the remains of the Death Demon.