Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 1578 The Beehive Cage?

"Time cycles endlessly?" Yue Yuan was taken aback.

"Yes, but we need to continue observing for a while longer to confirm," the first mate replied.

Yue Yuan didn't say anything. This conclusion was only the result of preliminary observation, and further observation was needed to determine the specifics.

The conclusion is that time in this space is cyclical, which is obviously calculated by scientists using existing data. If that's the case, then let's observe it until it becomes cyclical.

And so, the Lyra remained in a microscopic state, continuously observing this space and that mysterious special life form through a third-person observation mode.

On one hand, by observing the cosmic membrane, we can find the patterns of the hidden timeline within this space. On the other hand, by observing the changes in that special life form, we can analyze the internal time changes from the surface appearance.

Not long ago, humans said that without changes in matter, there would be no concept of time. Why not take this opportunity to observe this creature and see what's going on?

Fortunately, this space was not large, only about one astronomical unit, and humans quickly explored it. In subsequent explorations, they discovered that its shape was actually a regular hexagon, just like a honeycomb grid.

One year, two years, three years.
It took humans three years to discover the clues.

Of course, this is the time of human civilization itself, a normal concept of time that exists even though the Lyra spacecraft isolates this space from its rules.

However, the concept of time seems to be faster in this space, as can be seen from the changes in that special life form.

Just as human scientists had predicted, that peculiar life form rapidly grew from the size of a red dwarf star initially observed to a size resembling the sun. Next, human scientists assumed it would begin its decline, its body aging rapidly under the fast-paced concept of time, only to be reset by the cyclical timeline of this space.

Let it grow from its childhood again, and so on in a continuous cycle.

However, what humans saw was that after this special life form reached its limit, it did not continue to "pass time" and age like the timeline of the universe. Instead, it began to grow in reverse and started to shrink rapidly.

At first, human scientists thought it was just a change in body shape, but as the exploration and observation deepened, scientists in third-person observation mode discovered that its shrinkage was reverse growth, like time flowing backward.

Of course, from a material perspective, it is not time flowing backward, but rather the microscopic particles that constitute that special life form are moving in the opposite direction.

Humans do not know what physical rules could cause this situation, but through the microscopic morphology of the Lyra spacecraft and the third-person observation mode, it can be clearly seen that the "cells" of that special life form, if its growth is cell division, then now it is "the divided tissue rolling back in reverse".

From a physical perspective, this is a manifestation of time reversal.

Just as the scientists predicted, there was something wrong with the timeline of this space. It seemed to be a loop connecting the beginning and the end, but it was not the kind of loop that formed a circle as imagined. Instead, it went from the beginning to the end, and then back from the end to the beginning, and so on.

"Is time travel really possible?" some scientists ask themselves.

"What are you thinking? Definitely not. Time is simply a physical quantity created by an intelligent life form to describe the changes in matter." The great physicist Long Xinglu shook his head, rejecting this view. He glanced around at the scientists observing the changes in the special life form with him, took a deep breath, and continued, "Rather than a matter of time, it's more accurate to say that some rule of this space has been altered, changed to a cyclical pattern of forward and reverse motion of matter. We don't know how the civilization that created this space managed to do it, but it must have been godlike technology." "It's very possible that the special life form was transformed from a highly intelligent being into the beast it is now under the ravages of this rule. It grows forward and then reverses, repeating this cycle, as if trapped in its own timeline."

Upon hearing Long Xinglv's words, Yue Yuan frowned and said, "Wait, you mean this thing is trapped in its own timeline!"

“Yes!” Long Xinglv nodded: “To be precise, it is this space, this space that is only one astronomical unit in size. Yue Shuai, look at the data feedback of the flexible rule shield of the Dream Lyra. Although we are in a microscopic state, we are constantly being eroded by the rules of this space.”

"Based on the data fed back by the flexible shield of the Dream Lyra, I dare say that if it were not our Dream Lyra that had entered, but a normal space-class civilization warship, it would probably have been corrupted by the rules here not long after it entered, and then become like this special life form, endlessly cycling through the timeline here."

After thinking for a while, Yue Yuan finally spoke: "This sounds like a cage. A cage of rules, a cage that imprisons different things through different rules!"

Long Xinglv paused for a moment, clearly not expecting this. After a brief silence, he nodded and said, "It's somewhat similar, but we've only encountered one special life form. If it really is some kind of rule cage, wouldn't that mean all the ones we encountered before were empty cells? But that doesn't quite make sense. In my opinion, we still need to continue exploring other pixel spaces to see if we encounter similar spaces before we can draw a conclusion. Ideally, we should find an entity with which we can communicate."

"Speaking of which, we need to be even more careful from now on. If this pixelated space is truly a cage as Yue Shuai said, then we need to consider the original purpose of the civilization that created it, and whether there are other strange entities imprisoned inside."

"Hmm," Yue Yuan nodded.

We must be careful, but this discovery has also intensified humanity's desire for exploration.

So, humanity stayed there to observe the growth and reincarnation of that special life form a few more times. Seeing that they had gained nothing else, they decided to return to the greater universe and tell the other three civilizations the news.

Only then did they continue their exploration.

As expected, during the subsequent exploration, the Lyra continued to explore more than a dozen spaces and discovered a special life form in one of them. It seemed to be a level seven Gaia life form, but it had been dead for an unknown period of time.

Subsequently, as more pixel spaces were visited, humans discovered several more spaces containing special life forms, five of which were level seven Gaia life forms, but all of them were dead.

They also encountered a space containing only various mesons. Human scientists suspect that it might be the body of a long-dead nebula life form whose corpse was broken down into various mesons by the rules of that space.

There is also a black dwarf star.

In the vast universe, human scientists wouldn't think much of it, but seeing a black dwarf in pixelated space gives them immediate reason to suspect that it might be the corpse of a special life form, like a "remainer."

Human scientists' suspicions are quite reasonable, because shortly after encountering the black dwarf, they encountered another special life form that was still alive. It seemed to be a four-dimensional life form, but this space only had three dimensions.

When the Dream Lyra arrived, it discovered that this four-dimensional life form was struggling to maintain its body, which had been compressed by three-dimensional space, using its own rules. It seemed that it was taking in less air and exhaling more.

(End of this chapter)