The Taihao Civilization, hailing from the Large Magellanic Cloud, had once waged war against the Neutron War Star. It were able to completely engulf it and restrain it for thirty years. Although the Taihao Civilization ultimately failed, one could still conclude that its strength was not far off from that of the Neutron War Star.

This Specter Race individual, at its peak, was nearly equal to the Taihao Civilization in power. Even if there was a difference, it couldn’t have been significant. Moreover, this Specter had direct combat experience against the Neutron War Star. So then, if one Specter was not a match, what about two?

If Xiao Yu could decode the mystery of the Specter Race and master its underlying principle, then using that to defeat the Neutron War Star might not be an impossibility.

For tens of thousands of years, the looming shadow of the Neutron War Star had weighed on Xiao Yu’s heart, leaving him without a sliver of hope. But now, he had finally discovered a glimmer of light, though that glimmer was still extremely faint, bordering on nonexistent.

“May I dispatch a ship to conduct a field analysis near you?” Xiao Yu asked cautiously.

The Specter’s reply came swiftly. “There’s no problem with that. I’ve already enveloped half of this star. On my side, no energy is being emitted, so you don’t need to worry about interference from the star. You may come at any time. In fact, I very much hope that you can uncover the secrets hidden within my body. However, I don’t hold much hope for you, not unless you reach the technological level of the Sweepers Civilization.”

Xiao Yu agreed with that assessment. The reasoning was simple, even a preliminary Level 6 Civilization couldn’t decipher the Specter Race’s secrets. How could he, who had only just barely stepped into the realm of a Level 5 Civilization, expect to succeed?

“I have no delusion that I can unravel your mysteries with my current scientific capabilities. I just want to collect some data now so I can analyze it later, once I’ve grown stronger.”

“That’s a good mindset. As my descendant, everything I leave behind is yours.”

Hearing this, Xiao Yu felt a rare pang of guilt rise in his heart.

“Senior, I’m sorry. I was wrong back then. It was my mistrust of you that cost you twenty years of your life. Is there anything I can do for you?”

The Specter burst out in laughter. “It’s alright. Remember this, in this dark universe, no amount of caution is too much. After I die, aside from the race member of yours who became a Specter, you must not trust anyone, absolutely no one. The universe allows no room for teammates. Where there are teammates, there is betrayal. And in your current situation, you can’t afford any betrayal. A single betrayal could spell your utter destruction.”

“I will follow your teachings, Senior,” Xiao Yu replied respectfully.

“In these past few years of development, have you encountered any insurmountable obstacles? I may not be able to guide you in the details of scientific techniques, but I can still help you steer in the right direction.”

“I have,” Xiao Yu hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you… understand souls?”

“Souls do not exist.” After a pause, the Specter said this with certainty.

“Souls do not exist?” Xiao Yu was shocked. “Then… what about me? I had a strange encounter once. During that event, I met a deceased female human. In her diary, she wrote that someone from the Taihao Civilization extracted her soul and stored it inside this spaceship.”

As Xiao Yu spoke, he brought out the escape pod from the 90s Model Spaceship. “Can you see this?”

“I can see it,” the Specter Race responded. “But you’ve misunderstood what I meant. The state of existence of the soul is similar to the existence state of our Specter Race. You must understand, Specters are formed by the aggregation of souls. Likewise, the total mass and total energy of a soul are both zero, and its structure is equally unresolvable. Moreover… based on the analyses of countless different races I’ve encountered over my tens of millions of years of life, species possessing souls are extremely rare. Among the thousands upon thousands of species I’ve encountered, I’ve only ever seen one that possessed souls. And upon discovering that, I wiped them all out without hesitation.”

There was a tone of cold, decisive ruthlessness embedded in the Specter’s words.

Xiao Yu was taken aback and immediately asked, “Why… uh. ”

But the question never left his lips, Xiao Yu had already realized the answer.

There was a special connection between souls and the Specter Race, and since soul-bearing species were so rare, it was highly likely that any race with souls possessed the potential to become Specters.

That in itself wouldn’t be a problem, except for one key fact, at any given time, the galaxy could only support the existence of one healthy Specter.

“This Specter really is no soft character,” Xiao Yu thought, “but its actions are also understandable. If it had been me in that situation, I too would have eradicated the entire species without hesitation and handled all follow-up matters carefully. A new Specter would be a direct threat to my existence. If not for the fact that this Specter is dying, having lost all hope for survival, it likely wouldn’t be treating me with such goodwill. More likely, it would have tried to eliminate me to erase the new Specter born from my kin, and continue to live on.”

As if sensing Xiao Yu’s thoughts, the Specter spoke slowly. “You can rest assured, I will not harm you. I will only protect you, give you shelter. Because I’ve already lost all possibility of continuing to live. Whether it was my fatal injuries that led to the birth of your Specter Race, or the appearance of your Specter Race that caused my eventual death… I no longer care to ponder the answer to that question. After all, the result is the same, I will die, won’t I? In the universe, hatred has no meaning. I certainly don’t carry such useless emotions. Now, I only hope that you can continue to survive, grow strong, and find the answer to all of this in my stead.”

If Xiao Yu still had a physical body, he would undoubtedly have been drenched in cold sweat by now. He hadn’t thought about it before, hadn’t realized that he had unknowingly stepped into such a perilous situation. If the Specter had attacked, he wouldn’t have stood a chance, not even a moment’s resistance. Not even against a dying Specter.

If it were an enemy, it would be at least a hundred times more terrifying than the Molian Civilization.

Perhaps it truly was the ever-present, intangible ‘luck’ of the universe that had saved Xiao Yu’s life.

“We’ve strayed a bit, strayed a bit. Old beings do love to ramble, don’t take it personally.” Sensing the tension in the atmosphere, the Specter transmitted a message filled with laughter and continued, “In the strict physical sense, souls do not exist. But in reality, they undeniably do. I can’t give you a definitive answer to this paradox.”

“Likewise, how many contradictions like the soul exist in the universe? For example, your Faster-Than-Light travel, your Superluminal communication, are any of those not illogical?” the Specter said.

Xiao Yu remained silent. He had indeed thought about this before. Strictly speaking, both Faster-Than-Light travel and Superluminal communication defied logic.

This tied into a concept known as the “light cone.” If time is plotted on the horizontal axis and the range of influence of an event is plotted on the vertical axis, one can produce a distribution graph showing how the effect of an event spreads over time.

Simply put, because nothing, including light, radio waves, gravitational waves, and so on, can exceed the speed of light, a basic conclusion can be drawn. If a star exploded one light-year away from you, then for one full year, that event would have no effect on you, since its information wouldn’t have reached you yet.

Thus, it could be said that your current position lies outside the light cone of the star explosion. And if you’re outside the light cone, then you can’t perceive the event, and it cannot affect you.

Furthermore, since time has no absolute reference point, if you learn that the star exploded a year ago, that’s not technically correct. Because you’re only detecting the explosion now, for you, the explosion is happening in the present.

Originally, this was a perfect model. But the introduction of Faster-Than-Light travel and Superluminal communication shattered it. Suppose a star explodes and could instantly kill you. Being outside the light cone, you normally wouldn’t be able to avoid this outcome. You’d just die.

But now, with Superluminal communication, you receive advance warning of the explosion. Before its effects reach you, you take countermeasures, and survive.

However, this introduces a paradox. Curvature travel and Superluminal communication could be seen as loopholes in the fabric of the universe. Under normal circumstances, the speed of light remains the upper limit. And since time is related to the speed of light, how then can one determine the sequence of events between your countermeasures and the star’s explosion?

From your perspective as the temporal reference point, did your evasive action cause the star to explode? Or did the star’s explosion cause your evasive action? Which one came first, and which one came later? Which happened before the other?