Chapter 822: Reality and cause and effect

However… it was only limited to the light cone.

Yes, even with such observational methods, what could be perceived was merely what was within the light cone, because your ability to receive ‘light’ indicated that everything was still within the speed of light.

The light cone had not been broken; everything that could be observed was merely the ‘Observable Universe’, not the Universe itself.

The Observable Universe is the region from which light cannot escape. For example, for life within the Guixu, the entire Guixu is their ‘Observable Universe’, because when the event horizon of the Guixu is exceeded, light cannot escape. Everything they can observe and interfere with will be forcefully repelled at the event horizon, unseen, uninvolved, and even unimaginable.

Although the Universe itself is isotropic, they had no way to verify this, and even calculating spacetime curvature on large scales was difficult to truly perceive.

Despite the billions of light-years of distance being unimaginably vast for these civilizations, it was still just the tip of the Universe's iceberg, and the Universe was constantly expanding at an incredibly fast pace, far exceeding the speed of light, as if it were in a state of constant inflation.

The so-called inflation refers to the expansion from the singularity, which had no volume, at the very beginning of the Universe, instantly expanding from a size far smaller than a proton to galaxy-level dimensions.

In less than 10^-33 seconds, the Universe expanded by 2^100 times, and it did not stop but continued to expand, and now countless billions of years have passed.

The space brought by eternal inflation forms the ‘existence’ within the current Universe, which shows how vast the Universe is. If one only observes the ‘Observable Universe’ for such a small distance, it can hardly be called a great Divine Ability.

Of course…

This is true for the entire Universe, but for Mortals, the Observable Universe is already a terrifying size.

However, Li Qi was already far from a Mortal.

Facing Zhong Minglou's observation, Li Qi quietly distorted the speed of light.

Changing the speed of light was already commonplace for Fifth Rank, who often used it for travel, but Li Qi was doing the opposite this time.

Li Qi suppressed the speed of light to three meters per hour, confined to a small circle around him.

In other words, the Observable Universe also shrank, becoming a sphere around him, the Karma was limited to within three meters, and at the same time, not only light but all things slowed down.

If the speed of light slowed down, then electricity and magnetism would also slow down, the force of material propagation would slow down, and even the transmission of gravitational waves would slow down accordingly.

This was the ultimate suppression of the Heavenly Dao; all matter, Karma, energy, and force would be restricted to this limit, so much so that even the composition of matter itself would undergo tremendous changes as a result.

For Zhong Minglou, his feeling was that everything in front of him turned black.

The entire Observable Universe shrank to such a small circle around him, and although it was still expanding, Zhong Minglou felt an unprecedented pressure in his eyes.

For him, the Observable Universe had not actually shrunk.

Because, after the speed of light decreased, the matter forming his body would inevitably become sluggish, and his thoughts and consciousness would slow down proportionally, so the time and difficulty for him to process information would not change at all.

Therefore, from his subjective experience, nothing had changed.

This was a manifestation of his inability to Breakthrough the Karma, unable to exceed the speed of light, unable to Breakthrough the Heavenly Dao limit, so the things he could perceive were naturally limited.

This was what Li Qi wanted to show him, and also Li Qi's way of trying to convince Zhong Minglou.

Zhong Minglou still had reservations about the war; to be honest, although they were good friends, he definitely had concerns about Li Qi, who personally started the war, and the hawkish faction behind him.

This was not a personal grievance, but simply a ‘Dao of different paths’.

Yes, even if they were both of Shaman Dao, it was still possible for their ‘Dao’ to differ. For example, now, Zhong Minglou was not concerned because of personal grievances with Li Qi, but because he worried that if his help made the war even more intense, what would happen? And how would it affect his teacher, and even other beings, including countless lives in ordinary realms?

Did his friendship with Li Qi outweigh the sacrifices of these beings?

It should be known that even on the Fifth Rank battlefield, every war resulted in hundreds of billions of casualties. The scale of this war was simply too vast, and in Zhong Minglou's eyes, all these casualties, their ‘feelings’ were actually similar to his own.

He himself would be saddened by the death of Miss Lan, so… what about those whose civilizations collapsed, whose known worlds were completely destroyed, whose relatives and friends died in war? What were their feelings like?

Li Qi's Dao was clear; his attitude towards these people was ‘let them be’. As long as it didn't affect the ‘overall balance’, Li Qi didn't really care much about them. Li Qi was neither good nor evil, which was a common faction among Shamanes, arguably a significant portion of Shamanes held this attitude.

They regarded themselves as part of nature, and the changing of nature as normal; as long as nature itself remained balanced, individual losses were actually unimportant.

To put it simply, they valued ‘the populace’ but not ‘a specific individual’.

They cared about the whole but didn't much care about individual joys and sorrows. They believed that individual joys and sorrows should be the responsibility of the individual. Li Qi was responsible for his own affairs, and Ninth Rank passersby should also be responsible for their own affairs.

So, in this way, controlling the overall balance, as for how individuals fared, that was ‘as it should be’.

But Zhong Minglou did not think so. Although they had no disagreement on the core ideology of ‘Shaman Dao’ and could still be considered fellow practitioners, they had differences in their attitude towards individuals.

Zhong Minglou clearly believed that the strong should bear responsibility for the weak. This responsibility was not unlimited, but it should be that ‘what the strong do, others should not bear’.

For example, war. It was clearly a war initiated by the strong, and should have been entirely the responsibility of the strong, but in reality, the strong fought among themselves, seemingly lively, but their mortality rate was far lower than that of the weak.

Regarding this situation, some Shamanes, including Li Qi, believed that the weak should be responsible for their own safety.

However, there were also many Shamanes who held another view, similar to Zhong Minglou. They believed that since they initiated the war, they had the reason and responsibility to bear the sacrifices of these weak, instead of just leaving with a phrase like “it is natural”.

But all these arguments had to be based on one premise.

That is… death is serious, destruction is real, and everything experienced is undeniable.

But is that really true?

This made Zhong Minglou fall into deep thought.

Around him, due to his contemplation and the slowing of the speed of light, the Observable Universe shrank, causing cosmic starlight to condense on his body.

He was like floating on a calm sea, on a dark and quiet night, with the starlight of the Milky Way clearly reflected on the water, making his body appear as if suspended in the starry sky.

At the same time, a golden sun also rose behind him; that was his Dao Resonance beginning to manifest. This so-called ‘sun’ was the manifestation of his Dao Resonance, capable of illuminating everything within the Observable Universe.

The Dao Resonance reflected the mysterious patterns of the Observable Universe, churning in the starlight, appearing incredibly bizarre.

But Zhong Minglou paid no attention to any of this.

In fact, he was contemplating Li Qi's words, and at the same time, he also felt the special situation brought by the shortening of the Observable Universe due to the change in the Heavenly Dao limit.

Zhong Minglou thought in his mind—if death is just a game, and everything experienced is an illusion, then arguing about such things is meaningless. In this situation, war is nothing more than a game, building blocks that can be knocked down and rebuilt at any time.

Imagine a Mortal who spent his entire life building merits on the battlefield, conquering countless realms, and finally attaining immortality, becoming the leader of billions of armies over tens of thousands of years, and even becoming the Realm Lord.

At this moment, if he suddenly discovered the truth of ‘reality’, how would he think?

Everything he experienced was false; his conquests, his legends, his life's merits, were merely dreams that a great being beyond comprehension could casually erase. It wouldn't even be an exaggeration to call it a game.

Could he not collapse? Could he not doubt his own existence?

Just like the Little Heavenly Master, whose Dao Heart was as firm as his, upon realizing his own illusory nature, he couldn't help but almost fall into the illusory trap.

How many people can admit their own illusion, admit that they suddenly appeared in the last second, admit that history is fake, and this world is also fake?

Most people would just think, “Nonsense.”

They firmly believe in their ‘memories’, firmly believe in their ‘experiences’, and believe that they undeniably know this world is solid, a great ship that can carry them.

But in reality, this world is not.

The solid foundation of this world is the ‘existence of Karma’.

This is a world built on Karma. The premise of Karma is that the world is real; it is precisely because we believe the world is real that we believe Karma is a real law of the real world.

All phenomena in our world are interdependent in a regular connection, and this connection is Innate. No phenomenon can exist independently and freely; the existence of every phenomenon has its sufficient reason. As long as a cause appears, there will be a corresponding result. The changes of all things have causes. Karma dominates the movement and changes of all objects in the real world and is the sufficient reason for change.

The object of Karma is the object of the real world, to be precise, it corresponds to the: change of objects in the real world.

All changes in the real world have causes, such as mountains, rivers, sun, moon, stars, tables, and chairs—these material objects. All their changes follow Karma, which means that as long as a cause appears, the result will surely follow.

Conversely, as long as a result appears, there must be a corresponding cause.

Things do not appear out of thin air, nor do they disappear out of thin air.

One important form of this is ‘the speed of light’.

A person only dies after being born, a tree only grows after being planted—this is a manifestation of Karma and the limitation of the speed of light.

And objects moving faster than the speed of light would directly break the causal connection. If calculated at superluminal speeds, the time coordinate difference would be less than zero, resulting in negative numbers.

To give a simple example, if a person plants a tree, then if this tree grows at superluminal speed, because the relationship between speed and time is deep, time dilation would occur, leading to the tree growing before the seed was actually planted.

The effect has already appeared, but the cause has not yet appeared.

In order to satisfy Karma, neither the speed between reference frames nor the speed of an object relative to a reference frame can be greater than the speed of light, otherwise the causal connection would be broken.

This is the Heavenly Dao limit, and it is also the cage that binds all things that lack reality.

If you lack reality, you depend on Karma for your existence. Your birth must have a ‘cause’. If you don't have this ‘cause’, you will disappear.

This is also the principle behind the ‘Existence Erasure’ Divine Ability: as long as you erase the cause of your existence, for example, by eliminating your parents before you are born, then the foundation of your existence disappears, and you die.

When you possess initial reality, reaching Fourth Rank, able to exist independently without relying on anything other than yourself, and have broken the speed of light and Karma, at this point, your existence depends only on yourself; you are your own ‘cause’.

At this point, you will discover how fragile the matter of the real world, which exists based on Karma, truly is.

At the same time, these materials themselves are just things that can be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

However, it's not that extreme.

A book can indeed be directly burned.

But being able to burn it doesn't mean you can write that book. Although you have the ability to create any book, just as a person has the ability to create any book, it doesn't mean that person can actually write a good book.

Therefore, the real world… or rather, everything created and written by Haotian, is still very important to beings with reality, at least they do not possess the ability to replicate such an exquisite world.

However, not being able to burn and restart doesn't mean they don't want to modify the plot of this book, just like readers who wish they could snatch the pen from the author's hand and change what they think is wrong.

This book should not have this plot; it can be improved, so I will make some changes.

So, is this act of changing things a higher-level manifestation of the current war?

In Zhong Minglou's thinking organ, countless pieces of information converged, outlining a true picture of the war for him.