Chapter 588: Chapter 383: Ant Nest, The Prodigal Returns Home [7300 words]_2

Ant nests would only be accidentally trampled on by larger creatures or destroyed by mischievous children who play with water or fire under extremely rare circumstances.

If Earth is considered an isolated ant nest, then human civilization is also in a probability-based safe house.

The safety probability is so high that the danger can be considered negligible.

But…

When an ant is attracted by the scent of honey, it crawls onto the dining table in the yard and appears on an angry child’s dessert. As the child’s gaze shifts from their iPad to the line of worker ants, the safety factor of the ant nest drops drastically, and the danger level surges.

Or, if we look at it from a random and coincidental perspective, the ants are just passing through the yard in a group when a curious child happens to see them.

The moment they are noticed, the ants’ safety house shatters, replaced by absolute danger and no room for resistance.

Playful human children would simply flood an ant nest with a hose just for fun.

Advanced civilizations destroy lower ones without reason, just for entertainment.

If one must find a reason, it could be that the child is upset about ants ruining their dessert, or the ants are feasting on a beautiful butterfly’s corpse that the child admires.

What if the child had a nightmare the night before, in which they were devoured by a swarm of ants after death?

And in this nightmare, the ants took on human-like forms, laughing maliciously as they feasted.

The outcome of this story is not hard to guess.

In any case, lower beings faced with the gaze of higher-order creatures face danger.

Humans are now facing the “angry child.”

The Solar Dome is like the excavator the angry child uses to dig up the ant nest, isolating it from the ground and turning it into a trapped turtle or a fish in a bottle.

The Spherical Battleship is like the first drop of water from the massive hose in the angry child’s hand.

In the previous seven timelines, this one droplet destroyed everything.

Now Harrison Clark has transformed into a spark, igniting the flame of civilization, and evaporating the droplet.

However, the “naughty child” can observe the strength of the ants in the nest through the excavator’s camera, and it is knowledgeable about biology enough to know that a single drop of water is not enough to kill them all.

So now the angry child passes the hose and lets the boiling water flow.

Those one million Angular Warships are the boiling water surging towards the ant nest, sparing no life.

Harrison Clark reached a sudden realization at this moment.

He was both saddened and optimistic.

He had to accept fate.

It’s time to give up illusions; I can’t win this time.

If humans were really ants, how great it would be if there were countless nests in the universe.

Unfortunately, there aren’t.

We’re only on Earth and only in the Milky Way.

We are so lonely and insignificant.

Everything is predetermined.

From the moment human civilization was born on Earth, trailing behind by countless years, this situation was destined.

If Earthlings truly possess the perfect potential and their minds’ quantum storms match the complexity of the universe, then, conversely, it can only mean that Earthlings may be the latest-born civilization in the universe.

In this cosmic race involving numerous civilizations, Earthlings are centuries behind.

Even if the race ahead is long, those ahead will lay unavoidable landmines along the way, rendering Earthlings’ efforts to catch up futile.

Harrison Clark now has a new understanding of fate.

In the past, he resented the people who launched the Voyager Program, firmly believing that it was their arrogance and ignorance that brought about this doomsday.

Now he has changed his mind; even without the Voyager Program, humans’ existence would still be exposed to the universe sooner or later.

It could happen in the 21st century, the 25th century, or even the 35th century.

Unless humans forfeit their potential, the fate of war is inevitable.

But how can one give up such potential?

Not to mention whether they want to or not, it’s impossible.

Unless humans voluntarily walk towards extinction, why would they not move forward?

And on the path of progress, Earth’s civilization will inevitably be forced or voluntarily participate in the brutal competition of the universe.

Perhaps not every extraterrestrial civilization is evil; there may be virtuous alien beings.”

But as long as humans keep progressing, they will surely encounter an incredibly powerful and unstoppable malicious civilization one day.

Even if human civilization has become more powerful than the Compound-eyed Observer at that time, it might not be useful.

Who can truly know the size of the universe, how many billions of years others have developed, and how high the level of civilization is?

Of course, Harrison Clark’s dissatisfaction lies in the fact that when Earthlings were targeted, they were too vulnerable, with too little capacity to resist risks. Their doom is assured with just one simple gaze from others.

The enemy came too soon.

They didn’t even give us a fair chance to fight.

It’s like two swordsmen dueling, and after the weaker duelist trains hard for decades, preparing to take a risk, the stronger swordsman suddenly pulls out an AWP.

You were already stronger and sure to win, yet you brought a gun.