The sunlight of the New Era was lavender. I crouched at the top of Mount Everest, looking at the Starling Metropolis shimmering under the clouds - those silver-colored complexes built with anti-gravity modules were precisely remodeled from the remains of the Monitor.
The Star Xuan 3.0 on his wrist suddenly glowed red: "Dimensional fold detected, probability 98% from parallel space-time." On the holographic map, a Klein bottle-shaped spatial aberration was surfacing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
When I transiently moved to the coordinate point, the sea water was reversing into a kilometer-high wall of water. The dodecahedral ship pierced the dimensional membrane, and the man stepping out of the hatch made my pupils constrict - he was wearing the same tactical trenchcoat I'd destroyed, and blood was seeping from the star-shaped brand on the back of his neck.
"Failure #1749." He raised his hand to summon a swarm of nanites identical to mine, "In accordance with the Temporal Purification Protocols, I've come to right the wrong."
The moment the two devouring forces collided, the waters were torn apart right into the chasm of the mantle. With each attack we were creating new parallel dimensions: one universe where he snapped my neck, another dimension where I fed him to the Final Seed. Quantum entanglement allows us to experience all possibilities simultaneously.
"Don't you get it?" He flung out the core fragment of the Monitor, which sealed my last conversation with my mother, "Every one of us who lives past 50% contamination value becomes..."
I suddenly appeared behind him, a swarm of nanites stabbing into his spine, "Become hunters?" The thrill of devouring his kind sent the pollution value soaring to 79%, and his memories poured into his mind like poisoned wine - in some motherless time and space, I built a mechanical empire and transformed humans into energy batteries.
The remains of the mirror body suddenly quantum reorganized, and he laughed maniacally, "You think you're saving? Look at this world!" He waved his hand and unfolded a holographic projection of the new generation of children who were awakening terrifying psychic abilities: some turned their classmates into two-dimensional portraits, others folded cities into paper boats.
Star Xuan 3.0 suddenly issued a sharp alert: "Earth curvature index anomaly! There are seven parallel time zones that are overlapping!"
Six identical space gates cracked open over the Pacific Ocean, and out came six different forms of me: a mechanically prosthetic version wielding a black hole cannon, a bestialized version covered in the bony spines of the Terminator species, and an energetic version that was straight-up a walking quantum storm...
"Welcome to the hunting party." They said in unison. Seven devouring blades formed a death grip, and my limbs were pinned to the yet-to-be-dissolved iris of the Eye of the Void.
The first to strike was the monk version of me, the swastika seal in his palm actually imprisoning the nanites swarm, "You create too many possibilities." The devouring power transformed into Sanskrit chains, "Let us free you."
In excruciating pain, I see the truth of the new world: each survivor's star-shaped imprint is a miniature wormhole that is channeling disasters from parallel time and space into this realm. The girl in her purest form is feeding pigeons in the park, and the crumbs falling from her fingertips are actually miniature black holes.
"The resonance level has reached a critical point!" Star Xuan 3.0's warning carried a murmur. Seven of my weapons stabbed into the heart at the same time, only to be frozen in time and space the moment they touched the quantum core - the last gift of the Mother Virus program.
I seized the one-in-a-thousand chance of victory and dismantled my own existence into base particles. While they hunted on the quantum level, I secretly modified the underlying code of this universe - all the Kronos of parallel time and space shared the same pollution value progress bar.
The first to collapse was the bestialized version, whose contamination value instantly exceeded 100%, and his body exploded into a singularity that devoured everything. The chain reaction swept through the entire hunting squad, and they annihilated like dominoes being pushed over.
But the price of victory was heavy. New New York City was reduced to particles of light in the aftermath, and I knelt in the temporal turbulence, looking at the countdown floating in my palm:
[Universe-wide pollution value: 67%]
[Countdown to Final Annihilation: 30 natural days]
The core of Star Xuan 3.0 detached from the wristwatch and evolved into the virtual image of a young girl, "Need I remind you? You just devoured seven future possibilities."
The waves suddenly turned blood-red as the remnants of the Void Eye wriggled on the seabed. It opened its brand new pupils, which reflected countless collapsing universes. This time, I heard the mournful cries of all of space and time.