Chapter 667: Chapter 417: The Lonely Traveler in Time and Space_2

The answer was on the tip of Harrison Clark’s tongue; he had failed this time.

Humanity had perished prematurely, unable to await his Advent.

Clark had once imagined that he might someday face such a situation.

However, perhaps because of his many successes, he had lost his vigilance for crises and had almost forgotten this possibility.

Unbeknownst to him, after eight successful timelines, he would meet with a thorough failure on the Ninth.

He was somewhat perplexed.

He had constantly revised and honed his methods, strengthening his control over the era, allocating resources more effectively across industries, and improving in various aspects. Everything was moving in a positive direction.

He even had a feeling that this time might have been the closest he had ever been to victory.

Yet, the outcome was a bitter one.

It was a total defeat.

And it was utterly unexpected.

Although he had mentally prepared himself for such a possibility, he was still somewhat bewildered when faced with the reality.

It took him several minutes to adjust his emotions, gradually accept the reality, and then attempt to analyze the problem and figure out the reasons behind it.

Should I not have let Fatty take over as the President of the North America Branch Company?

No, Fatty was just good at holding-back, but was he really capable of causing the collapse of civilization?

Was he that powerful?

After their relationship, Carrie Thomas did end up writing love songs which had significant influence, causing uncontrollable changes and leading to various conflicts over a fair lady, thereby triggering the Great War?

Surely not, right?

Should I not have founded the Salvation Association?

This possibility was quite significant, but it could only be supported by speculation alone.

No matter how skilled he was at manipulating time and mastering technology, only one person’s efforts were simply not enough to draw definitive conclusions rashly.

Harrison Clark contemplated for about half an hour before slowly standing up.

He had clarified some of his main ideas.

What had happened had happened, and there was no point in regretting it. Even if he was the only person left on Earth, he had to quickly adjust back to his normal state.

Facing problems, analyzing problems, summarizing experiences and lessons, and then solving problems again in the future.

That was the only way.

Merely daydreaming wouldn’t do any good, so he decided to try digging into history on his own.

Earth was still here, and human activity still left traces behind. In theory, he should have been able to analyze some things from these traces through archaeological methods.

Unfortunately, despite having been the Dean of the History and Science Academy, he achieved little in the field of archaeology.

He was very clever but lacked the systematic training that shaped an archaeological mindset, not being one of those strong archaeology experts who could deduce an entire era from a single piece of fossil.

He had to teach himself.

Harrison Clark did not have absolute confidence in success, but he had to try at least.

Listed in 104 other projects, he couldn’t give up. If he couldn’t find the cause this time, he would not be able to better avoid risks next time.

The same tragedy might unfold again.

Who knows, maybe he would get lucky, activate an artificial intelligence, or pick up an information carrier and directly succeed?

However, after scouring two more ships and three more buildings, he came up empty-handed.

He did not see any human remains or bones, nor did he find any usable artificial intelligence.

All equipment and instruments had long lost their power sources, and all potential information carriers had been completely destroyed.

Harrison Clark fell into a state of confusion, with countless thoughts overwhelming him.

Luckily, his thoughts were sharp enough that he quickly noticed a new oddity.

Each time he had crossed over in the past, though the process was bizarre and involved forcefully replacing his “predecessor”, the predecessor usually had a complete identity and background, instead of a non-existent person forcibly inserted into society.

This time, Clark thought it only made sense that his body should have an origin, both logically and emotionally.

So he hurried back to the small river where he had first awakened and followed it downstream.

About twenty minutes later, he found a shattered memorial hall at the foot of Black Bear Training Base Mountain by the bend of the river.

Using his enormous strength, Harrison Clark lifted the broken stones and bricks and uncovered a damaged Crystal Coffin.

Then he found some stone tablets with writing on them nearby.

With the photographic memory and visual analysis abilities brought by his high Awakening level, Harrison Clark spent another half an hour piecing together parts of the stone tablet.

The words on the stone tablet finally took shape.

“Predecessor Harrison Clark’s remains (object) Memorial Hall.”

Though the inscription was still incomplete, Harrison Clark used his rigorous logical reasoning abilities to quickly draw a conclusion.

The text on the line should read “Predecessor Harrison Clark’s remains (object) Memorial Hall.”

Yeah, I do have a talent for archaeology.

In any case, the Crystal Coffin must have once contained his remains.

The mystery of how this body came to be was solved.

The power that had been supporting his time travel could not find an existing anchor, so it found his own remains and completed the reconstruction on that basis, bringing him back to life.

Though it seemed exaggerated, it wasn’t much different from when he replaced his predecessor before from a scientific perspective.

The core was that his thoughts had been transferred and a body copied point-to-point.

The anchor for the body could either be a complete, replaceable person or his own remains, as long as the genetic information was highly similar.

Harrison Clark was briefly plagued by doubts.

Why was his tomb and memorial hall not in Oxfordshire, but at the Black Bear Training Base?

Why was he not cremated but instead “sleeping” in the Crystal Coffin?

After pondering for a while, he could only roughly understand that perhaps this time, considering he did not want to leave Earth and in order to conveniently prove his identity a thousand years later, he deliberately chose the location of his burial site with the Black Bear Training Base in mind.

If everything had gone as planned, he should have seen his remains soon after crossing over, making it easier to prove certain things afterward.

Now it seemed that everything was going according to plan, except for the fact that there was no one left for him to prove his identity to.

With no humans left, who do I have to prove my identity to?

Sigh.

After searching around the memorial hall for a while, he found nothing but the stone tablets. With a long sigh, Harrison Clark was at a loss for what to do.

He went back to the edge of the grassland and sat cross-legged on a large rock.

He no longer paid attention to the tiger eating a horse in the distance or any other animals.

He finally fully accepted the reality.

Since his memorial hall had been smashed and the Crystal Coffin shattered, the last shred of hope for a normal human evacuation had vanished.

The last bit of hope in his heart was completely extinguished, and even he couldn’t help but curse aloud.

“Shit!”

Lightning suddenly flashed and thunder roared in the sky, and it was covered in dense clouds.

In just a few minutes, the clear sky turned dark without even a hint of light, almost as if it was pitch black without the ability to see five fingers before oneself.

The patter of raindrops poured down, falling on Harrison Clark’s face.

He hugged his legs, burying his head between his knees, with his head hanging low.

An indescribable sense of loneliness, like the rainwater, gradually enveloped him.

This time, he truly was the only person left on Earth.

He knew that he must have done something wrong this time.

Time was the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Just one mistake had completely erased all his efforts from the previous eight timelines.

The pain of this realization was real.