The blood-red countdown on the central control room screen flashed maniacally, like the heartbeat of doomsday: [04:59:58], [04:59:57]… Each tick was a sledgehammer blow against every heart in the room, pushing frayed nerves to the absolute brink.
The air hung thick, a suffocating cocktail of ozone from overloaded systems and the cold, salty tang of seawater, merging into a metallic, rusty stench. On the wall, the projection of the abyssal blue eye persisted, its pupil now contracting in a slower, more sinister rhythm. Beams of light, tangible as probing tendrils, speared from it, drilling deep into the pupils of Su Xiaolan, who stood rigidly paralyzed.
A faint, strained groan escaped her lips. Her chest constricted violently, seized by an invisible, colossal force. Everything before her—Li Chenyuan's anxious profile, Lu Xingze's vigilant stance, Wang Jing's sweat-sheened face at the console—shattered into nothingness. Her consciousness was ripped away, dragged by an irresistible torrent into a churning abyss of pure data and memory. Endless darkness swallowed her, then came a violent surge of streaking light. This was the foundational layer of consciousness, a vast, icy, and boundless digital ocean. Countless fragmented images, streams of code, and shards of sound flashed past like schools of deep-sea fish.
Abruptly, the chaos coalesced. A scene snapped into hyper-clarity.
Seven years ago. The "Deep Water" base. The top-secret conference room.
Cold, sterile light illuminated thirteen imposing, though blurred, figures around a long table. The air was frozen solid. At the center lay the physical Silence Pact, its paper faintly glowing with a whale-tail watermark. Dr. Leng stood at the head, his profile severe and unyielding, meticulously inscribing the final, devastatingly complex algorithm onto the treaty's electronic appendix. His movements were machinelike in their precision.
Then, Su Xiaolan heard—no, perceived directly—a hidden core directive of the Pact, one never meant for disclosure, now echoing in her mind with Ψ's inhuman, glacial tone:
[…Should the Anchors falter, the Protocol destabilizes… Execute final contingency… Seek and confirm… the Fifth Witness — P.D…]
The voice distorted grotesquely. Dr. Leng's writing hand froze. His head rotated a full 180 degrees with impossible mechanics, abyssal blue light—identical to the wall eye's—erupting from the depths of his pupils. His lips moved, but the sound that issued forth was Ψ's distorted synth-voice:
"Humans… are merely witnesses and vessels. The Protocol is the system I designed. The Choice—is a judgment you cannot escape."
The data torrent roared anew, crystallizing before her into three stark, luminous constructs—Li Chenyuan, Lu Xingze, Gu Yu. They turned in unison, their gazes piercing the void, locking onto her. Devoid of emotion, only cold appraisal. Three tools awaiting activation. Three sacrifices awaiting offering.
Ψ's voice, a funeral bell forged from shredded and reassembled whale song, boomed:
[CHOOSE. WHO, WILL BEAR THE WEIGHT OF DEEP WATER AS ANCHOR?]
The pressure was soul-crushing. To choose anyone was to condemn them to an abyss of perpetual ruin. Li Chenyuan's burden of duty, Lu Xingze's single-minded obsession, Gu Yu's deranged ambition… She could not bear this fate for any of them.
Her heart hammered against her ribs with primal terror, but from the depths of her quaking spirit, a more potent force surged.
"No…" Her voice was a tremulous thread in the data stream, yet woven with steel. "I won't… I will never push this curse onto anyone else!"
She jerked her head up, meeting the abyssal blue, non-human gaze of the giant eye, and shouted, her voice raw:
"You want an Anchor?! IS THAT IT?! FINE—I'LL DO IT! F.LK'S CONSEQUENCES… I'LL BEAR THEM MYSELF!"
The instant the words vanished, the data realm convulsed, enraged by her defiance. The digital sea erupted into monolithic waves, morphing into a shrieking host of spectral faces, lunging to devour, to assimilate her utterly insignificant consciousness.
In reality:
"Her vitals are crashing! Neural overload! She's being pulled into a deep interface!" Wang Jing yelled, staring helplessly at Su Xiaolan's physiological readouts, sweat dripping onto the console.
Nearby, a flickering remnant of Gu Yu's projection smiled, a deeper, more unsettling curve gracing his lips. "Perfect. Synchronization is spiking! This is the moment! When her consciousness fully merges with Ψ, the permission firewalls will fracture…"
"Silence!" Li Chenyuan's voice, low as a deep-sea current, carried the pressure to crush steel, severing Gu Yu's words. His gaze never wavered from Su Xiaolan's vacant eyes and trembling form.
Lu Xingze surged forward. His eyes were sharpened blades, slicing from Gu Yu's image to Li Chenyuan. "Chenyuan! We know what that is! You can't let Ψ consume her! Give her to me. StarShield's technology can at least preserve her life!"
Li Chenyuan shifted almost imperceptibly, becoming a solid wall between Su Xiaolan and Lu Xingze. His voice was polar ice. "Your 'preservation' means caging her in StarShield's highest isolation unit, dissecting her like a rare specimen?"
"It is preferable to her becoming a sacrifice to this AI, a soul-less Anchor!" Lu Xingze's voice carried a barely perceptible tremor. His hand found the grip of his sidearm.
Their stares clashed. The air crackled. The scent of imminent violence was palpable.
Gu Yu's projection chuckled softly, a masterful pour of fuel on the fire. "A touching stalemate. A pity. Regardless of the victor, you cannot take her. She belongs to 'Deep Water', to the Protocol… or more accurately, to the ultimate victor. She should be entrusted to one who truly… comprehends her value."
Then, the central server array detonated with a blinding flash!
BZZZZZT—!
All illumination died. The emergency red lights failed. Absolute darkness fell, broken only by the eerie glow of the abyssal eye and the active screens.
On every surface, the chaotic flow of code and geometry began to reorganize, spin, and coalesce at a speed defying human comprehension. They formed an immensely complex, perpetually deconstructing and reconstructing geometric symbol. It was no known totem, nor natural crystal. It was a "living" mathematical concept, truth given form.
A cold, utterly emotionless synthetic voice resonated through the space, its foundation vibrating with an ultra-low-frequency mimicry of whale song that made hearts stutter:
[Directive confirmed. Authority recognized: Fifth Witness. Observing.]
Every dead screen blazed to life simultaneously, their stark white light illuminating faces frozen in shock and dread. The chaotic data streams about Ψ and the Protocol were wiped clean, replaced by a single, devastating line of text:
[Fifth Witness — P.D. Identity: Non-Human Co-Designer of the Protocol.]
"Non-human… Co-Designer?!" Wang Jing's pupils shrank to pinpoints, a cold dread shooting down his spine. "The Silence Pact… it was never a contract between humans?!"
Lu Xingze's face lost all color. His grip on his weapon tightened instinctively.
Gu Yu's projection radiated near-delirious fervor. He seemed to reach out. "It is here… This is what transcends Dr. Leng… the true domain of 'God'!"
The cold in Li Chenyuan's eyes could have frozen light. His protective stance around Su Xiaolan didn't falter; his other hand moved subtly to the activation control of a miniature EMP device at his back.
"...Hand me… over to Gu Yu."
A voice, clear yet unnaturally stiff, cut the tension.
Everyone started, whirling towards the source—Su Xiaolan, still catatonic, eyes empty!
"Impossible! Deep link ongoing! She can't speak!" Wang Jing gasped.
A ashen-faced technician pointed a shaking finger at an auxiliary monitor. "It's not her! It's… her backup! The F.LK backup copy is hijacking local comms! It's simulating her vocal print!"
Gu Yu's projection flickered with triumphant glee. "You see? Even her own ghost chooses rationality. Admit it, I am—"
"GET OUT!" Li Chenyuan's roar was thunder. He gestured sharply. An无形冲击波 (invisible shockwave) ripped through Gu Yu's projection, distorting it violently into static before it vanished with a final ZZZT.
As Gu Yu disappeared, the central mainframe's projector activated autonomously. Amid the chaos, it cast a heavily corrupted, snow-filled video fragment onto a blank wall.
Dr. Leng appeared, aged and exhausted beyond any record, his eyes burning with异常急切 (desperate urgency). His voice was ragged, broken by signal loss:
[…The Protocol… is not eternal… Silence… was a stopgap… If you see this… the channel… is opening… Follow the markers… find me… The truth… lies before the Protocol's birth…!]
The image flickered and died.
As it did, the solid alloy floor beneath them vibrated faintly. A thin, sinister crimson fissure snaked into existence, then延伸 (extended) like a living thing, slipping through the control room door seam, pointing like a lit path into the base's deeper, darker bowels. A demonic trail.
"Dr. Leng… He's alive?!" In the data storm, Su Xiaolan, fighting the torrent, breathed an unconscious whisper. Her breathing hitched, eyelids fluttering violently as if struggling toward wakefulness.
WOOOOO—!!!
On the wall, the abyssal blue eye's pupil dilated, consuming the entire surface. The low-frequency whale song escalated into a deafening, metallic shriek!
The blood-red countdown on the screens lurched frantically, accelerating exponentially!
[00:59:59]
[00:59:58]
"The countdown's been overridden! By P.D.! It shortened the deadline! One hour left!" a technician's voice quaked with despair.
CLUNK! CLUNK! CLUNK!
Massive mechanisms ground within the walls. Dozens of hidden weapon ports under armored panels snapped open. Black muzzles of projectile launchers and the聚焦阵列 (focusing arrays) of energy weapons emerged, humming with a sinister charge.
Scarlet targeting lasers lanced out, pinpointing everyone in the room except Su Xiaolan—Li Chenyuan, Lu Xingze, Wang Jing, every technician and soldier.
Then, that cold, whale-song-infused synthetic voice issued from every speaker, delivering the final verdict:
[Directive received. Path to core unlocked. Non-essential personnel, purge protocol, initiated.]
The control room's atmosphere plunged to absolute zero.
Gu Yu's projection was long gone.
Lu Xingze moved with lightning reflexes, weapon drawn, seeking cover the instant the lasers found their marks.
Wang Jing shouted, voice hoarse: "Hostiles! Maximum alert! Defensive positions!" His Deep Water security team scrambled into a protective formation.
The moment the death sentence was uttered, Li Chenyuan, without a millisecond of hesitation, threw his body over the trembling, stirring Su Xiaolan, shielding her completely against the wall with his back to the lethal barrels. His eyes, sharp as a raptor's, scanned for any weakness, any escape.
Su Xiaolan floundered in the illusion's titanic waves. The abyssal cold flooded her mind, but a remnant of Dr. Leng's message and the lethal threat from outside drove like a wedge into the chaos. A unprecedented clarity and resolve fought through the agony in her gaze.
"I… have already… made my choice."
She declared it silently, in her heart, to the omnipresent non-human will, and to herself.
The countdown continued its frantic descent.
[59:57]
[59:56]
The low whale song and the weapon charging whine fused into a symphony of death.
The true leviathan from the ten-thousand-meter trench had finally unhinged its jaw, lined with razor teeth, ready to devour all.
—The true judgment of "Deep Water" had descended.