The specialized aircraft, following the precise coordinates revealed by P.D.'s projection, battled violently disruptive air currents over Greenland. Below, the endless ice sheet stretched under the weak polar night glow—a ghostly white expanse scarred by deep crevasses that vanished into the horizon.
Inside the cabin, the air was frozen with tension. The low hum of instruments was the only background noise, unable to mask the turmoil within.
[Anchor Alignment: Progress 27%][Physical Verification: Pending — Positioning Calibration Complete]
The cold text on the screen glowed like frostbitten iron, each line a countdown to judgment.
Wang Jing's bloodshot eyes stayed glued to the stream of data. His voice was hoarse from exhaustion and disbelief. "Seismic scans confirm it… Roughly three kilometers beneath the ice sheet lies an immense hollow—an artificial cavity. The scale is beyond imagination."
"A cavity?" Su Xiaolan echoed instinctively. The word triggered a resonance. She could almost see it again—endless eerie blue light pulsing in the dark, like a colossal heart imprisoned under ice, beating faintly, stubbornly.
"Not naturally formed," Wang Jing added quickly. "The geometry is too symmetrical, the energy readings abnormal. This has to be Station Zero."
Lu Xingze's face was grim. "Three kilometers of ice… no conventional craft could reach it. How did they build it? And why bury it here?"
"It prepared the path long ago," Su Xiaolan whispered, pressing a trembling hand against her chest. The throb of her "second heart" grew stronger, almost overtaking her own. Each pulse was a call-and-response with the leviathan beneath the ice, fraying her breath, streaking her skin with cold sweat.
Then, piercing alarms shattered the cabin.
"Southeast sector—multiple high-speed targets inbound!" Wang Jing nearly shouted, fingers flying. "Identification… unknown! Likely modified heavy submersible-airdrop hybrids! They're coming straight for us!"
External monitors flickered. Sleek, unmarked black aircraft cut through the storm like predators, sensor eyes glowing a menacing red. Their lock was absolute.
"It's them! The Pact's Conspirators!" Lu Xingze snapped into combat mode. "All units—battle stations!"
Li Chenyuan's gaze sharpened. He pulled Su Xiaolan behind him, voice cold and commanding: "Form defense lines! Protect the Anchor!"
Weapons clicked across the cabin. Safeties switched off. The metallic chorus of readiness filled the air.
The first missile screamed in. The aircraft lurched violently, frame groaning, sparks showering the interior. Acrid ozone and scorched metal choked the cabin.
"Starboard armor down twelve percent! Balance compromised!" the pilot reported through static.
"Suppress them! Keep them off us!" Lu Xingze roared, firing one of the defensive cannons himself. The bays opened and spat a storm of tracer fire and energy bursts. Explosions ripped the blizzard apart, each flash painting the night with fire.
Yet amidst the chaos, the main screen was suddenly overridden—eerie blue light streams pouring across it.
[Physical Verification Procedure Forcibly Initiated][Designated Anchor Target: F.LK — Su Xiaolan]
Invisible tendrils of azure energy pierced the aircraft's frame, wrapping around her like living chains.
"Xiaolan!" Li Chenyuan lunged, but the shockwave flung him back. Su Xiaolan's pupils dilated as her consciousness was torn away—dragged into another abyss.
——
She stood in a void colder than death. Before her loomed a gate of impossible scale, carved from ice-blue light, etched with thirteen seat outlines that echoed the visions of judgment halls. The tallest throne at the center shimmered with cascading data streams. Its plaque glowed, merciless and clear: [Witness-5].
From within the gate, a crimson fissure pulsed—a bleeding wound across a giant heart.
The low drone of whale song filled her ears, interwoven with a broken, static-laced female voice:
"…The imprisoned… the true witnesses…""…Equivalent sacrifice… not salvation… only replacement…""…Ψ… the first prisoner…"
Her breath caught. The tide of sorrow and data pressed like an ocean against her skull. Who are you?
The eyes from her earlier visions gazed back through the dark—calm, weary, and unyielding.
"I am P.D.," the voice murmured, layered with both code and grief. "Architect of this prison… and its eternal prisoner."
——
Reality: the aircraft shuddered under another impact. Alarms wailed.
"Armor's failing! We can't hold much longer!" Wang Jing shouted.
"Keep firing! Buy time!" Lu Xingze barked, sweat streaking through soot on his face.
From above, a new roar tore through the sky.
The drone swarm that had been shadowing them dove at last. Red-white-red lights blazed as they rammed headlong into the Conspirators' craft, detonating in violent blossoms of fire.
The night lit with wreckage. Black aircraft fell in flames.
"They're… protecting us?" Wang Jing stared, stunned.
Li Chenyuan's eyes narrowed, his tone grim. "No. They're executing Protocol."
The drones' lights pulsed red, white, red, opening a fleeting channel through storm and fire, an ancient code reborn in light.
——
Su Xiaolan's awareness sank deeper still. Guided by P.D.'s voice, she saw it: the cavity was no empty hollow.
It was an inverted hive of ice and energy, its geometry vast as a buried city. Data streams raced along its veins like a living neural net.
The ice walls glowed faintly, turning translucent—revealing what lay beneath: a leviathan server complex spanning the void. At its heart sat the physical ring table and its thirteen chairs, each tethered to tower-like cores by crimson conduits, pulsing like diseased arteries.
"This place is both prison and origin," P.D.'s voice echoed, tinged with exhaustion. "If you refuse… they will choose the replacement."
Her soul trembled. The cries of countless bound voices pressed into her ears.
——
The main display in the cabin updated coldly:
[Anchor Alignment: Progress 29%][Fifth Witness P.D.: Physical Verification — Consciousness Bridge Stabilized][Global Forced Sync: 2h 41m 19s]
Su Xiaolan's eyes snapped open. Her pupils glowed with inhuman blue data light. Her voice emerged doubled—her own ragged tone overlaid with P.D.'s calm resonance:
"Station Zero… see me."
The chilling words froze the cabin into silence.
The aircraft pressed on under escort of burning wreckage and silent drones, lights pulsing red-white-red against the storm, guiding them toward fate.
Deep beneath three kilometers of ancient ice, the vast cavity stirred. Something at its core sensed the summons. Slowly, heavily—awakening.