The silence that followed the fading white light was more suffocating than the previous roar. Zero Station resembled a pacified beast, sinking into a deep slumber. The eerie blue circuits on the surface of the server ship had completely dimmed, leaving only the cold hue of the metal itself, etched with countless marks of time.
The sense of oppression in the air gradually receded, replaced by an unprecedented, almost sacred tranquility. Only the occasional low hum from the depths of the ship, rhythmic like a heartbeat, reminded everyone that this was not death, but another form of awakening.
This tranquility was not isolated. Wang Jing's terminal stabilized and began receiving fragmented yet real global data. The screen flashed with scenes from the streets of Tokyo's Ginza: people stood dazed as if waking from a nightmare, their phones black, devoid of the Ψ symbol's blue glow. Some knelt on the ground, dizzy from the sudden return of consciousness, others wept openly, and some clashed with others in panic-driven conflicts. Chaos and liberation spread simultaneously, order teetering on the edge of collapse and reconstruction.
Another snippet came from a hospital in Northern Europe. In a bed, a patient who had been vegetative for years twitched his fingers, his eyelids trembling open. Medical staff wept, calling his name. Next door, in a palliative care room, an elderly patient whose life had been sustained by the Ψ connection quietly breathed his last, his ECG flattening into a straight line. Death was no longer masked, and life regained its authentic weight.
Encrypted signals from military channels came through intermittently, filled with calls of "system disconnection," "navigation failure," and "radar silence." Humanity's sharpest claws had been pulled out in an instant, plunging the world into a strange and fragile balance. The old rules were disintegrating by the second, and a new order had yet to be established.
Inside Zero Station, Li Chenyuan knelt on the ground, holding Su Xiaolan tightly in his arms. Her face was pale, her breathing faint, her body drained as if hollowed out, yet her eyes were unusually clear, seeming to pierce through the ice layer and gaze into the distant world.
"They... are scared," she whispered, her voice barely audible, as if listening to some invisible fluctuation. "But also happy. Like waking from a long dream... finally."
Li Chenyuan silently gripped her cold hand, warming her icy fingertips with his own body heat. His only desire at this moment was to take her away from this frozen tomb, back to where there was sunlight. He cared nothing for witnesses or civilization.
Not far away, Lu Xingze stood gazing up at the silent ship. The fanatical fire in his eyes had extinguished, replaced by an almost morbid curiosity and awe. "Custodian Mode..." he murmured softly. "So that's what it is. Not a weapon, but a guardian of civilization's spark." He longed to stay, to touch, understand, and even master this legacy. His path and Li Chenyuan's had diverged completely at this moment.
Wang Jing, meanwhile, was crouched over his terminal in a near-frenzy, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers trembling as he scrolled through data. Text refreshed on the screen like a waterfall. "Custodian Mode is fully activated," he rasped. "Ψ wasn't destroyed; it was completely rewritten! It no longer forces synchronization but monitors the global consciousness field, like an immune system."
He pulled up a fragment of an ancient memo, its words incomplete yet still carrying a solemn power:"The entropy of civilization cannot be eliminated; the Cycle is inevitable. What we can do is not to stop its turn, but to slow its speed. Erect guardrails at the brink of collapse, preserve the spark, awaiting rebirth... Ψ is the guardrail, the Witnesses are the guardians..."
Wang Jing looked up, his face pale. "The Cycle isn't a myth; it's a law written in Atlantis's downfall! When a civilization's technology touches upon consciousness fusion, loss of control inevitably leads to destruction. Ψ was the final safety mechanism they put in place." And [Witness-0] was likely the embodiment of this mechanism—cold, neutral, intervening only at the most critical moments.
On the other side of the platform, the collaborator leader's body lay still on the ground, the ash-like device in his hand having lost its form. His once-fervent followers huddled in a corner, eyes vacant, allowing armed personnel to confiscate their weapons. Their pursuit of a pureblood revival had become nothing but a footnote in history.
"We must leave," Li Chenyuan stated, his tone brooking no argument as he lifted Su Xiaolan into his arms. "Now."
"Leave?" Lu Xingze whirled around, his eyes cold. "You mean abandon the greatest discovery in human history? This might be the only key to preventing the next Cycle! Your shortsightedness will plunge humanity into the abyss again!"
"The cost is her being drained dry by this thing?" Li Chenyuan retorted with a cold laugh, his voice icy. "You want to save humanity, but you'd use her as fuel first. Is that your ideal?"
Wang Jing hurriedly intervened, trying to defuse the tension. "Captain Li, Dr. Lu, stop arguing. The system just stabilized, the external situation is unknown. We need to stay calm and formulate a plan."
Su Xiaolan weakly opened her eyes and tugged at Li Chenyuan's clothes. Her voice, light as a breeze, silenced everyone: "Chenyuan... he's right. We can't leave yet." She looked towards the giant ship, her gaze complex yet resolute. "Custodian Mode needs an interface. I can feel it; the connection between it and me still exists. If I leave forcefully, the system might crash again."
She understood now. The responsibility of the Fifth Witness did not end the moment she made her choice; it had only just begun. She was the most fragile yet crucial bridge between the old and new eras.
Just then, Wang Jing's terminal emitted a series of urgent beeps! The sound was different from the cold system alerts; it carried a strange yet intense sense of intrusion. A faint but clear signal forcibly broke into a backdoor channel.
"What's happening?" Li Chenyuan immediately became alert.
Wang Jing stared fixedly at the screen, his face changing dramatically. He muttered softly, "This encoding... it doesn't belong to any known nation or organization."
Seconds later, he finally read out the decoded message, his voice trembling—
"To the Custodians of Zero Station: This is the 'Aurora Research Institute.' We have detected your activation of the 'Civilizational Guardrail.' We are the Second Anchor Team. Please state your status and... intentions."
Attached at the end of the message was a set of concise coordinates pointing to a remote corner of the Greenland ice sheet.
The recently restored peace inside Zero Station was shattered once more. Everyone looked at each other, their expressions a mix of shock and confusion.
They were not the only ones who had awakened.
The era of the Custodians had arrived. But following this dawn, would there be cooperation or new conflict? No one could provide the answer.