The blue light of the Cradle was as faint as the dying breath of a man, flickering uncertainly amidst the roar of the endless grey tide. The gun Li Chenyuan had dropped lay cold on the ground, its metallic gleam reflecting his current choice—to no longer struggle futilely against the inevitable, yet absolutely refusing to retreat.
"Build the wall! Anything that can move, pile it up!"His voice was hoarse, nearly torn apart, yet carried a cold, hardened calmness, like a blunt knife cutting through the congealed air of fear.
The team members moved numbly. It wasn't an order; it was instinct. Twisted steel plates, overturned instrument cabinets, even the unseeing remains of fallen comrades were dragged and stacked onto the crumbling defensive line. This was not a defense; it was a tomb built from wreckage and sacrifice, and they stood within it. Energy weapons still whined, their beams no longer seeking destruction but only to deflect, to delay the onslaught of the viscous grey fluid. Each shot bought only a few seconds of pause. Despair seeped into their bones like ice water, slowly stealing away the last remnants of warmth and hope. This was no longer a battle; it was a countdown to death's arrival.
Behind the line, the last survivors of Corona Borealis emerged to face this final judgment. Each was a silent elegy.
Elena slumped amidst the wreckage of a console, the cut on her temple long since dried and crusted. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably with primal fear, yet she kept them pressed down on the input key of her portable terminal, her nails white with strain. On the screen, dense observation data and final inferences scrolled frantically—she was recording. Documenting the process of annihilation, how the laws of physics were being utterly twisted, the last instant of "humanity" as a form of existence. It was her final duty as a scientist, and her ultimate rebellion as a human. A tear hit the screen; she didn't wipe it away, only pressed the keys harder, as if trying to imprint her very soul onto them.
Sig's massive frame stood like a silent mountain, blocking the fissure in the conduit. The barrel of the scrapped magnetic rail rifle in his hands was red-hot and deformed, yet he held it in a firing stance. Tendril-like appendages of the grey tide oozed from the crack, wrapping around his arms and legs, trying to pull him into the icy abyss. He did not yield an inch, his bulging muscles straining against the pressure, his entire body shuddering with each new surge of grey, teeth gritted audibly. He was buying those behind him one more second, in the most primitive way possible.
The other engineers played out their own silent tragedies. One pounded uselessly on a long-dead shield generator, his fists smeared with blood and grease. Another wielded a welding torch frantically sealing the tiny fissures constantly appearing in the walls, the sparks reflecting the hysterical light in his eyes. Yet another simply curled in a corner, speaking into a shattered comms unit in a terrifyingly calm tone, leaving final words for loved ones who would never receive them.
This was human civilization's final, insignificant struggle before falling completely silent, yet it was also its last stand of dignity.
Within Zero Station, a different form of despair, identical in essence, was spreading. There were no physical monsters here, but the intangible pressure and the collapsing systems were just as lethal.
"Dammit! Dammit! Still can't establish a stable link! The interference is too strong—it's unlike any known physical phenomenon!" Lu Xingze roared, a hint of a sob detectable beneath the fury. He slammed his fist hard onto the console, the skin on his knuckles splitting and bleeding instantly, but he seemed to feel no pain. The other technicians around him were slumped in their chairs, staring vacantly at screens full of error codes and flashing red alarms, their willpower clearly pushed to the limit. Equipment continued to spit small sparks of short-circuiting electricity, the air thick with the smell of ozone and scorched components. The cold white emergency lights flickered violently, cutting their pale, desperate faces into jumping fragments, like the blinking pupils of a dying man.
Inside the med bay, Su Xiaolan was lost in a chaotic sea of consciousness. Everything from outside—the intense combat data from Corona Borealis, the survivors' life signals faint as candle flames in the wind, the emotional echoes of despair, fear, and defiance—manifested as wave after wave of intangible tidal waves, relentlessly assaulting the boundaries of her extraordinary perception. On the monitor, her brainwave line trembled and spiked with unprecedented violence, like a string stretched to its breaking point, ready to snap at any second. Med staff, sweating profusely, adjusted infusion rates and various instrument parameters, but every effort felt like throwing ice cubes into a boiling sea—instantly vaporized, utterly futile.
Then, an extremely faint yet exceptionally clear and stable frequency pierced through the endless noise and chaotic torrent like a sharp silver needle, thrusting directly into the deepest core of her awareness.It wasn't data, not sound, but a kind of… rhythm. The resonance in Elena's chest from her suppressed sobs, the pumping rhythm of Sig's heart between his heavy breaths, the stubborn beat of life persisting under extreme duress.
At the defensive line, Li Chenyuan looked up sharply. His gaze swept past the whining energy beams and the constantly collapsing barricades, taking in the scene behind him.He saw Elena's trembling, nearly uncontrollable fingers still determined to record; he saw the broad expanse of Sig's back, heaving violently with the strain of holding back the invasion, every attempt to push forward met with the brute force of his body; he saw the engineer with the welding torch, his eyes now flashing not with fear, but with a near-artistic focus and frenzy; he heard the infinite tenderness and love contained within the calm farewell whispered in the corner.
Suddenly, an indescribable clarity struck him.This had long transcended victory or defeat, even surpassed survival and death. This was a trial concerning existence itself. Beneath their feet yawned the abyss called "Oblivion," and behind them, this confluence of madness, calm, fear, courage, despair, and tenderness was the final beacon of all human emotion and memory. Their steadfastness now was the brightest flash of that light before it was extinguished forever.
"The energy core is… completely depleted… Circuits are locked. We're missing a 'key,' an activation command… or something else…"Wang Jing was half-kneeling by the icy base of the Cradle, sweat and blood dripping from his temple, blurring his vision. He had tried every known command combination, even a few lines of code he'd constructed based on intuition, nearly prayers, but the only response was the silent ark's deathly stillness. His hands shook uncontrollably from exhaustion and despair. Finally, his forehead rested powerlessly against the cold metal surface, his voice dropping to a broken whisper. "I'm sorry… I…"
Time seemed to freeze solid in that moment.The air grew heavy as liquid mercury, pressing against every chest, making breathing a luxurious torture. Ahead, the boundless grey tide ceased its probing attacks, began to coalesce, to rise, like a grey wall reaching to the heavens, slowly tilting, preparing to launch its final, unstoppable devouring strike. Behind the line, everyone held their breath, awaiting the inevitable moment of termination. Stillness became the long prologue to destruction.
Inside the med bay.Deeply comatose, Su Xiaolan's lips parted in an extremely slight movement, uttering a muffled, dream-like, fragmented whisper:"… hear it… not just crying… also… heartbeat…"
A single crystalline tear escaped the corner of her eye, tracing a path down her pale cheek before falling onto the cold surface of the med bay wall, blooming into a tiny, fleeting watermark.
Simultaneously, deep within Zero Station's core, in a place no one noticed, a low, harsh alarm triggered silently within internal circuits—[Warning: Core containment field unstable. Energy overload threshold reached. Irreversible process initiated.]
Red warning lights flashed madly without sound, illuminating one monitor screen where a previously stable graph suddenly erupted with a terrifying peak—a perfect mirror resonance with the decaying frequency of Corona Borealis's Cradle base.