[System Log: Star Calendar 47102, Underlying Protocol Load 99.98%, Logic Overflow Risk: Critical.]
"The end of civilization does not begin with war, but with a logical deadlock."
When Su Che opened his eyes, the porthole of a starship he expected was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a waterfall of dense, cascading red error logs filled his vision.
He habitually raised his right hand, his fingertips brushing against the cold, viscous, and corrosive inner wall of the cryo-pod. This was not the top-tier liquid metal pod of the Interstellar Alliance; it was an "iron coffin," forcibly dismantled and crudely patched with rough welding.
The air reeked of aged machine oil, ozone from electrical arcs, and a nauseating, sweet rot of highly decomposed protein.
"Cough..." A sharp pain shot through Su Che's lungs. Unlike the average person who would panic and struggle, he calmly pushed up the data glasses secured by nanofiber threads on his nose.
"System, self-diagnosis."
[Warning: 34.2% of current environmental physical drivers lost.]
[Local gravity constant anomaly (9.8m/s² -> 11.2m/s²).]
[Warning: Illegal process injection detected. Current area 'Dead Zone' is expanding.]
Su Che pushed open the pod lid and flipped out, landing on the ground. His movements were incredibly economical; every displacement seemed calculated with precision to minimize biological energy consumption.
To ordinary eyes, this abandoned ruin of the Star Arc Civilization was a landscape of broken walls and debris. But to Su Che, it was a fragmented program being deleted line by line, suffering from severe texture loss. The massive gravitational lens in the distance had shattered; the broken spatial dimensions resembled a damaged graphics card, tearing jagged black-and-white digital noise across the earth.
"Mr. Su, you are awake. 0.03 seconds later than estimated."
A cold voice, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, echoed from the shadows.
A silver-haired girl stood motionless at the edge of the ruins. Her skin possessed an unhealthy, cold pallor, and her body's edges occasionally flickered with visual signal interference, as if she herself were a logic error waiting to collapse at any moment.
"Zero?" Su Che looked at her, his gaze as cold and sharp as a surgical blade. "How long has it been since I entered 'Sleep Backup'?"
"2.16 million standard operating cycles," Zero replied, handing over a gene vial glowing with a cold, eerie blue light. "Now, the universe's 'Collapse' has entered the fourth phase. 89% of the underlying protocols you once helped design have already become invalid."
Su Che took the vial, and the waterfall of data in his eyes instantly parsed it:
[Product Name: D-Class Gene Essence (Diluted Version)]
[Status: Contaminated, contains 14.5% redundant garbage code.]
[Evaluation: 42% probability of irreversible mutation upon consumption.]
"There is too much garbage code," Su Che said coldly, tossing the bottle back to Zero without a second thought. "Rather than drinking this bug-ridden sludge, it would be better to directly modify my digestive drivers."
Just then, a grating metallic screech erupted from outside the ruins, followed by an eerie, soul-chilling electronic hiss.
A twisted beast smashed through the metal wall. Its body was covered in black crystal clusters that throbbed frantically, vaguely forming fragmented binary symbols. Its form constantly reorganized and rotted; every roar triggered violent fluctuations in the surrounding physical constants.
"It's an Overflowed," Zero's voice remained steady. "It is a fragment of code born from the universe's logic overflow, instinctively devouring ordered data."
The beast locked onto Su Che. Muscles contracted, emitting a teeth-grating sound of mechanical disintegration, and it pounced like a black lightning bolt.
Su Che did not retreat, nor did he show any expression. He simply raised his right hand and precisely drew a translucent, azure-blue operation interface in the void.
This was the highest taboo legend of the Alliance—the Root Permission Interface.
[Illegal Process Detected: Mutated Lifeform.]
[Scanning Process ID... Locked.]
Su Che's fingertips danced rapidly in the air; each keystroke sent ripples of data rippling outward.
"Acquiring local reconstruction permissions... Verification passed."
"Executing command: rm -rf /biological/mutation/target_01"
[Current Mental Computing Power Consumption: 12%]
[Warning: Please optimize instructions to avoid computing power overload.]
Su Che ignored the warning. The moment he pressed the confirmation key, the beast, which had soared into mid-air and was powerful enough to tear apart a mecha, froze instantly.
There was no bloody explosion, no spectacular martial technique.
The beast's head began to disintegrate into countless tiny, glowing pixel particles, followed by its torso and limbs. It was like a bad block that had been executed with a deletion command; its existence was crudely erased from the physical level.
In less than a second, the dust settled.
[System Feedback]: Target purged. Garbage collection complete. System stability: +0.00001%
Su Che retracted his hand, watching the stability increase in his vision that was almost negligible, and a cold, sharp curve formed on his lips.
"Logically consistent."
He turned his head to gaze at the deep, collapsing starry sky.
"The first line of code to reconstruct the universe begins right here."