Those were not words, but fragments of memory.
A mother tightly hugging her child in the final moments, her body turning into points of light, but only one thought remained in her consciousness: "Don't be afraid, Mommy is here, Mommy will always be here..."
A group of warriors standing back-to-back in a collapsing fortress, knowing there were no reinforcements, knowing they would vanish in the next second, yet the battle song never ceased until the last person's voice turned into nothingness.
An old man sitting on the ruins of a home about to be swallowed by data streams, looking up at the starry sky,
All the choices of a lifetime flashed through his consciousness, leaving only a calm question at the end: "If I could do it all over again... would I still choose this?"
Young lovers hugging one last time before parting, the girl's tears dripping onto the boy's shoulder; before turning into points of light, she said:
"In the next life, let's meet in a world where we don't have to be judged as right or wrong."
A child squatting on the ground, watching ants move house, his body already beginning to turn transparent,
But he still seriously said to the ants: "Hurry, leave, this place is going to be gone, go somewhere safe..."
Countless fragments.
Countless final moments of lives.
Countless erroneous answers judged as invalid, cleared, and archived.
They had no resentment, or rather, resentment was only an insignificant part of this emotional tide.
More so, it was regret.
Unfulfilled promises.
Love that was too late to be spoken.
The daily life that suddenly ended when they thought there was still tomorrow.
It was "If only then..."
It was "I could have..."
It was "I really want to see it one more time..."
Inside the bridge, everyone froze in place.
Lu Duo's emerald eyes filled with tears, but she did not let them fall, only biting her lip hard.
Yu Nian's pure heart vine grew wildly, trying to soothe these sorrows that spanned time and space,
But as soon as the vines touched those emotional fragments, they began to tremble violently, for this sorrow was too immense, too pure—so pure that any purification felt like a desecration.
In Garel's single eye, lightning and tears intertwined; he thought of Rego, he thought of Jaya, and he thought of all his compatriots who had perished in the War of the Divine Kingdom.
Those sacrifices at least had meaning, at least they were remembered, but these lives before them... they didn't even have the right to be forgotten because they were never officially recorded.
Zi Yuan's long blade hummed in its scabbard, its intent no longer sharp but transformed into a heavy protection, enveloping everyone on the bridge.
Blue Bird lowered her head, her fingers gripping the control stick tightly, nails sinking into her skin.
Aurora held the sunstone, its halo gently enveloping those emotional fragments, as if saying: I hear you, I hear all of you.
Elune's light wings fully spread, the power of time forming tiny vortices around her, those vortices attempting... to reweave the scattered emotional fragments into a coherent narrative.
But the workload was too immense, like trying to rebuild a sandcastle washed away by waves using individual grains of sand.
Abraham sat in his wheelchair, everything reflected in his gray eyes.
There was no expression on his face, but his knuckles on his knees had turned white from gripping so hard.
Bai Cheng stood in place.
In her silver eyes, the galaxy completely stopped flowing.
Those emotional fragments flooded into her consciousness, not through passive reception, but active absorption.
The earrings of the oath of starlight grew intensely hot, the light spreading from her ears to her entire body; she was like a vessel, a resonance chamber, a... tombstone.
Erecting a nameless monument for all lives that were not allowed to exist.
After a long while, Bai Cheng slowly spoke.
Her voice was soft, yet incredibly clear amidst the emotional tide:
"I heard you."
Just four words.
But the emotional tide suddenly stalled for a moment.
As if billions of gazes focused on her at once.
"I heard your stories."
Bai Cheng raised her hand, palm upward, and undefined light surged from within her, but this time, the light was mixed with the starlight of the oath of starlight, the silver glow of the Seal of Judgment, and something more primal, more essential.
It was the power of "Recognition."
"Your existence is not a mistake."
"Your choices are not deviations."
"Every moment you lived, every person you loved, every inch of land you protected—none of it is just a row of data in an experimental report that can be deleted at will."
Light condensed in her palm, turning into an illusory book.
There was no title on the book's cover, only a single line in handwriting:
To all the unrecorded stars
The pages turned automatically.
"The Council judged you as invalid."
"The Observers see you as redundancy."
"But here, in this book written by out-of-control variables—"
Bai Cheng's voice resounded through the bridge, through the dawn, and through this forgotten Star Abyss:
"You are the first chapter."
The moment the words fell.
The emotional tide erupted.
Not a violent impact, but a... release.
Billions of emotions, like a flood that had found an outlet, frantically surged into that illusory book.
The pages began to write automatically—
Not words, but images.
Complete memories of individual lives.
The entire process of civilizations from birth to extinction.
All their laughter and tears, all their choices and struggles, all their "if only thens" and "could haves."
The pages flipped rapidly; with every page turned, a life's story was fully recorded, and an emotion was drawn from the tide, turning into an eternal point of light on the page.
Around the dawn, the void of the Star Abyss began to change.
In those desolate, silent spaces, hazy shadows of light gradually emerged—
Those were scenes of the final moments of the cleared civilizations, reappearing like holographic projections.
But this time, the scenes did not end abruptly at the point of extinction.
The book in Bai Cheng's palm continued to write.
She used the undefined light, the authority of the oath of starlight, the conviction passed on by all her companions, and the archived samples of possibilities from Abraham's database as a reference—
She continued to write the "ifs" for those civilizations that were not allowed to exist.
If that mother and child had survived, how would the child have grown up, and what kind of person would they have become?
If those warriors had held the fortress, how would their battle song have been sung, and which civilization's epic would it have become?
If that old man had a chance ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) to start over, what different choices would he have made, and how would he have influenced those around him?
If those lovers could meet in another world, how would they reunite, and what kind of story would they have?
If that child had not been cleared, he would have grown up and continued to observe ants,
Perhaps he would have become a naturalist, or perhaps he would have invented a language that allowed all life to communicate equally...
Every "if" was like a seed, taking root and sprouting in the book in Bai Cheng's palm, growing into a complete and vivid possibility.
The emotional tide was receding.
Not dissipating, but transforming.
