The dawn sailed smoothly along its return route, yet a tension starkly different from the calm path permeated the bridge.
Dozens of light screens floated before Leng Ningxue, each of them refreshing data at a frantic pace.
Echo samples collected from the Forgotten Star Abyss were being re-encoded and cross-referenced with original records in the Mirror Heart Database, attempting to reconstruct more complete cultural maps of those cleaned civilizations.
“The carriers of the echoes are too fragmented,” she said, a waterfall of data streaming through her icy eyes.
“We can only reconstruct emotional outlines; specific social structures and technical details cannot be recovered.
The wisdom of those civilizations... most of it has been permanently lost after all.”
“But at least the outlines remain.” High Priestess Aurora held the sunstone in her hands, its halo gently enveloping a cluster of faith imprints just stripped from an echo sample.
“Look at this—even in the final moment of being cleaned, thirty-seven percent of the individuals in this civilization were praying. Their prayer wasn't for survival, but a hope that those cleaning them... would not carry the burden of sin for it.”
Silence fell over the bridge.
Blue Bird suddenly slammed a fist onto the control console, thunderous light exploding on her gauntlets: “What right do they have... what right do those who make the rules have to judge who should live and who should die?!”
“They have the pen that defines right and wrong.”
Abraham's voice came from the direction of his wheelchair. The gray light mirror floated before him, replaying a recorded fragment of an internal meeting of the Observer Council.
In the image, twelve council members sat around a pure white round table, each with a civilization evaluation report floating before them.
A bright red 'unqualified' stamp was printed on the cover of the reports.
“Collective empathy intensity has reached 3.7 times the threshold; a spontaneous irrational mutual aid network has begun to form.
Recommendation: Immediately execute cleanup protocol, recover usable data, and reset the experimental environment.”
The speaker's voice was calm and waveless, as if discussing which redundant branches of a bonsai to prune.
The screen switched to the next report.
“This civilization chose to invest sixty percent of its resources into the fields of art and philosophy, resulting in a technical development speed 42% lower than the preset trajectory.
Recommendation: Grant one final opportunity for correction; if there is no improvement within three standard years, execute cleanup.”
“What did the 'opportunity for correction' entail?” Bai Cheng asked suddenly.
Abraham was silent for a moment before pulling up supplementary records.
It was a civilization transformation plan: forcibly implant rational logic chips, delete genetic sequences related to artistic creation, rebuild the social value evaluation system, and classify all non-productive activities as illegal.
Estimated success rate of the plan: 87%.
Estimated retention rate of the civilization's original culture: less than 3%.
“They call this 'correction'.” The thunderous light in Garel's lone eye was as cold as a blade. “To call the erasure of a civilization's soul... 'optimizing experimental parameters'.”
“That is why we must go back.” Bai Cheng turned, looking at the Shandora coordinates drawing closer on the navigation screen.
“One person, one ship, cannot push open that door. We need everyone who still remembers the taste of freedom, everyone who still has the courage to ask 'by what right', we need—”
She paused, the galaxy turning within her silver eyes.
“Everyone who would rather be a variable than a standard answer.”
Six standard sky island hours later, the dawn entered the Shandora star sector.
But the sight before them left everyone on the bridge stunned.
The Golden Bell Tower still stood above the sea of clouds, its bell tolling once every seven quarters, long and steady.
However, the airspace around the bell tower was packed with ships.
They were not Shandora's escort fleet, but ships from various sky islands, of different models, some of which looked like they shouldn't even be capable of interstellar flight.
There were Thunder Battleships from Thunder God Island, their bows still bearing the scorch marks of a recent battle;
There were Spirit Race Flower Boats from the Emerald Sea, the radiance of the Emerald Network flowing over their hulls like a river;
There were Mirror Shuttles from the Nest of a Thousand Mirrors, the surface of each reflecting images of different times and spaces;
There were even a dozen armed merchant ships clearly converted from scrapped civilian vessels, their armor plates unevenly patched together, with crooked slogans painted on their hulls: 'Refuse to be Defined'.
And in the center of all the ships floated a giant starship that Bai Cheng had never seen before.
It didn't have the magnificence of Shandora or the rigidity of Thunder God Island; it was a pure functional entity of extreme simplicity, as if all redundant decorations had been stripped away.
Pale blue data streams flowed over the hull's surface, and an emblem was carved on the bow.
An open book—the left page featured rational gears and fiber cables, the right page showed emotional sparks and vines, separated by a crack in the middle, yet from that crack grew something new and unclassifiable.
“That is...” Leng Ningxue quickly scanned the emblem, the data stream in her icy eyes searching frantically, yet finding no matching record.
“Unknown civilization identification, but structural features show it uses hybrid technology from at least seven different sky island civilizations.”
The communication channel suddenly connected at that moment.
A strange voice rang out, steady and clear, with a scholar-like restraint, yet suppressing something deeper:
“Shandora Provisional Joint Command calling the dawn.”
“This is Bai Cheng.” Bai Cheng stepped forward. “Who are you?”
“We are the unrecorded answers.” The voice paused, seemingly choosing a more accurate expression.
“Or rather, the last survivors of all those civilizations judged unqualified in the experiments... who refused to disappear.”
A holographic image unfolded.
Dozens of figures appeared on the bridge.
Some were translucent like the Spirit Race but possessed mechanical arms;
Some were surrounded by lightning with mirrored pupils; some had bodies woven from vines and metal; some were even just a mass of light flowing in a container.
Each was a hybrid of different civilizations.
Each was something that shouldn't have existed.
In the center of the screen was an elder in a wheelchair, similar in age to Abraham.
The left half of his body was flesh and blood, while the right half was a precise mechanical structure; the two modes of existence fused at the neck, forming a bizarre yet harmonious unity.
“My name is Enoch,” the elder spoke, his voice the one from the communication just now.
“Three thousand two hundred years ago, I was the Chief Researcher of the Observer Council's Civilization Fusion Experiment.
The experiment involved forcibly merging the genes, technology, and culture of different civilizations to see if a more efficient new form could be created.”
He raised his mechanical right hand, and a dynamic record appeared in his palm.
In the image, tens of thousands of lives were thrown into a fusion field; some turned to gore in genetic conflicts, some collapsed mentally under cultural shock, and some spontaneously combusted into ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) ash due to technical incompatibility.
Final survival rate: 0.7%.
“Those seven hundred survivors,” Enoch's voice remained steady, but the fingertips of his mechanical right hand sank deep into his metal palm, “were judged by the Council as valuable anomalous samples and thrown into the next round of experiments.
And I, as the researcher, was ordered to continue optimizing the plan to raise the survival rate to above 5%.”
“You refused.” Bai Cheng said.
“I ran away.” Enoch corrected.
