But just as the fleet was about to completely leave the area, Lu Duo's Emerald Network suddenly captured an extremely faint abnormal fluctuation.
"Wait!" She widened her eyes. "Inside the Pendulum Structure... something is out of tune."
On the main screen, the originally perfectly regular energy fluctuation curve showed an almost imperceptible bulge at an extremely minute time slice.
Like a precision music box, in one of its cycles, a gear had slightly, almost impossibly... trembled.
"Coordinates locked." Leng Ningxue's fingers slid quickly across the light screen. "The source of the fluctuation is located in the core area of the Pendulum Structure, occupying less than one-millionth of the volume."
"One-millionth..." Yu Nian murmured. "It's like a drop of water in the ocean trying to change its own salinity."
"But it does exist." Bai Cheng's silver eyes lit up. "In two thousand four hundred years of absolute regularity, an 'error' has survived. Lu Duo, can you establish a resonance link? It doesn't need to be strong, just the slightest contact."
"I'll try." Lu Duo closed her eyes, and the light of the Emerald Network became softer, like the finest spider silk, slowly reaching toward that tiny source of fluctuation.
A few minutes later, she opened her eyes, which were filled with confusion and shock.
"It... is calling for help. Not with words, but using its irregularity itself to call for help. It says... help me, I don't want to be 'correct' anymore."
Silence fell within the bridge.
Then, Bai Cheng smiled.
It was a faint smile, yet one that seemed capable of melting the ice deep within the Star Abyss.
"Found it," she said. "The Silent Singer we've been looking for, the first wisp."
She turned to Leng Ningxue: "Establish a stable resonance channel. We don't need to break the entire Pendulum Structure; we only need to provide a space for that error... to continue being an error.
Yu Nian, prepare for Pure Heart Resonance to soothe the existential dread it has accumulated over two thousand four hundred years. Lu Duo, maintain the Emerald connection."
"Then what do we do?" Blue Bird asked impatiently.
Zi Yuan had already drawn her long blade: "Guard. This operation requires an absolutely stable environment. Huang Yu, Lan Xiaoyu, tighten the fleet's defensive formation. If any interference approaches, eliminate it immediately."
"Understood!" A uniform Echo came through the communication channel.
The dawn hovered in the void, like a giant bird with its wings folded. Around the hull, Mirror Shuttles deployed layers of refractive barriers;
The Emerald Network transformed into a warm cocoon of light, enveloping the area where the tiny fluctuation source was located; the light of the pure heart vine reached in gently, like a mother's hand.
And Bai Cheng raised the resonance of the oath of starlight to the most delicate level. She was no longer a simple listener, but had become a bridge.
One end connected to the frequency of freedom and belief flowing in the river of light, while the other end reached toward that tiny existence that had been a lonely "error" within absolute correctness for two thousand four hundred years.
Resonance established.
There was no earth-shaking change, no loud crash of structural collapse.
There was only a nearly negligible point of light, deep within that massive, regularly operating civilization pendulum, flickering slightly.
Then, it began to slowly, tremblingly... change its vibration frequency.
It was no longer a perfect sine wave; a first fluctuation appeared, then a second, a third...
It began to go "out of tune."
And as it went out of tune, extremely tiny ripples began to spread outward with it as the center.
It wasn't destroying the overall structure, but rather like quietly dabbing a drop of a different colored pigment onto a perfectly replicated painting.
This drop of pigment was very small, so small it was almost invisible.
But it did exist.
And it began to slowly, arduously... infect the surrounding order.
"Resonance stable," Leng Ningxue reported. "The error frequency is self-strengthening. The diffusion speed... is approximately 0.001 millimeters per hour. At this rate, to infect the entire Pendulum Structure would take... seventy thousand ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ years."
"That's enough." Bai Cheng withdrew the resonance, fine beads of sweat appearing on her forehead, but her silver eyes shone like a brilliant galaxy. "It doesn't need to infect the entire structure. It only needs to prove that an error can exist, can persist, and can avoid being polished into correctness."
She looked at the small point of light on the main screen that had already become slightly "irregular."
"We can't take it with us. Its existence is already bound to the entire Pendulum Structure. But we can leave something behind for it."
Bai Cheng raised her hand, and the light of the oath of starlight condensed in her palm, transforming into an extremely tiny "seed" that contained the frequencies of the river of light and the songs of the stars.
"A Resonance Seed," she said softly. "Plant it into the core of that error.
From now on, no matter how slowly it spreads, no matter how long it takes, every one of its vibrations will produce a faint resonance with the keystone of the Starfire Archives.
The Archives will know it still exists, still struggling. And it... will know that it is not the only error in the universe."
The seed merged silently into the small point of light through the resonance channel.
In an instant, the point of light's frequency became more active, more... vivid.
Although it was still trapped within the massive regular structure, and although it could still only change its surroundings at a speed of millimeters per century,
It now had a distant, warm coordinate to resonate with.
It was no longer an absolutely lonely error.
"Update the record," Bai Cheng said to the book of commonality.
On the pages of the book, beneath the entry for the 【Pendulum of Eternal Cycles】, a small line of text was added:
"Addendum: A living erroneous individual has been discovered in the core area; a Resonance Seed has been implanted. Estimated diffusion time: seventy thousand years. The Archives will continue to monitor its changes until the frequency of freedom saturates every inch of the solidified days."
Closing the book, Bai Cheng looked out the porthole into the deeper darkness.
"The first one has been found," she said. "Continue forward. In the Silent Quadrant, such errors... should be more than just one."
The dawn's engines restarted, heading toward the next source of abnormal signals.
And behind them, that massive civilization pendulum continued to swing regularly, like the most precise clock in the universe.
But deep within it, there was a point of light so tiny it almost didn't exist, slowly and firmly, at a speed of 0.001 millimeters per hour...
Singing an out-of-tune song.
