The heavy iron door was fitted with an irregular interlocking seal. It opened slowly, yet entirely without sound. At last, the interior of Azure's Classified Laboratory No. 0 was laid bare before Zhe Qiuhong.
The cavernous chamber appeared somewhat desolate due to the sparseness of its furnishings.
Right in the center stood an autopsy table, looking slightly out of place with its surroundings—likely moved in only recently.
Further inside, standing quietly against the back wall, was an oversized stone sarcophagus.
In truth, its material was probably not stone, nor was its design necessarily meant as a coffin, but it certainly resembled one.
"Let's have a direct look," said Elber, Azure's chief scientist in Great Spike biological research, withdrawing his gaze. He stepped forward a few paces and activated the console mounted on the side of the autopsy table.
*Hisss! Clack, clack...*
A low, sluggish sound like coarse metal scraping against metal echoed through the room. The massive lid of the sarcophagus began sliding downward at a measured pace. Standing over four meters tall, the container was built to accommodate Daie's sheer height.
The process took perhaps a minute. During that entire minute, not a single one of the seven people present spoke, including Zhe Qiuhong. Naturally, any guards concealed within the secret mechanisms made no sound either.
At last, the lid sank fully into the floor.
"A human?! A sub-human?" remarked the middle-aged man standing nearby. It was his first time in Laboratory No. 0 as well; an accomplished and reliable physician, he was set to serve as Zhe Qiuhong's surgical assistant.
The Great Spike Daie possessed a body structure roughly akin to a human's—though only superficially so.
Its skull, entirely hairless, resembled a bicycle helmet tilted steeply upward in the front, etched with bizarre grooves and tapering slightly at the crown.
It possessed eyes, and even eyelids, but when those lids parted, the immense orbs beneath were sunken like black voids, devoid of visible pupils.
It had neither nose nor mouth; both spaces were supplanted by a massive, formidable jaw that jutted forward.
"Perhaps at their civilization's stage of evolution, they no longer require ingestion, or they subsist entirely on source energy," remarked one of the researchers present. "At the same time, they don't seem to require oxygen or any other breathable gas."
"We believe this is one of the primary reasons they can cross the vast sea of stars," another researcher chimed in. "Conversely, humanity's reliance on air, and especially on food, severely constrains our ability to venture into deep space."
As the researcher spoke, Zhe Qiuhong gave an unconscious nod. That had long been an essential subject of study and preparation throughout Voyage's decades of research.
"A further assessment comes from the Core Strategic Department," Elber continued. "Based on this, they deduce that the Great Spike civilization is very likely in its twilight. With their source energy depleted, their race is on the brink of extinction without the sustenance they rely on to survive. That is why they had no choice but to cross the galaxy in search of a new home..."
"But we don't have source energy here!" the middle-aged physician interjected once more.
"Indeed. In their view, this precisely suggests that other planets containing source energy exist within our star system," Elber replied, glancing at Zhe Qiuhong. "As for why the Great Spikes chose Azure... perhaps the presence of Yanxiu and the ancient remains holds an even greater temptation for them than source energy itself. In the distant past, something must have occurred or existed on our world."
"Yes," Zhe Qiuhong agreed, her tone steady as ever. "Our world may well be a graveyard. In ancient times, when the Yanxiu civilization met its collective doom, this planet was one of their concentrated burial grounds."
Even as she spoke, she knew perfectly well that starting today, she would be stripped of her freedom to the greatest degree possible.
Because of her relationship to Zhe Shouzhao, recent events had inevitably cast suspicion on her. Lacking definitive evidence against her, and with Stream Vanguard choosing not to pursue the matter, Azure had opted for a compromise—a disguised measure of restraint and punishment.
If that was how it had to be, she would focus on the research first and look for a way out later. Zhe Qiuhong weighed her options with calm rationality, refusing to drown in frustration or worry over Voyage's uncertain future.
"A brilliant and forward-thinking deduction," Elber said, nodding in approval. "I was already thoroughly impressed when I read it in the Yanxiu research report you submitted earlier."
He turned away, concluding the discussion through his posture.
In reality, Azure's Core Strategic Department had arrived at an even deeper deduction—one they had obviously deemed unnecessary to share with Zhe Qiuhong.
Their strategic deduction suggested that in this battle, the Great Spike civilization had likely mounted an all-out migration.
They had likely abandoned their dying homeland on the other side of the starry sea altogether, bringing their entire race along to traverse the galaxy...
If so, the scale, numbers, and sheer might of the final Great Spike force were beyond all estimation and imagination.
"Enough about the strategic department," Elber said, steering the conversation back. He looked at the middle-aged doctor. "What did you call it just now—a sub-human? Ha. It's far more likely that in their eyes, we are the lower-evolved sub-humans."
"By the way, they most likely produce vocalizations through source energy vibrations," Elber said, pointing at the neat, lattice-like ridges on Daie's massive jaw. "That explains why low-tier Great Spikes can only emit monotonous howls, red-shoulders can speak their own tongue, and Daie can rapidly learn our various human languages... It all comes down to the disparity in their control over source energy."
As they spoke, everyone's gaze shifted downward from Daie's jaw.
Daie possessed a neck, extraordinarily thick and roughly the same diameter as its head. Had it not been for a slight contour, it would have been difficult to distinguish where one ended and the other began.
Then...
"Oh, it's male! It has genitalia!" the middle-aged doctor blurted out once again. His initial surprise quickly gave way to a sneer of disdain. "Though it's awfully small."
As he said this, the fellow wore a faint, subtle trace of pride. No one took the bait this time, though... it truly was small.
At the same time, this was indeed a crucial piece of research data.
Only Zhe Qiuhong maintained a calm, clinical gaze on the organ, uttering a mild "Mm" in affirmation.
She had seen plenty of such anatomy on humans—including examples very few had ever laid eyes on, like Han Qingyu's and Wu Xu's...
"An angel! Could the Great Spikes be the angels from ancient lore? No, wait... this would be a fallen angel," another assistant chimed in, her voice belonging to a rather young woman.
As she spoke, she pointed emphatically at Daie's torso.
Though cleaved apart by Major Qing's battle blade, the pieces of the body still fit together with remarkable precision... It possessed wings.
Yet they were not feathered wings.
The pair appeared noticeably small in proportion to its massive frame, looking more like...
"Angel, my foot! What kind of eyesight mistakes this monster for an angel?" the middle-aged doctor chided, unable to hold his tongue as he casually coined a label. "If you ask me, it's a mothman at best."
Indeed, the wings folded along Daie's back closely resembled those of a moth, albeit of a yellowish, fleshy hue.
"Alright, let's begin the dissection," Elber said, cutting off the chatter. He turned to Zhe Qiuhong. "To be frank, this dissection was a last-minute decision, which is why you were brought in on such short notice. We had to rush our research schedule just for this..."
"I understand," Zhe Qiuhong replied, raising both gloved hands in preparation.
She was well aware that the true, primary purpose of this procedure was not academic inquiry, but service to the Antarctic battlefield.
Azure's military high command had applied heavy pressure, demanding that the scientific division bypass all standard procedures, reasonable or otherwise, to dissect the specimen as swiftly as possible in search of critical vulnerabilities and lethal strike zones.
Deep within Azure's Classified Laboratory No. 0, Elber operated the controls once more. Daie's colossal frame was slowly shifted onto the central table.
The baseplate of the sarcophagus retracted.
***
The Antarctic Peninsula.
Two young sentries, Duocha and Jazar, had completed their shift and returned to the garrison of Azure's directly subordinate forces. They were currently catching up on sleep inside an ice-cave barrack.
Exhausted from duty, Jazar had already slipped into a deep slumber.
"We really should have gone to check," Duocha muttered, wide awake, an anxious glint in his eyes. He turned over and shook Jazar hard. "Wake up, Jazar!"
"Hmm...?" Jazar blearily opened his eyes.
"We should have checked it out. That ridge—we should have gone over and chipped into it to see what was there."
"What for? Didn't they already tell us? The terrain out here in Antarctica shifts faster than anything..."
"I know, but I have a bad feeling about it," Duocha said solemnly. He yanked Jazar by the arm, pulling him to his feet. "Come on. Let's go take a look."
Jazar threw his hands up in defeat. Knowing Duocha as well as he did, he knew there was no talking him out of it. They had been close friends for years before enlisting together.
Deep in the ice plains.
With their propulsion devices engaged, the distance back to the sentry post did not feel very far...
Following the shift change, the post appeared to have shifted position; when Duocha and Jazar arrived, the relief sentries were nowhere in sight.
After braving the swirling wind and snow, they finally relocated the eerie, snow-draped ridge.
*Hum!* Blade in one hand, Duocha activated his device.
"Is that really necessary? Haha, look how nervous you are," Jazar teased from behind him, shaking his head with a laugh.
Duocha paid him no mind. Dropping onto one knee, he gauged the angle with his sword arm, then swung with force into one of the icy mounds...
*Shhhk!* The ice and snow sheared away cleanly, the cut slicing almost flush against the frozen ground.
"Nothing there... See, totally empty, right?" Jazar continued from behind, arms crossed over his chest.
"Uh... let me check again." Realizing there might truly be nothing, Duocha leaned forward simply to dispel the lingering unease in his gut, approaching the freshly severed ice surface...
A thin scatter of shaved ice and snow lay upon it from the strike.
Keeping his blade in his left hand, Duocha reached out with his right to wipe the frost away.
With the snow cleared, only the ancient, transparent layer of perennial ice remained... and beneath that crystal-clear shelf lay a Great Spike, motionless as a corpse, its hands clasped around a column sword.
A Red Shoulder.
During his time on the Antarctic Peninsula, Duocha had never encountered a Red Shoulder in the field; this sector was considered an abandoned perimeter in the Great Spikes' defense, where Red Shoulders were never seen. But he had studied them extensively in Azure's classrooms and recognized one instantly.
Just as Duocha's eyes met the frozen form...
*Crack.* A hairline fracture suddenly snaked through the ice from below. The tremor was minute—triggered by a faint shudder running across the iron armor of the creature's face.
Its eyes snapped open.
Chapter 787