The conference room remained quiet for several minutes.
Digesting the colossal volume of information, Chu Guang sat before the conference table, silent for a long time.
After quite a while, he pressed an index finger against his brow, gathered his thoughts, and spoke:
"So... the Celestials reached out to the Southern Legion through the Enlightenment Society, providing them with a series of trump cards, including the 'Death Agent' and the 'Seed of Gaia'?"
"Yes," Qi Liu nodded, his tone earnest. "Setting aside whether they qualify as trump cards, we have conclusive evidence proving that those technologies never belonged to the Southern Legion."
Chu Guang looked at him, unable to comprehend.
"I don't understand their motive... or what they are actually trying to achieve."
Why give this card to Tyr?
Unless—
They did not want the Wasteland Era to end.
Or rather, they wanted the Wasteland Era to plunge entirely into the Doomsday Era, seeing the acceleration through to the very end.
There were only these two explanations.
He couldn't conceive of a third.
Qi Liu fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"The Celestials are called Celestials because they do not recognize us as their compatriots. Or rather... having ascended to another dimension, they have drawn a clear line between themselves and us.
"Of course, the dimension I speak of is not spatial, but existential."
Chu Guang pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Can you put it more plainly?"
Qi Liu cut straight to the chase.
"Have you heard of mind uploading?"
Chu Guang caught on immediately.
"You mean what happened in Shelter 101?"
In fact, it wasn't just Shelter 101. The Church of the Torch had also employed methods akin to distributed computing, fragmenting and storing consciousnesses across bionic chips, thereby constructing an earthly 'Heaven' within an imaginary one.
In other words...
The Celestials were the same?
No wonder the Church of the Torch had fled straight to them!
A sudden flash of clarity struck Chu Guang.
Qi Liu nodded from across the table, his voice low and heavy.
"To complete an expedition to a colony five light-years away, many within the expeditionary fleet abandoned their mortal flesh long ago.
"It is difficult for us to analyze their thoughts through a human mindset, but through years of observation, we have gleaned some useful information... They are not our compatriots, nor is this place their home.
"Their people and their home exist only in their memories. They want to return to the era that belonged to the Human Alliance—or rather, return to that age of boundless prosperity.
"Even if that seems impossible to us. Time can only march forward; it can never turn back."
Chu Guang took a deep breath.
"So... they intend to destroy this planet?"
Qi Liu shook his head, then nodded.
"Haven't you ever wondered: since we possessed gravity well technology, why didn't we use gravity wells to pull down the orbital debris in the early days of the Wasteland Era?"
Chu Guang's pupils constricted slightly.
"Could it be..."
Qi Liu nodded.
"We tried every method at our disposal, which naturally included deploying gravity wells. To this day, the Great Rift still possesses a gravity well prototype. Regrettably, however, when we manipulated gravitons in an attempt to collapse the planet's gravitational field, a power equal to our own interfered with our gravitational manipulation—and that power was stationed not far from us, at the Lagrange point."
Pausing, he continued:
"Unfortunately, there are no 'what-ifs' in this world. But had we succeeded in bringing that debris down back then, the radioactive dust alone would never have been enough to prolong the nuclear winter for half a century."
Chu Guang's Adam's apple bobbed.
"They want to kill everyone on this planet?"
"At least wipe out the vast majority, or reduce the survivors to a feudal society, the Stone Age, or simply turn them into beasts," Qi Liu said in an even tone. "Of course, they don't view it as genocide, but as a 'reset.'"
Chu Guang said, "...Isn't that just like the Enlightenment Society?"
Qi Liu nodded.
"That's why they get along with the Enlightenment Society and could tolerate working with Tyr. Are you still surprised that the Celestials dealt the 'Seed of Gaia' to Tyr?"
"I'm not surprised, just full of sorrow," Chu Guang sighed. "They clearly could have used that technology to do something decent..."
Still, it had to be admitted that their vantage point was vastly higher than that of the Enlightenment Society.
Their understanding of a purge ran far deeper—so deep that they were willing to abandon even the vault dwellers, who carried the sparks of the old world.
Qi Liu shook his head.
"They are no longer human. Brooding over that serves no purpose."
Pausing, he steered the conversation back to the Seed of Gaia.
"Your research on Xiao Yu is actually very meaningful, and it is gradually getting on the right track. We didn't want you to stray onto the wrong path, which is why we concealed the matter of the 'Seed of Gaia.'
"After all, that technology brought catastrophic disaster to us in the old era... At least from our perspective, starting anew, you had every chance to forge a better future.
"Yet facts have proven that we were shortsighted this time. Some things are indeed unfit for children to play with, but concealing them is ultimately futile. You will always find your own way to uncover the secrets buried behind history, just as we once tirelessly explored the future.
"Whether it's your Xiao Yu or the Southern Legion's Tyr... both are effectively Gaia-like lifeforms, and the latter was very likely born from the Seed of Gaia. What was destined to happen happened in the end.
"Dr. Conclusion said the time has come, and our Chief Technology Officer agrees.
"Perhaps, going forward, we ought to face that past we shared with greater honesty."
Chu Guang watched him intently.
"What we need is substantial help, not comforting words."
He had expected the Academy to evade and keep their lips sealed, but the Chief of Investigation's next words made him hold his breath.
"That is precisely why I have come.
"Starting now, we will open all our research on gravitons to you, including anti-gravity technology—
"technologies that you, the Enterprise, and the Legion once wielded, yet never truly mastered.
"As for that research vessel, when you find it, don't dismantle it. There would be no point."
***
Deep, murky space.
A battered starship hovered in silent orbit. Around it drifted debris of varying sizes and bodies in full-protection spacesuits, blending seamlessly with the shattered wreckage to form an artificial asteroid belt.
This was geosynchronous orbit, 36,000 kilometers above the equator.
It was also the most remote frontier above this azure wasteland, a realm virtually unvisited by scavengers.
Far from any oxidizing atmosphere, time had left few marks on these relics of the old era; the patches and insignia of the Human Alliance Aerospace Forces remained plainly visible.
Yet the glory of those bygone days had long gathered dust, as negligible as the dizzying expanse of ruins.
Today, however, was different. A silver-white craft approached slowly from the distance, prying open a corner of this celestial coffin...
Inside the research vessel's cockpit.
An expressionless man gazed quietly ahead, pale-blue pinpricks of light mirrored in his pupils.
Watching the coordinate readouts draw closer, he opened the communications channel and spoke in a steady voice:
"...This is Luo Yi. I have approached the coordinate location and am about to enter the comms interference zone."
After a prolonged pause, a reply laced with static drifted in from distant deep space:
"Acknowledged. Proceed."
"Understood."
Without further exchange, the man reached out to shut off the comms module, slipping into total radio silence. He then pushed open the plasma engine's throttle, accelerating the research vessel forward.
Plumes of pale-blue fire flared, propelling the ship toward the dense artificial asteroid belt lying immediately ahead.
The raging storm of metal grew ever denser, fragments large and small careening along regular and irregular orbits at horrifying velocities.
They collided with one another, fracturing in the vacuum into smaller shards or discharging fleeting showers of sparks.
Entering this domain unprotected, even a Titan would be riddled like a sieve!
Yet as the research vessel slipped into the zone, the unexpected occurred!
The careening debris seemed suddenly endowed with eyes, veering from original trajectories to veer aside of its own accord!
It was a miraculous sight, as if an invisible hand sheltered the ship, brushing aside lethal orbital junk and wrecked fuselages!
It was no supernatural phenomenon, but the ship's deflector shield at work.
Of course, wielding such power did not come without a price.
Even as the flying shards were repelled, energy from the shield capacitor was rapidly draining!
[Warning! Shield capacitor remaining: 50%!]
[Warning! Shield capacitor remaining: 45%!]
[...]
The energy gauge plummeted!
Though power surged steadily from the reactor into the shield capacitors, it still couldn't keep pace with the rate of consumption!
The man glanced at the holographic interface, his expression unruffled.
He seemed wholly unconcerned with his own survival, or perhaps entirely confident in crossing these perilous waters.
And indeed he was.
When capacitor reserves neared three percent, the research vessel brought itself to a halt alongside the ruined starship.
Almost simultaneously, the volume of debris battering the deflector shield dropped precipitously, and the flashing red alarm abruptly switched to green!
Power from the reactor replenished the depleted capacitors. The man tapped the holographic display, locked onto a relatively secure docking port, and shifted the plasma engine to burst-firing mode, allowing the navigation system to plot the approach.
The crisis was averted.
Drifting toward the docking port, the craft moved like a canoe breaking through a storm into a tranquil bay, berthing smoothly against the quay waiting to receive it.
Docking point locked.
The research vessel successfully dropped anchor.
"Touchdown complete."
With his comms shut down, he chose not to transmit his success to the space station at the Lagrange point. Murmuring the words only to himself, he unfastened his harness, floated out of the seat, and drifted toward the airlock chamber.
The inner hatch slowly parted. Several long-frozen corpses floated silently inside the chamber.
[Airlock opened. External atmospheric pressure below safety threshold. Please equip full protective gear...]
The man spared the bodies not a second glance and paid no heed to the floating safety warning. Strapping a jetpack onto his back, he flipped open the protective cover on the bulkhead and slammed his fist onto the red button.
*Wuuu—!*
Red strobe lights flared, and to the sound of a piercing klaxon, the heavy outer hatch ground open.
The air in the airlock vanished in an instant. The floating corpses were violently swept through the outer hatch as though yanked by unseen cables.
The man was swept out as well.
Except he had intentionally ridden the venting current. The instant he cleared the threshold, he caught the rim of the hatch with one hand, leveraging the momentum into an agile flip that reversed his direction.
The fluid movement unfolded as seamlessly as pre-programmed code.
Standing atop the hull of the research vessel, the man looked back, watching the frozen figures swallowed by the deep abyss. Then, with cold detachment, he turned toward the towering wreckage ahead.
Beholding this colossus up close imparted an awe far deeper than any distant glimpse could muster.
The words *Cruiser Orion* remained plainly legible on the armored hull, unfaded by the passage of time.
Compared to that age of boundless prosperity, the people struggling across the wasteland were as insignificant as cockroaches.
Scavenging sustenance from the rotting corpse of a titan, eking out survival in the dark—weren't they cockroaches, through and through?
However—
All of this would soon come to an end.
The man paused a moment to admire the magnificent monument before pressing the trigger in his palm.
*Hiss—*
The jetpack hissed a trail of white vapor, nudging him toward the yawning entrance just paces away.
*Sorry to keep you waiting.*
*Comrades.*
***
[Since the authorities of the State of Brahma declared war on cockroaches, pesticide levels in the Everflowing River have spiked precipitously. Countless carcasses of cockroaches and other insects now drift along the river's surface, attracting flocks of feeding birds and causing severe ecological devastation.
At present, this irrational war continues unabated. Owing to ecological vacuums, the red soil has resumed its role as decomposer. Aerial footage captured by meteorological drones indicates that red soil, which had ceased expanding across many regions of Ox State, Elephant State, Wolf State, and Snake State, is once again showing signs of proliferation.
To address the freshwater crisis brought on by excessive chemical contamination throughout the Everflowing River basin, Golden Gallon Port authorities have imported emergency desalination units from the South Sea Alliance and summoned Brahma's ambassador to Golden Gallon Port, Anwo, to demand explanations regarding the environmental damage.
As the encroaching red soil shrinks arable land and slashes yields of food and cash crops, analysts express concern that Sava may escalate by declaring war on the red soil next, unleashing an even greater ecological catastrophe.
Mayor Yodu has urged media outlets to refrain from stoking panic, stating that declaring war on red soil is scientifically impossible, thoroughly absurd, and something the Family Association has no cause or intention of doing.
Yet his statements seem to have had the opposite effect, inflaming public anxiety and driving the citizens of Golden Gallon Port to hoard water and food.
—*Survivor Daily*, Dawn City Edition]
Dawn City.
On the north street of Wetland Park, Chu Guang sat at a ramen stall waiting for breakfast, flipping through the newspaper in his hands. He hadn't expected the front page to feature a massive cockroach, and with an expression reminiscent of the "elderly man squinting at his phone on the subway" meme, he snapped the paper shut.
Across from him sat Cheng Yan, Foreign Minister of the Alliance.
Seeing Chu Guang's expression, Cheng Yan knew which article had caught his eye, and said with a chuckle:
"There are no fools in Brahma Province, especially not in Golden Gallon Port. I've been there before; the impression they left on me was that even a newsboy hawking papers on the street has ten thousand schemes to get rich."
Chu Guang shook his head, pulled a pair of chopsticks from the bamboo holder on the table, and wiped them with a napkin.
"Fools can't do that much harm. The real terror is clever people doing stupid things."
Several days had passed since his meeting with the Academy's Chief of Investigation. Nothing extraordinary had occurred in the Alliance during that time, so the *Survivor Daily*, lacking real news to report, had splashed Tiandu's latest absurdities across the front page once again.
Perhaps because Dolly had taken part of her team to develop operations in the Great Desert and Batoya Province, the editorial standards at the Dawn City bureau had slipped yet again. They hadn't even vetted the photo properly—the image was of a mutant cockroach from Qingquan City.
Where in Brahma Province could one find a beast that size?
Still, *Survivor Daily* was not an official Alliance organ, and he couldn't keep dropping by their office to meddle.
The last time he went, the editor-in-chief was on the verge of tears.
Just as he tossed the napkin into the wastebasket, a young man hurried over carrying two steaming bowls of ramen.
"Ramen's up! Enjoy your meal, gentlemen!"
"Thank you." Cheng Yan gave the energetic lad a warm nod, then turned to Chu Guang, who had already begun eating, and asked tentatively, "Do you really not intend to step in?"
Step in...
That word again.
Chu Guang couldn't even be bothered to answer directly. He peeled a clove of garlic, dropped it into the broth, and ended the topic with a single sentence:
"It would create an ecological vacuum."
Hearing this, Cheng Yan pressed no further, smoothly shifting the conversation.
"Then what about the prisoner of war? Both Tiandu and the Mammoth Country have requested that we hand Gurion over to them. Even though friction exists between them... on paper, they are both our allies."
"Gurion?" Chu Guang frowned. "Isn't that fellow in West Sail Port?"
Cheng Yan smiled wryly.
"He was at first. But whether Zayed offended the Emperor of the Eastern Empire or for some other reason, the Eastern Empire had Gurion transferred to Golden Gallon Port... leaving only Akbar for them."
*That slippery bastard...*
Chu Guang chuckled and shook his head, seeing right through Salen's clever little game.
Salen was playing at borrowing another's knife to commit murder again—only this time, he wanted to use the Alliance's hand to discipline his own puppet.
Absaik had already been ousted by the committee. While Tiandu remained an Alliance ally in name, it had long drifted apart in spirit from Dawn City.
Anyone could see that the Family Association was a puppet of the Eastern Empire—and even the Family Association viewed itself as such.
Yet Zayed was far from honest. He wanted favors from the Eastern Empire while simultaneously playing both sides to keep extracting benefits from the Alliance.
The Tiandu Coalition was practically a corpse, yet he had stitched it to a seat on the committee—which was the clearest proof.
Salen knew Chu Guang could see this clearly, and that Chu Guang would never betray his Mammoth allies by handing Gurion to Tiandu, so Salen had gladly passed over the knife.
And if Chu Guang handed this knife to the Mammoth Country, Salen's goal of reining in Brahma would be achieved. No matter how thick-skinned Zayed was, he would realize that having his cake and eating it too was impossible.
Even if Chu Guang had Gurion executed, the Eastern Empire lost nothing.
Salen was a Wilante, but above all, a political animal. At most, he would look after his reputation for appearance's sake; he wasn't about to act like those "Wilante leftists" who genuinely believed in never abandoning a fellow countryman.
Chu Guang already had his answer, but tossed the question back to Cheng Yan anyway.
"You are the Alliance's Foreign Minister. What is your view? There is only one Gurion. Who should we give him to?"
Cheng Yan spoke in a low murmur:
"I've heard that among the eight hundred thousand troops under Brahma's 'Iron General' Grove, many are former Southern Legion soldiers, equipped with vast amounts of Southern Legion weaponry. Some of it was handed over by the Eastern Empire, and some was captured during Operation North Wind."
"And so?" Chu Guang asked.
Cheng Yan's eyes flickered slightly.
"At present, Grove is locked in a standoff with the Mammoth Country in the north. If Gurion is handed over to Tiandu, Mammoth Country could be in grave danger."
Laxi, the only man who could hold Gurion back, was dead.
The current leader of the Mammoth Country was Shawa, formerly the captain of Laxi's stormtroopers. Though capable and a veteran of brutal combat, he was from an internal security background and lacked the brilliance of a true commander.
While Grove had profited from an easy victory on the southern front, Operation North Wind proved he possessed real capability—otherwise the Southern Legion wouldn't have put his face on their playing cards.
"You mean we should execute Gurion?" Chu Guang cut in casually, not wanting him to beat around the bush.
Gurion's standing was roughly equivalent to Griffin's—merely a theater commander. Whether he lived or died was the business of the people of Brahma. The Alliance's primary targets for reckoning were all in Avent City, and had to be at least four-star myriarchs.
Like the head of the General Affairs Department.
As for a three-star myriarch, whether they gave him the death penalty or life imprisonment was up to the Brahma people; he had little desire to meddle.
"That's not what I meant. Quite the opposite," Cheng Yan quickly shook his head. "A court in Golden Gallon Port would sentence him to death without question, but putting an officer with no troops to death accomplishes nothing for us."
Pausing, he dropped his voice to a hurried whisper meant for Chu Guang's ears alone:
"I suggest convening the tribunal to try him in Mammoth City... Legally speaking, the survivors of Mammoth City fought in the war against the Southern Legion, and were the main force on that battlefield. They possess the jurisdiction to try Gurion—far more legitimacy than Tiandu has today."
Watching Cheng Yan's earnest, bright eyes, Chu Guang's deadpan expression suddenly broke into a smile.
"Well done. No need to beat around the bush with me—just state your thoughts plainly."
Cheng Yan smiled sheepishly.
"I wasn't trying to dance around it... I just wanted to explain the reasoning clearly. After all, you surely realize that Gurion is a blade Salen handed us. If you truly wish to preserve our relationship with Tiandu, executing him in Golden Gallon Port works just as well."
Pausing, he added:
"Of course, I must remind you that false friendship yields no tangible benefit. None of Zayed's sweet words will ever be honored; he will only look for every opportunity to fleece us."
"A petty crook trying to fleece me? He's still too green," Chu Guang chuckled, pushing his empty bowl aside. "Your thinking is sound. Since you've made up your mind, go ahead and carry it out."
Cheng Yan smiled, understanding immediately.
"Understood."
The affairs of Brahma Province were merely a piece of the post-war order; Chu Guang had no desire to sit at the table and play that hand himself.
By contrast, Absaik—whom he had met once at the Human Congress—had recently launched "Abu Aerospace" in Port French Fries, an enterprise that piqued Chu Guang's curiosity far more.
The fellow had already retired, yet couldn't bear idleness and ventured into a second career.
If he truly succeeded, it might just shift the Alliance conservatives' perception of the Brahma people.
Naturally, what he hoped for even more was that the man might exert a positive influence on the Brahma people within Alliance borders, teaching them self-respect, dignity, and self-reliance.
Now that they had left Brahma Province behind, they should stop looking for a master everywhere or throwing tantrums on the ground.
On the other hand, what weighed on Chu Guang even more were the Celestials.
Until he snapped that sword dangling over the Lagrange point, he would never sleep peacefully.
Especially now that the Legion had disintegrated.
The burden that had once belonged to Julius now fell squarely on his shoulders alone.
Chapter 972