Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 106 Hibernation
"Shadow, Drill Arm, and all comrades who can still hear,"

His voice resounded directly in my mind once again, but this time, it was no longer thunderous, but only a calm that had burned out completely.

"We walk on the edge of the abyss, dancing with madness. Many see us as necessary evil, cold and ruthless living tools."

The video then came through:

They built a defensive line around the out-of-control abnormal events, isolating themselves from the world of ordinary people;
They take turns standing guard before the dangerous sealed artifacts until their youth fades; they deal with the contaminated remains of their companions, burying their pain and fear beneath a veneer of institutionalized calm...

"We cleanse the filth, carry secrets, and bear sins. Not because we crave power, but because... someone has to stand up and become the wall that separates the darkness from the ordinary world."

The judge's voice, usually so cold, melted away, revealing a deep, almost weary, resolve.

“The wall will become mottled, cracked, and eventually collapse. But until then, it must stand there. This is the meaning of the ‘center’s’ existence, and the duty of us… judges.”

"...Now, this wall needs a brick to fill the biggest crack. I am honored that I am that brick."

He saw the signal for reinforcements and heard Yuan's verdict.

He calculated that those ten minutes were an unattainable luxury.

So he chose to become that brick thrown into the torrent ahead of time, not for victory, but to seal off the disaster at this moment, here!
"let's start."

The abyss seemed to have been waiting for this moment, its thoughts even carrying a hint of appreciation, appreciating the ant's last and most magnificent struggle.

The judge clasped his hands together abruptly, forcibly drawing out all the lightning arcs, magnetic patterns, geometric arrays, and even the golden source of law flowing within his body, converging them in front of his chest and condensing them into an extremely unstable singularity that seemed to contain the birth and death of the universe.

He burned like a god drawn by lightning in the center of a collapsing world.

The body cracked, and flowing out was a stream of data light from the collapse of rules.

"With me as the seal—"

His voice transcended hearing, transforming into regular ripples.

Yuan looked up, his pure black eyes showing no emotion.

"You are destroying yourself," the overlapping voice declared.

A faint, relieved smile appeared on the judge's face.

"—Seal the Abyss within the Boundary!"

Thunder, or rather, the very "definition" of Judge Jiang Yu's existence, crashed down, forging him, the Abyss, and the entire Iron Coffin District together into a massive, desperate, and tragic seal.

"It's now!"

Just before the shockwave struck, just before everything turned to white, Xu Yan, with his last shred of consciousness, lunged into the depths of the file shelf, his fingers touching the cold metal box engraved with spirit-blocking runes—the Ω file entity.

He ripped it off violently, and amidst the psionic storm powerful enough to tear apart alloys, he forcibly pried open the prosthetic storage compartment in his chest cavity and shoved it inside.

boom--! ! !
The world lost all meaning amidst the white light and deafening roar.

……

When absolute silence returned, the outer emergency system detected only a cold, automated message scrolling relentlessly across the central control screen:
[Iron Coffin Zone: Completely Locked Down]

[Judge Jiang Yu: Unreachable]

[Target: Abyss - Unknown]

The control room was deathly silent.

Supervisor Lin Lan stood in front of the huge light screen, looking at the short three lines of text. The unlit e-cigarette between her fingers was unconsciously squeezed and slightly deformed.

The usual calm on her face cracked like ice, revealing a deep weariness and a hint of...unbelievable pain beneath. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath of non-existent nicotine, and when she opened them again, only an iron will remained.

"Notify the entire center," her voice, transmitted through psychic telepathy, resonated clearly in the minds of every superhuman who was assembling or had already arrived at their designated location, a calm masking a turbulent undercurrent, "Judge Jiang Yu... confirmed sacrifice. Accelerate the assembly!"

The brief silence, like the tolling of mourning bells, echoed in the hearts of everyone who received the message.

Immediately afterwards, all the Gold-level superhumans who had gathered in place, regardless of their location or what they were doing, simultaneously lowered their heads slightly.

Some people raised their hands to touch the insignia representing their rank on their chests; some people's aura of surging psionic energy flickered briefly and solemnly; some people simply stared quietly in the direction of the iron coffin area, their eyes filled with complex and unfathomable emotions.

This is the highest respect and farewell among extraordinary individuals to a fellow traveler embarking on the ultimate path.

No words were needed; the silence and the resonance of psychic energy in that moment were the best eulogy.

A warrior who sacrificed his own life to fulfill the duty of a "judge" deserves this silent farewell.

In the twisted, frozen ruins and solid ice of the lower level, the broken prosthetic arm of the drill arm knelt on the ground, eternally frozen in the posture of struggling forward.

Only inside his chest cavity, the metal shell of the Ω file, which was close to the core of Xu Yan's consciousness, defied common sense and continued to emit a faint, tenacious pulse, like a heartbeat, in absolute darkness and deathly silence.

Xu Yan's consciousness "raised its head" inside the drill arm's shell, its senses struggling to penetrate layers of debris and solid ice, gazing into the distance at that eternally sealed forbidden zone, radiating an ominous tranquility of white light.

He was oblivious to the solemn and respectful silence being observed by the outside world.

But he could "hear" it, not with his ears, but with his soul.

From the depths of that sealed abyss came a low, rhythmic throbbing, like the heartbeat of a deformed fetus growing in the womb.

It is digesting, adapting, and transforming the power of the judge's sacrifice into its own nourishment.

It will obviously take some time before it breaks through to the next stage.

A cold and clear plan instantly took shape in his mind:

'Go back?' He sneered in his mind.

That would be tantamount to suicide, and would be a waste of the extremely valuable information gap that the judge had gained with his life!

The judge has sacrificed himself, the outside world is gathering, and Yuan is processing this...

These three factors together constitute a brief but dangerous 'window of opportunity'.

Lin Lan's message mentioned that external forces were gathering, which meant that the center was not completely out of control and he still had room to maneuver.

At this moment, he holds the Ω file, which may be the only one that can explain all of this, and he also possesses the identity of "Drill Arm," which has not yet aroused suspicion.

Reason prevailed over all impulse.

The optimal solution is not to reclaim an empty shell full of variables and dangers, but to use this identity to digest the information at hand and truly see the whole picture of the game.

He wanted to see for himself what his father had left behind, what was hidden in the center, and what exactly the 'Abyss' was.

Within the metal cage, Xu Yan's consciousness, like the most composed hunter, once again lay dormant.

The seal is far from over.

The abyss still exists.

What the judge gained with his life was not victory, but merely... an incredibly tragic and fragile opportunity that allowed him to see his opponent's true colors from the shadows.

The truth about his father and his own destiny, this life-or-death quest, only began to tear open the first blood-stained curtain with the sacrifice of a "judge".

(End of this chapter)