The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

The 400mm Mother Nest Butcher railway gun steadily locked onto the second cargo compartment on the right of compartment number 005.

Su Yuan's fingers pressed on the fire button, his knuckles turning white.

At that very moment, an invisible force surged forth from the crack in the storage compartment—not wind, not heat, not energy—but pure will, condensed over millennia.

That will clashed with Su Yuan's mental defenses, like the pressure of the deep sea pressing down on a thin iron plate.

Wang Hu knelt down. It wasn't voluntary; his kneecaps slammed into the metal floor, his teeth chattering. Jiang Yu's single arm convulsed as he braced himself against the control panel, his fingertips slipping from the metal edge, and he collapsed to the ground. Tang Lan knelt on one knee, the sniper rifle slipping from her hand, the sound of the barrel striking the ground exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.

"My...key..."

The sound wasn't heard through the ears. It bypassed the eardrums and exploded in everyone's brainstem.

"Finally...it's here..."

Screams erupted from the 013 casualty ward. The wounded who could still move covered their ears and curled up in a ball, while the seriously wounded, strapped to a reclining chair, had blood trickling from the corner of their mouths. Tang Lan's lip was bitten, and beads of blood dripped down her chin.

Su Yuan stood there.

His back was perfectly straight, not bent even an inch.

A torrent of willpower crashed against him, but he couldn't break free. Veins bulged on his forehead, and the pulse throbbing in his temples was visible through his skin. His pupils shrank to pinpoints as he stared at the dark red light seeping from the crack in the warehouse locker's seal on the rearview camera screen.

"mine--"

"Shut up."

Su Yuan spoke up.

The sound wasn't loud, but in the control room shrouded in the will of eternity, the two words were incredibly clear.

K-001's attack of will paused for a moment.

Just that half-beat. Su Yuan increased the pressure with his index finger, and the trigger button was pressed down to the last three millimeters of travel.

Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta—

Qin Yan's Morse code burst forth at an unusually high frequency in that single second. The speed was beyond human capability, and the signal directly switched to the main channel.

Xiao Huo's translation popped up almost simultaneously.

A line of large, blood-red text popped up on the main screen:

"Don't fire! The shell is the lock cylinder, and your body is the key! Firing the shell is 'unlocking,' and you'll release it completely!"

Su Yuan's index finger froze on the fire button.

His pupils suddenly dilated and then contracted. He didn't press any further, only three millimeters of pressure.

The shell is a lock core.

His body is the key.

Firing the cannon is like him inserting the "key" into the "lock" of that door.

Su Yuan instantly understood. K-001 hadn't been afraid of him firing from the start. That hungry possessiveness, that naked expectation, wasn't the reaction one should have when facing a gun. It was waiting. It was guiding him to fire.

The shell was filled with the residual frequency band of his neural resonance as JY-003. Every control command he issued during the forging of weapons in the refining furnace left its mark on the metal. The moment this shell hit the 005 cargo compartment, his frequency band was actively sent into K-001's mouth.

Cold sweat slid down Su Yuan's back, but his face remained expressionless.

He anticipated his prediction.

It knew that Su Yuan's first reaction to a threat would be to open fire.

"Okay," Su Yuan uttered in a low voice.

He removed his hand from the firing button, but the muzzle did not deflect. The 400mm barrel remained firmly locked onto cargo compartment number 005.

K-001's will suddenly become impatient, and the oppressive feeling increased by 30%. Wang Hu, lying on the floor, groaned, blood seeping from his nose.

Su Yuan ignored the oppressive force. He pulled down the main control lever of the refining furnace with his other hand.

Thirty-six dark gold conduits were ejected from the side wall of the mobile refining furnace and rapidly wrapped around the outer wall of compartment 005. The surface temperature of the conduits rose sharply, and dark red heat radiation was visible to the naked eye.

The refining furnace core power surged to 170 percent.

The alarm lights are flashing wildly.

"Since we can't pick the lock," Su Yuan's voice was eerily calm, "then we'll lock the door and melt it all down together."

K-001's will attack suddenly subsided.

It wasn't suppressed; it took back on its own initiative.

Everyone simultaneously felt the mountain-like force pressing down on them disappear. Wang Hu gasped for breath, scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the control panel. Jiang Yu coughed up a mouthful of phlegm tinged with blood. Tang Lan picked up the sniper rifle, her hands still trembling.

Su Yuan did not let his guard down.

The refining furnace conduit continued to heat up. The coating on the outer shell of compartment 005 began to vaporize, producing white smoke.

Then the scene appeared.

Without a sound, without warning, an image was directly implanted into everyone's minds.

Blood-red crystals, larger than the carriage itself. Transparent, flowing red substance filled the interior space.

Ji Yun is inside.

She wore the combat uniform of the old Blue Star Expeditionary Force, her hair disheveled, her face pale. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Her hands were pressed against the inner wall of the crystal, her fingers spread, the fingertips deformed from prolonged pressure.

She was watching them.

His eyes were filled with pain and pleading.

The image was so clear it didn't seem like a hallucination. The old scar on Ji Yun's cheek, two centimeters below his right eye, was exactly the same as the image stored in the True Brain database.

"Old Su!"

Wang Hu's voice changed, becoming hoarse and shrill. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at the image in his mind. "It's Sister Ji Yun! She—she's trapped inside!"

He strode towards the rear cabin.

"Sister Ji Yun is inside 005! Old Su, turn off the refining furnace! You're burning her!"

boom.

A dull metallic clanging sound.

Tang Lan didn't use the muzzle of her gun; instead, she swung the butt of her three-kilogram sniper rifle and slammed it hard against the side of Wang Hu's helmet. Wang Hu staggered, crashing into the bulkhead, and a crack appeared in his helmet.

"Wake up." Tang Lan's voice was very soft.

Wang Hu covered his head, the bloodshot in his eyes receding. He looked up at Tang Lan.

Tang Lan looked at him, blood still trickling from where she had bitten her lip. "Sister Ji Yun died fourteen years ago. That's not her."

Wang Hu trembled violently. The images in his mind shattered, the fragments scattering and disappearing. Cold sweat instantly soaked his entire inner lining.

"Damn..." He squatted down, bracing himself on the floor with his hands, and took several deep breaths before raising his head, his face ashen. "I almost fell for it."

Su Yuan never turned his head.

The conduit pipes in the refining furnace did not stop, and the temperature continued to rise.

But the vaporization rate on the outer wall of compartment 005 suddenly decreased. Su Yuan glanced at the instruments—it wasn't that the refining furnace was underpowered; compartment 005 was cooling itself. That thing was absorbing heat.

The refining furnace was operating at full power, but the temperature of the outer wall of compartment 005 was decreasing in the opposite direction.

Su Yuan's expression changed.

It's hard to melt.

The entire ruins of Eden began to tremble at that moment.

It wasn't from the engines of the Devourer, nor from the structural collapse after the beacon was pulled out. This was an earthquake. Real seismic waves from thousands of meters below.

The radar feed automatically switches back to the abyss monitoring.

The giant, dark golden hand had already extended its forearm from the abyss. Each time its fingers dug into the rock wall, it caused the earth's strata to shift within a radius of tens of kilometers.

The old Blue Star Expeditionary Force insignia, densely packed on the giant hand, shimmered in the dim light.

It is climbing upwards.

The speed is twice as fast as it was three minutes ago.

Gravel fell from the gaps in the Eden Dome, clattering against the outer armor of the Devourer.

Wang Hu stood up, wiped the blood from his nose, and stared at the growing dark gold outline on the radar screen, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"One on top, one on the bottom." His voice was hoarse.

Just then—

Outside the 005 protective compartment, the 020 isolation box vibrated violently.

A high-speed rotating mechanical sound came from inside the box, and the green status light suddenly turned white, flashing at a frequency that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

One voice switches to all channels.

It wasn't a tapping sound, nor was it Morse code. It was a cold, emotionless, mechanically synthesized voice, output directly from the communication port of the 020 isolation box, covering the entire frequency band of the Devourer.

"Contaminant K-001".

Each syllable of a synthesized sound carries an unquestionable sense of authority.

"You have violated Articles 7, 12, and 41 of the Pangu Final Seal Agreement. 'Warden' awakens."

Everyone in the control room turned their heads at the same time.

The color of the 020 isolation box is changing from dark gray to cool white, and extremely fine etched lines are emerging on the surface.

The synthesized sound continued:

"Your claim to ownership of the 'Key of Judgment' is invalid."

Inside compartment 005, K-001's presence suddenly surged. The dark red light brightened, and the temperature rose faster. It sensed 020's awakening, and an ancient hostility rapidly escalated between them.

Su Yuan's gaze swept back and forth between 020 and 005.

A three-way standoff.

"Warden," Su Yuan said, his voice flat, "when will you be able to speak like a human being?"

020 ignored Su Yuan's question.

The synthesized sound continues to output, with a fast tempo and a high information content:

"Correcting the intelligence bias. Cargo compartment 005 is not an anti-living metal core. The characterization by the 011 crew and Ji Yun's team was a misjudgment."

Tang Lan's brows furrowed sharply.

"Storage compartment 005 is a prison," 020 stated bluntly. "Subject: The source of the living metal population, codenamed K-001, a 'King' level pollutant. The previously observed 'anti-pollution force field' is essentially the absolute suppression effect of a King-level domain on lower-level sub-entities. It's not treatment, it's suppression."

Wang Hu's mouth opened and closed repeatedly.

During the battle at Station 12, the living metal tentacles dared not approach within one meter of 005. Inside the dark tracks of Station 56, the tentacles shattered into powder upon touching 005's radiation range.

They always thought 005 was some kind of ultimate weapon.

Now they're being told that it wasn't a weapon, but rather the aura emanating from the prisoners in the cage.

Just as the oppressive aura emanating from a ferocious beast can scare away smaller animals, the beast itself is the most dangerous being.

Su Yuan showed no shock. His hand remained on the control lever of the refining furnace, his facial muscles motionless.

"continue."

"The individual climbing in the abyss, codenamed K-002, 'The Forger'." The synthesized voice of 020 did not pause, "K-001 and K-002 are isomers, natural enemies of each other. They should have been eternally slumbering within the sealing structure of the Pangu Project."

020 paused for 0.3 seconds.

"And you, Su Yuan. JY-003."

Su Yuan's pupils contracted slightly.

"You are not their key. You are the 'Key of Judgment,' the final arbitration procedure left behind by the Pangu Project, used to decide—"

Here, 020's voice showed its first and only change in tone, an extremely subtle increase in emphasis:

"—Which king is qualified to continue to exist?"

There was a two-second silence in the control room.

Then K-001's will resounded once more. This time it wasn't possessiveness, nor hunger, but rather a clear mockery.

"Arbitration?" That hoarse voice, echoing across millennia, reverberated in everyone's minds. "No. You are the sacrifice."

The dark red glow of compartment 005 surged.

A stream of pure energy seeped out from the gaps in the warehouse seal, bypassing all protective layers, the dark gold conduit, and the negative pressure inlet of the refining furnace, precisely pouring into the core of the mobile refining furnace.

On the instrument panel, the refining furnace efficiency reading fluctuated.

170 percent. 240 percent. 380 percent. 510 percent.

Su Yuan pulled the circuit breaker valve. Even after the valve was closed, the numbers continued to rise.

The furnace core temperature exceeded 3,000 degrees Celsius. The outer shell of the refining furnace emitted a deep metallic deformation sound.

"Choose me, Arbiter." K-001's voice softened. "I grant you divine power. Devour the Forgers. We will sweep across the stars. Everything you desire, I can give you."

The refining furnace expanded under the energy injected by K-001, and the furnace wall temperature visibly turned red. Su Yuan could feel that this power was real, pure, and without any traps—it was truly giving him power.

This is more terrifying than a trap.

The 020 isolation box spoke again: "Assist me, Arbiter. Reset the seal on K-001. I will grant you the authority to melt down the K-002 core."

The synthesized speech rate increased by half a beat.

"'The First Flame Matrix'—Ji Yun hid it fourteen years ago in the backup energy core of the brake master cylinder of Ring 28. It's the only physical means that can permanently destroy the Forgers. You help me, and I'll give you the key to take down K-002."

Both sides are trying to win each other over.

K-001 uses force.

020 uses intelligence.

Su Yuan released the shut-off valve on the refining furnace.

He didn't look in the direction of compartment 005, nor did he look at isolation box 020. His gaze was fixed on the holographic 3D image on the main screen—the giant broadcast beacon that the Devourer had pulled from the core control console of the Sky Orbiter. It was currently suspended above the eight cables, its energy still emanating from the break, flowing with a primal radiance of rule-level power.

"I never choose."

Su Yuan's voice was not loud, and his tone was unusually flat.

He slammed the control lever, and the target parameters for the eight-cable reverse-draft winch switched on the main screen. The steel cable creaked as it detached from the remaining anchor points on the beacon base and re-locked the eight load-bearing rings of the beacon body.

"Mobile refining furnace." Su Yuan pulled down the fully open valve at the feed inlet. "Target switching."

He pointed to the broadcast beacon, which was nearly 100 meters high and weighed several thousand tons.

"Give me this lump of iron to eat."

Wang Hu was the first to react. He rushed to the hoist control position and pulled down the eight-cable linkage lever with both hands. The eight heavy-duty steel cables tightened, and the metal fibers emitted a sharp wail. The beacon, weighing thousands of tons, was dragged slowly toward the feed inlet of the refining furnace.

Thirty-six dark gold conduits were drawn from the outer wall of compartment 005 and turned toward the beacon.

The tip of the catheter pierced the beacon casing.

Su Yuan's body jolted violently.

It wasn't a physical impact. The instant the refining furnace came into contact with the materials inside the beacon, something far beyond the material realm surged into the furnace core through conduits.

The entire vehicle of the Devourer burst into a blinding white light.

Every armor plate, every bolt, every steel cable is shining. The light doesn't radiate from the surface, but shines through the metal itself.

The 011 True Brain emitted a piercing physical alarm. On the main screen, code rolled at an impossible speed.

The mechanical sound from the small fire device exhibited unprecedented discontinuity and garbled characters during the output process:

"Warning: It is devouring the concept-level creation."

The sound was interrupted; here it goes:

"Non-matter, non-energy, is devouring the 'law' itself."

The temperature reading on the refining furnace had exceeded the instrument's upper limit. The numbers stopped changing and instead became a string of meaningless gibberish.

Su Yuan's hand gripping the control lever was trembling. Not from fear, but from pure physical vibration. The entire train was resonating.

The planetary-level defense matrix module—the dark gold cube that was just reforged from the AI ​​Lu Ye core—has surface cracks spreading like a spider web.

Broken.

The fragments bounced off the main control panel with a crisp sound. The module, which had been forged using all the materials of the AI ​​super server, lasted less than three seconds in the face of a law-level conflict.

011 Real Brain Synchronization Overload.

Black smoke billowed from the top of the brain maintenance box, and all the red indicator lights illuminated. The right half of the main screen went dark, and numerous systems entered an emergency reboot.

"Brain overload! Entering protective hibernation!" Xiao Huo's voice regained clarity for a second before falling into static.

Su Yuan lost its analysis tools. It lost its defense modules.

But the refining furnace did not stop.

The conduit was still frantically extracting from inside the beacon. The white light dimmed from its peak, and the glow on the Devourer's outer armor also faded. It wasn't a failure—it was being digested.

The flame at the feed inlet changed color from bluish-white to an indescribable gray. This wasn't due to a decrease in temperature, but rather a change in the physical properties of the flame itself.

squeak--

The outlet of the refining furnace popped open.

Something was spat out.

It wasn't big, about the size of a palm. It was gray, with a dull, lifeless surface. Su Yuan stared at it for two seconds—the thing neither reflected nor absorbed light. Light disappeared as soon as it touched its surface.

It is not metal. It is not stone. It is not any known material.

It slid into the module slot reserved on the main control panel, and a click sound effect caused it to freeze.

Xiao Huo's voice squeezed out from the extremely chaotic background noise, intermittently:

"New module... taking shape... naming: Concept Anchor..."

A brief silence.

"Functional analysis...can briefly anchor itself to spacetime coordinates...immune to local physical and energy shocks...or forcibly assign...or strip...a ​​target of a certain concept..."

The white light in the control room completely faded.

The dim emergency lights came back on.

Su Yuan looked down at the gray cube embedded in the main control panel. His hands were still trembling, but his eyes were unusually clear.

The moment the "conceptual anchor" took shape—

From cargo compartment 005, K-001 let out a mournful cry, a sound that seemed to transcend the ordinary.

It wasn't anger, it wasn't a threat. It was pure, instinctive fear.

The dark red light instantly receded from the gap in the storage compartment's seal. The ancient will that had swept away everything retreated back into 005, lying dormant and no longer emitting any sound.

At the same moment, the dark gold giant hand that was climbing in the abyss radar image stopped.

Five enormous fingers gripped the rock face, motionless. K-002 "The Founder" paused in its climb.

The two beings, each existing for millennia, simultaneously sensed the birth of something of the level of a natural enemy.

Wang Hu looked at the giant hand that remained motionless on the radar screen, then at the completely extinguished dark red light in the direction of cargo compartment 005, and his lips twitched.

"Damn. He was pretty arrogant just now."

The 020 isolation box remained silent for ten seconds.

For an artificial intelligence whose computing speed is measured in nanoseconds, ten seconds of silence is abnormally long.

Then the synthesized sound rang out again.

The tone of voice changed.

The coldness of the machinery vanished. In its place was a barely suppressed, yet still palpable, terror.

"Target threat level...reassessed..."

The synthesized sound of 020 trembled for the first time.

"JY-003...'Key of Judgment' access...revoked..."

It paused for 0.5 seconds.

"New codename: 'Void Aberration'."

Su Yuan turned his head to look in the direction of the 020 isolation box.

"Activate—" 020's voice noticeably accelerated on those two words, "—Final Annihilation Protocol."

The outer shell of the 020 isolation box changed from cool white to incandescent white. The temperature exceeded 2,000 degrees Celsius in a very short time, and the surface of the box began to melt and deform.

But it did not disintegrate.

Something inside was ignited in that instant.

Xiao Huo's voice squeezed out from the noise, already noticeably distorted:

"High-energy reaction! Miniature fusion core activated! Energy readings surge exponentially!"

The few remaining working screens on the instrument panel display the energy curve inside 020—an almost vertically rising straight line.

"It's going to self-destruct," Little Fire concluded. "The power is enough to completely wipe out the top layer of the Sky Orbiter from a physical perspective. The coverage radius is three kilometers. Including all the hibernation pods."

Wang Hu's face turned ashen in an instant.

Three hundred thousand people.

020 not only wanted to kill them, but also to take away all 300,000 imprisoned expeditionary soldiers and civilians.

Su Yuan did not go to see 020.

His gaze swept across the main screen and landed on the radar image in the direction of the abyss. K-002's dark gold giant hand paused for a few seconds before resuming its movement. Faster than before.

020 is about to self-destruct. K-002 is crawling. K-001 is lying in wait.

Triple death.

011 True Brain is in protective hibernation. The planetary-level defense matrix module is shattered. The refining furnace has just completed a law-level digestion; the furnace core's condition is unknown.

Su Yuan placed his right hand on the gray square.

Conceptual anchor point.

The sensation from my palm was neither cold nor hot. It was as if I were touching the very concept of "no temperature".

Su Yuan did not hesitate.

He slammed the control lever, and the massive hull of the Devourer began to turn. Not away from the abyss—but towards its edge.

The front of the car was facing the dark, ten-thousand-meter-deep abyss.

Directly facing the giant, dark gold hand that was climbing.

"Everyone, sit tight." Su Yuan's voice was completely flat.

Wang Hu lunged back to the control position, but before he could even fasten his seatbelt, Jiang Yu had already twisted himself into the restraints with his single arm. Tang Lan remained silent, retracting her sniper rifle into its slot and gripping the handrails tightly with both hands. The sound of hydraulic pressure locking all the reclining chairs remotely came from inside the 013 casualty pod.

The front of the Devourer crossed the edge of the abyss, its front wheels suspended in the air.

Su Yuan stared at the increasingly bright, incandescent white light emanating from the 020 isolation chamber in the rearview camera. The energy curve was still climbing, less than twenty seconds away from the fusion criticality.

He turned to the communications channel and spoke towards 020. His voice was very soft.

"Trying to self-destruct?"

The Devourer's engines roared to full power, blue flames shooting from its exhaust pipe. Its heavy-duty tracks gripped the alloy floor at the edge of the abyss.

"Then let's go all out."

Su Yuan pressed down on the conceptual anchor point with his right hand. With his left hand, he pulled down the purple lever at the top of the main control panel that had never been used before—that was the emergency operation interface that had been automatically generated when the refining furnace was absorbing the beacon, before the small fire could report it.

"Keep it low," Su Yuan said in a very low voice.

The communication channel only contained static and background noise.

"Small—fire—at—" the mechanical voice squeezed out intermittently.

"Concept stripping".

Su Yuan pressed his five fingers firmly into the surface of the gray cube. The material that did not reflect light produced some indescribable vibration under his palm, not a physical vibration, but a kind of loosening at the causal level.

"Target - the physical contact surface between the Devourer and the orbital platform."

He paused for half a second.

"Stripping away the concept: inertia."

The countdown to 020's self-destruction has reached its final five seconds.

Four.

A colorless halo illuminated the edge of the gray cube. It was colorless because it didn't belong to any visible light frequency band. It was invisible to the naked eye, but everyone sensed it—an intuitive fear that "the rules are being rewritten."

three.

The conceptual anchor has taken effect. The physical concept of "inertia" between the Devourer and the Sky Orbit platform has been forcibly stripped away.

This means—

two.

If a force were to act on the Devourer at this moment, it wouldn't need to overcome the inertial resistance caused by its mass. The steel train, weighing over three hundred tons, would have zero effective mass at the instant it was propelled.

One.

The 020 isolation box's incandescent white light reached its peak.

zero.

Micro-fusion core criticality.

The explosion occurred on the outside of compartment 005.

It was a miniature sun. Its diameter instantly expanded to over ten meters, and its temperature exceeded two hundred million degrees. The plasma fireball engulfed all the auxiliary structures on the outside of the 005 protective cabin—the anti-thrust frame, the antifreeze layer, the sealing nozzles, the isolation reserve chamber, and the double-layer protective frame—all vaporizing within 0.01 seconds.

But the Devourer was not destroyed.

Because inertia has been stripped away.

The shockwave from the explosion struck the Devourer's hull without encountering any resistance from mass. It didn't need to "push" the 300 tons of steel—because at that moment, the Devourer lacked the inertial lock-in caused by mass.

The shockwave passed right through.

However, the kinetic energy is completely converted into thrust.

The Devourer gained acceleration far exceeding that of a nuclear bomb at the moment of the explosion in a way that defies the laws of physics. This is because acceleration equals force divided by mass—and at this moment, the concept of "inertial mass" does not exist.

The people in the carriage weren't crushed into a pulp. This was because the effect of the conceptual anchor permeated the entire train and everything on it—the inertia of all passengers was stripped away. They didn't feel any acceleration.

They only saw the scenery outside the window switching between frames.

The top layer of the Sky Rail disappeared. The edge of the Abyss disappeared.

Instead, a rock wall recedes rapidly upwards.

No—it's downwards.

The Devourer is plummeting toward the bottom of the abyss at an immeasurable speed.

It fell toward that dark golden giant hand.

The abyss radar image in front of the driver's seat hadn't updated in time; the pixels were still stuck on data from two seconds ago. The only still-functioning accelerometer displayed a meaningless symbol—out of range.

Wang Hu's mouth was open, but no sound came out. He glanced at the rapidly receding rock formations outside the window, then at Su Yuan.

Su Yuan's hand was still on the conceptual anchor point, and his eyes were looking straight ahead.

In the darkness ahead, the giant, dark gold hand rapidly enlarged.

K-002's fingers were still gripping the rock face. Sensing the approaching speed, its enormous hand loosened its grip on the rock face, its five fingers spread upwards—not to block, but to grab the train falling from the sky.

The rock-breaking drill of the Devourer was facing the dark gold palm.

Su Yuan released the conceptual anchor point 2.7 seconds after the 020 explosion.

Inertial regression.

At this moment, more than 300 tons of steel regained their mass. All the previously accumulated velocity and mass were recoupled, and the resulting kinetic energy was instantly concentrated at the contact point of the rock-breaking drill bit.

The Devourer pierced the palm of K-002 "The Forger" like an asteroid impact.

The sound disappeared.

It's not quiet—it's that sound waves don't have time to travel in the face of an impact of this magnitude.

The last thing Wang Hu saw was dark gold metal being torn apart like water from both sides of the drill bit. Then the entire control room was plunged into pure white.

I don't know how much time passed.

It could be a second. It could be a minute.

The emergency lights in the control room were turned back on.

Su Yuan's hand was still on the control stick. His forehead slammed against the edge of the console, drawing blood. The concept anchor point ended its protection of the occupants the instant of inertial regression; the final deceleration impact was still transmitted, but it was weakened to a tolerable level by the remaining shock-absorbing structure of the Devourer.

Wang Hu lay face down on the floor, the metal buckle of his seatbelt embedded in his ribs. He coughed up blood, struggled to sit up, and looked out the window.

It was dark outside the window.

It's not the kind of darkness in the abyss where there's "no light source." It's a kind of black with a physical texture—extremely fine, dark golden dust particles suspended in the air.

The Devourer has stopped.

The car body was embedded in a huge dent. The dent was made of dark gold metal, and steam was still rising from its surface. This was the wound formed after K-002's palm was pierced through.

Su Yuan wiped the blood from his forehead and glanced at the instrument panel.

The refining furnace is overloaded but has not exploded; the furnace core temperature is slowly decreasing.

Conceptual anchor point—Three fine cracks appeared on the surface of the gray cube, and the status light turned dim yellow, indicating: "Cooling down, unavailable."

Cargo compartment number 005 —

Su Yuan's pupils constricted slightly when he saw this line of data.

Cargo compartment number 005, condition: intact.

The fusion explosion generated by the 020 isolation chamber, at the instant the conceptual anchor took effect, did not cause any damage to the 005 cargo compartment itself. Only the external auxiliary protective structure was vaporized. The seals, outer walls, and interior of 005 remained intact.

K-001 is still inside.

Just as Su Yuan was about to retrieve more data, a loud, muffled thud came from the bottom of the abyss.

The entire dent in the dark gold palm trembled.

The radar fragmentedly recovered some of its functions, barely managing to piece together an image: K-002's giant hand had detached from the rock wall and collapsed to the bottom of the abyss. The middle section of the dark golden forearm had been pierced by the impact of the Devourer, leaving a hole more than thirty meters in diameter.

He's injured.

He didn't die.

The fingers are still moving.

Amidst the chaos, a faint, dark red light flickered again through the seal on compartment 005.

A sentence came from the will of K-001. There was no oppression, no hunger. It was very light, very faint, and carried a certain scrutiny.

"interesting."

Su Yuan looked up at the dark red glow emanating from compartment 005 in the rearview camera.

His hand returned to three centimeters above the conceptual anchor point, without touching it, but ready to be pressed down at any moment.

Within the three cracks on the gray square, a faint light, not belonging to any known spectrum, slowly flows.

Cooling.

The 020 isolation chamber was empty. The explosion had completely vaporized it, along with all its associated structures. The warden had vanished.

However, in the main console's communication logs, 020 sent out a very short encrypted message 0.003 seconds before its self-destruction.

Receiving direction—directly below.

The direction where K-002 is located.