From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 714 Dead Space

Xiao Qiang's voice didn't rise, but against the backdrop of the roaring fire lake and gushing lava, it was exceptionally clear.

The adjutant frowned, a hint of wariness flashing in his eyes: "Sir, you suspect that this isn't some large-scale planetary project, but something far more dangerous?"

Xiaoqiang did not answer immediately.

He simply continued to gaze at the colossal ship suspended alone in the starry sky, his gaze cold and stern.

The drone's camera swept across the ship's surface, each crack and each scratch seeming to whisper some forgotten secret.

“In any case,” he said in a low voice, “the existence of that ship is enough to change our human understanding of this world.”

He then turned to his adjutant and gave a brief order: "Have the drones continue to probe and try to scan the bridge and other areas to confirm whether there are any signs of life or residual energy signals."

"Yes, sir."

The adjutant immediately responded and issued new investigation orders.

In the distant sky, the deathly giant ship still floated silently, like a sleeping ancient beast, forced to maintain a dying world with chains of blue light.

Its silent silhouette, reflected at the boundary between the blazing fire and the pitch-black void, carries an unsettling sense of oppression.

Every scout who crossed the portal understood that this was not only the destruction of a planet, but also a sign of the manifestation of some unknown force.

A thought gradually emerged in Xiaoqiang's mind: if the Empire were to step into this universe, it would likely face a long-buried catastrophe.

Not long after, on Earth in the main universe, inside the meditation hall deep within the Imperial Palace.

Inside the magnificent palace, the dome was as black as the night sky, while the more than 10,000 psionic crystals embedded in it emitted a faint light, like stars adorning the space, creating a serene and solemn atmosphere.

The golden throne sits high in the center, as massive as a mountain, radiating an undeniable aura of power and divinity.

Sui Yang was already seated on it, his face calm, his eyes seemingly able to see through everything from ancient times to the present.

That majesty wasn't deliberately displayed, but flowed naturally, making the air in the entire palace seem to freeze.

Ap and Melissa stood solemnly before the steps below the throne.

As always, their figures were aloof and upright, their tone unhurried, yet carrying a heavy message.

“Your Majesty,” Ap spoke, his voice echoing in the hall, “the situation on the other side of the Zero Space Gate has been preliminarily confirmed.”

The planet's environment is extremely harsh, with its surface covered in volcanic ash and radioactive dust, resembling a desolate inferno.

More importantly, the reconnaissance unit's orbital drones transmitted images that revealed an engineering vessel suspected to be from the 20th Universe.

Its energy beams are restraining and holding the torn planet in place, preventing its complete collapse but leaving it teetering on the brink of destruction.

As Apu spoke, multiple hard light holographic screens slowly appeared in front of Sui Yang.

Cool-toned light particles spread out in mid-air, illuminating the planet on the verge of collapse.

On the screen, the planet's massive crack resembles an angry wound, emitting a faint glow of lava, while several beams of blue-green energy firmly bind the fractured crust.

The ship, about 1,700 meters long, was the source of the beam of light, yet it appeared lifeless.

The bridge was completely dark, like a steel corpse floating in the void.

Melissa also spoke, her voice even lower than Ap's: "Your Majesty, based on the advice of Lieutenant General Gary Sanderson (Little Strong), the frontline commander, the reconnaissance forces have put forward a plan."

He argued that the Ministry of Engineering should dispatch a planetary-level engineering vessel across the space gate to take over the stabilization and repair work on the planet, in order to prevent the space gate transmission node from suffering irreversible damage due to planetary disintegration.

The holographic data rapidly switched, presenting complex parameters such as planetary gravitational fields, energy fluctuations, and spatial stability. The fluctuating data curves highlighted the perilous situation.

"."

Sui Yang stared at the data, his expression calm, yet he exuded an invisible pressure.

His gaze shifted to Ap and Melissa, his left hand slightly raised, the movement slow and gentle, as if containing an irreversible power.

“Gary Sanderson’s proposal is approved.”

Sui Yang's voice was equally deep, like the roar of iron stones, or the sound of a judgment falling, "The Engineering Department shall immediately dispatch a planetary-level engineering ship to cross the Second Zero Space Gate, take full control of and stabilize the target planet. If it is not repaired in time, the node of the space gate will lose its anchor."

"As ordered."

Melissa lowered her head slightly, her tone flat, yet conveying a decisive and efficient manner.

As soon as the order was given, the map on the holographic screen was updated immediately, and the new mission flow and fleet scheduling plan were marked.

In the meditation hall, light and shadow intertwined, as if a vast universe was slowly unfolding before Sui Yang.

However, Sui Yang did not immediately look away.

Although he remained calm, a subtle, unfathomable depth appeared in his eyes as he gazed at the strange engineering vessel.

"."

The planet, torn apart yet barely held together, was like a dying beast being forced to continue breathing by external forces. The lifeless ships, with their familiar outlines and energy structures, cast a shadow over Sui Yang's mind.

He closed his eyes slightly, and an ancient memory surfaced from the depths of his consciousness.

That was one of the horror masterpieces he had visited and browsed before his time travel, namely "Dead Space".

That universe is not merely a realm of technological civilization, but a cursed land harboring ancient god relics and forbidden runes.

Planetary tearing, resource extraction, levitating giant ships, and eerie silence—all these features serve as alarm bells, pointing directly to that terrifying dimension filled with madness and bizarre phenomena.

As for the human ships on that stable planet, they are probably even more famous.
Ishimura No.

Dead Space is a universe he never personally experienced, but which he "touched" through countless nights of reading, playing, and through images and simulations.

To be honest, before he time-traveled, in the early days of smartphones, after Sui Yang got his first smartphone, he downloaded many games that were optimized and simplified for smartphone systems by game developers, including "Dead Space: Mobile".

That was also Sui Yang's first time experiencing the Dead Space game series; before that, he had only watched related animated films.

Dead Space Mobile was a game that left a shadow on the young Sui Yang, causing him to have recurring nightmares. At that time, he only dared to play it in his dormitory and when his classmates gathered.

The Ishimura-class destroyer, with its hull inlaid with mining platforms and energy networks, resembles a colossal steel beast that devours the heavens and the earth. Its name has long been etched in the prefaces of countless horror stories.

Sui Yang knew that the Shicun was more than just an engineering vessel.

It also represents the core contradiction of that game universe, or rather, that parallel universe—

Human greed and blind exploration of the unknown.

Because deep within that void, what slumbers is not merely resources and mineral deposits, but something far more ancient and mysterious—a mark, or a divine seal.

In Sui Yang's memory, those divine seals appeared as bizarre runic stone tablets, seemingly originating from an ancient alien civilization, possessing the power to distort minds and modify life. Their existence was like a malignant tumor implanted into the bloodline of civilization, inducing religious fanaticism, scientific distortion, and even bizarre biological evolution.

Any human who gets close to the divine seal will gradually lose their mind, followed by hallucinations, whispers, and madness, ultimately leading them to the abyss of death and rebirth.

And this is the most terrifying aspect of Dead Space: the dead are brought back to life, but no longer belong to humanity.

In Sui Yang's heart, images of those grotesque creatures pieced together from flesh and blood, and even steel, surfaced.

They are no longer single life forms, but rather aggregates of corpses forcibly pieced together and altered.

The limbs twisted and stretched at impossible angles, the bones pierced the skin and became sharp weapons, and the howl from the throat was no longer pain, but a kind of ecstatic desecration of life.

These monsters are known as corpse variants.

He clearly remembered that the appearance of these corpse variants was not accidental, but rather the "will" of the divine seal.

In Dead Space, death no longer signifies the end, but rather reorganization and regeneration, returning in the form of an alien.

Entire ships and entire colonies could be completely overrun within days.

It was a more chilling terror than that of ordinary Zerg or low-level demons; there were no battle cries, no legions, only silence, whispers, and a gradually spreading madness.

Sui Yang's gaze turned cold in the shadows within the meditation hall.

Compared to the Zerg's natural disasters that sweep away everything with their collective instincts, the universe of Dead Space is more secretive and more insidious.

Its destruction does not begin with war, but rather with the erosion of the mind and soul, before turning flesh and blood into weapons.

Ta, tap.

Sui Yang's fingertips tapped lightly on the armrest of the throne. The meditation hall was silent, with only the light and shadow projected from the hard light holographic screen illuminating his face.

He slowly exhaled, and his deduction gradually took shape—

If the engineering ship of the 20th human race is indeed the Ishimura, then the planet on the other side of the space gate must be Aegis 7.

This judgment stemmed from his memories of playing the game.

The Ishimura incident in 2508 AD is the most terrifying prologue to the Dead Space universe.

Sui Yang mentally revisited this period of history, as if flipping through an ancient yet familiar taboo file.

Aegis 7 was originally an Earth-like planet in the Aegis system with extremely abundant resources.

At that time, Harmony Mining Company had developed planetary pyrolysis technology to its extreme. Their products, such as the Ishimura spacecraft, were symbols of this frenzied industrialization.

However, behind the scenes of Harmony Mining Company's top management lurks an even more dangerous force.
Unification Church.

This religious sect believes that the divine seal is the key to eternity and ascension. After learning that the Aegis 7 might contain the "Red Divine Seal," they pushed the company to send the Ishimura to carry out an illegal mining operation that was not permitted.

It was not just an economic adventure, but a complete catastrophe.

He recalled that before the Ishimura arrived, there were unusual signs in the colony of Aegis 7.

The engineering staff suffered from widespread insomnia, mental confusion, and even dementia and violent incidents.

In the end, more than fifty people committed suicide, which shows that the colonists did not simply suffer from psychological breakdown, but that the whispers and hallucinations of the "Red Seal" began to infiltrate human thinking.

What's even more terrifying is the true power of the divine seal.

In fact, 200 years before the Ishimura incident, the federal government of the Dead Space universe replicated the Divine Seal on Earth and successfully created a red Divine Seal belonging to humanity.

The federal government then deployed replicas of the three Seals to colonies far from Earth, on desolate planets such as Proxima Centauri, Gliese 581, and Aegis 7.

Two hundred years ago, when the research team on Aegis 7 attempted to activate the red divine seal, they created the first reconstructed microbes based on its "DNA instructions".

The situation spiraled out of control.

The necromancy variant thus emerged, and the researchers were instantly wiped out.

It was only then that humanity discovered that these divine seals could not only create corpse variants, but also absolutely control them, and that as long as one approached the core area of ​​the divine seal, the corpse variants would enter a dormant state.

Subsequently, the research base was completely engulfed by monsters transformed from flesh and steel, and these mutated corpses also formed a gigantic, aggregated organism known as the "Mastermind."

In addition, a series of subsequent failures led the Federal Government's Colonial Commission to establish Contingency Plan Five, which was the highest level of response mechanism the Federal Government could set up.

In the event of any incident related to the Divine Seal, all researchers will be considered traitors and must be executed immediately.

All research data must be completely destroyed;
After completing their mission, the armed forces implementing the contingency plan must also eliminate their own information to ensure that the information cannot be leaked.

As for the "brain" of Aegis 7, it fell into a deep sleep for the next 200 years until the arrival of the Ishimura.

The Mark of God, the Corpse, and any known enemy such as the Zerg or Chaos are unlike anything else.

The Zerg are a torrent of devouring, Chaos is the corruption of faith and power, and the threat of the Dead Space is the imminent destruction lurking behind the greed and obsession of civilization itself.

Sui Yang continued to deduce the timeline based on his memories from before he transmigrated.

In 2446 AD, the Ishimura, owned by Harmony Corporation, completed its maiden voyage, becoming the first true planetary breakup spaceship in human history.

With its gravity-assisted traction technology, it could hollow out a planet in just a few months, and the success of the Ishimura foreshadowed the later disaster.

In 2505 AD, the Harmony Corporation secretly established a colony in the Holy Shield system, paving the way for an upcoming large-scale mining operation.

In 2508, the Ishimura finally received orders to go to Aegis 7, which led to the cataclysmic event known as the Ishimura Incident.

The red sigil deployed on Aegis 7 was moved to the ship's warehouse, and the crew quickly fell into a mental breakdown. In the chaos, the captain still initiated the planetary disintegration procedure, causing a complete communication outage.

The mastermind, dormant for two centuries, awakens, unleashing a torrent of necromancy.

Colonial survivors escaped to orbit aboard an emergency spacecraft, but brought disaster to the Ishimura.

At this point, the entire engineering vessel was transformed into a silent inferno.

Sui Yang stared at the holographic image that appeared before him. The lifeless ship hung silently in the void of the alien universe. The cracks on its hull and the beams of light were extremely familiar.

Ishimura No.,

Holy Shield 7

Dead Space
However, these were merely Sui Yang's "childhood traumas." After roughly outlining the situation, he instructed Apu:

"Summon Sui Meng to the palace."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Upon receiving the instructions, Ap immediately summoned the Primarch, who had been waiting outside the Meditation Hall.
(End of this chapter)