The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The alloy door was as cold as a stone pressing on my chest.

Li Haotian's palm was pressed against the door panel. The rhythmic knocking was transmitted through the metal, initially as steady as a heart rate monitor—one knock after another, the intervals precise to the point of being almost mechanical. But the next second, the rhythm suddenly became disordered, as if someone had suddenly grabbed his heart and squeezed it hard.

Thump—thump thump—

The silver cocoon inside the door was no longer just "trembling," but began to pulsate in a real sense. The frequency increased, and the intensity changed accordingly. The alloy door itself began to bulge slightly, as if something inside was probing the outside world in a "living" way.

The corridor lights dimmed by one level in an instant.

It wasn't a power outage, but rather as if a portion of the light had been drawn away. The psionic particles in the air were pulled into fine streams, swirling inwards along the cracks in the safe house door. Li Haotian's eyelids twitched, and he pressed the control panel on the side of the door. The three layers of runes—gravity array, isolation array, and silence array—lit up simultaneously, like three invisible chains fastened to the skeleton of the entire villa.

But the pulsation still managed to penetrate through.

Even more bizarrely, along with the rhythm, a low-frequency mental echo spread out from inside the door, like a cat making an impatient, short meow from a great distance, but the timbre did not belong to the throat of any creature; rather, it scraped directly across the nerves.

"Meow--"

The sound waves are inaudible, but the consciousness hears them clearly.

Li Haotian's brow furrowed suddenly. The echo swept through every corner of the villa, like a bell tolling for the instincts of all the alien units. The next moment, the sound of claws scraping metal came from the ventilation vents in the basement, a low growl came from the direction of the training room, and even the alien dogs that were originally sleeping in the breeding area began to bang on their cages, the locks clanging loudly.

"Quiet down, all of you." Li Haotian's voice was low, yet it carried the authoritative force unique to his token.

He gripped the token tightly, and the ripples of authority spread out, like an invisible net covering the entire villa. The restless aliens paused for a moment, then still wanted to lie down and bow their heads, as if the silver cocoon inside the door was calling them to worship.

This is not an order, but a pull at the level of blood ties.

Li Haotian's eyes were dark and gloomy. He forcefully suppressed his authority and his instincts. A vein throbbed on his forehead, as if he were fighting against an invisible tide.

The sound of hurried footsteps came from behind.

Su Wan rushed over, her face paler than the corridor lights, wearing a coat: "What happened to it? Just now... I felt like I was scratched in the head."

"Don't come near." Li Haotian didn't turn around, but slammed his knuckles on the door. "Go back to your room."

Su Wan didn't move, her gaze passing over his shoulder, fixed on the array data flashing on the control panel. The gravity array's load was approaching the red line, and the isolation array's waveform was also showing abnormal oscillations.

She bit her lip: "You can't handle this alone. Let me in—at least I can provide some buffer."

Li Haotian sneered: "You think this is an IV drip? A buffer?"

Though his words were harsh, his hand didn't loosen; instead, he gripped the token even tighter. Silver Cocoon jumped even faster, its spiritual echoes resounding one after another, its low-frequency "meows" like waves crashing on the shore, carrying a kind of discontent and hunger like that of a young animal.

Su Wan took a deep breath and reached into her spatial box to retrieve a crystal core. The core was translucent, its interior seemingly encased in a flowing shimmer. She placed the core against the array's energy supply slot and whispered, "I'll only act as an energy cushion, preventing it from directly drawing external spiritual energy—you continue to control the permissions, I'll stabilize the array."

Li Haotian's eyes twitched slightly, but he still retorted, "Don't cause me any trouble."

Su Wan flicked her finger, guiding the crystal core energy into a thin layer of "liquid" flow, which slowly seeped into the energy supply lines. The red lines of the array receded slightly, and the oppressive feeling in the corridor lessened a bit.

But the next second, the silver cocoon inside the door seemed like a wild beast that had smelled blood—

Boom!

A powerful jump.

The indicator light on the safe house door instantly changed from flashing to a blinding white. Immediately afterwards, the patterns on the surface of the silver cocoon lit up in the observation screen of the isolation array: the fine silver lines, like a neural network, spread rapidly along the cocoon shell, with the brightness layered up, eventually forming a near-perfect ring structure.

The ring resembles an open eye.

Su Wan felt a chill in her palm as the energy from the crystal core in the power supply tank was abruptly drained, as fast as a reservoir being flooded. The crystal core visibly darkened, cracks creeping out from within, emitting a faint "click" sound.

"Stop!" Li Haotian finally turned around, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her back.

The crystal core almost shattered between her fingers. Su Wan gritted her teeth and forcibly cut off the guidance. The backlash from the energy circuit being abruptly severed made her chest tighten and a metallic taste rise in her throat.

She looked up, her voice trembling: "It's...eating. Not absorbing, it's—"

"I know." Li Haotian interrupted her, but his gaze deepened. He pressed the token against the door again, and the surge of authority was like a hammer hitting the surface of water, forcibly stabilizing the external spiritual energy flow.

However, at that very moment, the pulsation of the silver cocoon suddenly "matched" his authorized frequency.

It's like a heartbeat finding its resonance point.

thump—

Li Haotian's mind went blank for a moment, and his vision suddenly went black. It wasn't that he fainted, but rather that his consciousness was being pulled away from his body by some force, like being yanked out of a high-rise window and falling into a silent, deep well.

There was no light around, and no direction.

Only "lines".

Countless threads of law traverse the void, as fine as hair, yet bearing a suffocating weight of order. They intertwine and entwine, forming a vast and incomprehensible web. Each thread carries a different color and texture; some resemble cold metal, some burnt flames, and some are so transparent they are almost invisible.

And at the edge of that web of laws—something is gnawing.

The shadowy figure was small, like a fledgling, unformed beast. It had no clear outline, only a pair of deeper dark spots, like eyes, or two holes that could swallow light. It lay on a silvery-white line of law, its mouth open to bite.

There was no sound, yet you could "feel" the moment it was bitten off.

That wasn't destruction, it was devouring. The severed threads didn't return to the void, but instead seemed to be sucked into the shadowy body, transforming into a deeper dark current. The shadowy body's volume expanded slightly, and brief silver patterns appeared on its surface, like a mark of some kind of metamorphosis.

Li Haotian felt a chill run down his spine.

He recognized that "dark" aura—Little Black.

But this wasn't the familiar dog that always rubbed against his legs and snatched food. This little black one seemed to exist outside the rules, even treating the laws as food. Every time it took a bite, a small tremor would appear around the net, as if the whole world was being forced to adjust its balance.

"Child of the Void..." The word popped into his head out of nowhere, as if someone had stuffed the answer into his brain.

The next moment, Xiao Hei seemed to sense his "gaze," and the pair of dark dots slowly turned toward his location.

There was no hostility.

Only one type of larva has the instinctive recognition of a "familiar scent." Immediately afterward, that low-frequency "meow" sounded again—this time not in the villa, not in the air, but in the void, as if crossing some dimension, directly sending a "heartbeat response" to him.

thump.

Li Haotian's consciousness was suddenly jolted back.

He stumbled, his back slamming against the corridor wall, his breath coming in short gasps. The token in his palm was burning hot, as if it had just been pulled from a fire. Su Wan immediately steadied him: "What's wrong? Your eyes—"

"Shut up." Li Haotian's voice was hoarse. He raised his hand and pressed it to his forehead, as if trying to force that image back into his mind so that it wouldn't spill out.

The commotion in the villa persisted, but it was suppressed by his authority. The aliens' growls turned into muffled whimpers, like kneeling before an unseen throne. The silver cocoon inside the safe house slowed its pulsation slightly, but did not stop; instead, it seemed to stabilize after completing some kind of "first breath."

Su Wan looked at him, her eyes filled with both fear and stubbornness: "What did you see? You just... seemed to be pulled away."

Li Haotian remained silent for two seconds before coldly uttering, "It's undergoing a transformation. Stop feeding it with crystal cores—that's not feeding, that's sacrifice."

Su Wan subconsciously gripped the nearly shattered crystal core, her knuckles turning white: "Then what do we do? Keep it sealed? It will wake up eventually."

"If it wakes up, it wakes up." Li Haotian looked up at the alloy door, his gaze fixed on the flashing white light like a nail. "But before it wakes up, it should learn to obey."

He pressed the token close to the door panel, the authority extending in like a cold, hard chain, suppressing the urge to worship that wanted to spread, and also suppressing the inexplicable restlessness in his heart. In that instant, he felt unusually agitated—not towards the enemy, but towards the "uncontrollable."

The silver cocoon jumped again inside, as if in response to his attitude.

thump.

A low-frequency "meow" then spread out, with a slightly coquettish ending, yet it sent chills down one's spine.

Su Wan suppressed her discomfort and asked in a low voice, "Is it... calling you?"

Li Haotian's lips curled into a stiff smile, a smile that was both mocking and self-deprecating: "It doesn't matter who it's called. Don't think too highly of yourself."

After he finished speaking, he raised his hand and increased the intensity of the silence array again. The air in the corridor immediately became even thicker, as if even sound was being forced into the walls. The restless aliens gradually calmed down, leaving only occasional clawing sounds and panting, like ripples after the tide has receded.

The indicator light on the safe house door was still a piercing white, but it no longer flashed wildly; instead, it flickered at a stable frequency.

a bit.

Another one.

Like a heart learning to synchronize with the world.

Li Haotian stood in front of the door, his palm still pressed against the cold metal, his fingertips trembling slightly. He suppressed the trembling, his voice so low it was almost inaudible: "Xiao Hei, you better behave yourself... and don't cause me any trouble."

The silver cocoon inside the door trembled slightly.

It's like a response.

It also looks like it's smiling.