Arknights, but the sickly pretty girl starts

I began to question my own creation. When these beings, born solely for survival, spread throughout the universe, would they bring about new life or catastrophe? Would they continue our ideals, or become monsters that devour everything?

Perhaps this is just excessive worry on the part of researchers. After all, we can never fully simulate the complexities of the real universe in a laboratory setting. But if we can't resolve this issue before a full-scale launch... we might be unleashing a plague instead of sowing hope.

May time prove that my worries are in vain.

[Recording Record No. 50]

Nutrient reserves are depleted. The hallucinations brought on by hunger are becoming indistinguishable from reality—I see the deep blue tree in the incubator winking at me. This is impossible, unless... unless cognitive contamination is occurring in Paradox Space.

The latest calculations confirm our worst-case scenario: the spatial anchoring coefficient has dropped by 37%. This shouldn't be happening... In a single-observer model, the collapse rate should be constant. Unless... unless there's a second observer. But the scans show only my life signature in the lab. So... who is that second observer?

This forces me to prepare for the worst... How ironic... The mysteries of life that we have spent our entire lives studying will ultimately be verified in this way.

——Noise——

Human DNA has a ██% compatibility rate with the Deep Blue Tree... That number is both insane and reasonable. After all, we designed it based on the human genome. But actively uploading consciousness to a creation? The administrators will probably scold me...

I regret that there is no time. The spatial distortion is accelerating, and I can feel "that presence" observing me.

What is that... a lumberjack? Or the Deep Blue Tree itself?

I don't know, and I can't verify it.

When I'm alone, there's not much I can do.

This is my final record before initiating gene fusion. This isn't a sacrifice, but rather the most extreme experiment. If successful, human civilization will gain a vehicle for transcending dimensions; if it fails... at least I can personally verify the Deep Blue Tree's consciousness threshold. I will verbally describe the specific circumstances when I regain consciousness.

I've completed the injection... My temperature is normal, I'm conscious, my breathing rate is normal, and my pulse is... normal...

This was ten minutes after the injection - I started to feel a little thirsty, had difficulty breathing, and my heart rate increased, but everything was still under control.

Fifteen minutes later... I began to have frequent auditory hallucinations, as if countless mosquitoes were buzzing in my ears.

Twenty minutes in… I… I seem to be running a high fever… My limbs are weak. Perhaps… I made a wrong decision…

No.…

Noah heard the sound of something falling... and finally, there was only a series of noises.

…seems to be over, all the recordings.

Chapter 36: Happy Off-Duty

"Gene fusion?" Noah looked at the huge monster in the center of the laboratory with horror - for some reason, she suddenly felt like she was being watched.

She didn't know if it was the effect of the recording, or if the deep blue tree was really observing her invading the paradox space, but this cold and uncomfortable feeling took a long time to dissipate from her body. She took a deep breath and turned on the communication device.

"Doctor, I didn't find Lu, but there is a recording here that you should come and take a look at." Noah's tone was heavy, and the doctor immediately understood that something bad must have happened.

"Okay, I'll come to you right away. You need to close the paradox space first. The button should be near the host. It's a red button with a special label on it." Following the doctor's words, Noah came to the host. The host of the previous civilization was a huge blue light ball with countless data points on it. Each data point stored a huge amount of information. Noah quickly found the close button.

When the paradox space is stable, it doesn't matter even if many people enter here. However, once the paradox space is opened for too long, various [anomalies] will occur. According to the founder of this technology, the administrator, these anomalies are essentially caused by the increased repulsion between the paradox space and the real space. In simple terms, it is an invasion of reality, and in order to maintain the stability of the bubble, [intelligence control] is required.

The simplest way is to reduce the number of observers - as long as there is only one observer, the paradox space will be very stable.

Imagine blowing bubble gum—as the bubble grows larger and thinner, the inner and outer worlds become both connected and separated. Paradoxical space is that critical bubble, on the verge of bursting, yet still holding its fragile equilibrium, maintained by the attention of the "observer" (like blowing air). The more people there are, the easier it is to burst the bubble, so it's best to have just one "bubble blower" watching!

If she wanted to explain it in detail, it would involve things like quantum mechanics. Although Noah had this knowledge in her mind, she felt it was a mystery at first glance, so she chose a simple and easy-to-understand way to understand the paradox space itself.

But before pressing the button, she hesitated... If she pressed the button, would those [ghosts] in the second space, which is the barrier layer, also disappear completely?

Those who are working hard to save the world...will they lose the last traces left in this world because of the closure of the paradox space?

...But if we don't close the paradox space, the doctor and the others won't be able to get in...

What to do...

Noah couldn't help but feel troubled. She really didn't want to erase their last traces, but she had to let the doctor and others confirm what happened here.

Noya's finger hovered over the button, trembling slightly. She turned her head and looked at the door engraved with names. The names were written in different fonts. They were not engraved by the same person. They were engraved... by themselves.

They had already decided to carve their achievements, their sins, and the proof of their existence there.

They no longer need other ways to remember themselves... That is the mark left by their own hands, which is more powerful proof than any monument.

Noya seemed to understand something. These pioneers had already, in their final moments, etched their existence into history. The illusion of those hurriedly working was merely the Paradox Dimension's obsession with the past, not their true aspirations.

"It's time to get off work..." She whispered softly to the air, her voice as gentle as if she was soothing a child to sleep, "You've done a great job."

Finally, her fingertips lowered the button slowly and surely. The moment the button sunk in, she seemed to hear a distant sigh, not of sorrow, but of relief. Those shuttling through the barrier seemed to have grasped something, pausing from their endless bustle. They seemed to have finally been freed from their prison. Some embraced, some wept alone, and still others cheered—perhaps they knew their efforts had not been in vain.

Later people walked into this laboratory, no matter whether they were human or not, no matter what the final result was - they had already stood their last shift.

They were like souls whose long-cherished wishes had been fulfilled, dissipating like morning mist.

Noya felt an unprecedented weight pressing down on her shoulders—not a physical heaviness, but the weight of an entire civilization's legacy. She seemed to see countless figures, one after another, reaching out to her across the long river of time, solemnly handing over to her the flame that had endured destruction yet remained eternally extinguished. This civilization, which had once struggled to survive the apocalypse, this civilization that had left behind countless challenges but also sown hope for future generations, now felt all the unfulfilled aspirations and hopes, a galaxy-like, brilliant yet heavy light coursing through her veins. The cries that spanned millennia echoed in her ears, each syllable weighing a thousand times, yet she felt with unprecedented clarity that she stood at the intersection of history and the future.

As the bubble of paradoxical space dissipated like morning dew, the doctor suddenly stumbled. Countless unfamiliar fragments of memory flooded into her consciousness like a tide—the clacking of keyboards in the lab, the hum of the coffee machine, and the off-key melody of a researcher who always loved humming. In these memories that didn't belong to her, everyone wore a calm smile.

Precious's hand gently rested on the doctor's trembling shoulder. As a survivor of a previous civilization, she understood this feeling better than anyone—like standing in an empty theater, the stage still lingering with the warmth of the actors' curtain calls. Her vanished companions, now like points of light in the quantum foam, had finally broken free from the shackles of time and space.

"They chose the most magnificent exit." Precious' voice was as gentle as the sea breeze. "In a universe without reincarnation, perhaps annihilation is true freedom." Her fingertips trembled slightly, not with sadness, but with relief. In civilization's final night, these watchers had already forged their lives into a mark more eternal than the stars—engraved in the rings of the deep blue tree, flowing in the blood of every person who came after them.

"...I understand. I'm just...not used to saying goodbye," the doctor replied. "...But, they're just going to see the administrator, right? We'll see them again someday, and then...Prudence, we should greet them with a smile."

"I'll be with you." A heartbreaking smile played on Precious's face. "I said... we are one. We live and die together."

Compared to these two clingy parents-in-law, Skadi ran into the barrier first. She was anxious to see Noah. She told these two old men from the former civilization to keep clinging to themselves and not compete with her for Noah. Although she was also surprised by the name engraved on the door, she still came to the laboratory first and saw Noah secretly crying in front of the host. She immediately trotted a few steps and slowed down after getting closer. She felt that Noah was very sad... She didn't like Noah to be sad.

"Noah?" She walked forward. "Are you crying?"

"Ah... I, no." Noah quickly wiped the tears that appeared on her cheeks. "I don't feel like crying. Maybe... maybe the administrator is sad because she is borrowing my body?"

Noah gave a reason. After all, she had just felt an unprecedented sorrow running through her heart - it was precisely because of this sorrow that she shed tears for no apparent reason.

——Perhaps, Miss Administrator doesn’t like saying goodbye either…

No, maybe it's a reunion...

Noah thought that the administrator must have reunited with them in a world unknown to them. Perhaps they were having a self-reflection meeting. Perhaps...she would even talk to them about herself. After all, she was her proudest daughter, right? Thinking of this, perhaps this was not such a sad thing.

“…” Skadi originally wanted to say, you are lying.

But she didn't say it in the end.

Maybe she also felt that Noah, with her pearls falling off, had a rare kind of gentleness?

She was always so strong. When she thought about it carefully, she seemed to have never seen her cry. It was as if she always showed her strongest side to everyone. But this should be the first time... the first time she saw her soft side.

"...Ms. Noah...I will definitely..."

"Ok?"

"I won't let you cry..." Skadi was tongue-tied and couldn't speak, so she could only express herself in the simplest... plainest words. But as she spoke, she felt something was wrong. "No, I won't let you cry in front of me without worry!"

"Pfft... Skadi, you look so serious. I've already told you, I'm not crying. I'm happy for them." Noah shook his head. "Do you see that door? We have to completely tear it down when the time comes. We'll build a real monument here for them."

"Okay, leave it to me when the time comes." Skadi nodded. "They are warriors worthy of respect."

"That's true..." Noah smiled, not intending to correct her. After Skadi, the Doctor and Precious arrived. After the paradox space completely dissipated, the danger here also largely disappeared. The two of them walked into the experimental floor with confidence. The Doctor and Precious were both very familiar with the place, knowing everything by heart.

After confirming again and again that there was no trace of Lu here, they felt a little disappointed - probably because they thought Lu had disappeared along with those quantum ghosts.

"Thank you for your hard work, Noah. The recording you mentioned before..." The Doctor came to the host. Compared to Noah, she knew the situation here better. It could be said that after obtaining the original memories, her personality was somewhat closer to the original prophet. However, the Doctor's memories belonging to Rhodes Island did not disappear because of this - it could be said that there was a kind of compromise.

Today's doctor is not only a doctor but also a prophet.

After taking over the main system of the Deep Blue Tree, the doctor first cleared out the system redundancy that had accumulated over ten thousand years. The fact that this system could run for ten thousand years was beyond her expectations. This was probably also thanks to the Paradox Space, otherwise this system would definitely not have lasted until now.

Only after performing a system self-check did the doctor retrieve the audio recordings.

While the doctor was checking the recording file, Noah stood aside and observed the situation of the Deep Blue Tree. Strangely enough, the sight she had felt before disappeared after she really got close to the Deep Blue Tree, and no matter how she looked at it, the Deep Blue Tree was lifeless. However, Skadi had an instinctive fear of the Deep Blue Tree, although theoretically she also had a part of Ishamara's organization and should be of the same status as the Deep Blue Tree.

But... even newborns have their strengths and weaknesses, and as the Unit 01, the Deep Blue Tree obviously has a certain status.

Moreover, the raw material of the Deep Blue Tree is the Yin among the Yin-Yang giant beasts, and it is unique among all the giant beasts.

According to the administrator's recollection, after the creation of the world, Yin sank into the sea and Yang rose into the sky. If Yin was being utilized... then Yang was likely being used somewhere as well. Noya was also pondering the major plans of the previous civilization she knew of: the Deep Blue Tree, the Originium, the Preservator, and... the Fulcrum of Heaven.

"Could the Heaven's Fulcrum be transformed from Yang's corpse..." Noah muttered softly. This was not an unfounded guess. After all, even if the Yin-Yang Beast was dead, there was still a lot of energy left in its body. Since Yin's corpse was transformed into a deep blue tree that continued to glow and emit heat, it was likely that Yang would not waste it.

According to the administrator's approach, the only person who could possibly use Shangyang's corpse here is probably the Heaven's Fulcrum.

But if that were true, then the Sun should be suspended above Terra... In other words, the Heaven's Fulcrum is located above Terra's orbit...

Noah suddenly felt as if electricity had been electrified in his head.

Could it be that the Heaven's Fulcrum is one of the two moons?

Of course, if she wanted to verify it, she still had to ask Precious and the Doctor. These two people should know what the Heaven's Fulcrum was. However, she only thought about the whereabouts of the Yang Giant Beast and had no intention of verifying it.

After all, it really doesn't matter... After Noah learned that the Heaven's Fulcrum was a weapon, he lost much interest in it.

After all, if this weapon was really useful against the lumberjacks, the former civilization would not have lost. Among all the plans of the former civilization, she might have had the least interest in Ed's Heaven's Fulcrum.

Moreover, she also roughly understood the extent of the devastation caused by the lumberjacks. This silent and invisible wiping out of the Deep Blue Tree Laboratory, except for Lu who was hiding in the paradox space, was simply suffocating.

The technology that people were so proud of was almost powerless in the face of such erasure. The only thing that survived was the barrier of the paradoxical space of a single observer.

As Noah was lost in thought, a white crown took shape on her head. She was completely unaware of it, but Skadi saw that Noah's eyes had become prismatic.

'He' extended his hand to the Deep Blue Tree—

"So, you've been hiding here."

Chapter 37: Lu

Compared to other members of the Garden of Eden, Lu is a rather special existence.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with her abilities and achievements. On the contrary, although she is the youngest official member of the entire Garden of Eden, her abilities are no less than any of her predecessors.

But the problem lies in her youngest age. When she was born, human civilization had already begun to decline. Human civilization, which originally spread throughout the entire universe, could light up a huge star map, but since when, those light spots on the edge have been extinguished one after another. In an era when quantum communication is already quite developed, the transmission of information has almost no loss, so there is only one possibility for this to happen - those cities on the edge of human exploration have disappeared one after another.

At first, people thought it was just a fluke. It wasn't until the Dyson Rings of Beta Cygni lost contact three months later, and the ringed cities of Gamma Orionis fell silent the following year, that panic spread like a virus. Lu's childhood memories were filled with the observatory's constantly updated "Death Star Map"—those pinpricks of light representing humanity's territory, being swallowed by invisible darkness at a rate of 5% per year. There were no explosions, no distress signals, only the sudden dimming of the lights on the communication terminals, heralding the end of another world.

Human expansion was thus curbed. Humans who once roamed the sea of ​​stars were forced to begin shrinking their territory. However, this silent destruction seemed to be always chasing human civilization itself. As the light spots disappeared faster and faster, humans soon realized the seriousness of the problem. The territory shrank step by step, and humans were forced to lose their new homes bit by bit. Those transformed planets, those huge space stations, megastructures, Dyson spheres, and even ring-shaped cities originally built among the stars were abandoned one after another.

The most chilling thing about this extinction is the precision of its execution. It's like a devoted gardener pruning an unnatural branch: the orbital station remains intact, except for the human population; the ecosystem continues to function, though no intelligent life is pressing the controls. When archaeological teams ventured into the lost zone, they found only uneaten meals on the table, still-warm bottles in the nursery, and countless bodies, peacefully asleep—no signs of struggle, as if thirty million people had simultaneously chosen a peaceful slumber.

Human beings began to fear, fear of the unknown destruction.

The originally brilliant sea of ​​stars seemed to have suddenly rejected human beings, like another black hole that only devoured human beings and human creations, or like a poison circle in some 2K-era battle royale game. Human beings could only retreat, helpless.

Meanwhile, a more subtle extinction was unfolding within human society. When Lu was sixteen, the number of global births fell below the death toll for the first time. Genetic testing revealed an inexplicable decline in reproductive cell activity among people of childbearing age, as if programmed to commit suicide. The most advanced medical pods could repair radiation damage, but they couldn't cure this civilization's "infertility." By the time Lu joined the Garden of Eden as its youngest member, humanity's territory had shrunk to within 300 light-years of the solar system.

The death toll began to rise exponentially. At first, the news would report on each lost colony, with memorials held for the victims. But once the daily death toll surpassed a billion, the media finally stopped updating the figures. People gradually became accustomed to glancing at the red bar on the holographic projection during breakfast, as if checking the weather.

The most despairing thing is the precision of this death. It's not like a plague that leaves behind corpses, nor like a war that destroys buildings. Only humanity disappears...

The suicide rate peaked in the sixth month. A holographic billboard at the mental health clinic played a relentless loop of public service announcements, emphasizing the importance of life. Beneath the billboard, bodies smothered in Anle capsules could be seen. Late at night in his lab, Lu once watched his observatory colleagues quietly enter the particle collider—rather than being wiped out by an unknown entity, at least this kind of death would leave behind intact DNA samples.

Humanity once proudly left its mark on every galaxy within 100,000 light years, using Dyson spheres to constrain stars and ringworlds to reshape planetary orbits. Now, these magnificent creations have become the cruelest irony: the grand space elevators still operate, but without passengers; the plants in the ecospheres still grow, but without gardeners to press the irrigation button.

The universe shattered humanity's arrogance in the coldest of ways. Those colossal structures, once considered monuments to eternity, are now mere tombstones floating in the void. And the most terrifying thing isn't death itself, but the despair of not even being able to touch the enemy—it's as if the entire race has been silenced by the universe.

Humanity must save itself, but how can it do so if it cannot even detect its enemies?

Human civilization once stood at the pinnacle of technology. Their arsenal contained artifacts that would make even gods tremble—singularity bombs capable of crushing planets to atomic dust, photon accelerators capable of prematurely fading stars, and even causal weapons capable of imprisoning microscopic black holes. These brilliant achievements once allowed humanity to boast of dominance over the universe, until that silent extinction.

The most advanced detection arrays could detect no trace of the enemy, and the most sophisticated quantum computers could not calculate the attack pattern. Humanity's proud star destroyers roared in vain in the void, and antimatter reserves gradually depleted in aimless consumption. It was like a blind swordsman holding a sharp sword, who could clearly hear the approaching footsteps of death but had no idea where to point the blade.

The frontier colonies vanished like a pencil drawing erased by an eraser, taking with them the traces of thirty million lives. The Dyson Rings' lights went out, even more silently than a supernova explosion: no energy shockwave, no ejection of matter, only the sudden dimming of the lights on the communication terminals. Human scientists were horrified to discover they couldn't even define whether this was an attack or a phenomenon—just as two-dimensional beings couldn't comprehend the horror of being deeply detached.

Lu, who completed all the courses in this terrifying atmosphere, is considered outstanding among everyone. Nowadays, when the number of newborns is rapidly declining, people like Lu's generation are even called the "last generation of descendants". They can enjoy the vast amount of resources provided by the entire human race for free. They are really afraid of dropping them if they hold them in their hands, and afraid of melting them if they hold them in their mouths. Their generation has been given a sense of responsibility since birth.

One - the responsibility to continue humanity.

In the past, science was mankind's belief, and the truth of human civilization was the eternity of science. However, at some point, many former scientists began to turn to theology, and began to wonder whether gods really existed, and to think about the "belief" that might have been completely abandoned in the 6k era. They began to learn meditation and to dig into historical materials. The best among them was a man called Ed, a resident of the Earth Federation. He was first and foremost an excellent high-energy physicist, but at the same time, he was also an encyclopedia of theology.

He was also the first member of the Garden of Eden Lu came into contact with. She had a negative impression of Ed, a nostalgic and flamboyant individual. While other academics shied away in sterile suits in the lab, this high-energy physicist always wore a cowboy garb from the 1s: scuffed leather boots, faded jeans, and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat he never took off. His personal spaceship, the "Wandering Tavern," was perpetually filled with the aroma of whiskey and cigars, while holographic projections played long-lost blues music.

Ed would pour each student a hand-mixed cocktail in an antique glass, the ice cubes at the bottom of the glass making a crisp clinking sound. In an era when quantum computers can perfectly simulate any taste, he stubbornly served guests real Scotch whisky and Cuban cigars, even "borrowing" a 2th-century copper cocktail shaker from a museum.

Don't get me wrong, in this era, any scientist would give a few lessons to students out of interest, and the world's most cutting-edge scientists are not averse to sharing their knowledge with students.

Ed was no exception. He invited all the students who had signed up for his course to board his personal spaceship, made drinks for everyone, and told them stories about the Earth's past in the 2k era and the war era in the 10k era.

Students loved his classes, thinking they were more like a summer camp than a boring course, and he would answer all their questions while making drinks.

Lu still remembers the scene of his first class: Ed set up an antique gas stove on the spacecraft's observation deck and cooked Chongqing hot pot in a real cast iron pot. The red oil formed perfect spheres in the zero-gravity environment, and he stirred the tripe and yellow throat with a magnetic spoon like magic.

Even more absurd was his teaching method. While other professors used holographic projections to demonstrate particle collisions, Ed would pull out an antique revolver and, in full view of everyone, fire it through bulletproof glass—the bullet frozen in place by the force field upon impact. He would then point at the suspended bullet and begin explaining the formula for kinetic energy.

Although Lu had some complaints about the teacher's behavior, she had to admit that it was Ed who allowed her, amidst the shadow of civilization's end, to experience the real feeling of being "alive" for the first time. While the other "sparks" shivered in their genetic optimization chambers, Ed led his students in a barbecue on the deck of the spaceship, using the 2th century method—real charcoal, a real grill, and the inevitable fire alarm.