"Look... ahead..." The cold electronic voice carried a strange, almost commanding urgency.

Pei Du raised his head with difficulty and looked in the direction of the watchman's window.

Beyond this hill of metal debris, there lies a relatively open basin, also filled with huge metal debris and a filthy swamp. And in the very center of the basin, where countless collapsed megastructures stand like pilgrims, guarding the area—

A mountain!

A mountain of metal, composed of countless massive, heavy, ancient, and cold dark silver metal plates, seemed to have been forcibly squeezed, stacked, and welded together by an invisible giant hand! It was so massive that it dominated the entire field of vision, towering far above all the surrounding ruins, like the remains of an ancient Titan crawling on the wasteland! The surface of the mountain was covered with huge impact craters, bottomless lacerations, and hideous scars left by energy weapon bombardment, like the scars of cooled lava! The thick armor plates twisted and curled, revealing the complex maze-like metal skeleton and broken energy pipelines as thick as giant trees. Occasionally, faint dark blue arcs flickered at the broken ends of the pipelines, like the beating of a dying heart!

An indescribable, ancient, heavy, and imposing aura of endless vicissitudes and a cold sense of technology, like a tangible tide, rushed towards them from the direction of the giant metal mountain! This aura was so powerful that it even temporarily overwhelmed the annihilating fear brought by the all-consuming entropy black tide behind!

The Ark! The ultimate creation of ancient human civilization! The fortress that held the last flame! Though only these suffocatingly large wreckage remained, the sheer size and aura of the remains alone were enough to shock the soul!

On the side of the giant metal mountain facing them, near its base, a massive arched entrance, constructed from incredibly thick armor plating, loomed like the gaping throat of a giant beast, venturing into an unknown abyss. Faint, intermittent lines of dark blue energy flowed around its edges, like the last vestiges of blood flowing through the veins of a dying beast.

There! That's the core entrance to the Ark mentioned by the Watcher!

The way out! Right before our eyes!

However--

Buzz——!!!

The soul-freezing hum of entropy from behind instantly reached its climax! Like the final wail of billions of dying stars!

The sticky, all-consuming darkness had completely engulfed the back half of the hill of metal debris beneath their feet! Like a surging black tsunami, with an absolute, dead silence that annihilated everything, it slammed down upon the two tiny figures on the hilltop... fiercely!

Space twisted and folded violently before Pei Du's eyes! He could even "see" the metal debris that made up the hill lose all color and structure in an instant before being swallowed by darkness, silently turning into dust!

Death! Already behind us!

"Jump!" The electronic voice of the Watcher rang out inside Pei Du's helmet like a thunderclap! Cold and resolute!

In the billionth of a second before the black tsunami was about to engulf the mountaintop, the Watcher's clamp-like metal palm, which had grasped Pei Du's breastplate, erupted with unprecedented force! Instead of pushing Pei Du down the mountain, it used its heavy torso as a fulcrum and swung its single arm backwards!

An overwhelming force surged forth! Pei Du's heavy steel body, like a boulder hurled by a catapult, was involuntarily flung into the air, plummeting towards the basin below, towards the giant metal mountain, towards the dark arched entrance...

The last scene Pei Du saw, as his body was thrown into the air and his vision spun around, was forever etched in the depths of his consciousness, which was on the verge of collapse:

The broken metal watcher who was dragging the source box threw him away, then turned around suddenly and slammed the heavy source box beside him with his one arm!

Buzz——!!!

The side of the Essence box flipped open, and the dark blue Essence life-sustaining fluid, like ignited liquid explosives, instantly detonated at the Watcher's cold command! It wasn't an explosion, but rather a brilliant, dark blue energy shield composed of pure laws of order. Like a final wall of sighs, it firmly blocked the surging black tide of entropy!

Swish——!!!!!!

A piercing, terrifying noise, like billions of ice knives scraping against the crystal wall of the universe, erupted instantly!

The sticky darkness slammed fiercely into the dark blue shield! Order and chaos, existence and nothingness, at this moment, the most brutal and ultimate collision unfolded! The dark blue shield trembled violently, its light dimming at a visible speed, and its surface was instantly covered with gray-white cracks, representing the collapse of laws! The forward momentum of the entropy black tide was also abruptly blocked by this desperate barrier... for a moment!

At the moment the barrier formed, the viscous darkness of the Entropy Tide, as if enraged by this resistance, suddenly thrust out countless twisting, writhing dark tentacles condensed from the pure laws of Entropy! Like billions of ravenous venomous snakes, they ignored spatial distance and instantly entwined and pierced the Watcher's tattered dark silver armor!

No explosion, no sound.

The moment the Watcher's heavy metal body was entangled by the tentacles of darkness, it was like being thrown into a river where time had accelerated a billion times! The thick armor lost its luster at a visible rate, turning gray and decaying! The mud and rust covering its surface instantly turned to ash! The delicate structure within emitted a shrill groan, like the weathering of metal! Its crystal window, which had flashed a scarlet alarm light, was completely extinguished the moment it came into contact with the darkness. The window itself, as if weathered for a billion years, was instantly covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and then... it turned into fine gray dust and drifted away!

The matter, energy, and information that constitute its existence are being accelerated towards the end of heat death under the erosion of the law of entropy - complete and meaningless silence!

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!