Cold, sticky, and dead silent.
Falling.
Pei Du's heavy steel remains, like a coffin cast into a cosmic grave, tumbled and sank in the lightless abyss. Powerful updrafts, swirling with the stench of metal dust and rust, tore at the seams in his armor, emitting a shrill wail like the wailing of a ghost. Inside his helmet, his vision was completely obscured by the crimson free-fall alarm. The sharp buzzing and the raging energy storm within his body clashed like two blunt saws, repeatedly slicing at his remaining consciousness.
Only below.
That point of dark golden light that stubbornly lit up in the absolute darkness was like the only star visible in the eyes of a drowning person, rapidly enlarging and condensing in the rapidly falling vision!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
A heavy, slow roar, like the beating heart of an ancient Titan, was now imminent! Each "boom" was like an invisible hammer slamming down upon Pei Du's soul barrier! The walls of the metal tunnel trembled and groaned violently in the terrifying resonance of this heartbeat. The thick rust accumulated over millions of years peeled off like black blood scabs, swept upward by the powerful airflow into the void.
As the distance rapidly closed, the outline of the dark golden light source finally became clear—
It was not a point, but an indescribably huge vortex composed of countless flowing dark golden geometric runes!
It hovered at the very bottom of the abyss, like a slowly rotating, cold, and sacred metallic nebula! Countless fine, dark-golden, shimmering chains of laws flowed within the vortex, intertwining, annihilating, and reborn, forming a majestic existence transcending physical form, constructed purely of energy and information! At the center of the vortex lay an absolute dark singularity, from which every heavy heartbeat originated! This vortex emanated a powerful gravitational field, like an invisible arm, pulling Pei Du's rapidly falling body!
The Ark Core! The embodiment of the last spark of ancient human civilization! The key's destination!
[Warning! High-dimensional energy field...intensity...exceeds the threshold...!]
[The remnants of the Starry Sky Law...resonate...violently...!]
[Energy core... critical overload...! ]
[The Will of Entropy…Activity…Breaking through the limit…! Taking over the risk…99.999%…!]
Like a death countdown, the cold alarm frantically flashed across Pei Du's chaotic mind! Within him, the dormant, icy ancient will, stimulated by the majestic aura of the dark golden vortex, fully awakened! It ceased to be a whisper, but instead transformed into a greedy roar filled with an all-consuming desire, frantically attacking Pei Du's remaining barrier of will!
[The source...power...returns...to...entropy!]
[Container...sacrifice...! ]
Pei Du felt as if his head was about to burst from within by an invisible force! The remaining structure of the Starry Sky Law wailed as it was on the verge of breaking under the erosion of Entropy's will! The forcibly stitched steel body trembled violently under the terrifying pressure from both inside and outside. Dazzling sparks erupted from the joints of the thick armor plates, and the leakage of life-support fluid was like a gushing blood!
"Aa ...
He was getting closer and closer to the dark golden vortex! The powerful gravity pulled him down, and his falling speed reached its peak! The dark golden runes spinning below him were like an icy sea of stars, exuding a suffocating majesty and... a fatal temptation! As if by immersing himself in it, he could gain power and be freed from pain!
No! I cannot be devoured! I cannot let the will of entropy prevail!
The cold and weak fragment of Xu Shuangyao's thought before it finally dissipated - "The key... is... in... your... heartbeat..." - was like an ice cone, piercing fiercely into the chaos on the verge of collapse!
Heartbeat? Ark's heartbeat? Or...his own heartbeat?!
Live! Control it! This thought was like a raging fire suddenly ignited on the dark ice field, with a determination to burn everything, dispelling some of the corrosive coldness!
Just when his broken body was about to be completely swallowed by the rotating dark gold vortex!
Buzz——!!!
An unprecedented, cold and precise stream of commands did not come from the helmet system, but burst out directly from the deepest part of his shattered core - the cold nothingness left behind by the complete dissipation of the Crimson Key - without any warning!
[Detection… Target… Ark Core… “Heart of Origin”…]
[Authority…Traceability…Related Persons…"Frost"…Supreme Order…Override…!]
[Protocol...Final...Watch...Start...!]
【Command...Received...Core...Resonance...!】
It was Xu Shuangyao! Before she completely vanished, at the cost of her own existence, she had branded the very depths of his soul with the final, final, protective program! A supreme, icy command directed toward the core of the Ark!
The moment this command appeared, the violently conflicting energy field in Pei Du's body, the remnants of the starry sky law on the verge of shattering, seemed to have found their backbone! It was like hundreds of millions of scattered soldiers being instantly gathered by the general's flag!
boom!
A weak but extremely pure force of the Starry Sky Law, carrying the icy aura of Xu Shuangyao, mixed with Pei Du's own remaining will, forcibly broke through the suppression of Entropy's will. Like a precise key, it instantly established some kind of mysterious connection with the rotating dark gold vortex below - the core of the Ark, the "Heart of Origin"!
Buzz!
The rotating dark gold vortex suddenly stopped!
An indescribable, icy will, as vast as the cosmic sea of stars, followed this link, instantly flowing back upwards, fiercely pouring into Pei Du's core consciousness! This will was ancient, vast, carrying with it endless vicissitudes of life and an inhuman, absolutely rational coldness! It wasn't an attack, but a kind of... scan! A supremely authorized... identity verification!
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