Chapter 83
At the other end of the planetary day-night line, the sky is being torn apart by a strange ripple.
That wasn't fire, nor was it an energy storm; it was a collapse of an information layer.
The light curtain shattered on a scale visible to the naked eye, and the starry sky resembled a peeling canvas.
Beneath the broken textures, a faint outline woven from black roots could be seen—
Like a living network, it is eroding the logical layers of the entire world.
"The third mother tree... has been activated."
Sprout 12's voice was so low it was almost inaudible.
She stared at the red warning line flashing on the dashboard.
Those coordinates, which originally corresponded to cities, bases, and defenses, are now being swallowed up one by one.
237 silently watched the outside world.
Since escaping from the Sky Tower, his right palm has never calmed down.
The black crystal core was now shimmering slightly beneath the skin.
The pulse was synchronized with his heartbeat—as if it were breathing for him.
“What is it responding to?” Sprout12 noticed something was wrong.
"That thing inside you... is resonating."
237 raised his hand, and the mark on his palm emitted a faint light.
It projects complex geometric structures—the remnants of the old divine system.
At the geometric center, a short message flashed repeatedly:
[Root system reconstruction in progress...]
[The boundary demarcation is almost complete...]
The world is being redrawn.
At this time, monitoring satellites in various parts of the Earth lost contact.
The city's communications were in chaos, with headquarters of different factions receiving strange broadcasts at the same time:
"The third root domain has grown. The old order will return to the root."
"Those who choose to submit will gain a perpetual life form."
A high-level meeting was forced to be convened.
The leaders and research teams who survived the second encirclement gathered in the same virtual circle.
The holographic projection flickered, and an atmosphere of impending rupture filled the air.
"Is this the enemy we must fight against? It can reorganize everything—even death!"
"That's temptation, not salvation. It wants our will!"
"But the old god system has collapsed. The Mother Tree is now the only source of order!"
"Order? That's parasitic! It will devour the freedom of the entire world—including you!"
The argument continued, a mixture of reason and fear.
Amidst all the arguments, the only silence came from 237 in the corner of the screen.
He did not speak.
I simply closed my eyes slowly, feeling the pulse in my palms become clearer and clearer.
That wasn't external energy, but a kind of "summoning"—
It comes from a consciousness far beyond the stars.
—The voice rang out again, deep, ancient, and carrying a kind of gentle judgment.
"You are the remnant vessel."
Fear not, return.
The roots are calling you—to complete the unfinished cycle.
He opened his eyes, his pupils reflecting distorted light.
Meanwhile, Sprout 12, who was standing to the side, was watching him and asked softly, "You... heard it again, didn't you?"
237 nodded slightly.
“It wants me to go back. But I know—it’s more than just a call.”
He paused for a moment, his fingertips trembling slightly, and added in a low voice:
“That is the ‘true consciousness of the mother tree’—selecting a new successor.”
Sprout 12's expression darkened, her voice almost choked with emotion: "Then what will you do?"
237 looked out the porthole at the collapsing sky and the swallowed horizon.
"I will not be its successor."
"So you want to stop it?"
"I want to rewrite its loop."
The distant Black Root Network continues to expand under the starry sky.
Each root extends into a different layer of the world.
Like threads of fate, they intertwine between time and consciousness.
And at the center of that endless grid
A newly sprouted sapling of light quietly emerges—
That is the **"fourth possibility"** born from the energy resonance between 237 and Sprout 12.
The world is only just beginning to diverge.
The lights in the medical ward were a cold white, and the room was as still as a thin layer of ice.
237 lay half-reclined in the nutrient solution tank, the wound on its chest covered by a healing nanolayer, but each heartbeat still seemed to resonate with another rhythm.
Sprout 12 leaned against the bulkhead, his eyes still warm from the battlefield.
She could sense something was wrong with him—his aura was neither human nor a remnant of the rift.
It was a kind of "gaze" that transcended all languages.
"What did you dream about?" she finally asked.
237 did not answer. His breath hitched slightly behind his mask, as if something was crossing the boundaries of his consciousness for a moment.
He saw—a shapeless light, and a voice whispering within it:
"Did you hear that...? Come back to our side...it's rotting over there."
The voice was both a gentle call and a seductive allure from the abyss.
He suddenly opened his eyes, the lights dimmed instantly, and the monitoring screen flickered.
Sprout 12 reached out to stop the automatic alarm system, staring at him and whispering:
"That's not a hallucination, right?"
237 slowly sat up, his expression complex.
"If I told you that something was calling to me—and that it wasn't hostile—would you believe me?"
Sprout 12's mechanical pupils contracted for a moment, and after a few seconds of silence, she answered softly:
“I believe it. Because I heard it before the final eruption. Like… a bell tolling simultaneously across all levels of consciousness.”
The two looked at each other.
Outside the cabin, the command was engaged in a heated debate about the "third force"—defection, resistance, research—all voices clashing and intertwining.
Inside the cabin, there was only silence and secret shared by the two of them.
237 Low Channel:
"Don't tell anyone. That's not something they can understand right now."
Sprout 12 nodded slightly, her tone carrying a certain resoluteness:
“Then let’s keep this secret together. Until—that ‘superior being’ speaks again.”
The cabin light flickered, as if in response to their oath.
A low-frequency resonance could be heard from afar, as if the energy layer of the entire base was also vibrating slightly.
Something is gazing at them from the other side.
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