The voice from the abyss—its "Why"—fell like a hammer upon every soul.It was not a question.It was an accusation.A condensation of ancient anguish, dragging all who heard it into boundless despair and unbearable guilt.
Silence.Deathly silence.
Then, Sig loosed a guttural roar, like a beast driven mad, nearly raising his weapon against that formless agony.Elena collapsed to her knees, tears spilling soundlessly.Wang Jing's fingers froze upon the console, his mind drowned to blankness beneath the flood of sorrow.
Only Li Chenyuan remained standing.His face was pale as carved marble, but his gaze—after quaking—settled into a clarity so sharp it bordered on cruelty.He understood.This was not the war's end.This was its true form: the judgment of their own sins.
"…Answer it."His voice was raw, but it pierced the crushing weight, carried cleanly to every ear.
"What?" Wang Jing spun around, disbelief etched across his face.
"Answer it!" Li Chenyuan repeated, eyes blazing as he swept across them all, before fixing upon that colossal visage woven of suffering."With our existence—answer it!"
He moved first.Not with a weapon, but with a step.Slow, arduous, deliberate.He closed his eyes—not to reject—but to sink wholly into the abyssal grief. And then he cast his purest intent, not words but willingness—understanding, and the resolve to bear it—into that unseen depth, like a stone dropped into still waters.
We hear you.That was his silent reply.
Zero Station.
On the monitors, Lu Xingze watched Su Xiaolan's vital signs collapse toward their limits. Blood veined his eyes. He knew: she was both channel and amplifier.
"Don't use it for defense—strengthen her!" he shouted at the technicians, his voice trembling with resolve."Make her the resonator—not for her to endure alone, but for us—through her—to bear this weight!"
It was a wager with everything left of humanity.Could their collective emotions stand against the darkness birthed by themselves, festering through untold ages?
Within Corona Borealis.Guided by Li Chenyuan, the survivors one by one closed their eyes.
The engineer recalled the design he never completed.The soldier, the comrade he failed to protect.The scientist, the warnings he ignored.
They did not flee from pain or regret.They lifted them—together with the smallest flickers of hope, of tenderness—and poured them into the resonance web Su Xiaolan now upheld.
It was no longer attack, nor defense.It was a collective confession. A return of feeling.
Elena's lips shaped a lullaby, shattered yet soothing, a relic of a golden age.Sig lowered his weapon, arms spread as though to embrace the unseen flood, whispering in his heart: Rest, if you are weary.Wang Jing uploaded all—achievements and betrayals, dreams and terrors—without reserve, as if in sacrifice.
The grey tide boiled.The face of pain writhed, destabilized—shaken by this wholly alien thing: response.
It was no longer pouring anguish outward.It was receiving.Receiving understanding.Receiving apology.Receiving the frail yet undeniable spark of love.
In her medical pod, Su Xiaolan exhaled the faintest sigh. The convulsions ceased. Her face remained bloodless, but at her lips curved the barest, peaceful arc.
In that moment her consciousness became bridge, spanning two worlds long shattered.
"…safe…""…calm…""…you… are not… alone…"
Her voice, joined with the survivors' thoughts and the waning cries within the tide, interwove into a single chord.
The congealed grey flood began to move.Not as a devouring torrent, but like the ebb of the sea, retreating softly, slowly.The twisted faces smoothed, blurred, and dissolved. The walls they had covered reemerged—scarred, but real.
Debris and dust, once suspended in frozen stillness, clattered down in brittle cascades.Time resumed.
And light—no longer the Cradle's pale glow, but starlight—filtered once more through the broken dome. After ages, it touched the hall, settling on falling motes of dust, and on faces streaked with tears.
The grey tide did not vanish.It withdrew into shadow, dormant, like a wound finally soothed.No longer a threat—yet forever a memory, heavy, to be borne together.
Li Chenyuan stood where he was. Sunlight outlined his weary silhouette. Slowly, he released his clenched fist.
Wang Jing collapsed at the console, tears unvoiced.Elena leaned upon Sig's massive arm.No one cheered. Only silence—laden with grief and release.
Through the comm, Lu Xingze's voice came hoarse but steady:"Zero Station… stable. Xiaolan… vital signs stable. She's asleep."
[Final Chapter]
Years later.The breach in Corona Borealis had been patched. Sunlight streamed through new alloys, bathing a greenhouse where seedlings pushed through the soil.
On the watchtower, Li Chenyuan looked out. Far across the horizon lay that vast, grey expanse—silent, motionless, like mountains in eternal slumber.
Wang Jing approached, carrying a report."It's stable. Energy inside trending calm. At the fringes, we… found something." He handed over a photo.
Clusters of crystals, never before seen, growing amid ash. They gleamed with gentle lunar light."We call them Echo Crystals," Wang Jing whispered. "Their energy is mild. Perhaps… a foundation for rebuilding."
Li Chenyuan held the photo long in silence.They had lost almost everything. Yet they had survived. And they had learned to carry it.
He turned toward the hall, where people labored anew—Sig, half his arm crystallized, now attuned to shifts within the tide.Elena, studying the crystals with delicate care.Lu Xingze, raising a fresh communications node among ruins.
A little girl dashed past, clutching a toy cobbled from scrap, her laughter ringing bright.
At last his gaze lifted to the medical ward's window.There, Su Xiaolan sat, watching sunlight. Her face still pale, but her eyes were clear.
It was not a perfect ending.No absolute victory.Only a wounded civilization, scarred yet enduring, that after its long war with its own shadows had finally learned reconciliation—and upon the ruins, began, cautiously,a new echo.
(The End)