Chapter 1

Because the artificial atmosphere had disappeared, this was a vacuum. Hao Ren couldn't hear the roaring of the huge machines beneath him, but he saw the indicator lights on the equipment in front of him lighting up one by one, and the frost covering the roof and pipes was shaking off as if it were atomizing. He knew that the facility had been successfully activated. He pressed his hand against the icy wall, feeling a vibration growing stronger and stronger from deep within the building, and then the vibration began to weaken – some huge machine was running and slowly entering a stable state.

"These things can actually still be used," Lily said in surprise, sticking out her tongue. "I thought everything inside would be frozen solid."

Hao Ren didn't say anything, but carefully studied the various indicator marks on the nearby equipment and the prompts popping up on the small display screens. He knew nothing about this unfamiliar system, and he didn't know how much damage it had accumulated during the thousands of years it had been shut down, so he was very worried about any emergency during the system startup. Fortunately, it didn't seem difficult to understand the prompts on the equipment: probably considering that this would be a long voyage, and the operators several generations later might not retain complete knowledge of the voyage, the designers of this giant ship tried to make the ship's control system simple and easy to understand. Most of the machines ran automatically, and the parts that required human operation had concise and clear instructions.

As the vibration from deep underground became calmer and calmer, the main power furnace and generator seemed to start operating normally. Various devices in the control room lit up one by one, and the busy flashing indicator lights showed the progress of the various devices restarting and self-checking. A rectangular silver-white metal plate slowly rose from the main control console in front of Hao Ren, and the operating status of all units emerged from this metal plate: "Main generator restarted, ecological computer entering restart process, taking over accumulated data from the emergency system... System error, accumulated data from emergency system deleted, switching to special process, resetting ecological host to β mode..."

While the ecological host was slowly recovering from hibernation, Hao Ren found the reset function for the local facility's ecological mode on the console. He pressed the button, and a new window popped up on the display: "Checking the status of the central control station... Serious error! No atmospheric pressure detected! Multiple leak points found! Central control station entering partitioned lockdown, atmosphere reconstruction in progress... All personnel immediately evacuate all connecting segments and enter the nearest sealed compartment, repeat, all personnel immediately evacuate all connecting segments and enter the nearest sealed compartment..."

A series of automatic programs began to execute. Hao Ren saw through the large glass window on the side of the control room that several gates outside were closing one by one, and then the ventilation system in each compartment started operating. A faint airflow and a slight pressure came from his skin: the environment here began to recover.

The place where Hao Ren and his party were located was originally called the "Central Control Station." Now it seemed that the ecological system here was independent of the outside, so even though the atmospheric environment of the entire city had disappeared, it still returned to normal atmospheric pressure here within a minute. The data terminal checked the composition of the surrounding air and found that although it was a little different from that on Earth, a group of superhumans could still breathe smoothly, so it told everyone to temporarily turn off the function of the life support collars.

"Hoo-ah—" Lily exhaled comfortably, "Finally, we don't have to use communicators to talk anymore."

"I'm looking for something like a host log," Hao Ren muttered while fiddling with the console, "I want to figure out what kind of trouble they encountered here... But the log files seem to have been destroyed."

At this time, a soft system prompt sounded, and the ecological host finally completed all self-check procedures and recovered from hibernation to the so-called β mode. Then it began to check the status of the inner-ship city—of course, this machine immediately began to frantically sound the alarm.

A series of red warning lights lit up in the various compartments of the central control station, and piercing alarm bells rang loudly in the sections where the atmospheric environment had been restored. Hao Ren heard a mechanical and severely distorted synthesized voice loudly warning: "Serious failure! City ecological system shutdown! Serious failure! City ecological system shutdown! Operators above level two immediately enter their posts, operators above level two immediately enter their posts..."

Hao Ren turned off these annoying alarms and began to restore the artificial atmosphere of the inner-ship city. However, when he activated this function, an unexpected error message popped up: "Fatal error, atmospheric circulation pump and atmospheric storage facilities not found."

"What's going on?" Vivian didn't quite understand what had happened.

"It seems like two things that sound particularly important are missing." Hao Ren frowned and fiddled with the console, finally finding the function to switch monitoring windows. Some monitoring screens of important facilities immediately popped up on the main screen. He saw a huge gap in one of the screens in the middle of a pile of pipes and machinery. Obviously, someone had dismantled the things there.

As more monitoring screens returned, he found that similar situations occurred in more than one place.

He asked the control station host to check all systems one by one, and a series of staggering error messages popped up in a queue:

"Fatal error, water circulation purification core unit not found..."

"Fatal error, thermostat controller and related servo unit not found..."

"Fatal error, no signal from B-2 to C-12 keel mechanical bay..."

"More than half of the important facilities have been dismantled..." Hao Ren dragged the monitoring screens of the relevant areas to the center of the main display one by one. "The life support system of this ship has almost been dismantled into an empty shell."

As he spoke, he fumbled with the operation on the console, accidentally touching an unrelated small device. A metal plate next to the main display suddenly lit up, and the sound and picture that appeared interrupted him.

An old man appeared on that small display. He was wearing a commander's uniform, with his chest full of medals and badges, and his face was stern—it was the old man who had turned into an ice sculpture in the operating seat. This was a video recording, which should have been left at the last moment of his life.

"... Information code... Forget it, this is the Qunluan, Lord Gorn Hillen is recording here. All shutdown commands have entered the countdown, and the ship's ecological system is expected to shut down in ten minutes. Now, repeat the previously agreed allocation plan: atmospheric circulation pump allocated to the Changye, atmospheric storage facilities allocated to the Yongge, thermostat controller and its servo unit allocated to the Baizhou, water circulation purification unit and all mechanical bays are dedicated to our King, may he and his throne ship be safe forever. According to the plan, I have blown 'gas' into the atmospheric circulation pump, so please wait twenty-four hours after this message is sent until the purification pump completes the filtration and recovery of the atmosphere... Heh..."

The old man in the video took a few deep breaths, and he calmed down again:

"The propulsion unit of this ship will be retained and will continue to follow the fleet until all systems are completely destroyed. I now declare in the name of the Lord of Qunluan, Grand Duke Gorn Hillen: After my death, all property of this ship will be returned to our great kingdom, including the propulsion unit, the core reactor, and everything inside the hull, all will return to the kingdom. If the kingdom encounters a catastrophe, please dismantle... Heh... dismantle the... remaining components of this ship. To our King, end of message."

The small display dimmed, and this short message ended. Hao Ren and the others looked at each other, and Lily was the first to break the silence: "They dismantled the parts on their own ships and gave them to others?"

"These ships have limited lifespans. With their level of technology, it's a miracle that they can sail to this day," the data terminal said slowly. "The second half of this voyage must be full of dangers, and various system failures are the most common and most difficult to solve. As long as the great extinction caused by the Godslayer continues, they will have no chance to stop and rest, so the only solution is to constantly piece together the parts that can still be used, at least to ensure the integrity of the ecological systems of a few ships."

Hao Ren shook his head: "But the population that can be supported is getting smaller and smaller."

"So the people who are chosen to be sacrificed can only be euthanized," Nangong Wuyue bit her lip, not knowing how to evaluate this matter. She thought of the frozen dead city outside, and the victims who died peacefully and solemnly in their fine clothes in the banquet hall. "How long did they persevere with this method?"

Hao Ren shook his head: "No matter how long they persevered, it seems that they didn't persevere until we came. Nolan sent information to all the Arks before, and there was no response."

Everyone fell silent, feeling a deep sense of regret, but the data terminal seemed to suddenly discover something: "Wait, there should still be survivors!"