Chapter 146 The Children's Vault

Hao Ren walked forward along the aerial bridge, arriving at what seemed to be an operating console. He saw that it was a clean and new device, without any buttons on it, only a smooth, mirror-like silver-white metal panel. He reached out and stroked the edge of the panel, discovering that it was free of any dust.

Not just this control panel, but in fact the entire cylindrical space was dust-free. The last gate they passed through earlier should have had airtight dust-proof isolation performance, and the space itself should also have a dust removal device. Undoubtedly, this place was the true storage location of the "Final Repository."

"What's this?" Lily asked curiously, approaching.

"Should be the manual controller for those robotic arms," Hao Ren looked up at the neatly arranged metal brackets and rectangular containers in the cylindrical space, as well as the slides and manipulators connecting them, while reaching out to touch the conspicuous light green indicator line next to the control panel. "Based on experience in the control room, touching here should activate this touchscreen... oh, there we go."

At his touch, a series of complex and changing geometric patterns appeared on the silver-white metal panel. These geometric patterns then slowly stabilized, forming an initial interactive interface. As expected, the operating system was locked and required identity verification to enter, but this controller didn't seem to use the kind of mechanical key that the Ark captain carried; it required a password.

Such a password couldn't stump the Data Terminal. It floated to the control console and connected itself to the panel with a beam of blue light. The screen on the panel immediately displayed a large number of interference glitches, and within a few seconds, the system was cracked, and a simple and easy-to-understand operating window popped up. Hao Ren tried to activate some of the functions on it, and the neatly arranged containers in the cylindrical space immediately began to move. One row of brackets was lowered from high above, steadily stopping next to the aerial bridge, while the rectangular metal boxes hanging on it slid along the slides and locked into the grooves next to the bridge's railing. Accompanied by a few soft "hissing" sounds, these containers opened.

Lily immediately ran over to check, and she saw that the metal boxes were empty. Only some unplugged conduits and a viscous liquid remained in these empty containers.

"What are these things?" Vivian also went to check the condition of the metal boxes, feeling a little puzzled.

"They're hibernation pods—I'm guessing, but I'm pretty sure," Hao Ren said slowly. "These are all hibernation pods, totaling 150,000."

"Hibernation pods?" Vivian was no longer unfamiliar with this term, but she looked at the models of those metal boxes and felt that something was a little off. "Isn't the volume a bit small?"

"Because these are prepared for children." Hao Ren walked over with the Data Terminal, which at this time had already synchronized data with the control console on the bridge, easily taking over all the functions of the console. It opened a holographic projection, which displayed the information read from the console.

A list was opened, and hundreds of thousands of portraits appeared on the projection, scrolling down quickly—each portrait was of a child.

"The oldest is no more than thirteen years old, the youngest is only three years old," Hao Ren pointed to the projection above the Data Terminal. Along with the personnel list photos, some basic information about this repository was also extracted, such as the system log. "This final repository stores children in a state of hibernation. It was built 892 years ago from today, and was last opened 815 years ago."

"So it was continuously frozen for several decades in between..." Nangong Wuyue poked the viscous liquid inside the metal box with the tip of her tail, confirming that it was a substance that could maintain biological activity at low temperatures. "The key question is why only children—where did the adults go?"

"Remember the last captain we saw in the control room earlier?" Hao Ren raised his eyelids. "He died of a chronic illness, which slowly eroded his skull. I suspect all the adults died from this disease, leaving only the children."

"But we only found that one skeleton," Nangong Wuyue's tail tip curled up. "How can we be sure that other adults also encountered the same thing?"

Hao Ren had just thought about this question and had some speculation: "Do you think a person infected with this incurable disease could continue to serve as the Ark captain? And this disease is very slow. The people on the Ark had plenty of time to choose a healthy new captain, but they didn't. The last captain died of illness in his post. There's only one explanation for this: they had no choice; there were no healthy candidates at all. Everyone was sick. And here..."

Hao Ren pointed to the countless silver-white metal boxes neatly arranged in mid-air: "The children were not sick. This is the reason for the civilization break on the last Ark."

He knew that more than half of these statements were based on speculation, but these speculations were completely tenable, and he couldn't think of any other more reliable reasons. But he still couldn't explain the more fundamental question: where did this strange and suspicious incurable disease come from? Why did only the children survive? When the Ark captain of the Qunlang was leading all his subjects to their deaths, the other Arks were still normal. Did this disease appear out of thin air?

And there was another question, a question even more suspicious than the bizarre disease: how did these humans, whose technological level wasn't very high, obtain the goddess of creation's artifact, and even design a simple yet effective amplification system for it?

"Is there anything else in the database?" Hao Ren knocked on the shell of the Data Terminal. "People's diaries, recordings, videos, anything."

The Data Terminal was communicating with the main computer of this "Final Repository," doing its best to extract everything remaining in this old system, but after all, this was just a warehouse, and there wasn't much useful information. Finally, the Data Terminal found the most valuable intelligence: a few fragmented video materials.

"There are some things, recorded by the monitoring system, videos left at the two time points of facility closure and opening," the Data Terminal said, starting to play the information it found.

The content of the first video was the scene of the children entering the hibernation pods. On the screen, you could see the children walking in neat rows on the long bridge, some of the smaller children even having to be held in the arms of the older children. The older children among them seemed to know what was about to happen, so you could occasionally see them comforting their younger siblings. Throughout the process, no one cried or was timid. All the children stood quietly in the line, waiting to enter their own hibernation pods. And next to these lines, you could see sparse adults, wearing extremely thick isolation suits, every inch of their skin wrapped in white protective clothing, as if they were afraid of infecting the children with the virus. These adults were probably the last operators of the entire Ark. Their health was obviously very poor. Some people were even staggering when they walked, but there weren't enough people in the Ark to do this work, so these shuffling patients could only persevere in sending off the sparks of civilization.

After the last batch of hibernation pods were sent to the brackets, the adults in isolation suits left this place. The door closed, and the last generation of the Ark began their 77 years of hibernation.

"Next is the facility opening record—recorded by the monitoring equipment 815 years ago," the Data Terminal said, playing another video.

At the beginning of this video clip, Hao Ren saw chaos.

It was still the aerial bridge, but the situation on the bridge now was chaotic. Flashes of red light flickered at the edges of the screen, and continuous alarm sounds came from outside the screen. Hibernation pods were released in batches onto the long bridge and next to several additional "unloading points" around the cylindrical space. The children who woke up from the hibernation pods were panicked and fled this place in a hurry, led by guiding lights and some of the older children. This video was much shorter than the previous one, with only a few chaotic shots. After the video finished playing, Lily subconsciously asked, "What happened after that?"

"I'm afraid this facility was accidentally activated. They were supposed to hibernate for a longer time!" Hao Ren frowned. "As a result, they were awakened early!"

Lily widened her eyes: "Accident? What accident?"

The one who answered her wasn't Hao Ren, but the Data Terminal: "Reactor failure! Remember the radiation in the outer zone of the Ancestral Forge? That radiation appeared about 800 years ago—the reactor suddenly broke down at that time!"