In late spring of the 94th year of the New Imperial Calendar.
District 2 of Aslan Star City, Imperial Crystal Academy. At 7 AM, the sunlight was just right.
The Imperial Crystal Academy was an advanced institution that had become independent from Black Shark Base about twenty years ago, specializing in post-war crystal particle-related fields. Last winter, it had just received funding from the empire and completed a thorough renovation from top to bottom, with even the floors gleaming.
A spirited young man hurried through the corridor, catching sight of the person he was looking for at the corner.
It was a woman’s back. She had a slender figure, wearing a white lab coat, with silver hair braided and coiled at the back of her head, exuding an intellectual and noble aura.
“Dean… Dean!”
The young man chased after her for a few steps. “Professor Lance!”
Diana Lance turned around. She curved her blue eyes, smiling at her student. “Oh, Xiao Lin? Were you calling me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m still not used to the title ‘Dean’… You’re here so early today, is there a problem you wanted to see me about?”
“Hehe, I’m stuck on my thesis again,” the young man grinned sheepishly. “I’ve come to seek your help, Professor.”
“See? I told you that topic would be too tough for you. Now you know how tricky it is?”
Diana helplessly tapped the back of her student’s head. “Tell me, what don’t you understand this time?”
“Uh, it’s about the Crystal Nest’s ability to create time wormholes…”
“Hmm, of course. Let’s talk in my office.”
…
There had never been direct evidence of the Crystal Nest’s ability to influence time.
With the legendary final battle concluded and the Crystal Nest completely destroyed, it became even harder to verify.
The currently accepted theory of “time wormholes” was actually a hypothesis deduced by scientists and historians after piecing together various clues and memories from multiple witnesses.
In this hypothesis, the Crystal Nest once felt a critical danger, and the energy particles released by the mother core distorted the local time dimension, creating so-called time wormholes.
The time wormholes connected the 55th year of the New Imperial Calendar with the 17th year of the Old Imperial Calendar, exactly a century apart.
More than one time wormhole was created, but most were scattered in uninhabited parts of the universe. Very few actually fell within Blue Mother Star.
After eliminating those that were never discovered, and those whose discoverers thought they were experiencing strange hallucinations and didn’t investigate further…
The number of people who truly saw another time and space through this phenomenon could be counted on two hands.
Yet, it was precisely then that the fate of humanity took a massive turn.
Xiao Lin: “Although you’ve explained it several times, Professor, I still find this strange, or rather, marvelous.”
They arrived at the dean’s office. Diana pulled open the curtains, letting the bright sunlight pour in like a waterfall.
The young man named Lin attentively pulled out a chair for his mentor, then stood beside her, rubbing his nose.
“Professor, think about it. In the 55th year of the New Imperial Calendar, the reason the Crystal Nest’s mother core created time wormholes was because it sensed the crisis of its annihilation…”
“So it tried to reach into the past – to the era when humans were at their most desperate low point – to seek humans who could accept its call. Is that right?”
Diana: “According to our deductions, yes.”
The 55th year of the New Imperial Calendar.
That was the era when humanity’s counterattack finally saw dawn, and the future grew increasingly bright.
“If the Crystal Nest hadn’t created time wormholes, theoretically, Gaius wouldn’t have been called, the Crystal Cult wouldn’t have become an anti-human heresy, the space bandits wouldn’t have gained support, and we wouldn’t have had to fight so hard later on.”
“Then humanity’s victory should have come earlier and more easily.”
At this point, Xiao Lin blinked in confusion. “But thinking from another angle—”
“If the Crystal Nest’s mother core didn’t create time wormholes, the Commander wouldn’t have contacted the past through a time wormhole in his childhood, as he wrote in his later memoirs, right?”
“Oh, you mean the Commander…”
Diana smiled, pursing her lips. She sat down in her chair, her expression softening considerably.
It seemed that merely mentioning that person could make her mood much more peaceful. Though she was no longer the timid girl of years past, this dependence had become a habit.
Xiao Lin, immersed in his own train of thought, spoke faster and faster. “If that’s true, then perhaps His Majesty the Great Emperor would never have been born, the old empire wouldn’t have been overthrown, there would be no Holy Wars and White Bird Plan, and the Crystal Nest wouldn’t have been forced into a situation where it had to seek help from the past…”
The young man counted on his fingers, muttering, “So where does all this begin? It seems like a chicken-or-egg problem… It’s giving me a headache!”
Diana shook her head.
“Humanity still has a long way to go in science, and our understanding of time and space is still very shallow.”
“Perhaps the essence of time is not the one-way flow we subconsciously believe it to be, but a closed loop of cause and effect — at least locally forming a closed loop where we can’t determine which came first.”
The young man murmured. “A closed loop of cause and effect…”
Diana looked out the window, speaking softly. “As we walk in such time, the only thing we can decide is our own attitude moving forward.”
“Choose cowardice or summon courage, resign to darkness or pursue light.”
Outside the window, white doves flew in the morning light.
At the street corner, a few students were reciting some poetry. Adults heading to work waited at the bus stop, and a girl walking her dog passed by them.
The flowers in the flowerbeds were in full bloom, and in half a month, the large cypress trees on both sides would enter their lushest season.
Diana gazed at this ordinary yet heartwarming scene of Star City, nodding with a faint smile.
“Mm, it’s another good day today.”
****
The 17th year of the Old Imperial Calendar.
Black, scorching winds blew across the land of Blue Mother Star.
The crooked jungle of steel disappeared into the other side of the dark sky – that was the so-called urban area, a paradise forever out of reach for the empire’s poor.
The wild areas where the poor gathered connected to barren slopes and rugged hills. From there came frenzied howls, like the roars of beasts, but in human language.
“Burn them to death!!”
“Humans infected with chronic crystal disorder are viruses, burn them to death!!”
Vultures with crystal bone wings circled high in the sky, waiting to peck at scattered corpses after yet another riot ended.
On the ground, a middle-aged man held a torch high, his eyes bloodshot, screaming hysterically, “Is everything burned clean?!”
“Those viruses, those wretched beasts, are they all burned clean?!”
The black in the wind was smoke and charcoal dust. Much of the powder was flaking off from charred, carbonized corpses.
Flames burned intermittently among weeds and stones. Dead bodies lay strewn across this barren slope in horrific states. Further away was a stretch of scorched black – those were humans burned alive.
“Kill them, kill them all, kill!!”
“How dare they hide late-stage chronic crystal disorder disabled humans, and they hid three of them! That woman was possessed, she wanted to kill everyone, we must kill the viruses in the R8 wild zone!!”
Suddenly, more than a dozen shadowy figures surrounded him, each looking coldly at this middle-aged man holding a torch and shouting loudly.
The leader among them held a makeshift gun, which now made a clicking sound as he loaded it.
“What are you doing, what are you doing,” the middle-aged man smiled nervously, his voice hoarse from shouting too long, “Although I’m also from Zone R8, I…I have nothing to do with those disabled human beasts, nothing to do with Eileen Jay!”
“And my son, my son was infected with chronic crystal disorder, but when I found out, I burned him to death with my own hands! I burned my son to death with my own hands, I burned—”
The man’s voice was drowned out by several merciless gunshots. Blood splattered, and his robust body slammed onto the ground.
The torch in his hand was also thrown out, drawing a small bright arc in the night sky.
It was late summer in the 17th year of the Old Imperial Calendar.
In the slum area named R8 wild zone, the most inhumane riot in the history of the Old Empire occurred.
The human empire had only been established for seventeen years, and the bloody smell of the base war era had not yet dissipated. The wild zones were places of moral decay and chaos, and conflicts between zones were common.
However, this time, the invaders of the R8 wild zone were surprised to find that this zone was hiding many disabled humans infected with chronic crystal disorder, and even three late-stage patients.
The culprit was named Eileen Jay, a new human, who was the de facto leader of this zone.
Under the laws of the Old Empire, killing civilian chronic crystal disorder patients was not a crime, and late-stage patients had to be executed.
In the universal concept, disabled humans were lowly slaves and livestock. It was absolutely unacceptable to allow this evolutionarily failed species to threaten the life safety of new humans.
So the riot lasted for a day and a night. Eileen Jay herself, as well as those disabled humans infected with chronic crystal disorder, were burned alive.
The chaos distorted human nature. The invaders vented their malice at will, almost massacring the entire R8 wild zone. They raped women, dismembered those who resisted, and crushed children’s skulls for entertainment.
As night fell, the flames died out, and the hot blood dried up.
There was a young man, with a wooden expression, carrying a charred corpse in his arms, walking up the hillside like a wandering soul.
“…Eileen…”
“My… Eileen…”
Judging from the slightly bulging belly, the corpse must have been a pregnant woman in life… She had been his angelic, kind, and beautiful wife.
— Many years later, historians would discover that when Ms. Eileen was killed, she had a lover.
In this chaotic era, only nobles were entitled to the ceremony of “marriage”. But in any case, Eileen and her male partner had already engaged in the most intimate relationship of lovers, and she had conceived and was about to have a child… but she died abruptly and tragically.
The man carried the charred corpse to the top of the slope.
He looked down and saw the wandering crowd below.
…What an ugly, weak species.
Evil killed goodness, riots broke the balance. The civilized society and moral principles that took thousands of years to establish could apparently disintegrate so easily.
A nauseating sense of disgust welled up in the man’s heart, followed by emptiness.
Life that will eventually die, species that will eventually become extinct, civilizations that will eventually collapse… what meaning does it all have?
The man no longer wanted to look at those ghost-like humans.
When he slowly raised his head, starlight from the universe penetrated the gloomy sky and dark wind, shining upon him.
The starlight tonight seemed whiter and brighter than usual, making one dizzy.
It also seemed as if that starry sky connected to another time and space, turning silent murmurs into divine oracles descending.
The man’s ashen eyes seemed to have an unusual light, like a disciple who had attained enlightenment.
His cracked lips moved, and he said softly. “Is that so… So that’s how it is?”
“Death is eternal existence… Destruction is everlasting…Chaos is truth…”
“Eileen… I understand now… I think I understand.”
The man lowered his gaze to look at the charred corpse in his arms. He suddenly let go, allowing his lover’s remains to fall from his embrace.
The blackened “human log” rolled down the slope of the hill. Several vultures flapped their wings and chased after it.
The man never looked at his wife’s corpse again. He fell backward, listening to the murmurs from light-years away, and closed his eyes.
He lay on the hillside, his expression peaceful, as if sleeping in the depths of starlight.
— Years later, some scholars believed that the man who lost his wife and child in the most cruel way overnight was Gaius, who later became the Archbishop of the Crystal Cult after receiving the call of the Crystal Nest.
****
Blue Mother Star, near-Earth space station.
“Useless!!”
A thunderous, muffled roar arose from the cold laboratory.
The tall Emperor emerged from the shadows, “A bunch of useless trash…!”
The floating lights in front of the laboratory illuminated his rugged features. The Emperor had thick eyebrows and full lips, with reddish-brown messy hair, and wolf-like, sinister green eyes.
Rows of researchers knelt before the Emperor. The leader was weeping profusely, repeatedly banging his forehead on the ground.
“Your Majesty!! Your Majesty, we can do it again! We’re almost there, almost successful, please give us one more chance, we’ll definitely succeed next time, Your Majesty!!”
Tyrant Odin raised his arm. He waved his rough, large hand, and the guards behind him immediately drew their guns in unison.
“No, no, I don’t want to die—”
“Good, shoot!!”
Suddenly, a young researcher jumped up, cutting off the leader’s cries.
“I’ve had enough, doing those human experiments every day, living in fear during the day, and endless nightmares at night…”
“I listen to the screams of the test subjects, see those inhuman deaths…”
The young man’s eyes were red, veins pulsing on his neck, “Emperor, they are humans too, living, breathing humans…!!”
Odin narrowed his eyes.
He pointed at the young man. “This kid is too noisy, Zhen doesn’t like it.”
Two guards approached from both sides, easily restraining the young man who tried to resist with their crystal bones.
The experiment leader who had been begging for mercy was now trembling with fear. “Your Majesty… Your Majesty, this guy must have gone mad, he dared to…”
Odin: “Find everyone who has had any relationship with him, whether blood relatives or friends, bring them to the Grey Owl laboratory as the next batch of test subjects.”
“You tyrant, you inhuman tyrant!!”
The young man roared as he struggled, his legs kicking in the air, “You will face retribution, one day you will go to hell!!”
The Emperor’s expression remained unchanged. “Shoot.”
Gunshots rang out, then ceased. Neither angry curses nor pleading cries could be heard anymore.
After a few dull thuds of bodies falling to the ground, only blood meandered on the floor.
Odin’s gaze fell on the flowing blood.
Another failure.
How many times had it failed now?
The tyrant would never admit that since the Grey Owl laboratory deciphered the horrifying truth of crystal particle colonization, his nightmares had never stopped.
The crystal bones he once took pride in had become parasites clinging to his bones. His body, from skin to flesh, was soaked in deadly poison, only waiting for the moment of eruption.
Humans had been farmed by crystal particles, doomsday was counting down, and there was no way to delay this extinction.
Even gathering the most intelligent geniuses and using the most extreme methods of human experimentation couldn’t find a way to separate crystal particles from the human body.
Attempt after attempt, failure after failure.
This empire he had established single-handedly, stepping over mountains of corpses and seas of blood, this interstellar empire that had achieved the first great unification of humanity, should have been sacred and glorious, forever remembered by the universe.
It turned out that it would…
Become the last empire of humanity.
