Chapter 106: Void Echo

The voyage between galaxies is a prolonged and solitary experience beyond all prior human experience. The "Voyager" is like a lone boat, sailing in the dark deep sea called the universe. Outside the window are no longer familiar constellations, but pervasive interstellar dust, the vague halos of distant star clusters, and a void dark region that devours all light. The faster‑than‑light engine maintains a stable spacetime bubble, stretching stars into long threads of light, then restoring them behind as cold star points.

Time here has lost its ordinary meaning, recorded only by the ship's atomic clock with precise indifference. After several months, the initial tension and excitement gradually gave way to a routine oppression. Apart from required rotations, most crew members have devoted themselves to various training, research, or maintenance tasks to combat the psychological pressure that stems from the boundless void.

Chen Mo spends most of his time on the bridge or in his private quarters, studying the Starlight Crystal and the Heartflame Resonator, attempting a deeper understanding and integration of the forces of order, starlight, and heartfire. Su Yu's recovery is good; her True Knowledge Vision in this relatively pure Deep Space seems to have become sharper, often catching extremely distant energy ripples or spatial folds, thereby averting many potential hazards on the route.

Kaiwen, with his team, practically lives in the laboratory. They use the various cosmic radiation and microscopic particle data gathered during the voyage to continuously refine the Stardust Shield and the Heartflame Resonator. He even tries to apply the heartfire theory to the ship's life‑support system and crew's psychological assistance, designing a "Tranquil Cabin" that emits a faint soothing vibration; its effect is surprisingly good, becoming a popular spot for crew members to relax in turns.

"Hey, don't even start, that thing Kaiwen cooked up works better than my jokes!" Zhang Yang said as he walked out of the Tranquil Cabin refreshed, patting Kaiwen's shoulder and nearly making the lanky scientist stumble.

Wang Hu remains as silent as ever, spending most of his time in the hangar, personally inspecting and maintaining each fighter and each mech to ensure they are always in optimal condition. His composure itself is a stabilizing force for morale.

Han Qing is in charge of the ship's security and reconnaissance dispatch; his coolness and meticulousness make the "Voyager" operate like a precision instrument, running steadily in the unknown Deep Space.

When the voyage entered its seventh month, according to the algorithm supplied by the "Black Box" civilization, they finally reached the edge of the target star region. The sight before them left everyone looking through the observation window deeply shocked and with a shiver of cold.

It was not the pure darkness expected, but a vast, boundless nebula of bizarre colors. Yet it was not a cradle for star birth, but more like a gigantic… cosmic graveyard. The nebula's dominant hues were dark red and grim green, like dried blood mixed with rotting moss, within which floated countless shattered planetary wreckage torn asunder by immense forces and twisted stellar corpses. Throughout the nebula, an extremely unsettling field of decay and deathly silence pervaded.

"Detected high‑density shadow‑energy residue! Intensity… far exceeds the Oort Cloud fissure!" Kaiwen's voice rang on the bridge, shocked, "This nebula… looks like an ancient battlefield! A world completely ravaged by the Void."

Su Yu closed her eyes, her complexion turning slightly pale: "I *saw*… countless wails and despair, frozen here… for a long, long time."

The "Voyager" slowed, carefully steering into the deadly nebula. The deeper it went, the stronger the oppression. The ship's shield rubbing against the lingering shadow energy in the nebula produced a faint but continuous "zzzz" sound, and energy consumption noticeably spiked.

They tried approaching some larger planetary wrecks for probing and found the planets' cores long cooled, surfaces riddled with bottomless pits eroded by some force, no signs of life, even basic radioactive elements had decayed away, as if even "time" itself had been sucked out.

"Here… it's like a licked plate, clean to the point of giving me the creeps," Kaiwen muttered, staring at the probe data.

Just as the fleet pressed deeper along a relatively "clean" channel, Han Qing suddenly warned, "Detected abnormal spatial structure ahead! Not naturally formed!"

In the nebula's core region, a relatively open area, they saw the "abnormal structure".

It was a massive black obelisk.

It floated silently in the void, its height immeasurable, its whole body made of a matte material that absorbs all light; its surface was so smooth it had no seams or markings, as if cut from a single block of cosmic darkness. Its design was simple, cold, bearing an unnatural, geometrically perfect form, starkly at odds with the surrounding shattered, decayed nebula.

What mattered most was the energy fluctuation it emitted—not the corrosive shadow energy, but an absolute, icy "nothingness," a silence that even negates "existence" itself. Even Su Yu's True Knowledge Vision, when trying to perceive it, seemed to plunge into a bottomless abyss, receiving no feedback.

"What… what is this thing?" Zhang Yang's eyes widened, "Did the Void Devourer make it too?"

"Not really." Chen Mo stared at the obelisk, his brows knit. The order force within him and the Starlight Crystal produced a faint repelling reaction, but it was not the confrontational feeling of shadow energy; rather it felt like… discomfort when facing some "Error Signal," some "paradox." "It gives the impression… of being of the same origin as shadow energy, yet more… pure and ultimate."

The "Voyager" halted at a safe distance; various probe beams reached toward the obelisk like tentacles, but all in vain, as if stones sinking in the sea, even the reflected signals were extremely faint.

"Unable to scan internal structure; all detection methods ineffective," Kaiwen reported, his tone full of frustration and curiosity, "Its physical properties… incomprehensible."

Just as everyone was at a loss, the ever‑silent obelisk suddenly changed!

Its mirror‑smooth surface rippled like water, revealing countless flashing, incomprehensible strange symbols. These symbols were not any known civilization's script; they twisted and shifted, as if they themselves contained chaotic logic. Simultaneously, an invisible, icy mental wave swept over the "Voyager" like a tide!

"Warning! Detected high‑intensity information‑flow impact! Attempting to breach the core database!" the ship‑borne AI blared a sharp alarm!

The crew instantly felt a wave of dizziness, as if a torrent of chaotic, unordered information fragments had been forced into their minds!

"Activate information firewall! Activate Heartflame Resonator collective shielding mode!" Chen Mo ordered loudly.

A golden, faint yet resilient light radiated from the "Voyager," barely holding back the pervasive information intrusion. Yet everyone could feel the obelisk's mental pressure, like a tangible weight pressing on their hearts.

Suddenly the swirling symbols steadied, forming a clear yet chilling image—a boundless darkness, within which countless structures resembling the obelisk flickered like tombstones in the void. At the center of these obelisks was a singularity of absolute darkness, collapsing inward, from which even light could not escape!

Beside the image, a line of "text" composed of those strange symbols appeared, its meaning directly etched into each person's consciousness:

"Zero‑Point Monument—witness to the prelude of the end of all things. You, too, are a component of the end."

The cold proclamation carried a disdain that looked down on them like ants.

Then the symbols faded, the obelisk returned to dead silence, as if everything that had just occurred were merely an illusion.

But the bridge was silent, save for the faint hum of equipment and each person's heavy breathing.

They had found, not the Void Devourer itself, but its… marker, or rather a "monument" proclaiming its existence.

Chen Mo clenched his fists, staring at the silent black obelisk, a fire unlike any before igniting in his eyes.

It was not merely a threat, but a provocation.

They crossed the galaxy not to witness the prelude of the end!

"Record the coordinates." Chen Mo's voice broke the silence, cold and resolute, "This is not the end, it's only the beginning. We go."

The "Voyager" adjusted course, its engines reigniting, trailing a long tail of flame, leaving the marked death‑cloud nebula and pressing onward toward the deeper darkness guided by the algorithm.

The inscription seen, the road ahead grows harder.

But humanity's ark, once set in motion, will never turn back.