Chapter 473: Dawn and Destruction

Lin Xian felt that everything he wanted to say from now on would become meaningless words.

Taking the red wine glass from Mo Nika, Lin Xian said nothing; Mo Nika took a sip, glanced at him, and seeing his silence, lifted her eyebrows slightly and said:

“You worry too much. Look—even if we’re in a train deep under the ocean, we still have to sleep.”

She walked to the porthole, where her face was reflected on the star-dusted glass of the dark ocean.

“One moment alive, one moment dead—life and death may both be destined. If so, why not try to break through the power of evolution and see where the limits of the human species lie?”

“Limits?” Lin Xian swirled his wine glass and said with deep implication: “Can the power of the dark side defeat darkness itself?”

Mo Nika smiled faintly and looked at Lin Xian: “You’re really asking why, if the Dark Civilization intends to exterminate Blue Planet, it would grant humans the power to resist it. Many have thought this. During our escape on the orbital ring, I met people who believed it was assimilation—a transformation by a higher civilization, giving humanity rebirth. Others saw it as the Dark Civilization’s experiment: human evolution merely producing test subjects. Our pursuit of Dawn, they said, is futile.”

“And you? What do you think?” Lin Xian asked.

Mo Nika shrugged: “I accept both. Or neither.”

“Does the truth even matter? Without psychic powers, humans use technology and weapons to resist. With psychic powers, they pour into studying evolution to fight back. Like a drowning man, whether it’s straw or thorns floating by, he’ll grasp at it without hesitation.”

She looked at Lin Xian, her gaze profound.

“A lower civilization has no right to choose. If the Dark Civilization wiped out Blue Planet on Judgment Day, it was merely treating the planet as a speck of dust. Do all our thoughts, hatreds, and stances mean anything?”

“Destroying you has nothing to do with you,” Lin Xian replied calmly, recalling a line he’d once read in a sci-fi novel.

“Exactly,” Mo Nika walked toward Lin Xian. “If you can double your psychic index—even if survival rate rises by just 1%—it’s worth the gamble, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” Lin Xian agreed wholeheartedly, exhaling deeply. “When dawn comes, if there are no other complications, we’ll try the lattice evolution. Good thing the Falcon Sea Group is here—they can guide us.”

Mo Nika countered: “What about the Phoenix Society? Don’t you have a way to contact them?”

Lin Xian’s gaze swept over the countdown, then returned to the red wine in his glass. He downed it in one gulp, placed the cup on the table, turned sharply, and walked toward the front carriage.

“It should… be clear soon.”

Watching Lin Xian leave, Mo Nika’s eyes held a faint smile. She turned to the light patterns on the porthole and murmured: “Power is the foundation of struggle; sacrifice is the ladder to victory. Our captain… he thinks too much of us.”

Lin Xian walked through the quiet carriage, yet his mind was far from calm. Though things seemed safe now, he felt none of the peace he’d known after escaping past dangers aboard the train. One reason: their current underwater environment. The other: the countdown.

As the moment neared, it was impossible not to feel tense. It seemed to hover just before dawn, yet Lin Xian could only wait—there was nothing else he could do. His usual caution left him restless with unease.

Passing Carriage 3, Lin Xian stopped beside Silver Dragon One Hundred Thousand Errors. This dimensional-space plant had saved them three times: once by the Bottomless Lake, once during the Star Abyss crossing, and last night during the underwater vortex escape. Now planted in the growth chamber, its root system glowed faintly with subdued dark purple light; the flower it had bloomed was gone, leaving only an ordinary-looking herb.

“Like a magical artifact—how can something so simple as a weed possess such miraculous power…”

Lin Xian studied it for a while, baffled. He looked toward the rest room, thought for a moment, then walked over and opened Ding Junyi’s door again. This time, he found her already awake, quietly dressing.

“You’re awake?”

“I woke up the moment you came in,” Ding Junyi said, carefully fastening her clothes, then slipping on her white lab coat and adjusting her black-rimmed glasses before standing to face Lin Xian. “This is the longest duration the Hell Black Chrysanthemum has ever released dark energy—all carriages were filled. The crew experienced a tense, dangerous escape, depleting their energy, sustaining injuries, and now they’re in a sealed underwater environment with high oxygen levels. That’s why they fell into deep sleep. I analyzed this before, but this time it’s more severe. It’s a critical stage of evolution. That’s why I and Commander Chen let Viola fully absorb it—and didn’t wake you.”

Hearing Ding Junyi’s words, Lin Xian finally relaxed.

“I didn’t expect it to absorb so much dark mist. It’s clearly more than just that monster hunting.”

Ding Junyi kept her hands in her pockets and analyzed calmly: “When we plunged down the cliff, we passed close to the Great Ocean God. The energy in the ocean isn’t gaseous—but this indirectly proves the scale of energy contained within this world-level disaster is terrifying.”

Lin Xian nodded, looking at Ding Junyi: “How do you feel? How much have you changed?”

Ding Junyi picked up a small Soul-Fluctuation Meter from the table, gripped it in front of Lin Xian, and her eyes flared with bright green light. Moments later, the peak Soul-Fluctuation value was displayed.

8000!

“My last test was yesterday morning in Haiyan City at 9 a.m.—6900. A 15.94% increase in one day. This evolution speed is extraordinary,” Ding Junyi said.

“Indeed.”

Lin Xian took a deep breath, fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Ding Junyi.

“Do you know what happened after the Silver Dragon One Hundred Thousand Errors’ bud exploded?”

“No. I was about to ask you,” Ding Junyi said seriously. “There were no space bubbles like before, but I felt a strange vibration—and all the dark marks on everyone vanished.”

“You saw nothing?” Lin Xian frowned.

Ding Junyi narrowed her eyes and asked: “It sounds like you experienced something different?”

Lin Xian paused, then told Ding Junyi everything—the dimensional entity and the countdown. With no contact to Chu Yan or the Phoenix Society, Ding Director was the only one qualified to discuss such a supra-physical phenomenon.