141: Chapter 141 Deus Ex: Mechanism

The aftershocks of the Memory Labyrinth's collapse still vibrated deep within Kate's nerves.

Those encrypted, buried images she had deliberately forgotten—Lin Fan turning into scattered particles of light in the Time Corridor, Parallel Kate smiling as she merged into the light orb's core, the shadow of the end whispering in her ear, "You were born to be the key"—still felt like fine needles, pricking her temples with waves of pain.

She raised her hand to press her brow; the skin her fingertip touched was slightly cool, yet it revealed a nearly transparent trace of light-based transformation.

The whispers of the sound of origin still echoed deep in her soul, gentle yet carrying an irresistible summons:

Come back... Return to the initial program...

Lin Fan stood by her side, his left arm having completely lost its human form. From shoulder to fingertip, it had all turned into a flowing dark blue energy body, like a tethered nebula. He could condense his form but couldn't truly grasp any physical object, couldn't feel temperature, and couldn't steadily take her into his arms as he once did.

Yet even so, he maintained a protective posture, his gaze never leaving her face for a moment.

"Still hurting?" he asked in a low voice.

His voice was very soft, yet it hid a tremor he hadn't even noticed himself.

Kate shook her head and forced a small smile. "I'm fine, just... not quite used to having the voice of an entire universe living in my head."

Lin Fan's heart wrenched.

He knew better than anyone that after waking from the Memory Labyrinth, Kate was no longer the light orb experimental subject who only wanted to protect her companions. She was the variable, the key, the only human container for the sound of origin in this world, and the most central target of the entire War of the End.

And he was bit by bit losing his human body, sliding toward uncontrollable energy transformation.

They were like two stellar orbits sliding toward the abyss; though they desperately tried to draw close, every step came with a heavier price.

"Don't push yourself." Lin Fan raised his translucent left hand, hovering it near her cheek, not daring to actually touch her for fear his out-of-control dark matter might hurt her. "I'm here."

Kate's nose stung, but she nodded forcefully.

She didn't dare tell him that in the deepest part of the Memory Labyrinth, she had seen more than just Lin Fan's death—she had seen the final end of the entire universe, returning to zero in a white light of formatting.

And now, that end had arrived ahead of schedule.

...

The bridge of the starship Elegy was no longer the noisy space filled with Franklin's complaints and Little Kate's electronic voice.

Since they returned from the parallel universe and narrowly escaped the Memory Labyrinth, the entire ship had been shrouded in an atmosphere so tense it felt ready to snap.

The lights of the control console flickered, reflecting everyone's exhausted but determined faces.

Franklin was hunched over the main console, his hair as messy as a bird's nest and his eyes bloodshot. His body was still stained with grease and wire debris from the previous round of repairs. His left hand was a mechanical prosthetic, his right a flesh-and-blood arm, and his ten fingers flew across the virtual keyboard so fast they were mere afterimages.

As the universe's number one mechanic who had transformed the elegy anchor into a memory bomb, dared to hack into Sower ruins, and could change fate in a parallel universe, there was no lock he couldn't pick, no system he couldn't breach, and no barrage he couldn't stop.

But today, for the first time, he experienced what true powerlessness felt like.

"Damn it... damn it, damn it, damn it!"

He slammed a fist into the edge of the console, instantly denting the metal casing. "Total frequency silence! All jump channels are locked! Dimensional folding is appearing in the outer reaches of the Milky Way! It's not blocking, not interference—it's suppression at the level of physical laws!"

Little Kate, sitting in the co-pilot seat, looked up.

She looked only eleven or twelve years old, wearing a slightly oversized white combat suit with her black hair tied in neat braids. Her eyes were artificially evolved light-sensing pupils that usually flickered with a calm electronic blue light. But now, that blue light was fluctuating uneasily.

Her consciousness had long since synchronized with the Elegy's mainframe, the Solar System's thirty-seven monitoring satellites, the remnants of the Interstellar Resistance Faction fleet, and she had even tried to interface with the echoes of the Shadow Rift after the shadow of the end was destroyed.

But all channels were dead.

"It's not suppression." Little Kate's voice was soft, yet it made the temperature on the bridge drop instantly. "It's a cage."

"A cage?" Franklin turned his head sharply.

"The Milky Way... has been locked up." Little Kate reached out her small hand, projecting a 3D star map in the air.

The once brilliant and flowing Galactic Arms were now completely encased in an invisible membrane, like a specimen sealed in a glass jar. "All outward radiation is cut off, all energy escape is prohibited, all information transmission is zeroed... We are now essentially isolated from the universe."

Lin Fan's gaze instantly darkened.

He walked to the observation window and looked out at the starry sky.

In the next second, even his breathing stopped.

...

It was too quiet.

Not the silence of a vacuum, but a stillness that defied the laws of physics.

In the distance, a heavy cruiser of the Resistance Faction was charging at full speed toward the Shadow Rift. The pale blue flames from its engines should have been roaring as they tore through the darkness, but now, the flames were frozen at the nozzles, like a painting that had been forcibly paused.

Further away, an asteroid a hundred kilometers in diameter was rotating along its set trajectory. Rock, ice, and dust were all frozen in mid-air—no falling, no drifting, not even the vibration of microscopic particles.

Even light no longer flowed.

Starlight congealed, nebulae stagnated, and the Galactic Arms lost all motion.

The entire Milky Way, at this moment, had become a massive, silent tomb in the starry sky.

And they were the last living sacrifices in that tomb.

"This isn't any power we know," Lin Fan's voice was low. "The shadow of the end couldn't do this, the Sower couldn't do this, and even the Light Orb Clan Home Planet at its peak couldn't touch power at the level of laws."

"It's the observer."

Kate suddenly spoke.

She walked to the observation window and stood side-by-side with Lin Fan. Her small figure seemed incredibly frail before the silent galaxy, but her eyes were exceptionally clear.

"In the records of the Sower ruins, there is a passage that was deliberately erased," Kate said softly, her eyes slowly filling with a starry hue—a sign of the sound of origin awakening. "To prevent its own collapse, the universe gives birth to an absolutely rational error-correction mechanism."

"They don't participate in wars, they don't form alliances, and they don't favor any civilization."

"They only do one thing—"

"Clear the variables that would lead to the destruction of the universe."

Franklin's expression changed drastically. "Variables... you mean?"

"Emotions." Kate closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her voice was as light as a sigh. "Us."

The moment the words fell.

The entire starry sky lit up.

Not a stellar explosion, not a nebula burning, not the light of any weapon firing.

It was a layer of boundless, uniform, cold, and suffocatingly perfect metallic white light, slowly spreading from the heart of the galactic core.

It spanned the stars, covered the spiral arms, enveloped the star clusters, and swallowed the darkness, completely shrouding the entire Milky Way at a speed that brooked no resistance, no defiance, and no discussion.

The texture of the light curtain was the most precise hyper-dimensional alloy, its surface flowing with geometric patterns without a hint of disorder or deviation—too perfect to be the product of any civilization.

That was the personification of laws.

The physical form of order.

A god—reigning over all life, all civilizations, and all powers.

In the center of the light curtain, a rift slowly opened.

It was a Mechanical Eye so massive it spanned half the galaxy.

No flesh, no emotion, no warmth, no focus, yet it seemed able to pierce through all dimensions—3D, 4D, 5D—read the soul of every living being, and calculate the end of every timeline.

The moment it appeared.

All alarms on the Elegy instantly fell silent.

All weapon systems were forced offline.

All defensive barriers were automatically deactivated.

Even the restless dark matter within Lin Fan was forcibly suppressed at this moment.

Eye of the Observer.

This name, which existed only in legends, automatically surfaced in everyone's minds.

[Universe Order Maintainer]

[Variable Elimination Unit]

[Ultimate Judgment Mechanism]

It was not a deity.

Not a weapon.

Not a leader.

It was the universe's immune system.

And they were the existences judged to be viruses.

"High-dimensional fluctuations detected..." Little Kate's voice began to tremble; her consciousness was being forcibly kicked out of all external networks. "Dimensional level... seven levels above the Light Sphere Race, four levels above the shadow of the end... Cannot analyze, cannot resist, cannot escape..."

Franklin's mechanical prosthetic trembled slightly.

He had been wild and unbridled his whole life, fearing nothing—daring to go head-to-head with the shadow of the end, dismantle the Sower's laboratory, and tamper with the causal lines of parallel universes.

But now, for the first time, he felt the despair of an ant facing the collapse of heaven and earth.

All technology, all wisdom, all trump cards were, in the other's eyes, nothing more than a line of erroneous code that needed to be deleted.

Lin Fan took a step forward.

dark matter surged wildly in his right fist, condensing into a deep blue light blade dozens of meters long, its edge entwined with the power of destruction and reconstruction—it was the absolute limit he could currently unleash.

But he knew better than anyone.

This strike couldn't even break a corner of the opponent's outer light curtain.

"Who are you?"

Lin Fan's voice passed through the Elegy's public address system, piercing the silent space, questioning that Mechanical Eye spanning the galaxy word by word.

There was no immediate response.

The Eye of the Observer just quietly "watched" the Milky Way.

No anger, no contempt, no curiosity—none of the emotions a living being should have.

Its gaze was like a human looking at bacteria under a microscope.

Like a programmer looking at a line of error code on a screen.

Cold, indifferent, without a single ripple.

Three seconds.

A mechanical voice without any intonation, covering the auditory frequencies of all life in the Milky Way, slowly rang out.

It echoed simultaneously above every planet, on every warship bridge, and in the mind of every living being—clear, cold, and unquestionable:

[Target retrieval complete.]

[Civilization Number: Milky Way-739.]

[Emotional Variable Concentration: 97.8%.]

[Civilization Self-Destruction Probability: 99.997%.]

[Final Judgment: High-risk anomaly, threatening the survival of the universe as a whole.]

Every single word was like a heavy hammer, smashing against the hearts of all living beings.

The warriors of the Resistance Faction gripped their weapons tightly, yet their bodies were unable to move.

The elites of the Escape Faction curled up inside their ark ships, their faces as pale as paper.

The elders of the Interstellar Council slumped in their seats; their former power and schemes were worthless in the face of the ultimate judgment.

The threat of the shadow of the end had not been completely purged, and the Shadow Rift was still spreading through the universe, but at this moment, enemies and allies, justice and evil, survival and escape... all had lost their meaning.

Because the descending entity had not come to conquer, nor to rule, nor to compete.

It had come to delete.

"What right do you have to judge all civilizations?!" Lin Fan growled, his light blade pointing directly at the Mechanical Eye. "We are fighting the shadow of the end, we are protecting the universe, we haven't destroyed anything—"

[The shadow of the end belongs to the category of secondary threats derived from emotional variables.]

[The Eye of the Observer is not interfered with by low-dimensional conflicts.]

[Execution logic: Eradicate the source, rather than cleaning up derivatives.]

The mechanical voice calmly interrupted him, continuing to state the cold, optimal solution:

[Emotion is an uncontrollable variable that appeared during the early stages of the universe's birth.]

[It grants life self-awareness, while simultaneously granting greed, hatred, war, and destruction.]

[After 13.7 billion years of observation, the final destination of all emotional civilizations is self-destruction.]

[To ensure the overall survival of the universe, the ultimate plan is being executed.]

The voice fell silent.

On the light screen of the Eye of the Observer, countless future timelines began to play.

The first one:

They defeat the shadow of the end, and the universe welcomes peace. A hundred years later, the Light Sphere Race and humanity break out into a civil war due to ideological differences, and the Solar System is reduced to dust.

The second one:

Kate sacrifices herself to seal the Shadow of Origin, and civilization flourishes like never before. A thousand years later, expanding desires trigger a dark matter bomb, and the Milky Way completely collapses.

The third one:

Lin Fan becomes completely energy-based, becoming the new rule of the universe. A hundred thousand years later, emotional civilizations spin out of control, and heat death arrives prematurely.

The fourth, the hundredth, the ten-thousandth, the hundred-millionth...

All possibilities, all struggles, all hopes.

The end point is always destruction.

No exceptions.

No miracles.

No strokes of luck.

[The unique optimal solution has been determined.]

[Plan Name: Universe Formatting.]

[Execution Content: Clear all emotional variables, reset all low-dimensional rules, and return to absolute order.]

[Execution Countdown: 72:00:00.]

As the last sentence fell.

On every light screen, device, and consciousness interface across the entire Milky Way, a line of cold white numbers lit up simultaneously.

71:59:59

71:59:58

71:59:57

The countdown had begun.

On the bridge, there was a dead silence.

Franklin slowly lowered his head, looking at the hands that had created countless miracles—the mechanical prosthesis was cold, while the flesh-and-blood palm trembled. For the first time, he felt despair over the technology he was so proud of.

Little Kate hugged her arms, her small body trembling slightly.

She had seen the ruins of Earth in parallel universes, seen Kate's memories collapse, and seen the shadow of the end devour stars, but she had never seen a despair where even the right to "resist" was stripped away.

Formatting.

For an AI, it was total destruction.

For machines, it was a complete reset.

For life, it was total disappearance.

It wasn't death.

Death at least leaves traces, memories, and proof of having once lived.

Formatting is a return to zero.

It is to erase all emotions, memories, consciousness, civilization, history, starlight, darkness...

As if they had never existed.

"Based on what..."

A weak but exceptionally clear voice suddenly broke the dead silence.

Kate pushed away Lin Fan's hand and walked step by step to the very front of the viewing window.

She tilted her head back, looking up at that Mechanical Eye that spanned the galaxy, as cold and indifferent as a god.

Her figure was as small as dust.

But her gaze did not retreat in the slightest.

"You say emotion is a variable, a mistake, the source of destruction."

Kate spoke, her voice not loud, yet it penetrated the spatial blockade and crashed straight into the logical core of the Eye of the Observer. "You say all emotional civilizations will head toward destruction, so you want to format everything and return to your so-called absolute order."

[Logic is correct.] The Eye of the Observer responded, [Data support is sufficient, conclusion is unique.]

"Then tell me."

Kate's voice suddenly rose, carrying a sob, carrying stubbornness, carrying the weight of everything she had loved, pained over, remembered, and protected. Word by word, she questioned the entire universe:

"If life doesn't even have the right to cry, doesn't even have the right to laugh, if even remembering a person's name isn't allowed, and even the qualification to do one's utmost to protect someone is stripped away—"

She paused, tears welling in her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

That was the pain when Lin Fan forgot her but instinctively protected her.

That was the regret when she sacrificed her childhood memories in exchange for her lover's sanity.

That was the ache when Parallel Kate smiled and sacrificed herself, saying, "This time I can decide."

That was the despair in the Memory Labyrinth when she foresaw Lin Fan dying in her arms.

All emotions, all bonds, all evidence of being alive condensed into one sharpest question:

"What is the point of being alive?"

This sentence had no data, no logic, no optimal solution, and no basis in rules.

It was simply a cry from the deepest part of a living being.

The entire galaxy instantly fell into a dead silence.

Even the ticking of the countdown seemed to slow for a moment.

The Eye of the Observer fell silent.

It wasn't a delay, not a malfunction, not a stutter.

It was thinking.

For a ultimate machine of absolute rationality, absolute rules, and absolute lack of emotion, three seconds of silence was equivalent to an eternal standstill.

Its core operated at high speed, with countless torrents of data washing through every logical pathway, attempting to analyze this sentence that had no answer yet struck at the very essence.

The meaning of life.

The value of emotion.

The weight of crying and laughing.

The reason for remembering and protecting.

These things were not in its database.

They were not in its 13.7 billion years of observation records.

They were not in any of its operational logic.

Three seconds later.

The Eye of the Observer gave the first undefinable, unclassifiable, and uncomputable answer since its birth.

[Unable to calculate.]

Four simple words.

Yet they were like a spark, igniting the entire dead galaxy.

On the bridge.

Franklin jerked his head up, the arrogant fire re-igniting in his eyes. "Unable to calculate?! I love hearing that! You dare to delete my memories? Ask my modified elegy anchor if it agrees first!"

Little Kate let go of her arms, the light re-igniting in her blue pupils as her small hands quickly tapped out commands. "It's not a god, it's just a machine... and if it's a machine, it has vulnerabilities!"

Lin Fan looked at Kate's back, his dark matter light blade slowly dissipating.

He walked up behind her and gently, carefully, used that translucent energy arm to wrap around her waist.

This time, Kate did not step back.

She could feel the warmth coming from his palm—a warmth that didn't belong to a human, yet was incredibly firm.

"It can't calculate it," Kate said softly, a very faint smile touching the corners of her mouth. "Because it has never lived. It has never remembered anyone, never protected anyone, never felt pain, never loved... so it will never understand."

"It's okay if it doesn't understand." Lin Fan lowered his head, resting his chin gently on the top of her head, his voice tender yet firm. "We'll prove it to it."

...

Just as everyone's fighting spirit was re-ignited.

Kate's pupils suddenly constricted.

Her vision penetrated the thick metal light curtain of the Eye of the Observer's outer layer, falling straight onto the core of its deepest database.

It was a boundless ocean of data: cold, dead, and in absolute order.

And in the very center of that ocean, a tiny yet incredibly dazzling white fragment floated quietly.

The fragment flowed with a soft light, its fluctuations completely identical to the power within her body, consistent with the Light Sphere Mother Star, resonating with the echoes in the depths of the Memory Labyrinth, and perfectly overlapping with the frequency of the sound of origin.

That was—

A fragment of the sound of origin.

A piece of highest-authority code that the Eye of the Observer had deliberately sealed, hidden, encrypted, and never activated.

A key piece of foreshadowing sufficient to overturn the entire final battle.

Kate didn't say a word, she just calmly withdrew her gaze, her palm secretly tightening.

She knew.

This wasn't the end.

This was the beginning of the true finale.

The countdown was still continuing.

71:45:12

71:45:11

71:45:10

The mechanical legion of the Eye of the Observer was pouring out from dimensional rifts, filling every corner of the galaxy, their silver-white metal bodies gleaming with a death-like luster under the starlight.

They were the executors.

The cleaners.

The scythes of formatting.

But on the bridge of the Elegy, there was no more despair.

Because they possessed things that even the ultimate rules of the universe could not calculate.

Memories.

Emotions.

Bonds.

Love.

And—the courage to never bow down.

Kate turned around, looking at Lin Fan, at Franklin, at Little Kate, and at all the partners who had fought side by side with her.

Her smile was clean, bright, and filled with the determination of someone who had burned their bridges.

"72 hours," Kate said softly, her voice clear and firm. "That's enough."

"We will not be formatted."

"We will not be forgotten."

"We will not disappear."

Lin Fan gripped her hand tightly and stood side by side with her, looking out at the entire blockaded starry sea.

"No matter what is on the other side."

"We face it together."

The Mechanical Eye still watched indifferently.

The countdown still ticked on ruthlessly.

The shadow of formatting loomed over the entire Milky Way galaxy.

But a new war had already begun.

It was not against the shadow of the end.

It was not against interstellar division.

It was not against time and causality.

It was—

Life, against rules.

Emotion, against order.

The meaning of being alive, against absolute nothingness.

Kate raised her head, looking at that Mechanical Eye that symbolized the ultimate authority of the universe, the starry sky swirling in her eyes as she whispered softly:

"You can't calculate the answer..."

"So we will write it for you to see."