Chapter 999: Arrive as Promised

Chapter 999: Arriving as Promised

“This is the end.”

In the gymnasium of the lower deck, “Luo Yi,” floating at the doorway, raised the gun in his hand.

The source of the electronic warfare intrusion lay right before him.

A massive stream of data was pouring through the communication module of the landing craft in front of him, relentlessly attacking the shipboard servers of the Orion-class missile cruiser.

And before this, it was through this very backdoor that he and his comrades behind him had seized control of the starship.

But this little mouse had ultimately been a step too slow.

No matter how flashy a hacker might be, they couldn’t stop a bullet to the head.

Though two hundred years late, though obstacles had abounded, he had finally lived up to his comrades’ long-held wish.

There would be no more surprises this time—

Passing through the obstacle suspended in midair, he drifted into the room.

Just as he was about to deliver the final blow, the magnetic field around him suddenly turned as turbulent as boiling magma.

Sensing the abrupt shift in the magnetic field beside him, “Luo Yi” felt a jolt of alarm, but it was too late to dodge.

The moment he turned his head, the alloy fragments and debris floating in the air seemed seized by an invisible hand, hurtling violently toward his side!

“Luo Yi” instinctively raised his alloy arms and knees to block, and then a sharp *clang* reverberated through his entire body, sending him flying like a baseball!

His back slammed heavily into the wall, all his sensors shaking violently, his electronic components nearly short-circuiting.

Staring at the steel framework clamped around him like chains, “Luo Yi” was both shocked and furious, struggling desperately to push it off—only to realize that not only the steel wreckage but his own body had been magnetized and stuck to the alloy bulkhead behind him.

Feeling the crackling static electricity at his back, he instantly understood what had happened.

“I see… Inducing a magnetic field through electric current.”

“But thinking a magnetic field of this strength can trap me is far too naive.”

He let out a cold laugh, and the nitrogen jetpack on his back surged, thrusting his entire body forward.

At the same time, having adapted to the resistance, he began using his hands to tear away the magnets clinging to his body and the wall behind him.

This was probably the last trap.

Just as he thought that, he saw a figure standing in the pitch-black room.

It was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen.

In his hand was a standard-issue nuclear battery, likely pulled from some power armor.

Seeing the hair standing on end from static electricity, he instantly understood where the raging current came from.

But what shocked him even more was that this guy, like himself, could move in a vacuum without any protective gear!

Was he also a bionic?

Sensing danger, “Luo Yi” immediately cranked the output of all his motors to maximum, trying to break free from the steel wreckage binding him.

But soon he discovered in terror that the magnetic field confining him had suddenly magnified.

Not only that—

The immense magnetic field was violently fluctuating!

And between the rapidly shifting peaks and troughs, terrifying energy was accumulating!

“Luo Yi”’s consciousness flickered for a moment, then the images captured by his lens sensor showed obvious stuttering and tearing.

Unlike organic beings.

Though bionics could ignore neutron flux damage, they could not escape the effects of magnetic fields!

And the more precise and miniaturized the components, the more so!

“…A high-frequency fluctuating magnetic field… will destroy… your control circuits…”

“…Stop… please…”

Struggling against his stuttering consciousness, “Luo Yi”’s pupils fixed on the youth at the center of the magnetic storm, urging him to stop while raising his gun.

But due to the magnetic field’s interference with his sensors, the muzzle kept trembling, unable to aim at the figure not far away.

*Bang—!*

He finally pulled the trigger, firing several shots in succession, but the man standing before him seemed unfazed.

Suddenly “Luo Yi” saw that the bullets exiting the barrel were suspended in midair, as if caught by an invisible web!

While trapping him, this guy still had spare processing power to manipulate the magnetic field to defend against his attacks!

Incredulity flickered in “Luo Yi”’s pupils as he stared blankly at the youth standing in the center of the magnetic storm.

“…You… what… the hell are you…”

The man did not answer his question, only looking down at his eyes with an expressionless face.

Tiny metal fragments floated beside him, strung together by arcs of electricity writhing like silver serpents, along with the bullets he had just fired.

That gaze seemed to pierce through his circuit boards, stirring a baseless fear in his hollow soul—

“Go to hell—”

“You counterfeit!”

The raging current contracted in an instant, and electromagnetically accelerated projectiles rained down like a storm upon “Luo Yi,” pinned against the wall by steel wreckage, riddling him with holes!

His sturdy alloy shell and bionic skin were no match for the electromagnetic cannon’s barrage; they shattered in an instant, scattering fragments in all directions.

Ye Shi did not stop his actions, nor did he give his opponent even a moment to catch his breath. He poured all his fury into the surging metal storm.

He drained the last trace of electricity from the nuclear battery in his hand, hurling every bit of mass he could use as ammunition into the onslaught, until even the capacitors in his own cybernetic body overloaded, sending silver arcs of electricity crackling!

As for “Luo Yi,” at the center of that furious firepower, he was utterly reduced to scrap.

When the final projectile embedded itself in his chest, his once-indestructible steel body had become a twisted, ragged mess, hanging limp on the perforated alloy wall, twitching sporadically under the static electricity.

It was over…

Thankfully, he had made it in time.

Looking at “Luo Yi,” now completely incapacitated, Ye Shi felt as if all his strength had been drained, his whole body suddenly relaxing.

The nuclear battery he had been clutching slipped from his fingers and drifted away, rolling into a corner of the room like an empty can.

A serial number was printed on the battery’s casing.

Though he didn’t know which warrior that number belonged to, he guessed it must have been one of the three thousand soldiers aboard the Orion-class missile cruiser.

“Thank you…”

Recalling those familiar faces, Ye Shi murmured silently in his heart.

Indeed.

Time was irreversible.

Their existence had ultimately vanished into this universe, along with the plan called “Dawn.”

Yet he still did not believe that their choice made at the moment of death was in vain.

If not for that experience, he would likely have blundered about like a headless fly in this unfamiliar maze, rather than calmly seeking its exit as he did now.

Moreover, the map of the maze seemed etched into his mind; he even felt he knew this place better than that fellow who called himself Luo Yi.

In the unseen depths, he vaguely sensed something.

Throughout the entire incident—or rather, the instance—something had actually traversed time, influencing both past and future simultaneously.

Only now his mind was in great turmoil, still unable to break free from that sense of temporal disarray, and for the moment he could not organize the vague perceptions in his head into words.

But after all this was over, he would write this legendary experience on the forum and share it with others who were interested.

Not just this wondrous experience,

but also the three thousand crew members aboard the Orion missile cruiser, together with the plan codenamed 'Dawn'.

History should have a page for them.

At the moment when the long night was about to fall, a group of people with ideals made a unanimous choice—

What they left in the face of death was hope.

They unhesitatingly left the chance to live for the living.

The only regret was that the promise of 'reuniting after two hundred years' had ultimately been broken...

Just as Ye Shi's heart could not let go, the corner of his eye suddenly noticed something floating up from the android's remains.

It was a silver-white metal fragment, with a delicate chain attached.

The android had been clutching it tightly in its palm, but due to weightlessness and static interference, it drifted out from between its open fingers.

Watching the slowly drifting metal fragment, Ye Shi suddenly felt his heart twitch.

Almost instinctively, he reached out and grasped it.

It seemed to be an identity tag, with a line of tiny characters engraved on its front.

[Luo Yi, Sergeant]

The instant he saw those characters, Ye Shi felt his heartbeat skip a beat, and an unprecedented surge of emotion welled up from his chest.

They had not broken their promise!

They had been here all along!

They had finally met after all!

"I never thought... it would be a reunion like this."

Gradually understanding everything, Ye Shi wanted to take a deep breath to suppress the emotions that were about to break, but found he could not breathe; he could only clutch the dog tag tightly in his palm.

At that moment, a faint signal drifted into the communication channel.

The signal seemed to come from the wrecked android.

After taking a thorough beating from him, the only thing still working on its entire body was the communication module.

"...You... know me?"

Ye Shi initially did not want to respond, but the thing had already started talking on its own, so he replied impatiently.

"I don't know you."

With its damaged head drooping, it asked urgently in a faltering voice.

"Then... do you know... the owner of this dog tag?"

"Yes," Ye Shi said bluntly. "I met him once. He was a man worthy of respect... completely unlike a half-baked counterfeit like you."

Hearing the word "counterfeit," the signal in the communication channel flickered slightly.

It seemed to resist that word.

But nailed to the wall as it was, it could do nothing except protest in spirit.

"This is impossible... I... don't know you."

"Is that so? That just proves you're a counterfeit," Ye Shi sneered mockingly. "I don't know how the Celestials made you, but I suppose apart from looking exactly like Luo Yi, you couldn't possibly have his memories."

The android pinned to the wall could not refute that.

It indeed did not have that.

"The Celestials" had told it that its name was Luo Yi, rank Sergeant, a member of the Orion missile cruiser, who had become a disembodied electronic ghost due to a mutiny... and nothing more.

That missing part of its memory was precisely what it had been striving to find all along.

It wanted to become him!

But now, it had fallen into unprecedented confusion.

A youth who claimed to know Luo Yi stood before it, and it was merely a counterfeit.

"This doesn't make sense... I... he... died two hundred years ago. How could you know him? You're lying to me? No, you must be lying to me..."

"Believe it or not."

Looking at this incessantly babbling thing, Ye Shi tossed out that sentence impatiently.

He had no obligation to explain to it, nor was he inclined to explain so much to this creature.

But the android's head seemed to have malfunctioned, falling into a loop of self-doubt.

After a moment, it only murmured one sentence repeatedly.

"...Who am I?"

"Ask yourself."

Ye Shi couldn't help but quip, then cut off the chattering signal source.

If nothing unexpected happened, the Jiang Xuezhou he was looking for should be on this unfamiliar spaceship before him.

As for why she was here, he supposed she would tell him after she woke up.

At that moment, the previously pitch-black room suddenly lit up.

Not just this room, but even the corridor outside, like a deep well, also became bright.

That sudden light was like a pale glimmer of dawn at the end of a long night.

At the same time, his communication module received an unfamiliar broadcast signal.

It seemed to come from the central broadcast of the Orion missile cruiser.

"System reset complete. New commander biometric information registered. Remarks: Captain Jiang Xuezhou, Executive Officer Ye Shi."

"Reactor status check complete. Low power alarm cleared. Lower deck power supply restoring..."

"Artificial gravity system restarting... This vessel will enter low-gravity mode in five minutes. All units, please prepare."

Hearing that gentle electronic voice, Ye Shi's heart involuntarily welled up with a trace of joy.

Without a doubt—

It was Xuezhou's doing!

Perhaps it wasn't just her—

While he was fighting Luo Yi's duplicate, she successfully breached the firewall of the Orion missile cruiser and reclaimed the starship's control that had fallen into the Lagrange point space station!

"Well done!"

He couldn't help but pump his clenched fist, then arcs of electricity sprang from his palm, and under the pull of electromagnetic force, he drifted toward the ship embedded in the hull armor.

He tore off the half-open hatch with effortless ease, but when he saw the crimson hibernation pod, his heartbeat involuntarily froze.

"No—"

In an instant, his elation plummeted into the abyss; he threw himself desolately against the pod's door.

The door, which should have been transparent, was covered in a layer of red frost, and its edges were still stained with freshly clotted blood.

Rage surged to his head in an instant; he wished he could turn back to the previous room and grind that shattered counterfeit into dust and scatter its ashes to the winds!

Just as Ye Shi was burning with anxiety, the voice recorder inserted beside the hibernation pod suddenly caught his attention.

It wasn't just the recorder.

Right next to the recorder, on a silver metal tray, lay several plastic bags frozen rock-hard.

A sticky note was attached to the plastic bags, with a scrawled line of writing.

[Resuscitation must be performed under normal temperature and pressure. Please first close the cockpit hatch, then manually open the landing craft cockpit's emergency airlock following the instructions in the recording.]

Everything seemed as if it had been prepared in advance.

The key to the door lay within his line of sight.

Just like the luggage his mother had prepared for him before his first long journey.

Without a moment's hesitation, Ye Shi turned back and sealed the already warped hatch tightly, then rushed frantically to find the emergency airlock in the cockpit.

But unfortunately, he was a complete novice at piloting spaceships, and after searching for a long time, he couldn't find where the switch was.

Only then did he suddenly remember the voice recorder, so he obediently returned to the "mission prompt."

The moment he pulled the data cable from his neck and plugged it into the recorder, a familiar voice drifted into his ears, causing his dazed consciousness to drift back to that frozen moment in time.

"I don't have much time, so I'll make it brief. I hope you listen carefully..."

"About the method to thaw the hemostatic gel..."