The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 931

Chapter 931: City of Twilight In the Eggshell

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

When Hao Ren got out of the crack in the elevator shaft, he was awed by the fantastic scenery inside the 100-kilometer long spaceship.

It was a vast interior space, where Hao Ren could barely see its boundary. Buildings spread out into the distance as the city landscape gradually raised and finally joined the surface above. The city, built in a closed oval space as if an eggshell, had buildings attached to the wall inside his eggshell.

He looked around and felt a little dizzy. There was no sky, no upside, and downside; the entire space was an enclosed spherical shell. No matter which direction he looked at, he only saw buildings and weird equipment. He looked back at the elevator shaft that he came out from; it was a metal tube running through the entire spherical shell space. More than a dozen such metal tubes were running in parallel behind him, coming out from a large building and connecting to another large inverted structure on the other end of the city. In the middle of these parallel rows of metal tubes, he saw platforms and horizontal pipelines suspended in the middle. It was the main thoroughfare.

The parallel metal tube cluster near him was not the only one in the city though. Looking further into the distance, Hao Ren saw the silhouette of a similar tube cluster. They were like the skeleton of a monster crisscrossing the giant spaceship, connecting the city to the outside world.

Vivian was the last to come out of the elevator shaft. She looked at the city in the shell, curious. She muttered to herself, “There is no air, there is silence, but there is light.”

The city was neither dark nor bright. Between those quiet buildings, there was residual lighting system that still worked dotting the entire space of the closed town. At the end of the spherical shell, there was an extraordinarily large cylindrical ‘mountain’. It looked like a massive machine with a complicated structure. The machine was shimmering in orange-red light on its radiator-like structure around it, giving the city its much-needed light.

But this light was far from bright. The spaceship’s internal system must be suffering from some technical problems. Whether it was the remaining lighting in the city or the massive machine at the end of the spherical space, it was apparent that the whole system was not running below capacity. It was like in a standby mode.

“There are no signs of life,” Hao Ren said, glancing at the readings that the MDT sent him. Though the MDT did not possess a high-power scanning capability, he did not think he would need a bigger scanner. He doubted there would be any survivors. “There is no atmosphere, no water, almost as cold as space outside, and there is excessive radiation. It seems that everyone is dead,” Hao Ren said.

Nangong Wuyue suddenly came up to him. She poked Hao Ren’s arm with the tip of her tail and then pointed to a direction. “Certainly, they are all dead,” she said.

Hao Ren looked at the direction where Nangong Wuyue was pointing; the body of a humanoid was floating in the distance.

Focusing his eyesight, he could now see more bodies floating in between the city buildings, and some of them were floating in the height of the enclosed spherical space. There was no upside and downside in this confined space. So strictly speaking, the central point of the enclosed area was the highest point, which was also the farthest point from the shell wall. Corpses were floating around, and most of them were mutilated. The ultra-low temperatures made the bodies extremely fragile. They would break into pieces upon hitting one another. Those intact corpses were the luckiest ones. More might have been smashed into dust by the constant collisions over time.

Hao Ren turned and floated up to a group of buildings closer to him and landed on the roof of a tall building. The illusion of being upside down was not so obvious when not looking up at the overhanging structures overhead. He found a few bodies were floating near the building and so he came up to examine them.

“The facial features are close to the standard type I humans. The skin color is fair, long ears, small bones. Probably these are the results of long-term space living,” Hao Ren said while examining the biological characteristics of the dead like a professional coroner and comparing it to the bio-lineage on the data network. “It’s well preserved,” he said.

“There is no air here, and the temperate is ultra-low, the body will neither rot nor dry up. It will remain in the state of when it first died and became an ice sculpture,” said Nangong Sanba, while taking out a few delicate tools and needle and examining the body. “Let’s see what information I can extract,” he said.

Hao Ren looked up at the quiet City of Twilight and tried to figure out the cause of the tragic death of the people onboard the ark. “Was it air leak, or some other problems that led to the failure of life support system?” he speculated.

“The airlock that we came through was faulty, but the outermost door was closed, and the control system was working properly,” the MDT said. “This spaceship is too big. Maybe we need a complete structural scan to find out what has happened. There are more than a dozen other spaceships out there, and I think their conditions are no better than this one.”

Hao Ren nodded. He clicked on the radio. “Nolan, release the probes, and inspect the exterior of the giant spaceship we are in to see if there are any leaks or other fatal flaws,” he ordered.

“Roger that.”

Nangong Sanba had finished examining the first body. He seemed to have discovered something, but he went up and examined another body again. Nangong Wuyue was curious. “What have you found?” she asked.

“The cause of death of these people is neither suffocation nor low temperature,” Nangong Sanba said and put his tools away. “They look very peaceful, and there are some residual chemicals in the frozen blood vessels, very much like—”

“Like what?” Lily could not wait but ask.

“Like they have inhaled a high dosage of hallucinogens… or some other substances,” Nangong Sanba said, pointing at the bodies around. “They are all the same.”

“Dope?” Hao Ren looked surprised. “These people died because of popping pills?”

“Something like that but I think your choice of words isn’t that appropriate.” Nangong Sanba’s mouth twitched a couple of times. “At present, I have only checked a few of them. It is not conclusive. Let’s explore further.”

Hao Ren agreed. He turned around and floated out into the street in the distance.

The spaceship, which contained the city, was massive. There were large buildings and complete facilities. The streets were wide, and the buildings were tall. People would not be aware that they were in an enclosed space without looking up. They might even forget the real face of the city as a result.

They came to the deepest part of the city, and soon found more bodies and something that seemed wrong.

There was a building with a beautiful round glass dome and an airy interior, which, judging from the decor, should be an exclusive event venue. When the team entered through a massive hole in the wall, they were stunned.

It seemed that a banquet had been held here. There were arranged tables with plenty of food though everything was covered in ice. There were more bodies in this place, remaining in their postures as if they were still alive. People were sitting at the table, men in tuxedos, women in bright and beautiful dresses, aside from the fact that they were all frozen, it looked like a usual banquet. In the corner of the hall were several male bodies in black suites lying on the stage. They had frozen together with the musical instrument in their hands. They seemed to be members of a live musical band.

The sumptuous food, live band, men and women in suits and dresses–this evidence suggested that they were having a feast before they died.

“It feels creepy,” Nangong Wuyue said, rubbing her hands.

“I feel furry,” Lily said, wagging her tail.

Chapter 932: Euthanasia

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The frozen banquet hall, men and women that had turned into ice sculptures, the interrupted life band performance and feast—all were so strange that it gave people goosebumps. Seeing the scene, Hao Ren was rooted to the spot. “It seems that everyone suddenly died halfway through the party,” he said.

Nangong Sanba went up to check if there were any other clues left at the scene. These people here might have died for hundreds of thousands of years, but because of the vacuum and ultra-low temperature, everything including the food was well preserved in the frost. Most of the things were fixed on the table or ground because of icing, and the debris floating in the vacuum was actually ice flakes and human skins respectively.

The same things were also on the outside. But here, the particles were denser.

“Fashion, banquet; I really couldn’t have imagined they would die like that,” Nangong Sanba said while carefully removing a frozen body on the table. “As expected, they had inhaled the same chemical before they died.”

Nangong Wuyue could not help swallowing. “Were all of them died from gas poisoning?” she asked.

“Is there anything suspicious besides gas poisoning? What about the food?” Hao Ren asked casually.

“Food should be fine, at least according to my standards, it is non-toxic. Their death has nothing to do with food judging from the situation,” Nangong Sanba said, shaking his head. “According to the perceptive ability of demon hunter, no negative forces are lingering around. That is to say; these people did not suffer too much pain before they died,” he explained.

Hao Ren nodded and bent down to examine the few bodies near to him. His attention quickly fell on one of the male bodies: the deceased appeared to be old, wearing a solemn black suit that usually people would only wear to a lavish banquet and was considerably more luxurious even compared to the costume that people wore around him. This man was a nobility. But Hao Ren was not interested in his suit but the man’s tightly clenched fists. It seemed that he was holding something in his palms. Hao Ren carefully lifted the fingers of the man trying to see what was inside. But the frozen finger was so fragile that it broke into pieces when he tried to raise it.

Hao Ren muttered an apology to the deceased before pulling out a piece of handkerchief from the broken palm.

Hao Ren unfolded the handkerchief. There was handwriting on it, looking neat. The deceased had plenty of time penning his last words. With the help of the translation plugin, he quickly decoded the text. The content was like this:

“…Roman, my proudest son, the honored heir to the Emeraldvale family. I hope you well in the Long Night I and are still proudly leading and protecting your people. Your mother and I are attending a special banquet, which I think you have guessed the content. But don’t worry about us, it is a pleasant event, both the food and drink as well. The use of the wine of the hometown for bidding farewell to us is the most heartwarming one. Not many people would use this kind of beverage made from plants in an era where synthetic food was the dominance. I am happy to be able to taste it one more time. Your mother is sitting right next to me. And your uncle Lyon is playing the famous song of Master Aurangrok on the stage. I believe that many years ago, the ancestors of our family also had a similar dinner and prayed for our people…

“Roman, my son, I have a lot to tell you, including what I was thinking about after our last quarrel, but they are no longer critical. I heard two empty echoes coming from above the city. I think the two most vital equipment has been shut down. It is time to enjoy the food, wine, and music quietly. Please allow your father to stop here and leave the time for the other elderly here.

“Oh, that smell a bit like blue Vale Chrysanthemum.”

That was the message on the handkerchief. Vivian came up to take a gander. “What is this?”

“Looks like a suicide note?” Hao Ren’s brows knit together. “An old man wrote to his son. It seems that people here knew what was going to happen,” he said.

Many of the discoveries had proven Hao Ren’s speculation was right. Nangong Sanba and Nangong Wuyue had found some other notes on the other bodies. These words written on handkerchiefs or napkins had confirmed what happened here was not an accident.

It was a meticulously planned mass suicide.

Hao Ren and his teammates left the strange banquet hall and came out in the streets. They followed the main road that led to the end of the spherical shell space where there was a weird machine in the shape of a cylindrical mountain. But the machine was not functioning. Hao Ren thought it could be the control center of the spacecraft, or at least an equally important place, where he could find more clues.

They discovered more frozen bodies that had turned into ice sculptures. They were no survivors. The residents of the city became part of the ruins in this cold vacuum. Upon careful examination by Nangong Sanba, the cause of death of them was the same: inhalation of neurotoxic gas.

And the observant Vivian also found some other clues: most of the deceased were dressed in new clothes, new shoes, and new hats and they all looked calm and elegant, just like ordinary people going to a grand banquet. Though not everyone could enjoy the meal and music in the beautiful banquet hall, the residents still tried to put up their best looking suits and have the most exquisite food, enjoying their last moment of luxury.

“It’s like euthanasia after a carnival,” Lily said while rubbing her arms. “They indulge in the party and then let the gas poison the whole city so that they could die in their dreams,” she said.

Inspired by Lily’s description of the event, Hao Ren gazed past fine dust above Twilight City before his eyes landed on the inverted buildings at the other end of the enclosed space. He imagined the place was ushering in its last moment: When the alarm sounded, a deadly nerve gas entered the city atmosphere. Immersing in the sweet, pleasing and magical taste of the nerve gas, people dressed in their best clothes took to the streets to enjoy the last moment of their lives. They ate, drank, and said goodbye to their loved ones.

Hao Ren passed by an empty street and saw an old man sitting next to a flower bed. The old man wore a high hat on his head, covered in frost. The flower bed behind him was still luxuriant. The plants were frozen before they had time to wither. They became crystal flowers. The old man with a smile on the face was holding a fake flower folded from a handkerchief with his hand stretched out as if he was handing the flower to a child who was no longer there.

Some people were trying to bring a last bit of warmth to this dying city.

“They all died at the same time and from the same cause,” the MDT said. It had just finished examining the age of several bodies. “Things happened about a thousand years ago. It is fairly easy to reconstruct the sequence of events: a nerve gas was pumped into the atmosphere of the ark, killing everyone in a short time. These people were fully aware of what happened, which was probably the common wish of all residents, and they celebrated their death.”

“Why did they do that?” Nangong Wuyue asked in a low voice.

Hao Ren had thought of the most likely scenario. “Probably a fatal problem had struck the spaceship, such as irreparable air leakage, purification system malfunction, or resource depletion. To avoid suffering, they chose euthanasia,” he said.

“But there is more than one spaceship in the fleet,” Vivian reminded. “Did other ships encounter the same problem at the same time?”

Hao Ren did not know how to answer that. He came before the giant machine. “We might be able to find clues here,” he said.

They stopped at the foot of the enormous machine, which was a lot larger than they had imagined—almost like a mountain. Looking at the machine, Lily unwittingly curved her tail into a question mark. “Looks like a giant reactor, but looks like it has been shut down.”

Chapter 933: Restart

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Looking up at the massive machine in front, he did not know whether it was a machine or a building, or more like an artificial mountain. But one thing was sure; it was massive. The city was an enclosed shell, and the machine was right at one end of the oval space, perpendicular to all buildings in the town. Its main structure was the large cylinder, up to several kilometers high, cast from black steel, with heatsink and light-emitting windows on the surface. While surrounding the main structure was a series of cylindrical structures. No one knew if these circling cylinders were on their own or just ancillary to the main structure, but each cylinder had a vent opening at the top where faint red lights were still shimmering. It looked like there was still some residual energy left. As Lily said, the entire facility had shut down because most of its external lights were out and the surrounding buildings were also dark. Nevertheless, the residual energy inside the behemoth meant that they could probably restart the machine.

“The energy circuit of this machine is separate from the propulsion system. It must be the dedicated power generator of the life-support system.” The MDT did a simple scan of the power circuits around the giant building. “It’s a very clever design. The ship has multiple sets of separate power units and control centers, the life-support system and the propulsion units do not affect each other. No wonder even though the city has died, and the spacecraft navigation and propulsion system is still operational,” the MDT said.

“No one is piloting the spaceship?” Hao Ren mumbled before calling Nolan onboard the Petrachelys. “Nolan, how is the scanning going?” he asked.

“The scan has been completed. No fatal leakage is found except for some scratches on the body. Its structure is very sound, and even the buffer zone is not damaged. Besides, its engine works well, at least for this level of spaceship technology, it is pretty powerful,” Nolan reported.

“But the people inside are all dead. The power system of the propulsion units and the life-support system are two separate systems,” Hao Ren said. “Release the probes and check out the other spaceships. Be careful, these old antiques are very fragile, and I hope they are still intact.”

After hanging up the communication, Hao Ren spread out his hand. “The spacecraft is not damaged,” he said.

“Then where has the atmosphere in the city gone?” Lily was wide-eyed. “If there is no hole, could it be that the air leaked out slowly over a long period?” she said.

“It seems that the air has turned into ice because of the low temperature. As the life-support system stopped, the temperature dropped, so the air liquefied and—” Hao Ren scratched his chin while saying. But Nangong Wuyue interrupted him. The siren maiden bent down and picked up an ice crystal, put it in her mouth and tasted it. “No, it’s water ice. Water ice constitutes 99.99% of all the ice crystals we see here, and the remaining are traces of other elements, which are not enough to fill space of the entire city,” she said.

“That seems that the atmosphere has gone missing.” Hao Ren pouted and stepped forward. “Let’s look for the entrance for this thing. If the MDT is right, this thing would be the hub of the life-support system,” he said.

It was not easy to find a small door in such a vast place, but with the help of the MDT, things got a lot quicker. They soon found an entrance at its base. At the foot of this enormous steel mountain, where it connected to the inner shell of the spaceship, was a series of huge pipes that extended out like roots. Some smaller structures looked like airlocks or crew rooms along the tubes that could lead to the deeper part of the facility.

It did not take Hao Ren much effort to gain access to the inside of the facility. But when he entered, he was amazed to find lights were still working usually inside.

The bright-yellow warm light illuminated the metal corridor. Though it was still as cold as space outside, the warm-colored light made them feel a little better. There was a lot of equipment in the corridor but mostly had been shut down. Some small instruments such as lights and small displays on the wall were still operational. These instruments were flashing their alarms, but no crew was coming to fix the problems.

“It seems that even though the main system has been down, the backup power is still running until this day,” Nangong Sanba said while sliding his hand across and wiped the thin layer of frost off a small display mounted on the wall. “This says the reactor is shut down and the ‘guardian’ host is in a sleep state,” he said.

Hao Ren’s heart missed a beat: it was shut down, not malfunctioning? Or had the self-diagnostic system malfunctioned too?

He looked into the corridor and found a sign that read “To Control Room” with the help of a series of orange-colored illuminated signs.

The control room was not in the deeper part of the “Mount of Steel.” It was not too far from where they were. It seemed that it was not suitable to station crew inside the Mount of Steel considering how high the energy generated inside. They followed the road signs and quickly found the control center. There was an alloy door in their way. Without needing instruction, Lily came up and cut through the alloy door with her claws in no time.

The interior of the control room was simpler and narrower than Hao Ren expected. It was just a standard machine room, which was no larger than a home office. Silver-gray and light-blue cabinet-shaped machines occupied two-thirds of the space inside, leaving only a few seats for the crew. As a control center for the life-support system of the city, it seemed to be too small. Hao Ren could only guess that the system might be highly automated and needing very little manual intervention.

Hao Ren’s gaze quickly fell on the middle of several machines, where there was a high back chair, which belonged to the chief officer of the facility. Hao Ren recalled the little knowledge he had read in the public database of inspectors, the chief officer in this type of doomsday facility was often the chief operator as well and at least responsible for issuing the start and shut down instructions for the highly critical system.

He went up, gently turned the seat, which was frozen on the ground, around. His heart almost stopped; sitting on the chair was a majestic old man, roughly 60 of age, covered in frost. He was wearing a commander’s uniform decorated with a range of strange-looking medals and emblems, which spoke of his extraordinary ranking. Though the old man had died, his face still exuded a powerful aura of authority. His eyes remained open, appeared muddy and cracked from the freezing temperature but had a hint of fire in them as if the thousand-year ice had not been able to extinguish it. Instead, he was like a sword sealed together with its killing scent.

“What a commander,” Hao Ren muttered. He gently pushed the chair to the side and came before the console that the old man was still watching until his last breath. “Let’s see if we can restart this old thing,” Hao Ren said.

Some parts of the console had become fragile due to the freezing temperature. The plastic lamination and instrument cover instantly broke into pieces at the slightest touch of a hand. But the most critical buttons and internal seemed to be made of special materials and were still in good condition. Nangong Wuyue carefully manipulated the power of water to vaporize the frost inside and outside the console naturally. The machine now became as clean as new—at least it looked new.

Core communication group. Generator indicator. Sanctuary atmosphere monitoring. Artificial gravity. Hao Ren’s eyes ran across the alien characters before he finally found a special slot in the corner of the console. “The core reactor,” he muttered.

“Looks like you need a key, an ID card or something,” Nangong Sanba said after checking the slot. “Someone took the key after the system was shut down,” he said.

“The key is here!” Lily suddenly held up a sparkling silver-white metal plate. She pointed her tail in the old man’s direction. “It was in the hands of this old man!” she said.

Hao Ren could not emphasize it more; dogs were good in searches.

He petted the back of Lily’s ear, took the metal and carefully inserted it into the card slot on the console.

The indicators lit up. The entire facility began to shake.

Chapter 934: The Truth

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Without the artificial atmosphere, Hao Ren could not hear the sound of the giant machine running under his feet in the vacuum, but he could see the lights, which lit up one after another, on the instrument panel and the falling frost from the roof and pipes. He knew he had successfully restarted the machine. He pressed his hand on the icy wall feeling the vibration, which went from weak to strong, coming from the depths of the building. Then the quake began to weaken again, which meant the machine was running smoothly now.

“I can’t believe that this thing still works,” Lily said, sticking her tongue out. “I thought the ice had frozen it.”

Hao Ren did not say anything, just carefully studying the various indicators on the instrument panels and the prompts popping up from the small screens. He was not familiar with this system, and he did not know how the machine would run after being left redundant for a millennium. He was worried that the startup process would not be smooth. Fortunately, it was not difficult to figure out the prompts on the instrument panels. Considering that this was a long voyage, after a few generations, the crew might not be able to retain the complete flight knowledge. So the designer of this giant spaceship had made the control system easy to understand and operate. The machines were mostly automatic, and the parts that required manual operation had clear and concise instructions.

As the vibrations subsided, the main reactor and the generator seemed to be functioning normally. The various instrument in the control room began to light up one after another; the busy flashing lights showed the restart and self-diagnostic progresses of different apparatus. A rectangular silver-white metal panel rose from the central console. The panel displayed the states of various running units. “Main generator restarted. Ecological computer begins to reboot. Emergency system is taking over the accumulative data. System error. Emergency system’s accumulated data is deleted. Transferring to the special process. Reboot ecological computer into beta mode…”

When the ecological computer rebooted from hibernation, Hao Ren found the reset function of the local ecosystem on the console. He pressed the button. A new window popped up on the screen. “Checking the central control station status… Serious error! No atmospheric pressure detected! Multiple leakages found! The central control station initiates the subzone-isolation process. The atmosphere is being reconstructed. All personnel evacuates to the nearest sealed compartment immediately. Repeating. All personnel evacuates to the nearest sealed compartment immediately.”

A series of automatic procedures were being executed. In the peripheral vision, Hao Ren saw the outer doors were closing one by one, and the ventilation system of each compartment began to run. He felt a very soft breeze and pressure on his skin; the atmosphere was recovering.

They were in the central control station. It seemed that the ecosystem of this place was independent of the outside, so in the case that the atmosphere of the whole city disappeared, the atmospheric pressure in the control station would recover within one minute. The MDT checked the composition of the atmosphere; though it was not the same as Earth’s, these super humans here could still breathe smoothly. So they turned off their life-support collars temporarily.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief. “Now at least we don’t have to yell to each other through the radio,” she said.

“I’m looking for something like the computer log,” Hao Ren said as he fiddled with the console. “I’m trying to figure out what was going on here at the time… but the log files seem to have been destroyed,” he said.

A soft system prompt suddenly sounded. The eco computer finally completed its self-diagnostic processes and booted into beta mode from hibernation. Immediately after that, it began to check the state of the city inside the spaceship and of course, it also sounded the panicky alarm at the same time.

A series of red warning lights lit up on the central control station. The panicky alarms sounded loud in the newly restored atmosphere. Hao Ren heard a severely distorted synthetic voice screaming its warning in the air: “Serious Failure! Urban ecosystem shutdown! Serious failure! Urban ecosystem shutdown! Second-tier and above crew, please go back to your positions immediately. Second-tier and above crew, please go back to your positions immediately.”

Hao Ren turned off these irritating alarms and began to restore the artificial atmosphere of the city. When he tried to initiate it, an unexpected error message popped up: “Fatal error. No atmosphere circulating pumps and storage facilities detected.”

“What’s happening?” Vivian asked, puzzled.

“It seems that two especially important components are missing,” Hao Ren replied as his brows pulled together. He kept fiddling with the control panel on the console before he found the way to switch the monitoring windows. Some new monitoring windows of the critical facilities popped up on the screen. He discovered in the image a massive gap between the piles of pipes and machinery on one of the displays. Someone had removed something.

More monitoring visuals popped up. There was more than one similar situation.

He let the control station computer check all the systems one by one. A series of jaw-dropping error messages popped up:

“Fatal error. No water recycling unit found.”

“Fatal error. No thermostat and related servos found.”

“Fatal error. No signal detected in B-2 to C-12 keel mechanical warehouses.”

“More than half of the important facilities have been removed,” Hao Ren said. He dragged the various surveillance screens to the center of the main display. “The ship’s life-support system is almost an empty shell,” he said.

While saying, he continued to fiddle on the console and accidentally touched a seemingly irrelevant small button. A panel next to the main display suddenly lit up. The audio and visual appeared on the panel interrupted him.

It was the image of an old man in a commander’s uniform; his chest was full of medals and emblems, the face exuded a natural aura of authority—the old man was none other than the ice sculpture on the chair before the console. It was a recording, which the old man had made at the last moment of his life.

“Message code… Forget it. This is the Terra Firma. I am Lord Geern Shiron. The shutdown instruction countdown has begun. The ship’s ecosystem will be down after ten minutes. Let me repeat the distribution plan we have agreed earlier: the atmospheric circulation pump will be assigned to the Long Night, the atmospheric storage facility will be assigned to the Eversong, the thermostatic controller and its servo unit will be assigned to the Dawnlight, the water circulation and purification unit and all the mechanical warehouses are dedicated to our king. May he and his Royal Throne spaceship be safe forever. According to the plan, I have blown the ‘gas’ into the atmospheric circulation pump, so please wait twenty-four hours after this message is sent until the purification pump completes the filtration and recovery of the atmosphere.”

The old man who looked emotional in the video took a few deep breaths, and he calmed down again.

“The propulsion unit of the ship will be retained and will continue to follow the fleet until all systems break down. In the name of Duke Geern Shiron, the lord of the Terra Firma, I now announced that after the death of my ship, all the property of the ship, including the propulsion unit, core reactor, and everything in the hull would be returned to the kingdom. If the kingdom is in trouble, please take the spaceship apart by removing the remaining components. This message is over.”

The small display dimmed, and the short message ended. Hao Ren and the others looked at each other, and no one said a word. Lily broke the silence. “Did they just remove the parts on their spaceship and give to others?” she asked.

“These ships have a limited life span. It is already a miracle for them to have flown so far until today with their level of technology,” the MDT said slowly. “The second half of the voyage is dangerous. Various system failures are common and difficult to solve. As long as the mass extinction caused by the deicide is still going on, it is impossible for them to stop and rest. The only solution is to put together the usable parts to at least ensure the ecosystem of the remaining ships is intact.”

Hao Ren shook his head. “But the capacity of the ecosystem has dropped; it could not support more population,” he said.

“So those who were chosen to sacrifice themselves chose euthanasia,” Nangong Wuyue said, biting her lip. She did not know what to make of the incident. She thought of the frozen city outside, and those who wore fine suits and dresses and died at the banquet. “How long have they been struggling to live using this way?” she asked.

Hao Ren shook his head. “They persevered as long as they could, but they could not make it until our arrival. Nolan had sent out a message to all the arks earlier, but there was no response,” he said.

Everyone was silent, feeling a deep regret in them. The MDT suddenly said, “Wait a second. There should be survivors!”