Chapter Thirty: The Tricolor Rose

Page (1/3)

On the lawn of the Greenwich Observatory, morning dew condensed into beads among the petals of a tricolor rose. Kane sat in his wheelchair—temporarily, the doctors promised—watching this miracle that had sprouted from a crack in the concrete. Its stem pierced through silver-red mucus, obsidian seals, and blue-gold energy fields, finding balance in a triple environment that should have been impossible to coexist. Just like all of them.

"Marcus has finally cracked the final encryption of the Seventh Iteration." Lena approached, her crystal left hand now displaying stable tricolor spiral patterns. With a light flick of her fingertips, she projected a data stream into the air. "You were right. Ada-7 was never an envoy. She was an exiled rebel."

Kane took the projection, his quantum vision automatically parsing the encrypted content. The Seventh Iteration civilization of 2289 had long split into two factions: the mainstream "Weavers," who advocated for peaceful coexistence with past civilizations, and Ada’s "Pruners," who firmly believed that only by completely reshaping history could they avoid the resource crisis of their era.

"So she didn't travel back to warn us, but to rewrite the origin." Kane’s voice was much hoarser than it had been three months ago; the dual trauma of the seabed and the root system had left permanent marks on his vocal cords. "If the First Root determines that human civilization is a failure..."

"The lunar weapon will erase all timelines from the twentieth century to the present." Little Key’s voice came from behind. She still looked like a twelve-year-old, but the posture of her walk and the weight in her eyes revealed internal changes. The true reconciliation had been completed; the quantum rose, the First Root, and human consciousness had reached a form of coexistence that transcended understanding.

In her hands, she cradled a shifting orb of light, within which a miniature nebula could be seen rotating. "The good news is, the Weaver faction has locked onto Ada’s temporal coordinates. The bad news is..." The orb displayed a strange starry sky, "She activated a contingency plan before she fled."

The projection revealed a massive ring-like structure orbiting a blue-white star. Kane’s quantum vision immediately identified its scale—the diameter exceeded the moon’s orbit, and its surface was composed of countless hexagonal modules.

"A Dyson ring?" Lena frowned. "A base for the Seventh Iteration?"

"Worse." Little Key zoomed in on the image, showing the interior of the ring. "This is a time-weaving factory. Ada has cultivated millions of alternative timelines here, planning to use them to overwrite our reality."

The image switched, showing countless glass cylinders. Inside each floated a miniature model of Earth, playing out different historical trajectories. In some cylinders, dinosaurs had never gone extinct; in others, the Roman Empire had lasted to the present day; still others displayed entirely alien human subspecies...

"She wants to drown us in probability." Kane understood. "If enough alternative timelines are injected simultaneously, the structure of reality will burn out like an overloaded circuit."

Little Key nodded, the orb transforming into a model of the solar system. "The Weavers have given us a window. In 72 hours, the factory will reach critical capacity. Before then..."

"We can launch a preemptive strike." Hassan’s voice boomed like thunder. He strode over; the scars from the tribal rituals on his chest had healed, but the newly embedded obsidian shards shimmered with an ominous light in the sun. "The dreams of my ancestors tell me the answer lies deep in the desert."

Lena’s crystal left hand suddenly deformed uncontrollably into a receiver of some kind. "Wait... detecting an anomalous signal... coming from beneath the Sahara!"

The projection switched automatically, displaying a set of newly decrypted ancient blueprints—in 1947, a French archaeological team had discovered a metal disc in the Algerian desert, its surface engraved with the same symbols as the First Root. Research records showed that the disc had disappeared mysteriously while being transported to Paris, but detailed measurement data had been left behind.

"That wasn't a flying saucer." Kane’s quantum vision highlighted key details on the blueprints. "It’s an escape pod of the First Root. A seed bank left by a civilization from seven hundred million years ago."

Hassan’s obsidian inlays suddenly emitted a resonant hum. "My people have guarded this secret for dozens of generations. We call it the 'Mirror of the Ancestors'—a mirror that can reflect time itself."

Little Key’s orb flickered violently, its tricolor light shifting and changing. "If we find it... we might be able to travel directly to Ada’s factory without waiting for her to attack."

"But travel requires coordinates." Lena checked the data. "We don't even know which galaxy that Dyson ring is in."

"I know." Little Key said softly, the nebula in her right eye rotating faster. "The memory of the First Root contains star charts of all civilizations' births. The ring is in the Vega system, 25 light-years from Earth."

Kane tried to stand, but his crystallized right leg could not yet bear the weight. He hammered the armrest of the wheelchair in frustration. "Damn it! I need at least two weeks to return to combat readiness!"

"Actually..." A familiar voice came from the door of the observatory. Erika walked in, pushing a bizarre device that looked like a hybrid of a medical pod and a particle accelerator. "Marcus and I developed this. A temporary quantum perfuser. It can restore 90% of your functionality within 48 hours."

She opened the pod, which was filled with blue-gold liquid. "The side effect is that it accelerates the crystallization process. After using it, you may never be able to return to a fully human form."

Without hesitation, Kane reached out to release the safety lock on the wheelchair. "It’s worth the risk."

"Wait." Little Key pressed his arm. "Look at this first."

She threw the orb into the air, and the image expanded into a holographic projection: three hundred meters beneath the Sahara Desert, a perfect metal disc lay silently in a salt layer. But chillingly, twelve mummies wearing modern expedition gear surrounded the disc, their bodies frozen in terrifyingly twisted postures, as if they had seen something beyond comprehension at the moment of their death.

"The 1947 archaeological team didn't go missing." Lena’s receiver-shaped left hand trembled. "They found it, but they couldn't bear what they found."

Hassan’s obsidian hummed even more intensely. "The ancestors warned... the mirror devours impure souls."

Page (2/3)

"We need spiritual protection." Kane pondered. "If the disc is part of the First Root, it will test those who make contact, just like the seabed machinery."

Little Key suddenly walked to the tricolor rose in the center of the lawn and plucked it gently. "Or... we bring a letter of introduction."

She held the rose up to the sunlight. Miraculously, the plucked flower did not wither; instead, it became even more vivid in the tricolor light, and the dew on its petals shimmered like liquid diamonds.

"The First Root recognizes its own mark." She handed the rose to Kane. "This will be your pass through the mirror."

The action plan took shape quickly. Hassan returned to Africa first to prepare for the tribal ritual; Marcus and Erika were tasked with modifying deep-sea probes for the desert excavation; Lena attempted to establish a more stable link with the seabed machinery to acquire more information about the disc.

As for Kane, he lay inside the quantum perfuser. As the blue-gold liquid submerged his face, his final conscious thought was Erika’s countdown:

"Three, two, one... quantum synchronization initiated."

Agonizing pain struck like a billion needles piercing every pore simultaneously. The liquid did not just soak him from the outside; it penetrated his skin and injected directly into his circulatory system. Kane felt his cells screaming as his DNA strands were forcibly dismantled and reassembled. The boundary between armor and flesh blurred completely, and the crystallization spread like wildfire.

When the pod finally opened, the being standing in the instrument was no longer a half-human, half-mechanical warrior, but a pure energy lifeform—a human silhouette composed of blue-gold light, with only the face retaining a trace of Kane’s features. He raised his hand, watching the light pass through his translucent "skin," where countless tiny galaxies rotated within.

"How do you feel?" Erika’s voice was filled with worry and awe.

Kane tried to speak, but his vocal cords had quantized. Instead, a resonant sound echoed directly in his brain:

"Clear. Powerful. ...Hungry."

Marcus handed him a specially crafted energy crystal. "Try this. Concentrated energy from a root network node."

Kane took the crystal; it melted in his hand like an ice cube and was absorbed directly into his energy meridians. The world suddenly became incredibly clear in his quantum vision—he could see the vibration of every molecule in the air, the structure of an ant colony three hundred meters underground, and even the data pulses flowing through Lena’s crystal left hand.

"One of the side effects." Marcus adjusted his glasses. "You will temporarily perceive information streams from all dimensions. Most functions will shut down after 48 hours as your body stabilizes."

Little Key approached, now having to look up to meet Kane’s gaze. "We are ready. Hassan says the tribal elders have gathered at the discovery site."

Kane tried to take a step. The way his quantized body moved was completely different from flesh—it wasn't muscle contraction driving bones, but his will directly distorting local space to create displacement. He almost passed through the floor on the first step, but mastered basic control by the second.

"Let’s go." His consciousness ripples spread throughout the room. "End this time war."

The night sky of the Sahara was closer to the essence of the universe than anywhere else. With no light pollution and no clouds to block the view, the Milky Way poured down like an inverted waterfall of fire. Kane stood by the off-road vehicle, his quantum vision piercing the sand to "see" the perfect metal disc underground. It was even more stunning than on the blueprints—exactly 33.3 meters in diameter, its surface smooth to the atomic level, with the same symbols as the First Root engraved on the edges.

"It is here." Hassan pointed to a seemingly ordinary sand dune. "The ancestors said the mirror chooses when to reveal itself."

Twelve tribal elders sat in a circle, beginning to chant an ancient incantation. They used obsidian daggers to slash their palms, letting blood drip into the sand. Chillingly, the blood was not absorbed by the sand but rolled and gathered like mercury, gradually forming the same symbols as those on the surface of the disc.

Kane took the tricolor rose from his pocket. Surprisingly, it remained as fresh as ever after the long journey, becoming even more brilliant. When he placed the flower in the center of the blood symbols, the entire desert suddenly fell silent—even the sound of the wind vanished.

The sand dune began to sink. It wasn't a normal collapse, but a precise circular area descending at a uniform speed, as if scooped out by an invisible giant bowl. Three minutes later, a slanted metal surface was exposed to the starlight. It reflected the Milky Way perfectly, yet it was not an ordinary mirror—the starry sky in the reflection had subtle differences from reality; certain constellations were out of place, and there were several bright stars that did not exist in the real world.

"The Mirror of the Ancestors..." The oldest elder knelt on the ground, his voice trembling. "It has chosen tonight."

Lena’s crystal left hand automatically deployed as a holographic scanner. "Detecting intense spacetime distortion... This isn't ordinary metal... it’s some kind of artificially created exotic matter!"

Little Key walked to the edge of the disc, leaving glowing footprints on the sand with every step. When she reached out to touch the mirror surface, an incredible scene unfolded—her palm met no resistance, sinking directly into it as if into water.

"The passage is open." She looked back at Kane. "But only the marked can pass."

Kane understood what she meant. His current quantized form, Little Key’s fusion with the First Root, Lena’s crystal modification, Hassan’s obsidian inlays... they were all beings "marked" by different civilizations.

Page (3/3)

"Marcus, Erika, you stay behind." Kane’s consciousness ripples echoed in the team’s minds. "If we haven't returned within 72 hours..."

"Understood, initiate Plan B." Marcus gave a wry smile. "Although I have no idea what Plan B is."

Kane led the way toward the mirror. When his quantized body made contact with the exotic matter, a beautiful sense of resonance occurred, like musical notes finding the correct chord. He allowed the force to pull him in; the process of passing through was like moving through thick liquid, yet also like being dismantled into fundamental particles and reassembled.

When his senses stabilized, he was standing on an infinitely extending metal plain. Above his head was not the sky, but a slowly rotating reflection of the Milky Way. Little Key, Lena, and Hassan appeared beside him one after another, each briefly dizzy from the transit.

"This is..." Lena’s scanner flickered wildly. "Inside the disc? But the space is far larger than its external dimensions!"

"Dimensional folding." Little Key pointed to a speck of light in the distance. "That is the console. All of the First Root’s seed banks share the same design."

They walked toward the point of light, each step covering an incredible distance. Soon, a circular platform appeared before them, with seven differently colored control crystals suspended in the center, arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper.

Hassan suddenly grabbed Kane’s arm. "Be careful! The ancestors warned that the mirror tests every entrant!"

As soon as he spoke, twelve figures rose around the platform—they were the mummies from the 1947 expedition, but now they were moving, with silver-red flames flickering in their dry eye sockets.

"Verification sequence initiated." They said in unison, their voices a mixture of desert wind and mechanical sound. "Answer three questions, or join us."

Kane signaled for the others to step back and moved forward alone. "Ask."

The first mummy moved forward: "Before time began, what already existed?"

This was not a scientific question, but a philosophical riddle. Kane’s quantum mind processed at high speed, and a flash of insight struck him: "Possibility."

The mummies nodded simultaneously. The second asked: "When Order and Chaos struggle, what remains neutral?"

Little Key suddenly interjected: "Life! Life creates order within chaos, and nurtures chaos within order!"

A third nod. The final question came from the most intact mummy: "When all timelines end, what remains?"

Even Hassan knew the answer this time: "Stories. Even if the universe suffers heat death, the stories that once existed will not disappear."

The moment the verification passed, the mummies turned into dust. The control crystals lit up simultaneously, projecting a 3D map of the entire galaxy. Little Key immediately operated the interface, locking onto the Vega system.

"Found it! The Dyson ring is in the orbit of the fourth planet!" She placed the tricolor rose into the control slot. "The mirror can send us there, but there are no return tickets."

Lena checked the weapon systems: "Then we solve the problem once and for all."

Hassan’s obsidian began to glow: "The ancestors bless our expedition."

Kane looked around this strange space one last time. He knew the coming battle would decide the fate of human civilization—not through force, but by proving that they deserved a place in the garden of the universe.

"Prepare for transit." His consciousness ripples were firm and calm. "For all possible worlds."

The control crystals erupted in dazzling light, and the metal plain began to fold. In the final moment before disappearing completely, Kane saw his own reflection on the surface of the disc—no longer a quantized monster, but a human shape made of pure light, with tricolor wings vaguely unfurling behind him.

Then, the gravity of Vega seized them.