Chapter 37: The Dark Side of the Moon

The silence on the far side of the moon is more deafening than any sound. Kane stands before the triangular entrance, the tricolor candidate sigil burning silently in the vacuum, maintaining the essential field required for his survival. Overhead, the star-filled sky, unfiltered by an atmosphere, resembles black velvet studded with diamonds, while Earth—that blue-and-gold gem—hangs at the edge of a crater, as if it might tumble into eternal darkness at any moment.

Countdown: 71:22:35.

"Your position is confirmed," Lena’s voice transmits directly into Kane’s consciousness via the Rose Network’s quantum link. "Pyramid scans indicate a downward-sloping passage behind the entrance leading to the main control room. But the energy readings... they are chaotic. It seems some kind of barrier is interfering."

Kane’s quantum vision penetrates the surface of the entrance. The sight causes his sigil to instinctively recoil in defense—the interior of the passage is covered in a dark red energy similar to "entropy rot," but more orderly, more... intelligent. The original First Root symbols on the walls have been twisted and reorganized into the sharp, geometric patterns characteristic of the Seventh Iteration. This is not simple contamination, but systematic tampering.

"Theta-7 took control of this place earlier than we thought," Kane assesses the risk. "The internal structure has been Seventh-Iteration-ized. Gardener authority may be restricted."

"Do you need support?" Hassan’s voice cuts in. "Ley line energy can be projected remotely!"

"No, energy fluctuations might trigger the Arbiter device to accelerate activation," Kane rejects the proposal. "This is a surgery that requires precision, not carpet bombing."

He takes one last look at the Earth above before stepping into the triangular entrance.

Gravity inside the passage is anomalous—neither the one-sixth standard of the moon nor Earth standard, but an unstable, fluctuating state that makes him feel light as a feather one moment and heavy as a mountain the next. Kane adjusts his sigil’s output, stabilizing his own gravitational field, and proceeds with caution.

For every meter he descends, the concentration of dark red energy intensifies. By the middle of the passage, the walls have completely "come alive," with vein-like energy conduits squirming across the surface, occasionally bulging into human-like contours before dissolving again. These faces bear a uniform, mechanical expression of agony, screaming silently.

"The primal consciousness of the First Root facilities," Ada says suddenly, her voice slightly dazed from deep analysis. "They are being tortured and twisted by Seventh Iteration technology... but they haven't completely surrendered. They are warning you."

Indeed, as Kane nears those faces of agony, they briefly coalesce, their lips—if the writhing energy clusters could be called lips—trembling as they repeat the same First Root symbol: a combination of "danger" and "trap."

"Thank you for the warning," Kane whispers, but he does not stop.

At the end of the passage stands a circular door similar to the core chamber of the Antarctic ruins, but the material is more ancient, and the symbols on its surface are heavily worn. The control crystal at the center of the door has been replaced by an ugly, dark red sphere that pulsates slowly, like a heart.

Kane does not touch it rashly. Quantum vision reveals at least seven layers of encryption nested within the sphere, each connected to different defense mechanisms—from simple energy discharges to complex spatial-folding traps. The innermost layer is even linked to the Arbiter device’s master program; any unauthorized contact could directly trigger a "pruning."

"I need a password..." Kane muses, "or an authority override."

He attempts to bring his candidate sigil close to the sphere, but is met with violent repulsion—the dark red energy erupts from the sphere like an enraged swarm of bees, forming a twisted face in the air, half-mechanical and half-biological, bearing a seven-tenths resemblance to the vague projection of Envoy Theta-7.

*"Unauthorized individual detected. Gardener candidate sigil identified. Executing Council Resolution Ω-9: Immediate containment."*

The face opens its void-like mouth, spitting out a series of dark red energy rings that loop toward Kane!

Kane dodges to the side while his right hand condenses a tricolor energy blade to strike at the rings. Where the blade passes, the energy rings break and dissipate, but the severed rings immediately reorganize into more, smaller rings, continuing the assault!

"A self-replicating containment protocol!" Ada warns. "Don't fight it head-on! It will convert your energy into containment rings too!"

Kane immediately changes strategy, sheathing his energy blade and concentrating his sigil energy into his left hand, forming a miniature tricolor vortex. When the next wave of energy rings strikes, he meets them with his left hand, the vortex precisely capturing and absorbing the energy rings!

"Analyze the structure!" Kane commands while continuing to absorb the attacking energy.

Marcus is working frantically at the Greenwich Control Center. "Analyzing energy structure... core encryption is Seventh Iteration standard military-grade... but the underlying framework is the First Root's original! Wait... this vulnerability!"

A second later, a complex decryption sequence is transmitted to Kane’s quantum mind. He immediately injects the sequence into the vortex via his sigil, converting it into a targeted cracking pulse!

*Hum—*

The dark red face suddenly freezes, then twists in agony! The containment rings all stall in mid-air, then crumble like sand paintings blown by the wind!

*"Authority conflict... error... error... Gardener sigil priority re-evaluating..."*

Taking advantage of the system chaos, Kane lunges forward, pressing his left hand directly onto the dark red sphere in the center of the door! His candidate sigil outputs at full capacity, and tricolor energy floods into the sphere like a deluge!

"In the name of the Gardener, purify!"

The sphere trembles violently, and the dark red on its surface recedes like an outgoing tide, revealing the original blue-and-gold crystal structure beneath! Layer after layer of encryption locks crumbles before Gardener authority, until finally—

*Click.*

The door slides open slowly.

The main control room is a perfect hemisphere, about fifty meters in diameter, with a massive triangular pyramid device floating in the center—the Arbiter device itself. Its surface is covered in markings that resemble First Root symbols but are deliberately distorted, now radiating a chaotic light of intertwined dark red and blue-gold, indicating it is in the process of activation.

More unsettlingly, the floor of the control room is etched with complex, concentric circular grooves, through which a silver-red liquid flows—the same substance from the New York leak! These liquids converge like living things toward the central Arbiter device, being absorbed to fuel its activation.

"My God..." Marcus’s voice trembles in Kane’s consciousness. "They are feeding the Arbiter device with entropy technology!"

"Not just that." Kane’s quantum vision penetrates the surface of the device, seeing a more terrifying sight within—floating at the core is a miniature, dark red energy-encased holographic projection of Earth, marked with dozens of flickering red dots. "They are marking the starting points for 'pruning.' New York, Cairo, London... every place where a disaster has occurred."

"Those places have the most fragile spacetime structures," Ada realizes quickly. "Once the 'pruning' begins from these points, the chain reaction will sweep across the globe!"

Countdown: 71:18:49.

Time is running out. Kane strides toward the central device, but just three steps in, the entire control room shakes violently! The silver-red liquid on the floor rises into the air, coalescing into dozens of humanoid silhouettes—similar to Seventh Iteration soldiers, but more distorted, more inhuman, wielding weapons made of pure entropic energy!

"Entropy Guards!" Ada exclaims. "The Council has teleported the aggressive nano-units from the New York slime here!"

The first guard lunges, an entropy spear thrusting straight at Kane’s chest! Kane cannot dodge in time and is forced to block, tricolor energy and silver-red entropy clashing with blinding sparks at the point of contact!

"These guys are tougher than the scavenger fleet!" Kane grinds his teeth, his right hand condensing an energy blade to sever another guard's leg. "Their energy structure resists Gardener authority!"

"Because entropy technology is the Seventh Iteration’s 'reverse engineering' of First Root energy!" Ada explains. "It’s like a shield made from your own spear, capable of blocking your spear!"

Kane weaves through the guards' siege, but for every one he destroys, more emerge from the silver-red liquid. Worse, the Arbiter device’s activation progress seems to be accelerating—the dark red light gradually suppresses the blue-and-gold, and the countdown digits flicker with unstable frequency, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down.

"They are adjusting the flow of time!" Lena warns. "The pyramid is detecting an anomaly in spacetime curvature near the moon!"

***

He must break through the guards and make direct contact with the core of the Arbiter device! A sudden idea strikes Kane.

"Ada, is the entropy energy conversion for the New York node ready?"

"At any time! But the precision isn't high, it might—"

"I don't need precision!" Kane rolls to dodge a cross-slash from three entropy spears. "Follow my command, prepare the pulse!"

He leaps up, his candidate sigil fully activated, the tricolor light illuminating the entire control room like a supernova! The guards retreat instinctively, their entropy weapons becoming unstable in the intense light.

"Now! New York pulse! Lock coordinates five meters in front of me!"

Ada executes the order without hesitation. The silver-red energy from the New York node (already partially purified and converted) forms a precise pulse across the distance between Earth and the moon via the Rose Network, striking exactly where Kane specified!

*Boom!*

The pulse contacts the residual raw silver-red liquid on the floor, triggering a violent energy reaction! Like matter-antimatter annihilation, it doesn't explode with destructive energy but releases a strange, grayish-white neutralization wave that sweeps across the entire control room in an instant!

All the Entropy Guards freeze in the wake of the wave, then collapse like sand sculptures! The silver-red liquid in the floor grooves vaporizes entirely, turning into harmless transparent steam!

"Neutralization reaction!" Marcus shouts excitedly. "Purified entropy energy meeting raw entropy energy creates a neutralization effect! That's brilliant!"

Kane has no time to celebrate. The threat of the guards and the liquid is temporarily lifted, but the Arbiter device is still activating. He rushes to the central triangular pyramid, presses his palm against its surface, and his quantum vision penetrates directly to the core—there, the Earth projection wrapped in dark red energy is rotating slowly, the red dots marked on it like festering wounds.

"I need to override Theta-7's commands," Kane recalls Ada’s hint. "Use the candidate sigil to reset the core protocol."

He injects the energy of his tricolor sigil into the device, searching for the control interface. Soon, a virtual authority verification interface appears in his quantum vision—seven nested concentric circles, each requiring a different decryption key.

Layer 1: The basic password of the First Root. Kane passes easily; Gardener authority itself is the highest-level key.
Layer 2: Seventh Iteration military encryption. The cracking code provided by Ada works.
Layer 3: Spacetime coordinate lock. Lena finds the matching coordinate sequence in the pyramid database.
Layer 4: Biological feature verification. The ley line energy guided by Hassan provides Earth’s unique "fingerprint."
Layer 5: Cognitive pattern test. The logic-cracking program urgently written by Marcus and Erica proves useful.
Layer 6: Energy frequency resonance. Kane adjusts the output frequency of his candidate sigil to harmonize with the residual First Root energy of the device.
Layer 7.

There is no prompt, no interface. Just a pure, dark void.

"What is the final layer?" Kane asks, time running out.

"It could be... a morality test," Ada guesses. "The Seventh Iteration implants some form of moral choice in its most critical systems to ensure the user understands its weight."

A morality test? Kane gazes at the dark void. What is the essence of the Arbiter device? It is not a weapon, but a civilizational filter for extreme situations. Whoever uses it must understand the horror and the necessity of this power.

He recalls the warnings from the undersea pyramid, the revelations of the Primal Garden, and the Earth’s pain and resilience he felt while clearing the entropy rot. A Gardener is not a judge, not a ruler, but a guardian and a balancer.

"I know what to do." Kane presses his hand deeper into the device's surface, closes his eyes, and injects his philosophy, determination, and cognition directly through the sigil—

Not destruction, but guardianship.
Not control, but balance.
Not fear, but hope.

The dark void suddenly lights up, revealing a simple First Root symbol: "Understanding."

Layer 7 unlocked.

The core area opens to Kane. The Earth projection wrapped in dark red energy is right before him, and Theta-7’s forged commands coil around it like vipers, constantly releasing the "extinction signal"—that Earth civilization is out of control, contaminated, and no longer worth existing.

Kane does not directly erase these commands. Instead, he does something bolder—he injects the full energy of his candidate sigil into the projection, but not to fight, rather... to supplement.

He displays the true face of Earth:
The hope purified in the silver-red swamp of New York.
The resilience reborn in the Cairo meltdown zone.
The wisdom rebuilt after London’s collapse.
The ancient promise of the Mirror of Ancestors beneath the Sahara.
The unyielding protection in the Antarctic ice sheet.
And that tricolor rose blooming in a concrete crack—a miracle of finding balance in the most unlikely place.

The forged "extinction signal" evaporates rapidly like dew under the sun before these real scenes. The Earth projection returns to a pure blue-and-gold, and the red dot markers transform into green nodes of vitality.

The dark red energy of the Arbiter device recedes rapidly, and the blue-and-gold regains dominance! The activation process reverses!

"It worked!" Lena cheers at Greenwich. "Pyramid scans show the device has entered sleep mode! The countdown has stopped!"

But before Kane’s victory declaration can leave his lips, the entire control room is suddenly drowned in a piercing alarm! The markings on the surface of the device all turn blood-red, and a cold, mechanical voice resonates through the space:

*"Gardener candidate intervention detected. Council emergency protocol initiated. Final Judgment: Candidate civilization and Gardener system have been deeply contaminated. Executing comprehensive pruning. Countdown restarted: 00:10:00."*

***

Ten minutes! Shorter than before!

"What is happening?!" Hassan roars.

"A trap within a trap!" Ada’s voice is filled with despair. "The Council anticipated the possibility of Gardener intervention! They set a final line of defense—if the device is controlled by a non-Council force, it triggers the final destruction protocol! In ten minutes, the entire Earth timeline will be pruned!"

Kane quickly checks the status of the device. This time, the countdown is locked and cannot be stopped by conventional means. Worse, the device begins to release a spatial containment field, and the Rose Network’s quantum link becomes unstable!

"Teleportation blocked!" Lena’s voice is intermittent. "Kane... you... are trapped... on the moon..."

Communication is completely severed. Kane stands alone before the spacetime bomb about to detonate, and the Earth projection overhead begins to disintegrate, like a canvas torn by invisible hands.

Ten minutes. What can he do?
Destroy the device by force? Too dangerous, it might trigger prematurely.
Attempt a forced teleportation? The spatial lock is already in effect.
Wait for backup? No one can reach the far side of the moon in ten minutes.

Kane’s quantum mind runs at maximum speed, searching for any possible solution. Suddenly, he notices something—although the device claims to have entered the irreversible final judgment program, the Earth projection at its core is still faintly resisting; the blue-and-gold light, though suppressed, is not extinguished.

Why? Because his candidate sigil is still supplying energy! There is some fundamental connection between Gardener authority and the First Root underlying framework of the device!

A crazy idea flashes in Kane’s mind.

"If pruning is inevitable..." he whispers to himself, "then prune what should be pruned."

He presses his hand against the device again, but not to attempt to stop the countdown—he is modifying the pruning parameters!

With quantum vision fully open, Kane intervenes directly in the device’s core programming. He does not erase the "prune" command; he redirects it—changing the target from the Earth timeline to the Seventh Iteration’s contamination code within the device!

This is a dangerous gamble. If he succeeds, the device will "prune" away all the malicious code implanted by the Council, restoring the original, pure state of the First Root. If he fails... or if the First Root’s original protocol itself does not allow such an operation...

There is no time to hesitate. Countdown: 00:07:33.

Kane begins reprogramming. The energy of his candidate sigil is converted into a data stream, rewriting the device’s judgment logic directly. This is not a brute-force hack, but a piece of precision work bordering on art—persuading the device to believe that the true "source of contamination" is the Seventh Iteration’s code, not Earth civilization.

Five minutes pass. Kane’s quantum mind approaches overload, and golden energy fluid seeps from his forehead (his blood has already become half-energized). Countdown: 00:02:17.

"Hurry... up..." he grinds his teeth, carving the final First Root symbol onto the surface of the device with his finger.

Suddenly, the device emits a violent vibration like never before! The entire main control room is filled with blinding white light! Kane is thrown back by the shockwave, slamming hard against the wall!

When he struggles to crawl up, he sees an incredible sight—

The Arbiter device is floating in mid-air, and the markings on its surface have all reverted to the pure First Root blue-and-gold! The dark red energy is being "pruned" from within by some invisible force, turning into ashes and drifting away! The Earth projection is whole and bright, with no red dot markers!

Countdown: 00:00:00.

But the expected destruction does not arrive. Instead, the device emits a soft, chime-like tone, followed by the mechanical voice announcing:

*"Contamination source pruning complete. Gardener candidate intervention valid. Executing final protocol: Activating 'Guardian Mode'."*

A blue-and-gold beam shoots from the top of the device, penetrating the lunar base and heading straight into the depths of the universe! Kane’s quantum vision tracks this beam, seeing it form a massive First Root symbol in deep space, made of pure energy—a combination of "Guardian" and "Balance."

The symbol lasts for about thirty seconds, then slowly dissipates. But Kane knows it has been transmitted to a distant place—the main system of the "Gardener’s Ring."

"Kane! Communication restored!" Lena’s voice suddenly reconnects. "What happened? The pyramid detected an energy signal from the moon!"

"I reprogrammed the Arbiter device," Kane explains, exhausted but satisfied. "Not to stop the pruning, but to make it prune the Seventh Iteration’s contamination. Now it has returned to its original function—Earth’s 'Guardian' rather than its 'Arbiter'."

"Was that beam... a signal?" Ada asks.

"It was a proclamation." Kane looks up at the Earth above, the blue-and-gold light gently enveloping it. "A proclamation to the 'Gardener’s Ring' that Earth has passed the final test."

As if to confirm his words, the walls of the main control room suddenly become transparent, revealing the view outside the moon—in the distant deep space, dozens of blue-and-gold light points identical to the lunar beam ignite simultaneously, forming a massive ring structure! That is... the response of other "Guardian" facilities! The coordinates of other Gardener candidate worlds!

"Gardener’s Ring..." Kane whispers, "you have finally responded."

From the center of the ring structure, a gentle but immensely vast wave of consciousness crosses interstellar distance and transmits directly into Kane’s quantum mind:

*"Welcome, new Guardian. Your wisdom and courage have been witnessed. In 72 hours, the Ring will open. Prepare to embark on a greater journey."*

72 hours. No longer an extinction countdown, but a preparatory period for joining a cosmic-level civilization alliance.

Kane turns and leaves the main control room. The Arbiter device—now it should be called the "Guardian Device"—runs quietly behind him, its blue-and-gold light steady and powerful like a heartbeat.

When he walks out of the triangular entrance and stands on the lunar surface again, the blue light of Earth shines gently upon him. For a moment, he feels as if he sees the phantom of a massive tricolor rose emerging in that light, blooming and then dissipating.

The Greenwich Coordination Center erupts in thunderous cheers. Rose Network nodes across the globe light up simultaneously, conveying the message of "Crisis Averted" and "Gardener’s Ring Response" to every human being.

But Kane knows the real challenge has only just begun. Becoming a Gardener candidate is not the end, but the beginning. The Seventh Iteration Council will not give up easily, and there are countless unknown threats and opportunities in the universe.

In 72 hours, the "Ring" will open. Human civilization will officially step onto the interstellar stage.

The countdown restarts: 71:59:59.