Chapter 66: The Mystery of the Silent Colossus

The residual chaos of the underground laboratory at the Jinjiang Base had not yet fully subsided.

Although the panic over the media-hyped "alien virus" gradually cooled down under strong official refutations and public opinion guidance, that intangible pressure had already quietly permeated and shrouded the city, lingering in the hearts of everyone who knew the truth.

Lying inside the medical pod, Xu Yan felt the excruciating pain brought by the disorder of his biological information waves gradually recede under high-dose stabilizers and his own stubborn willpower, replaced by a profound fatigue originating from the conscious level and a rather… peculiar sense of transparency.

The dangerous gamble of the "consciousness split" experiment, though it had nearly led to disaster, was not entirely without reward.

At the final moment, the ultimate resonance achieved between him and Jiyu by casting aside barriers and relying on pure trust acted like a crude yet effective welding process. It not only temporarily suppressed the abnormal harmonics, but to some extent, forged their symbiotic connection anew, making it tougher than before and harder to clearly define the boundaries between them.

"Biological information wave stability recovered to 82.5%, abnormal harmonic activity reduced below the threshold. Post-resonance synergy efficiency increased by 15.3%, but consciousness boundary fuzziness increased by 7.8%. The boundaries of the symbiosis protocol need to be redefined." Jiyu’s analysis sounded on schedule as ever, but the "tactile feel" of its consciousness seemed to lack a bit of absolute alienation, carrying instead an indescribable… viscous texture, as if Ram’s cold logic, having experienced a peak-like resonance, had also been tainted by the temperature of Earth’s consciousness.

Gently pressing his still throbbing temples, Xu Yan did not respond to the question regarding the protocol boundaries.

At this moment, he cared more about those fleeting, ancient, and completely unfamiliar scenes that had flashed before his eyes amidst the violent spacetime overlaps at the moment the experiment went out of control—aside from the memory fragments of Ram and Earth, there seemed to be some extremely brief yet immensely ancient strange sights flickering past.

The medical pod door slid open, and Ouyang Nan walked in, her face bearing a trace of lingering fatigue.

"Public opinion pressure is temporarily controllable, but the international community's 'attention' has skyrocketed." She handed a data pad to Xu Yan, which displayed monitoring records and highly active analysis traces of abnormal energy fluctuations at the Jinjiang Base from multiple overseas signal sources. "Quite a few 'neighbors' are sitting on pins and needles."

She paused, lowering her voice with a hint of excitement: "More importantly, while processing the experimental residual data, Wu Mingjie and I discovered an extremely faint directional gravitational wave signal residue that could not be completely masked by the spacetime disturbance energy. Its origin points to a previously unexplored area deep within the Echo Valley—Archive Codename: 'LR-7 Silent Colossus'."

"The Silent Colossus?" Xu Yan took the data pad, his gaze narrowing slightly.

"Based on the spatial coordinate feedback captured in the experimental data, combined with the information about the 'colossus' you previously obtained from the mole," Ouyang Nan's fingers swiped quickly across the data pad, pulling up a blurry three-dimensional terrain map stitched together from multiple scans, "we successfully increased the positioning accuracy by 300%. It is right on the edge of the most dangerous 'Silent Vortex' zone in Echo Valley."

Target locked!

No longer a aimless search.

Without any hesitation, Xu Yan, whose injuries had not yet fully healed, insisted on leading the team in person.

A fast reconnaissance ship named "Shadowstalker," urgently refitted and enhanced with stealth and defense systems, carried the core squad and once again silently sailed into the distorted star field of Echo Valley.

Crossing through the familiar and perilous spatial turbulence belt and dodging several hidden outposts that Redeem might have deployed, "Shadowstalker" finally arrived at the target area.

This place felt like a graveyard within Echo Valley. Space was abnormally "calm," yet it was a dead, suffocating calm.

Huge, shattered stellar debris and dust clouds drifted slowly, forming a vast and eerie mist zone.

The reconnaissance ship carefully shuttled through them, with all sensors fully open, scanning every inch of space.

Finally, after piercing through a dense dust cloud rich in special metal particles, the scene ahead made everyone on the bridge catch their breath in shock—

An object so unimaginably huge was quietly suspended in the void.

It was not naturally formed stellar debris, but a gigantic structure bearing clear traces of artificial carving.

Its material was neither metal nor stone, presenting a dark tone tempered by endless years. The surface was covered with scars of impacts and erosion, yet one could still feel its primordial, heart-shaking grandeur and majesty.

Its shape was abstract and peculiar, resembling a severed mountain peak or a silent, watchful faceless deity.

This was the "Silent Colossus."

"Shadowstalker" slowly approached, shining high-intensity searchlights onto the colossus's surface.

As the light moved, everyone clearly saw that the dark surface was actually engraved with countless extremely complex, profound symbols and patterns!

These runes were neither the Interstellar Alliance's common language nor any known civilization's writing system.

They were ancient, obscure, yet imbued with an indescribable regularity and sense of power.

Xu Yan's pupils suddenly contracted. He abruptly pulled the bronze compass left by his father from his inner pocket.

The needle at the center of the compass no longer pointed to any magnetic pole; instead, it shook wildly, emitting an almost imperceptible high-frequency hum. The rhythm of its trembling faintly matched a certain inherent rhythm of the runes on the colossus's surface!

What made his heart beat even faster was that the tiny etched patterns on the back of the compass—which he had never paid attention to and had seemed merely decorative—came alive under the "illumination" of the colossus's runes, presenting an astonishing homology with certain basic unit structures on the colossus!

"These runes... and the compass..." Xu Yan's voice carried incredulous excitement.

"Analyzing rune structure..." Jiyu's consciousness instantly became highly focused, even carrying a hint of unprecedented solemnity. "The basic grammatical units have a 12.8% similarity with Ram's most ancient 'Pioneer Language Family,' but are more primitive and... pure. Attempting to match known databases... Match failed. Unknown energy guidance mode discovered."

At that moment, Ouyang Nan also let out a low gasp: "Xu Yan! Look at this!" She magnified the digital copy of her father Ouyang Jing's exploration notes, pointing to the scribbled sketches and annotations on the edge of one page.

A few incomplete symbols copied there were almost identical to an inscription on the colossus's surface just illuminated by the light!

Next to the notes were Ouyang Jing's annotations: "...discovered at the edge of the 'Eye of Silence'... suspected civilization imprint... related to... star map..."

Everyone's gaze focused on that section of the inscription.

It seemed to be the starting point of a larger inscription.

Jiyu's analysis came synchronously: "Inscription energy field activity increased, attempting interactive interpretation... Fragment acquired: 'When the twin stars converge at the zenith, the silent one shall speak...'"

"Twin stars converge at the zenith?" Duan Peng frowned. "What kind of riddle is this?"

Yet Xu Yan felt as though he had been struck by lightning!

He hurriedly operated the console, projecting the star map fragments drawn in the notes that had never been fully deciphered.

Previously, these star map fragments were chaotic and unorganized, seemingly lacking the crucial stitching logic.

But at this moment, prompted by the "twin stars" line from the "Silent Colossus" inscription, Xu Yan was struck by a flash of inspiration. Taking the colossus's coordinates as a base point, he attempted to extend and deduce the trajectories of two specific stars represented in the star map fragments...

A perfect match!

When the trajectories of those two virtual stars extended within the star map and precisely intersected at a specific point in time directly overhead the colossus, the entire incomplete star map seemed to be injected with a soul, instantly becoming complete and logically clear! It not only marked the location of the colossus but also pointed to several unknown coordinate points in the deeper cosmos!

The core key of the star map in the notes was actually hidden within the inscription of this Silent Colossus!

"The predecessors... knew all along..." Ouyang Nan muttered to herself, staring at the colossus with eyes full of shock and deep longing.

This discovery meant that Ouyang Jing's exploration back then was far from a simple accidental venture into a dangerous place; he had likely already touched upon the edge of the "Silent Colossus" and the deeper secrets behind it!

"Scanned multiple hidden signal sources rapidly approaching!" Wu Mingjie's warning voice suddenly rang out, shattering the shock at the scene. "Diverse signal characteristics, some from Redeem, others from unknown parties! They have all been attracted by the colossus's energy fluctuations!"

Almost simultaneously with Wu Mingjie's words, the colossus seemed to react to the approach of external ships and energy interaction.

The runes on its surface lit up with a faint glow one by one, and an intangible, gentle yet immensely massive consciousness field centered on the colossus slowly spread outward, enveloping "Shadowstalker" along with the other factional spacecraft that had just arrived and had not yet revealed themselves.

No attack, no warning.

In everyone's consciousness, a pebble seemed to have been cast, sending ripples outward—

[Pioneer Civilization Memory Projection · Fragment]

No longer chaotic spacetime overlaps, but a series of relatively clear images from the distant past:

Creation: Huge stardust converged under the manipulation of invisible hands, forging the skeleton of the "colossus," while countless dot-like intelligent beings surrounded it, working with focus and awe.

Watch: The colossus hovered at the edge of the newborn interstellar alliance, its runes lighting up to build an invisible barrier, resisting the twisted shadow invasions from the deep space.

Silence: The scene of the disaster falling was fragmented, stars extinguished, and the light of civilization dimming. The colossus's light gradually faded, finally plunging into silence, becoming a tombstone, and also becoming... a seed bank?

Warning: A desolate and majestic voice echoed in everyone's consciousness: "...knowledge... guardianship... imbalance... is destruction... waiting... fire of reinvigoration..."

These memory fragments were not complete history, but rather apocalyptic fragments full of metaphors and symbols, yet they contained an unimaginable amount of information!

Xu Yan and Ouyang Nan were immersed in shock, seeing the heavy rise and fall of civilizations and feeling that cross-time guardianship and warning.

The two unconsciously drew closer, their gazes meeting without the need for words. The shock and epiphany from jointly experiencing the scouring of history caused their emotional cognition to leap qualitatively in silence.

Jiyu's consciousness stream also fell into a prolonged silence, as if it were processing this ancient information that far exceeded Ram's historical records with all its might.

"The 'Colossus'... is not a weapon, it's an 'consciousness storage device,' a fortress of knowledge, a tombstone of civilization... and the fire of rebirth," Xu Yan said slowly, his eyes reflecting the cold surface of the colossus. "To activate it, we need the energy of the 'twin stars'... We need to know the time of the next 'twin star convergence'!"

"Shadowstalker's" detectors and Jiyu began calculating frantically at the same time.

At this moment, in the surrounding void, Redeem's raiding ships and the reconnaissance ships of other nations had already recovered from the shock of the memory projection. Like sharks smelling blood, they uncloaked from their stealth states, energy weapons began charging, and an invisible clash and rivalry stood ready to erupt right before this newly speaking "Silent One"!

The door to truth had been pushed open a crack, revealing not only the glory and pathos of history, but also the purgatory of greed and rivalry among all present factions.