In an era when stars shine again, distant wanderers found a ray of vitality in the perceived boundary of the clan.

In the deep and boundless universe, the distant starlight remains silent in the darkness for billions of years. Through a distance of light years, even the most intense star can only have a little cold light to reach this space. In this dark space illuminated by the cold starlight, a ripple suddenly broke the long silence.

Ripples arise in the universe, and the stable space-time structure is instantly distorted and reorganized. An oscillation that exceeds the speed of light suddenly reaches the predetermined coordinates. Then this oscillation leaves the deep sea state and begins to quickly condense its original appearance in the material universe.

A light star boat with a length of less than 100 meters, its streamlined and round silver-white shell shines under the starlight, shaped like an elegant and slender arc. The slight light slowly undulates and wanders around the edge of its alloy shell, reflecting the stars in the distance.

I don't know how long this beautiful aircraft has been wandering in this vast sea of ​​stars. It is difficult for years to leave many traces on its special shell. Inside the aircraft, all equipment and cabins still maintain the most basic silent operation.

In the core control cabin of the "Roamer" Starboat, extremely dim lights slightly illuminate many terminal systems in the automatic state. There is no human voice in the spacious cabin. This lifeless appearance seems to have lasted for thousands of years. On a prominent platform at the front of the cabin, a semi-spherical crystal container is gradually illuminating with the awakening program.

Under the glimmer of light, you can see that the crystal container is filled with viscous and translucent biomass solution, and nothing else.

This silent and lifeless state lasted for a while. Suddenly, a remote detector finally sent back the long-awaited signal of the Starship. A gentle voice sounded in the cabin, breaking the silence that lasted for thousands of years in this self-disciplined "roamer":

"The final jump coordinate has been determined, and the marginal rover Z-377S15 applies to transfer to manual control... and start manufacturing control personnel..."

With the announcement of the automatic system, a series of foam suddenly appeared in the crystal container in the front part of the cabin, and then a series of drastic changes began to occur in the solution that originally seemed calm and silent. The preset biological templates were injected into the guidance system, and the complex biological structures began to be quickly printed in the container, marshalling, and flesh and bones grew and matured within a dozen seconds. The nerve fiber implant spread out from the four walls of the container, connecting and fusing with the biological nervous system that grew rapidly in the solution.

And in this process, the automatic system's broadcasting sound continued to sound:

"The control personnel enter the production process, and the expected completion time is...three minutes.

"Connect to the Immortal Matrix...The Qualifier has responded and started downloading the Controller.

"Confirm the basic information of the controller... Loren ethnic group-Cecil select branch-Neurosymbiont derived branch, Renee Parrama, service record for 3507, mental coding verification passed.

"The control personnel are activated, and the ship switches to manual control."

As the system's voice fell, the crystal container filled with biomass solution finally opened, and a slender girl walked out of the container. There was still a little bit of lifelessness in her iron-gray eyes, but the next second, those eyes blinked lively, and then looked at the "captain's seat" that had already entered the artificial control state.

With a familiar way, Renee took the short robe from the self-discipline machine and draped it on her body. Renee stepped forward to the captain's seat. She reached out and grabbed the back of her neck, pulled the nerve connector out of her spine and connected it to the control panel. At the same time, her other hand activated the communication interface next to her: "This is Renee, the marginal wanderer. I have arrived at the last jump... It was arriving in person."

A brief silence came from the communicator, followed by a calm male voice coming into Renee's ears: "How is your body feeling?"

The nervous system, which had just been born less than a few minutes, was processing the sound that came into his ears. The sound just sounded a little distorted, but it quickly stabilized into a familiar voice. Renee rubbed her eyebrows: "I felt a little dizzy... After all, it was transmitted from a server node thousands of light years away to the bridge of the marginal rover in a few minutes, and it had to be downloaded into a blank body with just a brain formed. You know, this is not an easy task..."

“I thought 'immortals' like you would be more accustomed to this ultra-long-range transmission and temporary download,” the sound from the communicator was calm. “After all, your soul was digitized thousands of years ago.”

"The immortal is also different from the immortal," Renee waved her hand, "What's more, this is not only related to the derivative branch, but also to the personal physique. I am an ordinary person, and I can't compare with the old man who can still run around the galaxy and farm for 40,000 years old..."

"...I don't really understand your immortals," the voice from the communicator paused, "Okay, now you should have passed the download stun, start reporting on the situation - what have you found?"

On the captain's seat, the slender girl's expression finally became slightly serious. Her eyes swept over the parameter projection presented on the console, and then looked at the cabin guard wall that had switched to optical penetration mode ahead. Wherever she looked, there was only a vast darkness and a distant and cold sea of ​​stars.

"...I'm about to report this strange situation," Renee shook her head and said, "There's nothing here."

"Nothing?"

"Yes, it's empty and deserted, this is just a vacuum," Renee exhaled softly. "I confirm that the coordinates are not wrong. The location reported by the remote detector is here. There should be a lively planet, a lush planetary system, a burning star...but I saw nothing."

"Can it be that the marginal rovers have something wrong with the leap process? The Z-377S15 is an old antique. Its last crossed the border of the ship four thousand years ago... It was the sixth time of great development."

"I have checked the logs of the transition system. Now my nerves are still connected to the ship. I control the status of the ship as if I know my body - this old antique is very healthy and there will be no such low-level errors," Renee shook her head. "I have sent the log data and the observations here back to the ship. I think... it may need a little help here."

"I understand," the voice from the opposite communicator brought a hint of indescribable seriousness. Obviously, it is not a trivial matter that a life planet that originally appeared in the probe "disappeared". The strangeness of this matter is enough to make the servo brain partner who has worked with Renee for thousands of years become serious. "The council board of directors has known about the vision discovered by the marginal roamer Z-377S15, and a senior consultant is expected to take over the matter."

The communication channel was temporarily quiet, and the slender girl on the captain's seat breathed a little relieved. She relaxed during this short wait. She leaned on the wide seat, and the slight feeling of fatigue caused by remote thinking transmission gradually dissipated.

The cold starlight brushed across the hull of the wanderer's ship. In the simulated perception transmitted from the nerves synchronously, the starlight seemed to touch her skin directly.

The wanderer Star Boat in the last era seemed to have some flaw in nerve conduction and simulation. This inaccurate touching made Renee feel a little dazed for a moment. She gave up her "original" body thousands of years ago. Like many Loren ethnic groups, she entered the Immortal Matrix and became a member of the Immortal. After that, the way she perceived the world changed greatly. A more accurate and broad data stream replaced the inefficient nervous system of the original body. Even if she occasionally came to the material world through downloads, she also had an advanced neural enhancement system to help herself process environmental parameters. Using an outdated perception system to face the universe like now can be regarded as a... a long-lost and novel experience for her.

Her thinking couldn't help but diverge.

It is said that in ancient times, in the era when the Immortal Technology had just emerged, this kind of mental data transformation was an extremely rare honor. At that time, only very outstanding and great people had the opportunity to enter the Immortal Matrix and became the firm trump card behind civilization. At that time, the Immortal Technology had many shortcomings. People who uploaded it into the Internet were almost considered to have no chance to "return to the world" again, but what about now?

Forty thousand years have passed, and the so-called immortal has long become one of the most common "derivative branches" in the Loren-Nei consortium. In the huge territory of the joint fleet that spans the star sea, the immortal thinking nodes have expanded and spread along with the fleet's trajectory, and are engaged in various jobs suitable for them.

For example, participating in interstellar adventures, joining the Eternal Legion, farming in the Star River... and taking on long-term online game training.

There are countless immortals, and it can even be said that the entire Loren-Nei consortium is an immortal empire, but it is rare for immortals like Renee to sign up to be the "captain" of the marginal roamer.

Because immortals do not like loneliness, the prosperity and close traits of neural networks will instinctively exclude the "touch" of being separated from ethnic groups and sailing beyond the frontier of civilization, while marginal rovers, such as "posts" responsible for collecting intelligence outside the trajectory of the ship are destined to be lonely.

But some things must be done by someone - and they need to be done by someone with rich experience.

"I would be a sirens," Renee was stunned for a long time under the starlight, and finally couldn't help but sigh, "How happy they are to be foolish... It's okay to be a giant dragon if they really can't do it. They fly on the long-distance pioneer boat for thousands of years, like going out for a walk..."

"I don't think Siren is suitable for being a marginal rover," the voice of his partner suddenly came from the communicator, as calm and indifferent as ever. "They will always die suddenly in unknown AOE in clearly very safe tasks, and the frequency of sudden death is even faster than reading books - and it will always cause some equipment loss. Their lives may not be very valuable, but remote mental transmission will occupy the bandwidth of the neural network."

"...Your words made the chief navigator hear something big is going to happen. I'll tell you that she has to pour salt into your lifeline pump, and then your mind will be salty..."

"Don't say such a terrible thing," the partner's response came from the communicator, and then the other party suddenly paused for a moment, "The consultant who went to assist in the on-site investigation has arrived."

Hearing her partner's words, Renee immediately adjusted her lazy sitting posture, and her eyes immediately turned to the sea of ​​stars in the distance. Almost at the same time, she noticed the strange changes in light and shadow around the star boat.

Threads of shadows are gathering - although it is dark space itself, the thicker shadow still emerges from the darkness in an incomprehensible way, and quickly condenses a posture that can be accepted by the mortal mind in Renee's perception.

The slender girl on the captain's seat was immediately surprised and subconsciously blurted out: "It's you?"

The existence that condensed in space, as tall as a mountain, "heared" Renee's exclamation in the spaceship. He turned his head slightly, his face as if covered by clouds, and a pair of amber eyes showed a smile under the clouds. His voice came directly into Renee's mind: "They are very busy, I just have time - and, I saw the data you sent back, I'm afraid my strength is needed here."

"You mean...shadow?" Renee blinked. Through a series of barriers in the Starboat, the armor and sensors looked at the towering figure in space, and the ancient existence that was once named a god in ancient times. "But I had just used a multi-frequency scanner to scan the entire airspace, and there was no..."

"The scanner of the marginal rovers has its limits. It can deal with the disguise constructed by most low-level civilizations, but if the civilization that builds the disguise has reached some more powerful forces, the general-purpose scanners carried by the rovers will not be so useful."

The towering figure in space left such a sentence with a smile, and then He turned around and looked at the vast darkness ahead of the marginal wanderer.

After a long time, a sigh suddenly came into Renee's mind.

The girl on the captain's seat seemed to understand something.

"They... are here?"

"Yes, right in front of you," the towering figure shrouded in clouds and mist gently raised his arm and pointed to the darkness in the distance, "covering at the other end of light and shadow."

"…incredible technology," Renee slowly opened her eyes, "is this some kind of defensive method? A civilization that has developed to a very high level? Then why does 'they' have no reaction to our appearance?"

The towering figure in space did not answer for a moment. He was silent for a long time before suddenly mentioning something that seemed irrelevant: "Renee, have you learned ancient history? Forty thousand years ago, before the time of setting sail, in the era when both Loren and Noy were still trapped in their respective home planets."

"I learned it," Renee nodded slowly, "I still remember that there was a lot of extracurricular reading materials in that course, including a set of ancient reading materials called "The Emperor's Holy Words"..."

"She actually stuffed the "Sacred Words" into extracurricular reading..." The towering figure in space was stunned for a moment, but then shook his head slightly, "Forget it, they both are willing anyway. In short, this is not important. What is important is that in that period of history, the Loren civilization once faced a crisis, a choice, and a trap that was summarized by later generations to end all futures and end all paths. Do you still remember?"

Renee was slightly stunned, and then the powerful memory retrieval of the implant took effect. She quickly remembered the knowledge she had learned thousands of years ago: "Are you saying... 'cradle trap'?"

"Yes," the voice that came into the girl's mind seemed to have a sigh, "A group of madmen once tried to create an eternal cradle, and avoided the destruction of the world in the universe by covering the entire planet with a kind of never-open barrier. They hoped to give up their future development in exchange for permanent security, and even set off a world war that was almost a catastrophe for the Loren civilization at that time..."

Renee listened quietly, and finally gradually realized. She widened her eyes, and all the sensors carried by the marginal rover pointed to the dark and empty space ahead: "Wait, what you mean..."

"A barrier, built on some powerful shadow power, is different from the crazy plan forty thousand years ago, but its essence is so similar..."

In space, the towering figure named Ms. Ye sighed. She had already known the secrets hidden in this space, so all the secrets disappeared in her sight - a curtain of light and shadow disappeared in the sensors of the marginal wanderer.

Renee saw the blazing star that had appeared in the probe but now disappeared, saw the planetary system orbiting the stars, and saw the small planet described in the report as "lively".

“…When did the report was sent back before the Rover Detector?”

Ms. Ye's voice suddenly came from her mind. Renee was stunned for a moment and quickly replied: "About three hundred years ago, a remote detector reported that she had found vitality here, but then she lost her sense of this area. After that, the marginal roamer Z-377S15 judged by herself that there was value for investigation, so she wandered here for a full three hundred years to find the coordinates of the detector report. It was not until a few hours ago that it found this place and called me over..."

"Three hundred years... Considering the recent shock cycle of the Demon Tide, they have at least two centuries to slowly prepare for development to meet the challenges of adulthood..."

Ms. Ye said, and finally sighed.

He paced toward the void, as if to allow Renee to see more clearly the already silent planet under the stars.

"Not all eternal cradles will overturn in the tide of devils, but as long as it overturns, almost no civilization can survive in its infancy - perhaps just a small crack, or perhaps just an insignificant flaw at the beginning of the design. When it erupts, actively giving up the civilization of the future will be doomed to be powerless to turn the world."

Renee sat quietly on the captain's mat of the rover on the edge. The cold starlight spanned a long distance, shining on the shell of the star boat with the storm of the storm, touching her five senses.

She stared at the small planet shrouded in the sun, watching its once glorious and prosperous surface, but now only a scorched earth and countless strange sunkens and hideous rifts.

In the fortieth millennium after the launch of the United Cruise, in front of the marginal wanderer Renee, a civilization chose the cradle of eternity.
Chapter completed!