Silent Ark

Chapter 61: The Sinking Kingdom

"You plan to put it in," Shen Qingci said.

It's not a question.

"I'm going to ask first."

Liu Pan looked up.

Twenty meters away, that cold blue presence was still hovering.

He raised his right hand toward it.

Spread your five fingers.

Then he pointed to the groove under his feet.

That existing deep blue light spot—

Eye--

It flickered.

It did something that surprised everyone.

It also raised its hand.

Six fingers.

Then it pointed to the interior of the building.

It's not a groove.

It's deep inside the building.

The direction of the main hall.

Then it withdrew its hand, and the three beings turned around simultaneously.

The streamlined sides of the aircraft reopened.

They went inside.

The hatch closed.

The blue light went out.

The aircraft sank silently and disappeared into the darkness at the bottom of the building.

gone.

Wang Xindong stared at the signal rapidly receding from the sonar screen.

"...They're gone?"

"They shouldn't have left," Shen Ruozhi said.

She stared at the last image still lingering on the screen—

Earth.

Eight markers.

Seven warm colors, one cool blue.

"They showed us the way, and then we had to walk on our own."

Liu Pan stood on the roof.

The current pushed his armor, and the hydraulic joints made a faint sound.

He looked down at the groove.

Five fingers.

Human hand.

The First Age civilization built a two-kilometer-wide main hall at a depth of 4,200 meters on the seabed. Seven concentric circles were carved on the roof, with a human hand-shaped interface at the center.

Then I waited for who knows how many years.

Wait until one hand is put in.

He squatted down.

Reach your right hand into the groove.

"Liu Pan." Shen Qingci's voice.

He stopped.

"You said, 'It knows what you are.'"

"right."

"That's perfect."

He put his hand in.

The metal surface is cold.

Then--

heat.

The heat starts in the palm and spreads upwards along the arm.

It's not temperature.

It is information.

Massive amounts of compressed information are directly fed into the nervous system in the form of bioelectrical signals.

Liu Pan's visual connection exploded.

He saw it—

First Period.

It's not a ruin.

It is not the wreckage of a sunken ship.

It is the first living era.

The sky was a deep purple.

Two suns.

The ground is covered with the same black metal buildings, but they are intact, brand new, and their surfaces are shimmering with cool blue light.

Something is moving on the street.

Two and a half meters.

Grayish-white skin.

Dark blue covering.

Exactly the same as the three from before.

But there are more than three of them.

Thousands upon thousands.

The city stretches to the horizon, with no end in sight.

They are not building this city.

They are the city.

The consciousness of each individual is connected to the light patterns on the building's surface—

Architecture is their body, cities are their nervous system, and planets are their skeleton.

They are not creatures that live in houses.

They are the house itself.

Screen switch.

The end of the First Period.

The purple hue of the sky is fading.

Only one of the two suns remains.

The other one went dark.

The cool blue light patterns on the city surface are fading.

One by one.

They are not dying.

It is closed.

Actively shut down.

Like a person deciding to sleep—

It wasn't a forced coma; it was a conscious, voluntary act of folding consciousness layer by layer and storing it in the deepest part of the building.

They are making room for something.

The scene changes again.

Seven concentric circles.

It looks exactly like the one on the roof.

Seven beings stand at the center of the circle.

Each one was three times larger than a typical First Age individual.

Their coverings weren't dark blue—

It's a warm color.

From deep red to orange-yellow.

The frequency anchor point of the seven deadly sins.

They are not invaders.

They were created by the First Age civilization itself.

Seven functional modules.

Seven containers of consciousness, each assigned a specific frequency band.

Before shutting itself down, the First Age civilization placed its seven most core "drives"—

Hunger, competition, anger, arrogance, inertia, desire, possessiveness—

They were compiled into seven independent consciousness entities, which were sealed in seven anchor points on the planet.

Then they went to sleep.

The world has been left to these seven "drives".

Let them run.

Let them evolve.

Let them see where pure "drive" can take a world.

Liu Pan pulled his hand out of the groove.

He knelt on the roof.

He was panting heavily.

The life-sign monitors on the deep-sea armor were screaming—

My heart rate was 197 and my blood oxygen saturation dropped to 82.

"Liu Pan!" came Wang Xindong's voice.

"I'm fine."

His voice was trembling.

But not because of fear.

"I know what the seven deadly sins are now."

He stood up.

The ocean current pushed him.

He managed to stay calm.

"They are not invaders, not parasites, not things that came from outside."

He looked up in the direction where the building had disappeared—the darkness into which the three beings had sunk.

"They are the wills left by the previous owner."

No one spoke on the communicator.

Shen Ruozhi's voice rang out last.

It's very light.

"……will?"

Before its extinction, the First Age civilization compiled its seven instincts into seven independent consciousnesses.

Then they shut themselves off—

It's not dead, it's asleep.

Let these seven "instincts" run the world.

He paused for a moment.

"They are conducting an experiment."

"What will we use to conduct the experiment?"

"Use us."

Liu Pan turned around and walked towards Unit Zero.

Each step was taken on sediment on the seabed.

Heavy.

It's real.

"The seven deadly sins are not a curse."

These are the experimental conditions.

"What about the Five Constants?" Shen Ruozhi asked.

Liu Pan did not answer immediately.

He walked a dozen steps.

Then say:

"Perhaps a control group or something like that."

When Liu Pan returned to Unit Zero, the signal reappeared on the sonar screen.

Not those three.

There are more.

Rising from the bottom of the building—

Twelve.

It is the same streamlined aircraft, but larger, with an additional layer of dark gold patterns on its surface.

They did not hover.

Twelve aircraft were arranged in two rows, rising from both sides of the building and then moving in the same direction.

northeast.

The direction of the Mediterranean anchor point? No—the angle is wrong.

Liu Pan traces their trajectories in the connection vision.

They are going in circles.

A circle with a radius of about 500 meters was drawn around the main building.

Then it stopped.

Twelve aircraft were evenly spaced and hovered in the water.

A passageway was left in the middle.

From the location of Unit 0, it leads directly to the bottom of the building.

"They are leading the way," Shen Ruozhi said.

Looking at the neat array on the sonic screen, Wang Xindong thought, "Or maybe they're setting a trap."

"Setting a trap doesn't require using prime numbers as a warning," Shen Ruozhi said.

Shen Qingci's voice came through the communicator: "Zero Unit, follow it."

Maintain a distance of 300 meters.

"Weapon systems warm up, do not fire."

Unit 0 activated its thrusters and slowly entered the tunnel.

The aircraft on both sides did not respond.

They simply hovered, their cold blue streaks of light drawing two parallel boundaries in the deep water.