Chapter 855 - 476: The Dawns Here Are Quiet (2)

In this blazing fire and Hell-like space, at last, the ghost who was a doctor arrived at the tree seed, plucked it from above, and ran forward as if she were the last baton in a relay race.

Her body was rapidly changing; as an energy life form, she could no longer maintain her shape. Nevertheless, she clutched the tree seed tightly, as if she were protecting the most precious treasure in the world.

"Dominic!" At the fracture, Yi Shan felt the heat waves and poisonous smoke, along with the sound of air escaping into the vacuum due to the starship’s breakage.

The hatch here was completely twisted and melted, as if fused with other parts.

Yi Shan kept pressing the open button, simultaneously waving a crowbar to pry open the hatch.

Yet, the hatch only opened a crack at most, without any further progress.

The high temperature gushed out from the gap, scorching Yi Shan’s hair and clothes, burning his skin, but he didn’t care, desperately prying with the crowbar.

"Buzz!" A figure in the flames flickered in.

"Dominic, is that you, Dominic!" Yi Shan’s shout echoed.

He had grown up with Dominic; he knew that as a Tree-man, Dominic’s strength was tens of thousands of times his own as a member of the Spirit Race. As long as Dominic’s roots entered the gap, the alloy hatch would be pried open in no time.

However, he didn’t see that Tree-man, but a shapeless, twisted energy dragging a tree seed.

That twisted energy body pried open the hatch with force far exceeding Yi Shan’s, but this time there was no wave of fire, as if she had blocked it all outside.

A tree seed was thrown into the cabin, and Yi Shan was stunned; at the next moment, that energy body gradually shut the door, leaving itself outside.

"Ghost, is that you, Ghost! Where’s Dominic!" Yi Shan shouted.

However, the Ghost didn’t speak; it seemed as if she had already died, like a doll wound to the end, only able to execute the last programmed commands.

The hatch slowly closed, and Yi Shan yelled, "What on earth happened! What happened to you!"

"Take... the beacon..."

Yi Shan was stunned, looking at the tree seed in his hand.

"Dawn... is coming..."

"Buzz!" The hatch closed completely.

More than that, another layer of isolation wall in front of Yi Shan closed; afterward, the navigator’s voice came from the broadcast: "Deputy captain, the hull can’t hold anymore. I’m forcibly controlling the ship’s bow to detach from the main body, proceeding alone!"

"Executing detachment procedure, initiating separation..."

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

"Boom—!"

A silent blast reverberated within everyone’s bones.

"Boom!"

The explosion of the starship expanded right behind the detaching ship’s bow.

No flames spread in the vacuum, only the ultimate brilliance of matter transforming into energy—a pure, blinding white cascade surged from the ship’s stern, not dispersing, but brilliantly restrained into a violent, reverse pulse.

The bow, as if carrying a final mission, became an ark under this suicidal propulsion, like a bullet struck by a giant hammer, escaping from the claws, tumbling, and out of control, towards the beacon planet of the tenth expedition.

The starship, driven by its explosion, was also pulled inward by stronger gravity. The entire ship, caught in the struggle between these forces, gracefully yet cruelly collapsed, folded, and fractured inward like tin foil crushed by an invisible giant hand.

Light burst from the cracks and was swiftly swallowed by darkness.

In an instant, it seemed to lose all sound completely.

With only dead silence in the ears, Yi Shan, clutching the tree seed, stared blankly at the starship, now only a blaze, with his friends, teammates, and everything they had.

The ship’s bow was eerily quiet—no explosions, no impacts, only the steady, rhythmic starts of the engine, heavy, trembling breaths, and the monotonous hum of instruments, proving their survival.

The ship’s bow, riding on the last propulsion flame fueled by the starship’s essence before its complete annihilation, traced out a perfect arc with its debris in this distorted space.

Yi Shan stumbled, bringing back the last beacon in his hand, which is Dominic’s tree seed.

The ship’s bow was mostly intact, with navigator Avril attending to Qi Yan, while the only other survivor, a Beastman, silently repaired potentially troublesome instruments.

Silence pervaded the entire bow; Qi Yan’s enormous pupils had been completely ruined, gouged out by himself. No one knew what he saw in the Great Void at last.

Yi Shan, like a rusted doll, came to the navigator, asking, "How is Qi Yan...?"

The navigator was silent, shaking her head quietly.

She also asked, "How are the captain and the others?"

Yi Shan had no words, only clutching the tree seed in his hands, unable to say a word.

The air fell into dead silence, with only the Beastman engineer tinkering with the instruments.

"This is a beacon," Yi Shan said with difficulty, slightly raising the tree seed in his hand. "Now it’s just us, just us..."

They silently gazed toward the Great Void, the tree seed in their hands like the sharpest blade, repeatedly cutting his soul, as overwhelming guilt and despair nearly consumed him.

...

The 10th expedition team remnants, the Pantheon.

If once, their discovery of the predecessors’ remnants was merely to retrieve logs during rest, now they were searching for Fire Seeds among the predecessors’ wreckage.

Yi Shan found the Pantheon’s remnants and also located the logs.

Yet at this moment, he didn’t even have the heart to read the logs; despair and guilt consumed him like a tidal wave.

In a deserted corner, he drew his sidearm, its cold barrel against his jaw.

"Daddy..."

Suddenly, a hallucination-like voice seemed to echo in his ears, causing Yi Shan to tremble. He looked at the gun in his hand, then at the logs left by the predecessors.

"10th Expedition Team, Pantheon log..."

"Half of our fuel was damaged, insufficient to return home, but we have three unburnt Fire Seeds."

"To those who follow, if your fuel runs short, use our Fire Seeds. They are in the depths of the fuel chamber; they may be our last assistance."

He went to the fuel chamber and indeed found the unlit Fire Seeds.

The engineering vehicle brought the Fire Seeds back to the ship’s bow, prompting a hug from the Beastman engineer to Yi Shan.

"Well done, Yi Shan. Without these Fire Seeds, we might have frozen to death on this planet," the Beastman engineer appeared to have emerged from the grief of the death of teammates.

Beastmen seem to have such tough hearts; they wouldn’t grieve the past but would instead look to the future.

Yet Yi Shan could only manage an ugly smile; his task was temporarily concluded, so he could go back and rest a bit.

He put away the gun, returning to the command room, where all the hesitation in his eyes had vanished, leaving only the tree seed Dominic left behind and a semblance of peace after everything burnt out.

"Only one last step left..."

The predecessor’s Fire Seeds successfully adapted in the bow’s fuel chamber and were ignited.

The last ship bow of the Fire Seed sailed toward the unexplored, final region where the front detectors had utterly failed. Yi Shan walked at the forefront, testing every inch of space’s stability with his life.

The entire Great Void’s front end was silent, with no hope or light to be found, only the sound of the fuel chamber breaking the quiet.

Yi Shan held a talisman.

"I’m sorry, Daddy has to break his promise."

Dawn is coming.

Yet the dawn here was silent, without light or sound.

...

Fuge lay by the window, looking toward the Great Void.

Tomorrow was the Sacred Festival, and she was a bit sleepless tonight.

Would Daddy and Uncle and Auntie be back tomorrow?

Would they be back to attend her parent-teacher meeting?

She tossed and turned, unable to sleep, like an elementary school student excited for an autumn outing, drowsily drifting off, only to wake up soon. She looked outside her window at the emerging dawn.

Both the dawn of tomorrow and the Sacred Festival awaited, presenting a tranquility in the air marked by the freshness of dew.

And here, too, the dawn was quiet.