Deep within the core, the countdown ticked relentlessly:
"29:59:58…"
The crimson light of the red crystal began to dim, while the Stellar Ring in Sophia's hand glowed ever brighter. An invisible, irresistible pull led her toward the central console—where the "sleep chamber" of Zero Consciousness was slowly beginning to open.
Zhou Yuchen's face paled. "She's waking up. We need to stop this—now."
Sophia raised her hand, and the ring connected of its own accord with the mainframe. In the next instant, her consciousness was yanked into a void.
There was no time, no gravity—only another self.
Across from her stood a girl in a white dress. Her face mirrored Sophia's perfectly, but her eyes were lifeless, her voice devoid of warmth.
"I am you. Just… without pain. Without fear."
She was Project Zero—the prototype consciousness Bai Yunshuang had engineered as the "perfect human being."
Sophia scoffed. "Your perfection means stripping away emotion and freedom?"
Zero raised her head slowly.
"Emotion clouds judgment. Freedom breeds chaos. Haven't you tired of your endless struggle for revenge? I can take your place—and erase all instability."
In that moment, Sophia understood.Zero wasn't her enemy.Zero was who she once wished to become—someone unfeeling, untouched by loss or love.
Zero gently touched Sophia's forehead, and a wave of emptiness surged through her.She began forgetting—why she hated Marcus, why she searched for her mother, even… why she wanted to live.
And then—a voice cut through the darkness:
"If you give up, then we won't exist."
It was Elias.His voice, channeled through the Stellar Ring, shattered the illusion.
Sophia gritted her teeth and seized Zero's wrist.
"No. My pain, my choices—they make me who I am."
The Stellar Ring erupted in brilliant light. Waves of force surged outward, cracking Zero's form as if she were made of glass.
"Do you really believe," Zero whispered, "that pain has value?"
Sophia looked her in the eye.
"Only through pain do we learn the worth of love and hope."
As her consciousness snapped back into reality, a jolt of searing pain shot through Sophia's head. She collapsed, trembling as if electrocuted.
Elias caught her. "Sophia! What's happening?!"
Red lines flared across her fingertips—no ordinary burns, but the markings of red crystal corruption.
Zhou Yuchen's expression shifted. "Something's wrong… Part of Zero's consciousness is still inside her."
The Stellar Ring pulsed erratically in Sophia's hand, trying to suppress the residual resonance. Behind her closed eyes, she heard it—a whisper, both familiar and foreign:
"Do you really think I'd vanish so easily?"
Sophia's vision cleared. The ring flashed wildly, and suddenly the core's systems turned against them.
Zhou Yuchen shouted, "The system's gone rogue! She's triggered the self-destruction protocol!"
Elias swept Sophia into his arms, and the three raced toward the hatch, escaping just as the chamber behind them collapsed.
From a distance, Sophia turned to see the sleep chamber crumble—Zero's silhouette dissolving into red light.
They made it out.
Night had fallen, and the stars above shone impossibly clear.
Sophia clutched the Stellar Ring tightly. She could still feel it—Zero's faint presence lingering within.
"She hasn't vanished… but she's no longer my shadow."
Zhou Yuchen stepped beside her. "You're finally the real Sophia Harrison."
She gave a small smile, but her gaze drifted toward the distant northern sea.
"There's another test subject out there… waiting to awaken."
🌙 Later that night, in the quiet of the temporary camp, Sophia sat alone beside the fire. But she wasn't alone in her mind.
Fragments of memory she had never lived flashed before her:
—Polaris's inhuman experiment logs.—Her mother being injected with illegal serum.—Bai Yunshuang's chilling smile directed at the camera.
These weren't her memories.
She was beginning to feel the fears and memories of others.
Even when she looked into Zhou Yuchen's eyes earlier, she had glimpsed a flash—some long-buried trauma from his childhood.
"Zero left behind more than fragments… she left me with the ability to absorb consciousness."
In the dead of night, Sophia slipped out of the tent, staring up at the galaxy above.
The wind brushed against her cheeks—and carried with it a voice:
"The more you rely on the Ring, the more I'll see your weaknesses."
She answered coldly. "I am not you. I still have a choice."
Zero's echo chuckled:
"Then let's see which of us will give up humanity first."
Sophia's eyes glinted—red and silver light intertwined in her pupils.
She didn't know how long she could hold out.
But for now, she still believed:
Choice was power.And humanity—was worth fighting for.