"Not every forgotten place is silent. Some are where civilization begins."—Su Lan, "The Erased Future"
After unlocking the coordinates buried in the ChronoPolis core, Sophia and Xinglan set their course for a forbidden region between Earth and Mars—an unstable gravitational corridor known as the Origin Black Zone, located near the L4 point.
They piloted the second evolution of the Stellar Ring, now transformed into the interstellar vessel Starwheel, cutting through warped starfolds and collapsing gravity fields.
As the battleship drew near, the fabric of reality buckled. Space fractured. Time looped.
Sophia stared out the viewport.
"This isn't a part of reality," she whispered."This is the edge of memory itself."
Zero Memory Shell
They were pulled into a zone beyond the material—an energy field composed purely of thought: the Zero Memory Shell.
Here, Polaris had exiled minds that had rebelled—fractured consciousnesses, erased from history. Among them was the fragmented spirit of Sophia's father.
Through a mental passageway called the Fragment Corridor, they witnessed pieces of the truth:
Her father screaming as Polaris forced the Obedience Module into his mind;
A fierce argument with Su Lan, trying to protect Sophia's unborn consciousness;
And at the climax, standing alone to shut down the core of Polaris's temporal interference engine.
"The day you were born," he had shouted,"I chose to betray every piece of technology I once believed in."
Xinglan, with tears streaming down her cheeks, gasped:
"That's... my grandfather."
The Choice
At the Black Zone's core, Sophia was pulled into a psychic trial. In this illusion, she became her father—faced with the same irreversible decision:
A. Activate the Zero System — preserving power and engineered perfection, at the cost of individuality;B. Shut it down — ending the experiment and erasing even the faintest chance to protect his family.
A sterile system voice echoed, again and again:
"Are you certain the child is worth losing everything for?"
Images flashed before her eyes—Su Lan, Zhou Yuchen, her children, Xinglan, the starlight in their eyes.
Sophia answered without hesitation:
"My child is not the reason I give up.She's the reason I never will."
She shattered the illusion, broke the system's mental cage, and awakened the lost consciousness hidden within—her father.
The Resurrection of Memory
He appeared, weakened and transparent, like a hologram slowly fading. But his voice was strong:
"You… You're stronger than I ever was.If you still remember me, then none of it was in vain."
Kneeling beside him, Sophia pressed the third Stellar Ring core into his memory node. The Life Chain Protocol activated. Her own neural energy poured out to rebuild his fading psyche.
Nova warned her through the ring:
"Fusion recovery rate: 27%. Insufficient stability. Proceed?"
Sophia's voice was gentle.
"Even if it's just 1%... I will not let him be forgotten."
Starlight Reversal
Her strength drained rapidly—but at that moment, Xinglan stepped forward. The star-shaped crest on her chest glowed like a nova.
She invoked a new field:
Starlight Reversal
In this domain, reality bent to emotion.
Energy systems inverted, and instead of logic, affection became the primary power source. Emotional intensity restructured decayed thoughtforms.
Xinglan grasped her grandfather's flickering hand:
"Family… is the beginning of who I am!"
The field pulsed with silver starlight.
The echoes of memory, Sophia's energy, and Xinglan's love fused together. Her father's consciousness stabilized—and in that moment, a "Stellar Echo" connected all three of them.
The Zero Genesis File
Guided by Sophia's father, they traveled deeper into the shell.
There, locked within a light-crystal disk, lay Su Lan's final, unfinished manuscript:
The Zero Genesis File
Its contents revealed the unspoken truth:
Polaris had been founded by an ancient coalition of disembodied minds—consciousnesses from reverse-time, entities that rejected causality.
The Stone Children, including Sophia, Xinglan, and others, were not born naturally, but designed as vessels—conduits for transcendent minds to cross timelines.
The final phase of their plan:
Awaken the Zero Consciousness—a unified neural field that would dissolve every individual into one eternal, balanced mind.
Sophia stood frozen, her voice hoarse.
"…They never wanted to destroy humanity.They wanted to erase the concept of the individual."
The Stellar Ring shimmered in her hand—its light infused with both memory and defiance.
And in her eyes, stars shone brighter than ever before.