The air inside the underground temple was thick and carried a strange odour, a mixture of burnt electronics and stale sandalwood.
Cyrus crouched before the holographic projection platform cobbled together from dozens of discarded processors, his hands moving quickly through the air. As he moved, an ethereal flow map covering the entire lower reaches of the Maya District gradually unfolded. Unlike ordinary city energy grids, the lines on this map did not form a regular grid; rather, they resembled painfully twisted blood vessels.
'Look here,' said Cyrus, pointing to the centre of the map in a low, grave voice. 'Aaryan's "Etheric Reversal", while shattering the Council's infrasound matrix, was like puncturing a plug in this stagnant pool.'
Aaryan stepped forward; the golden light in his eyes had not yet completely faded and the equation left by his father still lingered on his retina. He could see that the blue energy flows that had originally nourished the floating islands by flowing towards the surface had now reversed direction, as if drawn by a black hole. They were converging frantically towards the abandoned coordinates in the southeasternmost corner of the Maya District.
On official maps, this area is marked as a 'disaster-stricken sealed zone', but in Cyrus's underlying protocol, it is known by only one name: the 1969 Singularity.
'All the energy is converging towards that point,' Cyrus said, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. 'Aaryan, your father didn't "destroy" the reactor. He set up an extremely complex 'delayed logic lock' there, and the resonance you just felt was the key to activating that lock.'
'What are those coordinates?' Pau asked, trembling and hiding behind the old monk.
"It's an altar." Maha slowly opened his eyes, his sighs clearly audible beneath the red cloth. 'It's also a calculation problem. The council wants the 'seed' there to complete the descent of God, while your father wants to exchange the destruction of that place for the freedom of this land."
Cyrus pulled up a string of wildly beating gibberish — the primordial pulse transmitted from Point 1969. 'The problem now is that this point is "hungry", forcibly drawing out all usable ether from its surroundings. If it reaches a critical point, the entire Maya region will be sucked into a vacuum. We must reach point 1969 before the collapse occurs." Aaryan grabbed his lightning-struck wooden hammer, his eyes cold.
The quartet — Cyrus carrying his repair kit, Pau dragging his mechanical leg, Balthazar burdened with the crystallisation curse, and Aaryan at the core — pushed open the heavy stone door and rushed into Rust Street, which led to the southeastern district, all under Maha's watchful gaze.
However, reality was far more brutal than they had anticipated.
Due to the shift in the flow of ether, all the streetlights and civilian infrastructure on Rust Street began to flicker wildly. The poor poured out of their low shacks in terror, watching as the makeshift ether interfaces implanted in their arms emitted eerie blue sparks.
'The Council's lackeys!' With a piercing mechanical roar, three modified 'Fang' motorcycles burst through the rubble in a triangular formation to block their path.
On the motorcycles sat the 'Iron Serpent Gang', low-level law enforcement agents from the Maya District. While not the Holy Blood Council's regular army, they were the Council's rabid dogs, responsible for quelling unrest. The leader had a massive hydraulic cannon mounted on his arm, the muzzle of which emitted an unstable ethereal light.
'Old Cyrus, this kid you brought out is worth a hefty bounty.' The Iron Serpent Gang leader grinned maliciously as he locked his hydraulic cannon onto Aaryan. 'Hand him over, or we'll dismantle you all and sell you to the recycling centre!'
'It looks like my reputation isn't that bad after all.' Balthazar stepped in front of Aaryan. The crystals within him were unusually active due to the earlier energy fluctuations, and one had even pierced his shoulder blade.
'Back off, outlaw.' The leader of the Iron Serpent Gang pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
A highly concentrated compressed etheric bullet roared out.
Aaryan's movements were faster than his thoughts. The dragon's blood within him sensed the inferior energy impact and he felt an instinctive sense of disgust. However, he didn't dodge; he stepped forward into the flames instead, swinging his wooden mallet in a semi-circle.
The lightning patterns on the mallet lit up instantly. The energy bullet, capable of blasting through armoured vehicles, was easily deflected by Aaryan upon contact with the lightning-struck wood, as though a wad of cotton had hit an iron wall.
'Boom!' The energy bullet missed its target, blowing up a nearby abandoned cooling tower.
'My turn.' "
Aaryan's figure blurred into a dark golden afterimage. He didn't use complex techniques, just a basic sweeping motion. However, influenced by the Ether Reversal Equation, each swing of his hammer created a miniature vacuum vortex.
An Iron Serpent gang member attempted to block with his alloy shield, but the moment the shield made contact with the mallet, Aaryan reverse-analysed its etheric reinforcement layer, instantly turning it into scrap metal.
With a 'crack', the mallet smashed through the shield, shattering it and the man's mechanical arm.
'This kid... his frequency is consuming our ether!' The Iron Serpent Gang leader was horrified to discover that the ether within his cannon was rapidly dissipating.
At that moment, Balthazar moved too. Like a silent beast, he exploited the explosive power granted by his crystallisation to close the distance to the leader's motorcycle instantly. His hand, covered in red crystals, hit the engine hood with such force that it was ripped off.
With a deafening roar, the tracked motorcycle was reduced to a fireball in his hand.
The battle ended swiftly. The three law enforcement officers who had roamed the lower classes were reduced to a pile of broken cables and scrap metal in less than a minute.
Aaryan stood in the rain, the electricity on his mallet gradually subsiding. He looked southeast, where the sky displayed an eerie, deep purple hue.
'That's the colour of "collapse",' said Cyrus, his face deathly pale as he looked at the monitor in his hand. 'Aaryan, the guardians of the 1969 Singularity aren't these scum. Malakor's personal guard, the 'Silverwing Saints', are already there.' 'And,' Cyrus swallowed, 'I just calculated the logic behind the singularity... it was the last problem your father left behind.'
'To save this land, we must sacrifice the most powerful etheric source within it.'
Aaryan stared sharply at Cyrus.
That most powerful etheric source wasn't the reactor or the bell,
It was the unique dragon blood flowing through his own veins.
As they passed through the ruins of the railway district, the four entered a vacuum zone known as the 'Grey Zone'. Here, the ether had been forcibly drained by the '1969 Singularity', leaving all electronic devices useless.
'The physical constants here are erratic,' said Cyrus, staring at the old mechanical watch in his hand that was powered only by a spring. 'The hands are moving backwards, Aaryan. This means the flow of time inside the singularity has been distorted.'
Aaryan walked at the front, his lightning-struck wooden hammer creating faint golden ripples with each strike as he forcefully created a breathing etheric space for his companions. He could feel the dragon's blood growing hotter in his veins the closer they got to the singularity, as if some slumbering beast were responding to the Mother's call.
'Look, those people,' said Pau, his voice trembling as he pointed to the shadows of the abandoned factory.
They were impoverished people who hadn't had time to escape. Some ran, some prayed; their bodies had completely crystallised, becoming transparent and faintly glowing 'human sculptures'. The singularity had utterly drained their life energy, leaving only empty shells of carbon and silicon.
'This is the "divine descent" ritual Malakor wanted,' Balthazar chuckled self-deprecatingly, looking at his own fingertips, which were also beginning to crystallise. 'Using the entire city as a battery just to light up that coordinate point.'
'Not only that.' Cyrus stopped and looked up at the massive spherical structure standing in the centre of the ruins. That structure was the 'core reactor' that had collapsed twenty years ago and was now entangled by countless dark purple energy chains. 'Didn't you notice?' he asked. 'This energy contraction is logical. It's arranging itself according to an ancient binary sequence called "Great Evolution".'
That was the algorithm at which Aaryan's father excelled: using destructive energy to simulate the origin of life. When they stepped into the central plaza of the 1969 Singularity, all the wind disappeared.
In the centre of the plaza, a massive mechanical ring was suspended in mid-air and slowly rotating. At the centre of the ring was a shadow that was constantly collapsing and expanding, and below the ring stood a neat row of warriors clad in streamlined silver armour — the Silverwing Guards.
Unlike the 'trash' from before, they were the Council's elite fighting force, each one having been implanted with highly purified demonic spinal fluid.
'You're late.'
Silvermoon stood at the forefront of the guards, her longsword still sheathed. However, the ethereal pressure emanating from her caused the air to crackle. Beside her stood a strange, dark figure.
When Aaryan saw the figure's face, the wooden mallet in her hand nearly slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.
It was a man in a tattered engineer's uniform, with half his head replaced by a transparent culture vessel containing a glowing blue cerebral cortex. His face was identical to the gentle father Aaryan remembered, but his eyes held no warmth; only countless lines of code flowed through them.
"... Father?" Aaryan's voice was hoarse.
"That's not your father. That's just a 'computing core' created by the Council using his remaining biological information,' Cyrus growled through gritted teeth. 'They desecrated his remains, turning him into a biological key to unlock the 1969 singularity!'
"Target confirmed." The mechanical puppet spoke, its voice mechanical and hollow. 'Matching bloodline factor detected. Hammer wielder, please execute your final calculations and return to your position.'
'Kill them all.' Silvermoon waved his hand coldly.
A massive conflict erupted.
The Silverwing Guards moved with a speed that was imperceptible to the naked eye. They unfurled their flowing wings, which transformed into countless silver beams that crisscrossed. Balthazar roared and charged forward. The red crystal within him erupted with full force, turning him into a blood-red crystalline behemoth.
"Don't touch that child!" Basra took two lightsaber thrusts to the chest and slammed his fists into the ground. The resulting crystalline spikes forced three Holy Guards back, but with each punch, the crystallisation of his body deepened — he was fighting at the cost of his life force.
Meanwhile, Pau, under Cyrus's command, used his agility to weave through the ruins, hurling 'logic bombs' at the Holy Guards' armour.
However, the most suffocating pressure came from Aaryan directly.
The mechanical puppet, who looked just like his father, was approaching him step by step; with each step, there was a violent shift in the surrounding aetheric flow. It raised its hand, a black energy sphere coalescing in its palm — a shrunken 'singularity'.
'Child, join the calculation,' the puppet whispered. 'One hundred thousand souls are ready; only the final piece is missing — your heart.'
"Shut up!"
Aaryan went completely berserk, his dragon blood boiling to breaking point. A faint phantom of a six-winged dragon appeared behind him, its mallet, struck by lightning, slamming down and colliding with the puppet's black sphere.
Boom!
The entire plaza was instantly torn apart. Aaryan was thrown back by the immense force and crashed heavily into a broken stone pillar. His internal organs seemed displaced. Helplessly, he watched as Balthazar was surrounded by several Holy Guards and over 70% of his body turned into dark crystals. He watched Cyrus's arm being severed by the Radiant Wings while he protected Pau.
Despair washed over him like a tidal wave. This was the most brutal battle he had faced since leaving the arena.
"See? This is your so-called 'redemption'." Silvermoon walked up to Aaryan and pressed the tip of her sword against his throat. 'The formula your father left behind didn't include the option of "survivor". He was a madman, and you are merely his final sacrifice."
Aaryan looked at his ravaged companions and the monster in his father's skin. His vision blurred. Had all this resistance ultimately just hastened the destruction of this land?
"No…"
He gripped the mallet tightly, his nails digging into his flesh.
'The calculation isn't over yet.'
The bronze bell deep within the dilapidated temple sounded its final, resounding boom. It wasn't the clanging of metal, but rather the breath of some long-dormant beast emerging from the depths of an abyss.
Cyrus's fingers danced wildly in the air as countless golden etheric equations wove a web around him. Yet his face grew increasingly pale. 'No... the calculations have completely collapsed! Aaryan, retreat! This isn't energy contraction; it's a 'stomach'!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than the ground beneath the entire city began to tremble slightly. Through the shattered dome of the temple, one could see the perpetually shimmering neon clouds above the Mayan district being stirred by an invisible force and forming a gigantic funnel: the '1969' singularity. It was spinning rapidly, absorbing energy and the 'logic' of this world.
Suddenly, a silver streak pierced the darkness and Silver Moon, accompanied by her Holy Guard, appeared out of nowhere in the temple ruins. Instead of attacking, she gazed gravely at the bronze bell: 'Those madmen of the Council thought they could control the calculations of "God", but they've become sacrifices themselves.'
'Silver Moon, what are you doing here?' Pau gripped the electric wrench tightly, shielding Aaryan.
'Shut up, mortal.' Silver Moon glanced coldly at Pau, then turned her gaze to Aaryan. "Hammer Bearer," she said. "Do you think your mission is to repair? No, the hammer in your hand is meant to 'shatter' this flawed world.' However, the 'demonic' energy that the Council collected in the arena through Balthazar has already interfered with the singularity's baseline. 1969 is now a self-consuming black hole.'
The climax erupted at that very moment.
The puppet known as the 'Computational Core', whom Aaryan remembered as her father, suddenly appeared at the core of the singularity. Within its translucent head, the blue cerebral cortex glowed and throbbed violently.
'Logic overflow detected.' The puppet's voice was no longer mechanical. It had a hint of gentleness that was familiar to Aaryan, but it also had an underlying madness that sent shivers down his spine. 'Calculation conclusion: To eliminate the chaos, all biological variables in the Mayan region must be erased. Resetting now.'
A blinding white light exploded from the centre of the singularity. The entire temple instantly decomposed into the most primitive pixel particles. Aaryan felt an unprecedented heat emanating from the pendant on her chest and experienced an involuntary surge of 'royal' pressure within her. Countless overlapping phantoms appeared in her vision: the Mayan region of the past and the ruins of the future.
"He's not resetting!" Cyrus suddenly spat out blood, pointing at the puppet and screaming, 'He's swapping! He's swapping that terrifying being from the 1969 singularity with the real world!'
Just as the white light was about to engulf everything, Balthazar, considered a 'failed experiment', appeared at the edge of the singularity. His demonised body erupted with astonishing ferocity as he crashed into the resetting 'father' in a suicidal manner.
"King, go!" Balthazar's roar echoed in the collapsing space.
This collision caused a fatal break in the otherwise perfect calculation. The white light instantly subsided and the violent energy surge shattered the neon lights within a kilometre radius. When everything had calmed down, the singularity had vanished, replaced by a slowly rotating, pitch-black void, ten metres in diameter and silently suspended in mid-air.
The father's puppet had disappeared, as had Silver Moon, leaving only the four-person group facing the black hole that seemed to suck in souls in this silent ruin. Although Balthazar had forcibly interrupted the anomaly affecting the entire district at the last moment, the landscape of the Mayan District had already been drastically altered.
Although the singularity did not fully erupt, it drained the ether supply from three surrounding city blocks, plunging the formerly sleepless Neon Forest into darkness. The Blood Council's enforcement power was also brought to a halt.
Amidst the chaos, Cyrus seized a microchip that had detached from the 'Computational Core', finally grasping the underlying logical code of the '1969' singularity that the Council had been trying to conceal.
Balthazar's suicidal attack left him in a deep coma, but the demonic blood flowing through his veins evolved strangely under the singularity's influence, strengthening the blood pact between him and Aaryan further. At dawn, acid rain fell again and the atmosphere in the rooftop shelter of the slums was heavy.
Aaryan stared at the charred pendant in her hand; the words that Silvermoon had uttered before leaving echoed in her mind: 'Do you really believe you have royal blood?'
Suddenly, heavy footsteps sounded outside the door and Balthazar, who had supposedly 'sacrificed' himself, staggered to his feet. His eyes were no longer murky crimson, but a deep azure with golden patterns.
He stared intently at Aaryan, his voice low and menacing. 'Last night, at the centre of the singularity, the person I saw sitting on the "throne" didn't look like you. Hammer Bearer, who are you? Or rather, what is that thing residing within you?'
The air froze. Pau's wrench slipped from his grasp and Cyrus's code screen trembled violently. For these survivors, the real game of survival had only just begun.