I'm zipping along the strings of time, pure energy blazing. Star clusters blur into streaks of neon, but that lunar fortress? It glows like a goddamn lighthouse in my senses. They're forging Dr. Lin's crystal bones into a planet-killing cannon, the red-clad maiden's spine coiling around it like a shock absorber. And at the other end of that barrel? The Reaper Fleet's gravity ripples are warping entire galactic arms.
"Entropy contamination detected." The mechanical alert shakes my energy form, forcing me to materialize in the Light-Year Prison's docking bay. One look and my quantum state almost unravels. This joint's built from neutron star scraps, its walls studded with coffin-sized cryo-pods. And behind every viewing window? My mom's young face, staring back like a million haunted echoes.
The calf whale's consciousness lets out a wail. One pod explodes, and an aged version of Mom tumbles out. Her bony fingers scratch blood words into the metal:
Don't trust your eyes. Trust the whale song.
That's when the Reapers' first proton torpedo slams into the lunar fortress. The shockwave hurls me into the prison's core, straight into a massive consciousness extractor. Sticky tubes snake into every cryo-pod, and the terminal screen flashes nightmare numbers:
Emotional Extraction Efficiency: 97.8%
Remaining Lifespan: 00:07:12
"Thought you'd never show." Aged Mom coughs up blood flecked with gold dust. "They're using my clones as emotional batteries." She rips open her shirt to reveal an ouroboros coin just like the one from the convenience store, pulsing with every blast from the fortress.
The extractor suddenly ramps up. Every "Mom" in the pods opens her eyes at once, laser beams shooting from their pupils. I'm zigzagging through a web of light, my energy body getting chewed up like Swiss cheese. The calf whale's memories flood in, a chaotic mix of Cambrian warmth and subway announcements:
"Next stop, Final Station: New Epoch."
The prison dome shatters. The lunar fortress's main cannon pierces a million light-years, melting the Reaper vanguard into stardust. But it's a Pyrrhic victory—the crystal cannon's cracked to hell, the maiden's spine coils frayed and sparking.
Aged Mom slams me against the extractor terminal. The coin from her ribs burns into the console, triggering a chain reaction. Every cryo-pod overloads and explodes. The clones dissolve into a golden stream, coalescing into a hologram of Mom in her prime. She touches my energy core, and three temporal coordinates flare to life:
Cambrian Hydrothermal Vent
Convenience Store Freezer
Delivery Room Monitor
"Rewrite the origin..." Her form fades into the particle stream. "Mom will always..."
That's when the Reapers' flagship materializes. It looks like an ouroboros gnawed by a giant baby, a dark singularity brewing at its bow—a black hole primed to snuff out stars.
The fortress's cannon barrel shatters completely. The maiden's spine shoots out of the wreckage, wrapping around me to form an armored shell. Shards of Dr. Lin's crystal heart reassemble on my chest, sand flowing backward to power a shield generator.
"Get it home!" Xiaoyu's final broadcast crackles from the ruins. The entire moon collapses in on itself, shrinking down into a teddy bear that lands right in my armored grasp. One eye reflects the crater base, the other hides the Nestorian Stele sword hilt.
The dark singularity's swallowed half the galaxy. Clutching the teddy bear, I dive into its heart. In that moment, the calf whale's memories sync with the three origin points:
Cambrian Hydrothermal Vent
My energy clone pierces the ocean floor. In the ancient sea, I sink a convenience store hot pot machine into the vent. Boiling broth catalyzes the first RNA strands, the copper pot morphing into the primordial cell membrane.
Delivery Room Monitor
Another clone appears in 1995. I rip off the monitor's electrode patch and press it against the maiden's exposed mechanical spine. Bioelectric pulses rewrite the base code, every screen in the room flashing: Maternal Love Protocol Activated.
Convenience Store Freezer
My last burst of energy tears through the freezer door. Five-year-old me opens my eyes, smiling as I tuck the teddy bear into my own arms. Nerve-like tendrils sprout from the freezer walls, forming a quantum entanglement with the lunar teddy.
The singularity erupts in a blinding flash. In the maelstrom, I glimpse the truth on the Reaper bridge: Sitting in the command chair is one of the three hundred and sixty "me"s from the prisms, twirling an access card labeled "Administrator Lu Zhao".
"Welcome to the reveal." Behind him, universes wink out like popped soap bubbles. "Save the ants in the bubbles, or become the god of a new cosmos?"
The teddy bear lunges and bites through the card's magnetic strip.
(End of Chapter 19)