All engineering corps have retreated to the safety zone, leaving only clusters of mist-like "aggregates" gradually brightening in the vast outer space: the ignition process has begun.

The enormous energy extracted from the Ghost Energy Death Star is temporarily confined together through a complex set of focusing devices. The power of this confinement device is so strong that it can turn hundreds of billions of light years of space into a whole piece of specific crystal with one exposure, so it is installed in the Other Space, with only the output terminal connected to those white lights in space. However, due to excessive power, even with Other Space as a safety barrier, there is a slight leak, resulting in a series of bizarre spatial phenomena around those "space clouds": pale blue bands of light appear out of thin air and disappear quickly, strange matter like Crystal Clusters emerge from nothingness and then disintegrate under the white light within seconds, and the starlight in the distance distorts when passing through certain space zones, as if an invisible lens has emerged there—this is caused by the strong ghost energy radiation leaking from the energy output device’s connection point, even a trace of this radiation is enough to rewrite the rules of a small area.

"Is this thing alright?" Watching those continuously emerging bizarre phenomena in space, even someone as carefree as Qianqian couldn’t help but get nervous. She reached out to grab my arm, "Will it blow up the entire test site?"

Dingdang poked half of her head out from my chest pocket, looked around absentmindedly for a while before exclaiming, "Oh—yeah, so bright! Are you guys working on searchlights?" This little thing had just woken up, completely out of sync.

"The safety devices are working well, even if there’s an explosion, it won’t be large-scale," Taville glanced at the display device in front of him, speaking in a very relaxed tone, "The virtual connection will burn out prematurely during an overload, after all, we also have to prevent the startup terminal’s fragments from suffering secondary damage."

"The ignition process has entered the irreversible stage; energy output is stable; detection indicates the startup terminal module shows signs of awakening; virtual connections are in good state; starting to collect activation data... Energy focusing system now in maintenance mode."

The broadcast in the hall made everyone even quieter, even Xiao Xue, who was restlessly moving around nearby, instinctively supported herself on the desk in front of her seat and leaned forward slightly. Dingdang finally realized we seemed to be doing something quite serious, silently shrank her head back into the pocket, and surprisingly managed to button it up from inside... how did she master this unscientific skill?!

"The current load is ten percent, looks stable," the Abyss Xyrin directly monitored the bright white "clouds" in space through the transparent barrier of the observation hall, occasionally looking down at various display devices in the hall, while simultaneously monitoring activation data from the startup terminal as a network consciousness. On the surface, she seemed calm, but she was actually one of the busiest and most knowledgeable people on the scene, capable of directly reading such enormous data, a testament to her extraordinary computational power. "Maintain the power at this level for now, collect data, and proceed with ’deep injury detection’... Many parts of the startup terminal evaporated after the explosion; external appearances may not reveal all damages, only during gradual activation can injury detection occur."

"Doing it," Taville replied, slightly raising his head to look towards the control seat on the other side of the hall, where technicians conducting frontline control were stationed. Several "Xyrin Technicians" in pure black uniforms with blood-red Crystal Cross markings were particularly striking. "The Commanders and technical experts you brought along are quite formidable, they seem very proficient."

The Abyss Xyrin smiled slightly, "Of course, they happen to be the team that manufactured the startup terminal... part of it."

Those technicians in special uniforms hailed from the Abyss Zone; although the Imperial Scientists and these "special colleagues" had been collaborating for months, watching them work together still felt somewhat strange. How to put it... everyone knew what Xyrin Scientists usually did, basically studying all sorts of limitless, conscienceless, large-scale destructive weapons, casually assembling world-ending bombs as if they were child’s play. Of course, the scientists on-site were no exception. In terms of influence, "War Engineers" were more chilling than any regular soldier, akin to "Demon King" figures. The New Empire fought against the Abyss Zone for several years, these experts had many indirect confrontations despite never meeting face-to-face... for many of them, their lives in recent years essentially revolved around these two tasks: analyzing new weapons invented by the other side and figuring out how to destroy them, while getting analyzed by the other side and having their new inventions targeted for destruction...

Once the two sides had normal exchanges, these were generally their greetings:

"Oh oh, so you’re the inventor of the E-37 Shield Expander? The fourth-generation Ablation Warhead was developed by me specifically to counter your Shield Expander, does it ring a bell?"

"Ah? So you’re the one who manufactured the Multiplying Impact Module?! You ruined half a year’s efforts from me and my team!"

"Nice to meet you, per the Emperor’s command let’s get along well, let me introduce myself, I am the inventor of the Z-series Jump Stabilizer, specializing in space technology and math rate equipment..."

"Oh, nice to meet you, I’m the inventor of the Anti-Z series Jump Disruptor, I also specialize in space technology and math rate equipment."

"Stand still, you heretic! By the Emperor’s glory and in science’s name, I swear I’ll beat you to death! Don’t stop me, let me take down this rebellious unorthodox technical heretic! The Emperor is watching me, he will likely refrain from confining me..."

Generally, when New Empire and Abyss Zone scientists first met, this was the situation, although relations have significantly eased now. However, it seems it will take a long time to fully reconcile... I can only be grateful that Xyrin Apostles are creatures whose rationality outweighs sentimentality, otherwise, if two Mortal Races had fought relentlessly in near irreconcilable ways for years, trying to cooperate would be even more difficult.

Taville’s attention did not linger long on the Abyss Zone colleagues, she merely glanced slightly regrettably before turning back to focus on the continually "awakening" startup terminal. The space "clouds" were now much brighter than before, but their brightness seemed to have stabilized (this thing isn’t necessarily stronger the brighter it gets, only Dingdang would take them for searchlights), while various anomalies around the clouds gradually disappeared: with the activation of the startup terminal, powerful informational disturbances are overriding those low-level anomalies.

Initial data was now collected, Taville started instructing to increase energy output, more enormous ghost energy poured into the startup terminal.

"Power reaches twenty percent, seemingly bearable," Abyss Xyrin looked seriously at the various parameters, "Virtual connections are stable, the startup terminal’s informational disturbance is manifest... as expected, even in a fragmented state, it displays the functions of a complete state, although power is affected, quite a marvelous thing indeed."

"Isn’t it a bit problematic to praise something you made yourself?" I looked at Abyss Xyrin, "Eh, why is your body turning semi-transparent?"

I was surprised to see Abyss Xyrin’s body showing a semi-transparent tendency again, exclaiming at once: the last time I saw her turn like this was during a big chaos in the Abyss Zone, it seemed her network consciousness only exhibited anomalies when the entire network was turbulent due to node fluctuations, what’s happening now?!

Abyss Xyrin also curiously looked down at her semi-transparent arm, initially seeming worried, but soon showing an enlightened expression, "Oh, it’s fine, your Ghost Energy Death Star causes too much interference, sometimes causing disruptions, I just faded a bit."

Me: "...Why does that explanation sound so odd?"

Abyss Xyrin looked at me slightly puzzled, "Expressing oneself as faded sounds odd? Should I say soulless? Although this interactive interface resembles a soul, I’m not a Spiritual Being."

I kept sweating profusely, "...You better stop, we lack a common language."

I think this is definitely the most difficult girl I’ve ever come across! Even Xiao Xue at her craziest wasn’t as tough to deal with—after all, no matter how naughty a naughty kid is, their worldview should be normal, right? This one seems detached from reality, never really clicked!

"Power exceeding twenty-five percent, system pressure rising exponentially!" Taville’s voice finally redirected my attention back to the matter at hand. By now, the connecting lines between those white clusters in space had undergone evident changes, possibly due to the startup terminal’s decreased stability or excessively high energy, these lines were emitting extraordinarily dazzling light, and slowly expanded into "columns" resembling huge bridges. While their volume was multiplying, the color shifted from pure white to an abnormal gray-blue. I’m not sure what this signifies, but the expert team on site immediately prepared for battle, quickly passing data, and intermittently reporting some profound and hard-to-understand parameters and terminology, Abyss Xyrin’s brow tightly furrowed at once: "Indeed, there’s an issue... but isn’t it failing too soon?"

"Is this thing about to explode?" Qianqian immediately exclaimed in surprise.

Has this girl been hoping for this thing to explode since just now?! She has asked this question several times!

"Not for the time being, but the system’s stability is rapidly declining," Abyss Xyrin gazed into outer space at the white light clusters that were now visibly trembling. "Without a core, the stability and data traffic capacity of the entire system are quite limited. We have linked a large number of mainframes in parallel to substitute the original core’s data processing capabilities, but this only solves the problem of data processing. The other functions of the core cannot be emulated, so as the startup terminal slowly activates, the desynchronization of components will rapidly escalate. During the ’ignition’ process, there’s a critical threshold. If we cross it, the system’s stability will plummet, power will double, the system’s pressure will quadruple, and stability will decrease by fourfold..."

"Power is approaching thirty percent! The Energy Focusing Module has detected abnormal noise, and there’s a problem with the energy environment inside the startup terminal!" a voice came from the direction of the control seat; it was a young Assistant Technician. "We can maintain it for now, but the noise is rapidly increasing!"

"Should we stop?" Taville immediately turned to ask, directing her question not to me, but to Abyss Xyrin—the most experienced expert here, whose understanding of the startup terminal was unmatched by anyone else.

Abyss Xyrin pondered briefly, determination in her gaze: "Continue to pressurize; the startup terminal has a self-protection mechanism, and the noise is an expected condition. We can take this opportunity to observe the energy imbalance in the startup terminal. Tell your people to record data; our next step will be repairing the energy grid, as it seems to be the first thing going wrong."

"Thirty-five percent power! The efficiency of the Energy Focusing System is beginning to anomalously decline. The energy inside the startup terminal seems saturated! There’s an anomaly; we cannot detect where this portion of energy is going. Signals from virtual connection groups four to six have been interrupted, and group eight has detected illogical information focusing—erroneous data is overflowing from the startup terminal!"

Abyss Xyrin had only one thing to say: "Continue to pressurize."

I felt the ground beneath my feet slightly trembling and noticed the artificial gravity of the orbital station seemingly becoming unstable. A low hum came from afar, appearing to be from the direction of the orbital station’s propulsion hub. It seemed that the chaotic information leaking from the startup terminal was affecting the operation of various facilities within the test site. However, these anomalies did not continue to worsen: the mainframe of the orbital station had opened a core barrier to ensure the safety of the core system, while the two Planet Fortresses standing by at the edge of the test site opened their Law Equipment to forcibly stabilize the fundamental parameters of this space-time. Although noisy and chaotic under normal circumstances, those two clowns did not mess around at critical moments.

As the startup terminal’s stability continued to decline, its effective power was rapidly approaching the anticipated ideal value: fifty percent power—though here, "power" might not mean quite the same as Earthlings’ understanding of mechanical power. This is a very complex concept involving the speed of information exchange at the beginning of bridge building (quickly exchanging information from the other side with our own and forming a stable, self-sustaining data stream). Still, we couldn’t find another word to describe this parameter, so we habitually called it "power."

"Thirty-eight percent; the Energy Focusing System detects hazardous inverse feedback waves, unable to remain stable!" an urgent report came from the control seat’s direction. "The energy output is uncontrollable, forming a closed ghost energy turbulence inside the startup terminal; system stability is about to drop below the threshold! Only the fifteenth virtual connection group is still operating; all other connection groups have been interrupted!"

The chaotic tide of data swept through the entire test site, a strange vibration sensation coming from all directions, as if the entire orbital station was clenched by an invisible giant hand. Additional protection shields had been raised, though the orbital station had not yet suffered a substantial attack, the ghost energy shield could resist this mathematical rate chaos phenomenon. Alarms from various systems echoed in my ears, somewhere deep within the orbital station a bell-like sound resonated, while those floating white light clusters in space were already on the verge of limit: emitting violently fluctuating white light, the intensity of which uneven now, indicating the synchronization links between the startup terminal fragments were failing, the collapse of those virtual connections being the cause—white lines had all transformed into bluish-white or black-blue crystalline entities, with these connections dropping to the material plane their effective data traffic capacity was decreasing.

And Abyss Xyrin merely said one sentence: "Continue to pressurize; prepare to collect data."

Watching Abyss Xyrin, who remained completely unfazed, I seemed to understand more of this peculiar life who created the startup terminal with a distinctive yet relentless mentality... She never seemed to believe that anything was beyond her capability, or perhaps she didn’t bother with whether the outcome was good or bad; set a direction, confirm no errors, and proceed unrelentingly—that’s her modus operandi.

But she is an expert, after all; no one understands the load limits of the startup terminal better than her, so even Taville could only nod: "Continue to pressurize, everyone prepare for impact resistance."

The Energy Focusing System made a final effort, with the startup terminal’s power reaching thirty-nine percent of the normal value.

boom!

There was actually no sound entering the ears, just a sudden flood of white light in space overwhelming the sight, the white light erupting before the last second I saw those virtual connections disappointingly break apart early, then the alloy shield outside the observation hall instantly closed.

All of the charged armor across the orbital station sealed momentarily, unleashing protection across all shield power levels, with all outer space structures other than those dedicated to destructive testing raising their protective layers. The external scene was invisible to the naked eye, but various devices continued dutifully recording the explosion while I could feel through spiritual power that the entire orbital station was immersed in a strong and powerful wave.

This wasn’t a physical level impact, but a flood of data—according to the theory of data unification, every existence is composed of descriptive data, so theoretically this data flood coupled with the residual momentum of the startup terminal may have a chance of becoming anything; it might turn into a gentle breeze or morph into a world-destroying death ray, yet the Heavenly God’s Forge and War Song were impressively strong, forcibly stabilizing the information environment at the explosion’s origin, letting this tide merely blow past without triggering anything disastrous.

Hmm, the information volume is enormous!

The burst lasted half a minute, then the alloy shield outside the observation hall began lowering one by one, bustling activity resumed in the hall: "Impact concluded, assess damage to all units!"

"One shield group on this station lightly overloaded, no other damage!"

"Facility chain two suffered no damage!"

"Facility chain three lost a set of shield generators, no other damage!"

"My instant noodles spilled; the soup and all seasoning are ruined!"

"Xiao Xue, shut up."

Hmm, basically the pace is like this.

Abyss Xyrin frowned, intently observing the data before her:

The maximum power before system collapse was forty percent of the design value. (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to vote for it with recommendations and monthly tickets at Qidian.com. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)