Chapter 1599: Extra – The Marginal Wanderer

In an age when the stars once again shimmered, a distant wanderer discovered a faint spark of life at the very edge of their people’s perception.

The vast, unfathomable depths of space stretched endlessly, where ancient starlight had silently endured for billions of years in eternal darkness. Across distances measured in light-years, even the fiercest stars could only cast a faint, cold glow into this void. Yet, within this shadowed expanse bathed in chilly starlight, a ripple suddenly shattered the long-standing silence.

A wave stirred through the cosmos, warping and reshaping the stable fabric of space-time. A superluminal pulse abruptly arrived at its designated coordinates. Then, breaking free from the abyssal stillness, it began to rapidly coalesce into its original form within the material universe—

A sleek starship, no longer than a hundred meters, its streamlined, silvery-white hull gleaming under the starlight like an elegant, slender arc. Soft lights flickered along the edges of its alloy shell, drifting gently like ripples, harmonizing with the distant stars.

This beautiful vessel had wandered the starry sea for who knew how long. Time had left barely a trace on its specially crafted exterior. Inside, all systems and compartments remained in their most basic silent operation.

Within the core control chamber of the autonomous “Wanderer” starship, dim lights faintly illuminated numerous terminal systems running on autopilot. The spacious cabin was utterly silent, a lifeless stillness that seemed to have persisted for millennia. At the front of the chamber, on a protruding platform, a hemispherical crystal container gradually brightened as the awakening sequence initiated.

Under the faint glow, the container was filled with a viscous, translucent biological solution—nothing else.

This quiet, lifeless state endured for an unknown length of time until, suddenly, a distant sensor finally transmitted a long-awaited signal. A soft voice echoed through the chamber, breaking the millennia of silence within the self-governing Wanderer:

“Final jump coordinates confirmed. Marginal Wanderer Z-377S15 requesting transfer to manual control… Initiating creation of control personnel…”

As the automated system announced this, bubbles began to rise within the crystal container. The once still, dead-looking solution started undergoing violent changes—preset biological templates were injected into the guidance system. Complex biological structures rapidly printed and assembled inside the container. Flesh and bone matured within seconds, while neural fiber implants extended from the container walls, connecting and integrating with the swiftly growing biological nervous system suspended in the solution.

Throughout this process, the system’s voice continued:

“Control personnel entering production sequence. Estimated completion time: three minutes.

“Connecting to the Immortal Matrix… Qualified candidate responding. Beginning control data download.

“Confirming basic control personnel information… Loren lineage—Cecil branch—Neural symbiont derivative branch. Renée Palama, service record: 3,507 years. Cognitive code verification passed.

“Control personnel activated. Ship switching to manual control.”

As the system’s announcement ended, the crystal container finally opened. A slender young woman stepped out. Her iron-gray eyes still held a trace of lifeless blankness, but in the next moment, they blinked with newfound vitality. She then turned toward the “captain’s seat,” now under manual control.

Effortlessly, she took the short robe delivered by the autonomous system and draped it over herself. Renée approached the captain’s console, reached behind her neck, and extracted the neural interface from her spine, connecting it to the control panel. With her other hand, she activated the nearby communication interface.

“This is Marginal Wanderer Renée. I have arrived at the final jump point… ‘personally’ arrived.”

A brief silence followed on the comm channel before a calm male voice came through: “How does your body feel?”

The newly formed neural system processed the incoming voice. At first, it sounded distorted, but quickly stabilized into a familiar tone. Renée rubbed her temples.

“A bit dizzy… After all, I was transmitted from a server node thousands of light-years away to the Marginal Wanderer’s bridge in just minutes, and then downloaded into a freshly formed blank body. You know, it’s not exactly an easy task…”

“I thought immortals like you would be more accustomed to such long-distance transmissions and temporary downloads,” the voice replied evenly. “After all, your soul was digitized thousands of years ago.”

“There are differences among immortals,” Renée waved a hand dismissively. “Besides, this isn’t just about the derivative branch—it’s also about individual physiology. I’m just an ordinary person. I can’t compare to that old guy who’s over forty thousand years old, still downloading new bodies across the entire star river and farming.”

“I don’t really understand you immortals,” the voice admitted after a pause. “Alright, now that you’ve passed the download dizziness, start your report—any findings?”

Renée’s expression grew serious as she scanned the parameter projections on the console, then looked out through the optical penetration mode of the cabin’s protective wall. Beyond her gaze lay only vast darkness and the distant, icy star sea.

“I was just about to report this strange situation,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing here.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes. Empty and barren. This is just a vacuum zone.” She exhaled softly. “I’ve confirmed the coordinates are correct. The remote sensors reported this location. There should be a vibrant planet here, a flourishing planetary system, a blazing star… but I see nothing.”

“Could the Marginal Wanderer’s jump have malfunctioned? Z-377S15 is an antique. Its last sweep of the fleet’s border was four millennia ago—that was during the Sixth Great Expansion.”

“I’ve already checked the jump system logs. My neural link is still connected to the ship—I know its status as well as I know my own body. This old relic is in perfect health. No such basic errors.” Renée shook her head again. “I’ve transmitted the logs and observations back to the fleet. I think… this might require some assistance.”

“Understood.” The voice on the other end took on an unspoken gravity. The disappearance of a life-bearing planet once detected by sensors was no trivial matter. The anomaly was serious enough to make even Renée’s longtime servitor AI partner solemn. “The Fleet Council has been informed of the anomaly discovered by Marginal Wanderer Z-377S15. A senior advisor is expected to take over the investigation.”

The comm channel fell silent for a moment. Renée relaxed slightly in her captain’s chair, the mild fatigue from remote neural transmission gradually fading.

The cold starlight brushed over the Wanderer’s hull. In the simulated sensory feedback transmitted through her neural link, the starlight felt as if it were gently caressing her skin.

The ancient Wanderer starships had certain flaws in their neural transmission and simulation systems. This imprecise sensation left Renée momentarily dazed. She had abandoned her original body thousands of years ago, like many of the Loren lineage, entering the Immortal Matrix to become one of the immortals. Since then, her perception of the world had changed drastically. Precise and expansive data streams had replaced the inefficient nervous system of her physical shell. Even when downloading into the material world, she relied on advanced neural enhancements to process environmental parameters. Using such an outdated sensory system to face the universe directly was a rare and novel experience.

Her thoughts drifted.

In ancient times, when immortal technology first emerged, digitizing one’s consciousness was an extraordinary honor. Only the most exceptional and great individuals could enter the Immortal Matrix, becoming the steadfast backbone of civilization. Back then, the technology was flawed, and those uploaded were thought unlikely ever to “return to the mortal realm.” But now?

Forty millennia had passed. Immortals had become just another “derivative branch” within the Loren-Noy Union. Across the vast expanse of the fleet’s domain, immortal cognitive nodes spread along fleet routes, undertaking all manner of suitable tasks.

Exploring the stars, serving in eternal legions, farming across the star rivers… even long-term MMORPG boosting.

Immortals were countless. One could say the entire Loren-Noy Union was an immortal empire. Yet, immortals like Renée who volunteered as Marginal Wanderer captains were rare.

Because immortals disliked solitude. The thriving, tightly connected neural network made them instinctively reject the “touch” of isolation—venturing beyond civilization’s edge alone. The Marginal Wanderer’s role, gathering intelligence beyond fleet routes, was inevitably lonely.

But someone had to do it—and experienced hands were needed.

“I wish I were a siren,” Renée muttered under the starlight, lost in thought. “They’re so blissfully clueless… If that doesn’t work, being a dragon would be fine. They just dive into the long-range exploration ships and fly for a thousand, eight hundred years like it’s a stroll…”

“I don’t think sirens are suited to be Marginal Wanderers,” her partner’s voice suddenly interjected, as calm and indifferent as ever. “They tend to die suddenly from unknown AOE effects during perfectly safe missions. Their death rate is faster than flipping pages—and they often cause equipment damage. Their lives may not be valuable, but remote neural transmission bandwidth is precious.”

“If the chief navigator hears you say that, you’re in big trouble. She’ll be pumping saline into your life support system, and your brain will taste salty…”

“Don’t say such terrible things,” her partner replied evenly, then paused briefly. “The advisor sent to assist the investigation has arrived.”

At those words, Renée straightened from her relaxed posture and fixed her gaze on the distant star sea. Almost simultaneously, she noticed unusual shifts in the light and shadows surrounding the ship.

Threads of shadow were converging—though this place was already the boundless darkness of space, an even deeper shade was emerging from the void in a way that defied understanding. Slowly, within Renée’s perception, it took on a form her mortal mind could grasp.

The slender girl seated in the captain’s chair blinked in surprise and instinctively whispered, “Is that you?”

The towering figure materializing in space—like a mountain carved from shadow—heard Renée’s startled exclamation aboard the ship. It turned its head slightly, its face veiled in mist, but beneath the fog, a pair of amber eyes revealed a faint smile. Its voice echoed directly in Renée’s mind: “They’re busy. I happen to have time—and I’ve seen the data you sent back. It seems this place could use my strength.”

“You mean… the Shadow?” Renée blinked again, peering through the starship’s layers of shielding, armor, and sensors at the imposing silhouette in space—the ancient being once worshiped as a god in the old times. “But I just scanned the entire sector with the multi-frequency scanner. There’s nothing here…”

“The Wanderer’s scanners have their limits,” the colossal figure said with a hint of amusement. “They can detect most disguises built by lower civilizations, but if the civilization behind the camouflage has tapped into some far greater power, the Wanderer’s standard scanners won’t pick it up.”

With that, the shadowy giant smiled and turned away, gazing toward the vast darkness ahead of the Wanderer.

After a long pause, a sigh suddenly filled Renée’s mind.

The girl in the captain’s seat seemed to understand.

“They’re… right here?”

“Yes, right before your eyes,” the mist-shrouded figure gently raised an arm, pointing toward the distant blackness. “Veiled beyond light and shadow.”

“Incredible technology,” Renée’s eyes widened slowly. “Is this some kind of defense? A civilization that’s reached a very advanced stage? Then why haven’t ‘they’ reacted at all to our presence?”

The towering figure remained silent for a long moment before suddenly bringing up something seemingly unrelated: “Renée, have you studied ancient history? From forty millennia ago, before the Age of Departure, when Loren and Noy were still trapped on their home worlds.”

“I have,” Renée nodded slowly. “I remember that course had a ton of extra reading. One set was called The Emperor’s Sacred Words…”

The shadowy figure paused, surprised. “She actually made you read The Sacred Words as extracurricular…” It shook its head slightly. “Never mind. They liked it, so it’s fine. But that’s not important. What matters is that during that era, the Loren civilization faced a crisis—a choice, a trap later called the ‘Cradle Snare,’ one that could end all futures and close every path. Do you remember?”

Renée blinked, then her implanted memory retrieval system kicked in. She quickly recalled the knowledge she’d learned thousands of years ago. “You mean…the Cradle Snare?”

“Yes,” the voice sighed softly in her mind. “A group of madmen tried to build an eternal cradle—a sanctuary that would never end—by enveloping an entire planet in a barrier that would never open, shielding it from cosmic cataclysms. They hoped to trade away future development for permanent safety, even sparking a world war that nearly destroyed Loren civilization at the time…”

Renée listened quietly, gradually piecing it together. Her eyes widened as every sensor aboard the Wanderer locked onto the dark void ahead.

“Wait, you mean…”

“A barrier, yes. Built on some powerful shadow force. Though its principle differs from that insane plan forty millennia ago, its essence is strikingly similar…”

In space, the towering figure known as Lady Night sighed softly. She already knew the secret hidden in this space, and as she looked, all the mysteries dissolved before her eyes—a veil of light and shadow vanished from the Wanderer’s sensors.

Renée saw the blazing star that had appeared on the detectors but then disappeared, the planetary system orbiting it, and the small world once described in reports as “teeming with life.”

“When was the last time the Wanderer’s sensors sent a report?” Lady Night’s voice echoed in her mind.

Renée blinked, then answered quickly: “About three hundred years ago. A distant probe reported signs of life here, but then lost contact with the area. After that, the Wanderer Z-377S15 judged this place worth investigating and has been wandering here for three centuries, searching for the coordinates from that old report. It only found this spot a few hours ago—and called me.”

“Three hundred years…” Lady Night sighed deeply. “Considering the last cycle of the Maelstrom, they had over two centuries to prepare and develop, to face the challenges of maturity…”

She paced through the void beside Renée, as if to give her a clearer view of the small, now lifeless planet bathed in starlight.

“Not every eternal cradle falls during the Maelstrom, but once it does, almost no civilization survives infancy. Maybe just a tiny crack, or a minor flaw in the original design—when it bursts, a civilization that has willingly abandoned its future is doomed.”

Renée sat quietly in the captain’s chair of the Wanderer, the cold starlight crossing vast distances to touch the ship’s hull alongside the nearby blazing sun, caressing her senses.

She gazed at the small planet bathed in sunlight—once glorious and thriving, now nothing but scorched earth, riddled with grotesque pits and jagged chasms.

In the fortieth millennium after the United Fleet’s departure, before the eyes of the Wanderer’s captain, a civilization chose the path of the eternal cradle.

(Consider this a Children’s Day gift~~)

(End of chapter)