Lin Xian didn't know how hard sailors worked, but he thought this tradition was quite good.

Sailor, thank you.

Since the banquet at Silent City, Monica's judgment of the current situation had made him realize she wasn't just a queen skilled at controlling men, but truly possessed formidable wisdom that couldn't be underestimated.

Lin Xian indeed considered this wisdom, though he had also genuinely fallen under Monica's qipao spell.

But in the latter half of the night, Lin Xian felt his absorption speed seemed to have increased—whether it was psychological or Monica's overwhelming presence having an effect, he couldn't tell.

[Current Mechanical Heart Level LV.6 (6720/50000)]

Mechanical Absorption: 6 (1100/5000) Increases absorption efficiency

"This efficiency isn't bad."

By 4 a.m., Lin Xian had absorbed nearly half the junk cars in the port. Although absorbing cars didn't yield much Mechanical Source Points or absorption proficiency now, the sheer quantity made up for it. Plus, Lin Xian was operating remotely, simply sitting atop a port crane covering vast areas.

After clearing a large section of cars, Lin Xian looked down at the zombie figures below before turning his attention to a nearly capsized ship at the port, which still had several Star Ring train carriages on it.

"This thing must displace tens of thousands of tons. Let's try..."

Without hesitation, Lin Xian activated Mechanical Absorption. Instantly, he seemed to hear a hollow 'thud' from the massive ship, then felt his mental energy rapidly draining as the scanning coverage expanded.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three hyperstring reactor phase halos lit up behind Lin Xian, operating at full power. His eyes glowed—with the hyperstring reactors' support, he now had an almost inexhaustible power source.

"Given enough time, I don't care if it's tens of thousands of tons. Right now, I'm nuclear-powered!"

[Absorption Progress: 1%]

Finally, the absorption progress bar flashed before Lin Xian's eyes. From it, he immediately estimated absorbing this tens-of-thousands-ton ship would take at least ten hours.

This somewhat exceeded his expectations. He'd thought the ship's mechanical structure couldn't possibly be as complex as the Long-Class Freighter or Dreadnought-class vessels, and his absorption level had already reached 6—it shouldn't take this long. Yet the absorption had barely started, and it seemed it would indeed take around ten hours.

"Is it because I've never absorbed a ship before?"

Lin Xian frowned slightly, hesitating. The ship appeared to be just a lump of metal, but since he'd started, he gritted his teeth and continued.

Crash! Crash!

Waves churned violently at the port, as if reacting intensely to Lin Xian's actions.

Meanwhile, aboard the Skybreaker Ship, in the Stellar Research Lab, the 'Stargazer' research team had formed—comprising over a hundred experts in astronomy, information technology, radio astronomy, and interstellar molecular astrophysics. Leading the team was Yang Xu, 47, tall and lean, formerly an academician at the Dragon Kingdom's National Astronomical Observatory and an expert in astrophysics.

"Deep Space Monitoring Station reports: Target—Southern Celestial Gate near-Earth defense platform. Orbital data locked. Geostationary orbit position: longitude 15.5°W, latitude 51.6°N, altitude 52,660 km (error ±2 km). Orbital inclination: 51.64°, drift rate 0.02°/day, matching predicted models."

"Optical tracking shows the Southern Celestial Gate's main structure is normal. At 6:41, it autonomously deployed 12 full-range photovoltaic arrays, now stably in observation orbit."

Fuyi frowned as he led a group into the command center where Yang Xu was currently relaying information from Chief Engineer Yang to three others.

"Captain Chu." Fuyi approached. "Have you contacted Captain Lin? Is the photovoltaic array deployment confirmed as his doing?"

Yang Xu responded, "Wu Junping, I've confirmed with Xiang Pengzhen that this was Chu Yan's operation. His purpose in shutting down the nuclear power core was likely to prevent nuclear radiation from attracting abnormal entities in the deep space dark energy storm region—a phenomenon we've observed multiple times in the Star Abyss. There's no mistake." Google seaʀᴄh novel(ꜰ)ire.net

"But shutting down the nuclear power core means the Southern Celestial Gate can't launch attacks quickly," another engineer surnamed Chen said doubtfully.

Yang Xu explained, "Chief Engineer Yang discovered microbial contamination on the platform. There might still be some deep space abnormal entities on the outer platform—they're currently investigating. This issue must be prioritized."

Yang Xu nodded. "Indeed. Any results from the dark matter information decoded from gravitational waves?"

"Not yet."

Chu Yan took a deep breath. "This information was placed in the ninth-layer deep command and requires decryption."

"Ninth-layer deep command?"

A slightly overweight middle-aged man—former Southern Celestial Gate information engineer Wu Junping—spoke up, puzzled. "Why would information be stored in the black box?"

"Is there a problem?" Chu Yan asked.

Wu Junping immediately replied, "The ninth-layer deep command is colloquially called the crash black box—primarily a physical extraction reserve device for when spacecraft crash or fail. All platform information is synchronized inside it, and it's usually not stored separately. If it's in the ninth-layer deep command, the parent storage units should have it too."

"Exactly. Storing it separately in the black box is indeed strange..." other engineers chimed in.

"Wait, black box decryption isn't that complex, right? Grace's computing power should crack it instantly," another engineer said.

"That's precisely the key point," Chu Yan said solemnly. "According to Grace's logs, this dark matter information was captured at 00:01 on Doomsday. But during decryption, Grace found this information decoded from gravitational waves was recorded one second before."

"One second before? Meaning Doomsday 00:00?" Wu Junping adjusted his glasses, utterly confused.

"You mean..."

Chief Engineer Yang frowned, pointing at the clock above the command center, asking Chu Yan,

"The previous second... from now?"

Chu Yan nodded.

Silence.

Dozens of engineers fell quiet simultaneously, a collective intake of breath echoing through the room.

Chief Engineer Yang looked stunned. "So, this information can't be extracted?"

"Currently, that appears to be the case."

"What's going on? Mechanical malfunction?" an engineer exclaimed.

"Unlikely," Wu Junping shook his head. "A supercomputer like Grace has an optical clock system for time calibration—300 years with less than a second error. This seems more than just a storage timing issue..."

"Could the Southern Celestial Gate platform be experiencing time dilation like the Star Abyss?"

"Possible, but time dilation shouldn't create such a loop," Chief Engineer Yang mused, then turned to Chu Yan. "The only solution now is to use the PandaX-4T liquid xenon detector to re-decode that dark matter information."

Chu Yan sighed. "Grace suggested the same earlier."

Yang Xu suddenly realized, "Could it be..."

"Yes, that dark matter information was also sent one second before," Chu Yan said gravely.

Hiss—

Instantly, the command center's atmosphere turned eerie. Countless people felt chills down their spines.

"Time loop?" someone gasped.

"Weird, how could this happen?"

Yang Xu looked grave. "Colleagues, don't panic. This problem—"

He stopped mid-sentence, noticing someone in the crowd raising their hand.

"Liu Shijie, any suggestions?"

The person Yang Xu called was a rather young man in his thirties wearing large black-framed glasses. As all eyes turned to him, Liu Shijie—specializing in radio astronomy technology—looked pale with nervousness. He swallowed hard before speaking cautiously.

"I was wondering if this information is trapped in an unobservable 'measurement theory' state."

"Elaborate," Yang Xu urged.

"I-I mean, if we don't need to transmit the information, could we directly obtain its result?"

Yang Xu's gaze sharpened. "Go on."

Liu Shijie stood slowly. "Like the famous double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics—the final outcome depends on observation. When unobserved, particles exist in quantum superposition. Observation collapses the wave function, forcing particles to 'choose' a path, losing wave properties. I suspect this dark matter information might be similar..."

"An interesting theory," Wu Junping said. "But this decoded information exists in storage media. If even a supercomputer can't observe it, how can we?"

"That's exactly my point..."

Sweating profusely, Liu Shijie walked over, picked up a notebook, and started drawing.

"Neither we nor Grace can observe it because the information exists in storage media that can't be read—always stuck one second before. Grace's processing is fast, but no matter how fast, she can't access content from the previous second. Unless... our processing mechanism is slower than time itself. Then perhaps..."

"For example, the Southern Celestial Gate's 12 photovoltaic arrays have 14,976 adjustable panels controlled by servo motors with a fail-safe mechanism—each adjustment beyond 180 degrees triggers a 2-second delay for parameter calibration. If we prepare a program to compile this information into binary code and input it into the photovoltaic array's control center for observational calculations, then as long as the information exists, it will control the panels to flip. We could use this delay to view the information..."

He rambled on extensively, leaving Chu Yan—a layperson—completely lost. But Chief Engineer Yang and Wu Junping looked shocked.

"You mean..."

"Using the Southern Celestial Gate's photovoltaic arrays as display screens?" Wu Junping gasped.

"This..." The researchers exchanged glances.

"Feasible?"

"Not sure..."

"Chief Engineer Yang," Chu Yan looked at the solemn Yang Xu.

Yang Xu responded, "Theoretically, it should work. But we're completely unfamiliar with this time compression scenario."

"Then let's decrypt it."

Chu Yan nodded. "I'll immediately coordinate with Professor Ye and Lin Xian."

Instantly, the Stargazer team erupted into activity. Wu Junping and Liu Shijie began organizing action plans to relay to Chu Yan.

.......

"What? One second before?"

Inside the Black Star Forge's consciousness space, Lin Xian was equally stunned by Chu Yan's words. "So this information might relate to the Dark Civilization?"

"That's our assumption," Chu Yan's voice replied.

"So decryption preparations are underway?"

"Yes."

Exiting the consciousness space, Lin Xian found the elite squad gathered on the Infinite's roof, equally shocked by his news.

"How can we be sure it's Dark Civilization information?" Ning Jing asked.

"Because it arrived at 00:01 on Doomsday, though we can't be certain," KIKI crossed her arms, gazing skyward. "But using photovoltaic panels is brilliant."

"So our deep space platform received information on Doomsday itself?" Qian Dele asked curiously.

Ding Junyi, Xiao Yuan, Monica, Daluo, Fire Bro Lu Xingchen, and others also looked intrigued.

Chen Sixuan glanced at the night sky, asking Lin Xian, "How long will they take?"

"Not long—this should be quick." Lin Xian called Viola over.

"Viola!"

[Present.]

Viola flew over as Lin Xian produced a large astronomical telescope. "Locate the Southern Celestial Gate. Monitor the photovoltaic arrays' movements and project real-time footage."

[Understood.]

Meanwhile, at the Skybreaker Ship's command center, Ye Lan arrived with Phoenix Society executives as Chu Yan relayed instructions to Grace, who quickly compiled and linked the command code.

[Compilation complete. Binary code translated into text will cycle through photovoltaic arrays. Confirm connection to black box.]

"Deep Space Monitoring Station calibrated, awaiting information input."

"Radio observation station calibrated."

"Current Southern Celestial Gate photovoltaic array angle at 35 degrees, set to 0 baseline."

Chu Yan looked at the Phoenix Society leaders and Stargazer team before closing her eyes.

[Grace, connect.]

[Grace acknowledges.]

5:25 a.m.

In deep space, Grace pressed the activation key. Instantly, information from the black box converted into operational commands for the photovoltaic array motors.

Suddenly, countless motors on the Southern Celestial Gate's massive arrays rotated silently in the void, panels turning like an old mechanical display—countless sun-facing panels orienting toward Blue Star.

At this moment, both the Phoenix Society aboard the Skybreaker Ship and the Infinite's crew at Yongcheng Port stared intently at the distant defense platform.

Two seconds later, over ten thousand photovoltaic panels completed their flip, forming four words in all observation windows—four words that made everyone's hair stand on end.