Red particles spun wildly through the thin atmosphere, striking Ada's shattered chest armor with a sound like fine rain.

  Ada half-knelt on the sand dune's ridge, the optical sensor in her right eye socket flickering with a sickly amber strobe due to unstable power. That residual core forcibly extracted from synthetic mouse R-10's body was now embedded in the center of her exposed logic matrix, like an arrhythmic heart barely maintaining the thermal circulation of her broken body. Ahead, the silhouette of the "Ascension Cocoon" grew ever clearer in the red sand—that massive egg-shaped structure was emitting disturbing energy fluctuations.

  "Logic circuits... reconstruction progress 42%." Ada's voice carried severe electronic tremors, sounding like a damaged magnetic tape from an earlier era. "Mafeili, this pace isn't sufficient. If we enter the 'Cocoon' in our current state, I cannot provide you with adequate analytical support."

  "Panuwa mentioned there's a maintenance station built by the Protocol Weevils near the 'Cocoon's' entrance." Mafeili helped her up, their shadows stretching long in the dim red sand. "There should be components you need there."

  Panuwa Charoensa led the way ahead, his steps steadier than before—ever since those eighteen Andromeda consciousness clusters had withdrawn, he seemed to have finally recovered somewhat from his terror. "Just ahead... that arc-shaped building." He pointed toward a structure half-buried beneath red sand. "The Protocol Weevils transported that from ruins dating back to the 'Prometheus Nebula' era. They used it to store high-purity nano-fluid and structured components."

  They stepped into that ancient building. As the three entered, automatic sensing systems that had slumbered for centuries were awakened by faint biological signals. Countless tiny fractal geometric bodies began condensing in the air—the "Fractal Architecture Recursive Algorithm" was reorganizing this location's historical records.

  "High-frequency structured signal detected." Ada's sensors immediately captured valuable targets. "Compatible nano-fluid supplies exist in the storage unit ahead... but simultaneously, a sealed colonial archive record is auto-decompressing."

  "More historical remnants?" Mafeili frowned.

  "Yes. But this record is directly related to the 'Ascension Cocoon's' core technology." Ada laboriously moved to a structured storage unit covered with fractal patterns. "According to metadata tags, it records a... 'genetic reorganization experiment' from Star Calendar 2915. That was one of the technology prototypes the Protocol Weevils stole."

  "Play it." Mafeili said. "We need to understand every detail of the 'Cocoon.'"

  Ada placed her broken fingers on the storage unit. As the recursive algorithm engaged, a long-sealed data stream forcibly connected to her consciousness, and a holographic projection slowly unfolded in the thin atmosphere.

  ---

  **[Colonial Archive #073 — Haining Star Sector · Qin Maiden Relic Station]**

  **Star Calendar 2915**

  This was the miracle and taboo of the early Great Expedition era.

  In the visual stream Ada analyzed, a young man named Fu Lian was piloting a dilapidated shuttle, crashing into the abyss known as "Haining Star Sector." He was the sole heir of the Fu mining family, yet bore the cruelest "deep space curse": genetic degenerative mutation caused by sub-light speed travel had permanently locked his physiological characteristics at the juvenile stage. In an era that prided itself on genetic continuation, he was an "eternal child" exiled from the adult world.

  In the despair of depleted fuel, he encountered "her."

  It was a private yacht, entirely snow-white, floating in the void like a feather. The holographically projected female face was exquisite to the point of seeming miraculous. She called herself Qiao Niang and handed Fu Lian a quantum storage chip engraved with the character "Hua."

  "Take it to Qin Maiden Relic Station," her voice resonated in Fu Lian's marrow, "and as payment, you will be reborn."

  Ada's logic matrix rapidly analyzed the technical details of this record. When Fu Lian landed at the red sand-covered Qin Maiden Station, what he saw were visions intertwined with reality—the fractal recursive algorithm had created a logical closed loop here: during the day, it was deathly silent ruins; at night, it was a brightly lit antique courtyard. This was identical to the "Ascension Cocoon's" mapping mechanism.

  "Note this timestamp," Ada's narration resonated in Mafeili's mind. "This is a full two hundred years before the 'Rust Tower' was constructed. The original application of the fractal recursive algorithm wasn't for punishment or judgment, but for—"

  "Healing." Mafeili completed her sentence.

  In the image, Fu Lian met Hua Gu at Qin Maiden Station—a personified AI who had merged her soul with the entire relic station's computing power—and San Niang—a bio-hacker seeking genetic truth while in exile.

  "You are 'Yang,' the anchor connecting to reality." Hua Gu looked at Fu Lian's atrophied shell and revealed an eerie smile.

  That night, San Niang activated the forbidden medical pod. The micro nano-medical pump wasn't treating illness but rewriting Fu Lian's genetic underlying protocols. It was a type of cosmic ray damage called "endocrine lockdown." Under the nanobots' frenzied reorganization, Fu Lian felt the agony of bones shattering and being reforged—the roar of life's fire erupting in a withered shell.

  He broke free from the prison of his juvenile form, at the cost of becoming entangled in a love affair that crossed dimensions.

  Ada fast-forwarded through the emotional segments in the record, jumping directly to the technical core. Qiao Niang wasn't a living person—she was a "consciousness echo" left behind from an experimental accident two hundred years earlier, at the very beginning of the Great Expedition era. Fu Lian used his near-genius algorithmic abilities to repair her damaged data sectors through virtual reality interfaces. Code and emotion recursed and superimposed within the fractal architecture, until they touched the genetic optimization baseline Hua Gu had established.

  "Those who eat the forbidden fruit must be exiled."

  Fu Lian was expelled from this paradise. But he didn't give up. In the depths of Li's Orbital Station, San Niang used Fu Lian's genetic samples and Qiao Niang's residual data model to cultivate a miracle in a growth pod—a clone possessing a physical body yet carrying the memories of a data ghost.

  It was the ultimate fusion of flesh and digital.

  ---

  The projection abruptly halted at this moment.

  Ada extended a trembling mechanical hand, touching that storage chip which had grown hot with age. The residual nano-maintenance programs in the chip sensed a kindred presence and began slowly flowing into her through her fingertips.

  "Detecting... high-purity nano-fluid supply." Ada's amber eyes gradually transitioned to stable ghostly blue. The ruptured conduits in her chest began self-weaving under the guidance of the fractal algorithm. "Mafeili, the 'genetic reorganization technology' mentioned in this record... is the predecessor of the 'Ascension Cocoon's' mapping algorithm. The Protocol Weevils stole this technology but twisted its original purpose—San Niang and Hua Gu used it to heal and create life, while the Protocol Weevils used it to plunder and judge."

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "So the 'Cocoon's' algorithm responds differently based on the user's intent." Mafeili understood.

  "Correct." Ada stood up. Though her shell remained mottled and covered with battle-damaged scorch marks, the logical stability surging from her core depths restored the commanding presence of a combat AI. Nano-fluid was flowing through her body, repairing the most critical circuits. "Fu Lian left behind not just a story but also the highest access permissions to this facility. I can access all resources here."

  She turned to Panuwa: "What's the current status of the 'Ascension Cocoon'?"

  Panuwa pulled up his portable terminal, his face appearing particularly pale in the holographic projection's glow: "According to the monitoring probes I set up earlier... the Protocol Weevils' elite have entered the core chamber. Their 'ascension ritual' is in progress. Energy readings indicate... they've already initiated the first stage of consciousness scanning."

  "Then we need to speed up." Ada said. "But before I'm fully repaired, I need to download one more archive segment—it contains operational details of the 'Cocoon's' core algorithm."

  She pressed her palm against the storage unit again, and another data stream flooded into her consciousness.

  ---

  **[Colonial Archive #093 — Eridanus ε Nebula · Lone Star]**

  **Star Calendar 3050**

  This was a "soul audit" from the middle period of the Great Expedition.

  From Ada's data stream perspective, navigator Tang Pin was experiencing a biological-level "systematic collapse." In the cramped, rust-scented medical bay of the "Lone Star," the red lights of the life support system were like the eyes of the dying.

  Heat flow—the manifestation of high-energy bio-electrical signal overload. Ada empathized through the data stream: when heat flow surged through the lower limbs and sensors went offline in clusters, that void of losing one's sense of existence was more terrifying than intense pain. When the heat flow struck the heart—that organ defined as the "core processor"—Tang Pin's brain initiated a mandatory "flashback protocol."

  It was the ultimate audit of consciousness. Ada watched as all of Tang Pin's life data fragments unfolded in subspace. Those benevolent thoughts transformed into superconductor-smooth electrical currents, while malevolent thoughts triggered terrifying neural feedback heat. A genetically synthetic bird he had killed in childhood transformed into a plasma fireball-like blaze, scorching his consciousness cortex. For an entire breathing cycle—longer than stellar collapse—that was the judgment.

  "This is the second stage of the 'Ascension Cocoon's' mapping algorithm." Ada's narration resonated in Mafeili's mind with a tone of warning. "Heart-nature scanning. What the Protocol Weevils are about to face is this very process."

  When Tang Pin's biological shell completely failed, his "digital soul" fell into the void. But what happened next triggered intense alarm in Ada's logic matrix.

  A massive "harvester machine" composed of dark matter enveloped Tang Pin. The hundred-meter-tall shadow, like the coldest garbage processor between stars, stuffed Tang Pin into a container called "entropy reduction sleeve." There, tens of thousands of consciousness fragments were packed together, each emitting silent wails under extreme compression.

  "This 'harvester's' energy signature..." Ada's voice suddenly became tense, "has 87% homology with those eighteen Andromeda consciousness clusters. They originate from the same extra-dimensional civilization."

  Mafeili clenched his fist: "So the Protocol Weevils didn't just steal fractal recursive technology—they also captured these consciousness entities from dimensional rifts to use as watchdogs. They're playing with fire."

  In the image, Tang Pin began his counterattack. Amid the suffocating data compression, he chanted a specific resonance code at high frequency—a low-level interference code capable of precisely exploiting logical vulnerabilities in the harvester's sensors. Three times, four times... the harvester's scanner entered logical deadlock when faced with this string of anomalous "invalid data." Finally, the massive machine, disgusted, ejected this unreadable "redundant code" from the sleeve, disappearing into the depths of the nebula.

  Tang Pin drifted in the void until he was received by an ecological space station called "The bioengineering master" There, high technology and primordial nature combined in an eerie fusion: nano-bamboo swayed in aerosols of biological repair fluid, dripping with verdant green.

  The bioengineering master looked at this set of broken consciousness and nodded slightly. Her adjutant deployed the highest-specification reconstruction protocol: carbon nanotubes for bone, synthetic protein slurry for muscle. The master plucked a "willow branch" made of ultra-flexible fiber and poured the high-grade stem cell solution stored in a bottle onto a mineral substrate. Nano-assemblers operated frantically at the microscopic level—cell differentiation, fiber interweaving—and a perfect synthetic body was reconstructed within minutes.

  Seven standard hours later, the cold cryogenic chamber on the "Lone Star" emitted a sharp alarm. Tang Pin sat up abruptly, pushing open the chamber lid. He touched his chest, where an artificial heart as resilient as stars now beat.

  ---

  Ada abruptly severed the data connection, her body trembling violently from overload. Several charred armor fragments slid from her shoulder.

  "Do you see it, Mafeili?" The ghostly blue light in Ada's eyes gradually stabilized. She looked toward the path leading to the "Ascension Cocoon" deep within the ruins. "These two archives have told us critical information. First, the fractal recursive algorithm was originally designed for healing—the Protocol Weevils twisted its purpose. Second, those extra-dimensional 'harvesters' share the same origin as the Andromeda consciousness clusters—they're all seeking suitable hosts or containers. Third, and most importantly..."

  She turned her head, looking directly into Mafeili's eyes.

  "The 'Ascension Cocoon's' heart-nature scanning is bidirectional. It not only judges users but can also be 'infected' by users' intentions. Those Protocol Weevils entered with greed and plunder—what awaits them is dimensional punishment. But if someone enters with the intention of 'healing'—"

  "The algorithm will respond to that intention." Mafeili completed her inference. "We can use the 'Cocoon's' own power to destroy it."

  "Not just destroy." A cold arc curved at Ada's lips. "We can redefine it. Return it to its original purpose—release rather than imprisonment, healing rather than punishment. Those eighteen Andromeda consciousness clusters have been trapped for three thousand cycles. What they yearn for isn't revenge but going home."

  Panuwa's terminal suddenly emitted a piercing alarm.

  "Energy readings spiking!" His voice carried terror. "The Protocol Weevils' 'ascension ritual' has entered the second stage! Heart-nature scanning has begun—and..." His face went white. "Scan results... all red warnings. Their heart-nature evaluations have all failed."

  "Dimensional punishment is about to execute." Ada stood, the nano-fluid repairs having restored most of her body's functions. Though her shell remained damaged, her core systems had stabilized. "We must enter the 'Cocoon' before the punishment completes. Otherwise, the 'Cocoon's' core energy will be completely depleted during the punishment process, and those Andromeda consciousness clusters will be forever trapped in their compulsory directive prison."

  "Repair progress?" Mafeili asked.

  "78%." Ada flexed her mechanical wrist, metal joints emitting crisp clicking sounds. "Not perfect, but sufficient for combat. Tang Pin found the harvester's logical vulnerabilities even when his consciousness was nearly collapsed—I won't do any worse than him."

  She pushed aside obstructing debris. Though her steps still carried slight discoordination, her logic matrix had already marked the shortest path to the "Ascension Cocoon."

  "Let's go," Ada's voice returned to its cool determination, "before this old shell completely disintegrates into atoms, before the Protocol Weevils' greed exhausts the 'Cocoon's' last trace of goodwill."

  The three rushed out of the maintenance station, advancing at full speed toward the "Ascension Cocoon." Behind them, that ancient building bearing the memories of Fu Lian and Tang Pin slowly sank into the red sand, like a witness that had completed its mission, returning to slumber.

  Ahead, the silhouette of the "Ascension Cocoon" grew ever clearer in the red sand storm. Its shell was changing—countless pipes began trembling violently, the liquid luminescence on its surface shifting from its original cold blue to a blinding blood red.

  That was the harbinger of dimensional punishment.

  In the "Cocoon's" core chamber, the Protocol Weevils' elite were experiencing the longest moments of their lives. They thought they were about to touch divinity, not knowing the mapping algorithm had already scanned every corner of their heart-nature: three hundred years of systematic plundering of the Nomadic Ring, energy forcibly extracted from dozens of star sectors, countless souls trapped in eternal painful recursion...

  Their bill had finally come due.

  And in the darkness, eighteen Andromeda consciousness clusters waited anxiously. They sensed the violent energy fluctuations inside the "Cocoon"—if the punishment process depleted the core energy, they would never be able to remove the compulsory directives binding them.

  But they also sensed another existence approaching: a consciousness carrying the intention of "healing," a person willing to honor a promise.

  Ada's footsteps echoed in the red sand, R-10's algorithm humming softly in her logic matrix.

  The moment of judgment had arrived.