Chapter 261 The Ship

It was daybreak and the snow stopped.

The sun shone on the thick snow pile, and a bonfire started in the scrap iron. The slight "crackling" sound was mixed with the smell of evaporating gasoline.

Five people sat around the campfire in silence.

"You nearly killed me."

Jiang Yixia said expressionlessly.

Fu Qinghai looked embarrassed and apologized sincerely:

"sorry."

"I assimilated Dormammu's power, spending a total of more than 3,000 assimilation points."

Chen Xin said expressionlessly.

The implication is: I lost everything to save you.

Fu Qinghai smiled bitterly and said:

"sorry."

"Qingshan, I..."

Li Xingxian hesitated to speak.

Fu Qinghai glanced over:

"What's wrong with you again?"

Li Xingxian said confidently:

"That night, I was scared too!"

Only Huxley still looked confused:

"What happened last night?"

But no one paid any attention to him.

…

What on earth is the divine seal?

This has to start with the Dead Space series.

Dead Space is a game from EA, as well as derivative novels, movies and animations. It focuses on the deep space claustrophobic sci-fi horror style and was once thought to "surpass the Resident Evil series", but was later ruined by EA.

The ancient and mysterious alien device, the Divine Seal, appeared in the Dead Space Universe without a beginning or an end. It appeared on Earth 65 million years ago with an asteroid impact, and then quietly appeared on the planet Ta Frantis 2 million years ago.

Let's first talk about the fate of alien civilizations.

Two million years ago, a group of technologically advanced alien creatures discovered the "ocean planet" Ta-Frantis located in the spiral nebula of the Milky Way. The original home planet of these alien wanderers was on the verge of death, and Ta-Frantis provided them with a shelter.

At some point later, aliens discovered a mysterious double-helix-shaped device on the bottom of the sea in Tower Frantis. Because it continuously broadcast high-intensity electromagnetic signals to the surroundings, the alien civilization regarded it as an important unlimited energy source. Soon after, a large number of similar devices were imitated and distributed throughout the surface of the planet.

Soon a disaster broke out on Tower Frantis, and most of the aliens were transformed into "corpses" by the gods they worshipped and began to slaughter their own compatriots.

After the massacre provided enough biomass, the divine seal triggered an "aggregation event". All the living infected people and dead body fragments were attracted together by some force. The enormous pressure brought the flesh and blood together and formed an organic "satellite" in the orbit of the planet.

That is the "blood moon".

Although their own race was on the verge of extinction, in order to prevent the Divine Seals from continuing to harm other intelligent races, the remaining aliens built an environmental transformation device to rapidly freeze the entire surface of the planet Ta Frantis. All the Divine Seals were thus buried under the thick ice layer, and the fusion process of the "Blood Moon" was temporarily suspended.

The "Blood Moon" is a sentient life form and can be seen as the ultimate form of the "Necromorphs". At present, humans are still unclear about the purpose of the "Blood Moon", but there is a lot of evidence showing that after they are formed, they will continue to search for and devour other organic life.

It's a bit like a low-profile version of the Tyranids.

Let's talk about the end of human civilization.

The asteroid impact caused the extinction of species, but the divine seal seemed to be closely related to the explosion of new species. In other words, perhaps it was the existence of the divine seal that accelerated the evolution of life on Earth and led to the emergence of humans.

When humans on Earth finally evolved into modern society, in 2214, archaeologists discovered this device on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico. The same plot occurred: scientists discovered that it was emitting high-intensity electromagnetic signals all the time, and initially inferred that it was an unlimited source of energy.

As the research progressed, a large number of researchers died, leading to the first outbreak of the "Necromorph Frenzy" on Earth. However, under the influence of the protagonist Dr. Altman's aura (he established a spiritual connection with the God Seal and reached a tacit understanding), the "Necromorphs" produced by the God Seal were eventually quickly suppressed by the Earth Defense Force (EDF).

Later, public research turned into secret research. Originally, the Divine Seal had already shown great danger, but at that time the Earth Government (EG)'s rule over the Earth was already precarious. They hoped to solve the energy crisis through the Divine Seal, and on the other hand, they also hoped to use the ability of the Divine Seal to research weapons and maintain their ruling position.

At this moment, humans have unified the world and have begun to gradually colonize outer space. They also want to continue studying the Seal of God. In order to prevent the Seal of God from causing serious consequences on Earth, the human base, the Earth government came up with an idea - to place a replica of the Seal of God in a remote colonial outpost or mining planet and conduct secret research far away from Earth.

That is, desolate planets such as Proxima Centauri, Uther, Gliese 581 and Aegis VII.

Seeing this, the perceptive people have realized that something is wrong.

The divine seal is of such a high standard, contrary to common sense, and contains a beautiful fantasy of a "perpetual motion machine". It is a magical device that neither aliens nor humans on Earth can understand or crack. Why can it be copied so easily?

Perhaps, "being copied" is what the Divine Seal itself desires. It wants to use "infinite energy" as a lure to attract these intelligent races to continuously create its copies.

Later people discovered that no matter how many light years apart they were, the original divine seal could have some kind of connection with the replica divine seal.

And this is the conspiracy of the Divine Seal.

Among them, "Aegis VII" is the planet where the main story of the game takes place and the site of the Ishimura incident. After the "Necromancer Frenzy" occurred, the Earth government successively dispatched the search and rescue ships Kellion and O'Bannon to investigate, but all lost contact.

Why is Dead Space a bad ending?

In the finale of the last game in the series, the hero and heroine survived a near-death experience to kill the "blood moon" on Tower Frantis. After going through untold hardships, they finally returned to Earth, only to find that there was a huge "blood moon" waiting for them in the sky above the Earth's orbit...

An Alien-style ending.

What this means is that humanity is all done for.

The official has not explained what the seal of god is, but based on the above background information, we can roughly guess:

The Divine Seal is a weapon created by a higher-dimensional being. Yes, a weapon with a purpose similar to that of the Trisolaran intelligent beings, a weapon used to systematically eliminate intelligent races.

Using "infinite energy" as bait, it attracts intelligent races to study it and copy it, and then quietly spreads mental pollution, creating a "necroteid frenzy", and the corpses aggregate to form a "blood moon".

This is a super weapon aimed at the civilization level.

It is not used to destroy an individual, but to destroy a civilization.

This high-dimensional level of mental control is extremely terrifying and difficult to resist. Not only is it wide-ranging, but the means are also particularly secretive. It will implant specific ideas in the minds of specific individuals. For example, the assassination of Dr. Altman by federal agents is said to have been subtly influenced by the divine seal.

It's very Cthulhu.

Friends who are familiar with the core of the K-system know that mental pollution is not measured by level or strength.

In the Cthulhu series, some investigators (protagonists) will not be affected by the Great Old Ones, and can remain sane even when facing the Old Gods and the Outer Gods, while some people (supporting characters) will go crazy on the spot just by taking a look at a Cthulhu creature.

It has nothing to do with whether one is physically strong or mentally resilient. A "miserable person who has experienced many hardships", a "veteran who has been torn apart by war", or a "talented young man" will not be affected by mental pollution...

This is all using the self-righteous and taken-for-granted thinking of low-dimensional creatures to speculate on the rules of the high-dimensional world. Why should the high-dimensional world operate according to the "experience" of low-dimensional creatures?

There is no logic and no reason.

The gap in levels is so huge that it is completely incomprehensible.

This is Cthulhu.

The Seal of God is a very Cthulhu setting—the original words from the production company.

Looking at the entire Dead Space series, there are only two people, Michael Altman, the male protagonist of the novel, and Isaac Clarke, the male protagonist of the game, who can be highly connected with the Seal of God and still be completely unaffected by it.

These are all born protagonists, the chosen ones.

Who is Fu Qinghai? Just a reincarnation.

Many people don't understand one thing: what is so great about the protagonists in these zombie horror games?

Is it because they are agile and accurate with their guns? Or is it because they are strong and have good endurance? None of them. The protagonists of the Resident Evil series, Ethan, Leon, Jill... are strong because they are not infected with the virus for various reasons. There are people who are stronger and more agile than them, but once they are infected with the virus, nothing can be said.

Similarly, Isaac Clarke, the protagonist of Dead Space, is known as the "first engineer in the universe", but he is ultimately just a system engineer on a mining spaceship. He is not a professional soldier with professional training. The reason he can kill his way through the zombie craze is that he is not affected by the Divine Seal, while other soldiers have their minds controlled by the Divine Seal as soon as they land on the spaceship, and they cannot use their abilities.

…

"So, the Divine Seal is something that is far beyond our ability to handle, right?"

After listening to Fu Qinghai's explanation of the origin of the divine seal, Chen Xinlu asked seriously.

Fu Qinghai nodded: "Yes."

"So what do we do now?"

Jiang Yixia asked.

Fu Qinghai sighed and said:

"I'm to blame for encountering the Divine Seal. I was careless. The perfect human deliberately left a hidden clue for me to follow, and then I was led to the Divine Seal."

Fu Qinghai thought he was the hunter, but he didn't expect that he was the prey that walked into the trap.

"The most urgent task now is to find a way to find the perfect human satellite in orbit. I can't stand the feeling of being monitored by the enemy all the time. Including the trap set this time, the time and place are just right."

Fu Qinghai said.

Due to the influence of their orbits and climatic conditions, artificial satellites cannot monitor the planet in all directions at all times, but just taking a look occasionally is enough to annoy Fu Qinghai, after all, he cannot see others.

Fu Qinghai returned to the tank and saw the words and symbols written in his blood on the cabin wall.

"Fusion... sublimation... merging into one..."

Fu Qinghai had a gloomy face and wiped off the crooked dried bloodstains with a towel soaked in snow water.

Just like E mold and Black God Faith, Plaka Parasite and the Church of Light, a horror game without religious elements is not a good horror game. In the Dead Space series, religious elements also account for a large proportion.

The Divine Seal is constantly brainwashing the surrounding intelligent creatures in a subtle way. The "Unification Church" hidden among humans is the product of this brainwashing. They believe that Dr. Altman's death is a conspiracy of the Earth government and that only becoming a part of the "Blood Moon" is the ultimate destination of human sublimation.

This is a cult that encourages suicide and martyrdom.

Fu Qinghai has always hated religion the most.

I was actually tricked accidentally.

…

Fu Qinghai no longer approached the valley where the divine seal was hidden, but continued searching along the surrounding area.

Fu Qinghai's search efficiency is very high. He only needs to fly in the air and scan the scenery in front of him, and Qingming will automatically analyze and compare it to determine whether it is worth further exploration.

It took him less than a week to find something unusual. Near a small ice lake covered with snow, Qingming said: The thickness of the snow on the shore was different, and there were traces of large objects being dragged. This was a detail that ordinary people would not notice or discover.

Fu Qinghai looked around carefully and examined the surroundings.

Are there any other traps?

Thermal imaging showed no signs of life.

Fu Qinghai turned off the reactor of the flying backpack, fell freely from a high altitude, and slammed heavily into the thick ice.

"Bang!"

The ice broke and the water was turbulent.

A series of bubbles rose up and the Space Marine slowly sank.

"Hurulu…"

The muffled sound of water rang in my ears.

A searchlight lit up on Fu Qinghai's chest. The white light was in a cylindrical shape, penetrating the turbid water and illuminating the dim lake bottom.

A huge monster lay quietly at the bottom of the lake.

Fu Qinghai sank to the bottom of the lake, his magnetic shoes stepping on the loose mud. The turbofan of the flying backpack rotated, rolling up strings of fine bubbles, pushing him forward. Fu Qinghai came to the side of the mechanical creation and reached out to brush away the brown-green algae attached to it.

The Supremacy shuttle.

A line of English appeared on the shell.

Fu Qinghai understood and turned around to float to the surface of the water.

…

"Boom…"

The tank drove towards the lake and slowly stopped.

Fu Qinghai unfastened the lock connecting to the armored vehicle, tied a thick steel cable to it, carried a large bundle of steel cables and walked into the icy lake, allowing the freezing cold water to flood over him.

A mere underwater operation was no problem for the all-weather and fully enclosed power armor. Fu Qinghai tied steel cables to various locations on the shuttle, returned to the shore and drove the tank to drag it hard, pulling the shuttle that had sunk to the bottom of the lake out of the water little by little.

On the white snow-covered ground, the aircraft that was deliberately hidden under the water finally revealed its full appearance.

In terms of overall structure, this shuttle is similar to a space shuttle, with short wing-like structures protruding on both sides of the fuselage, and attitude control nozzles located under the protrusions.

There is a searchlight at the nose of the aircraft, a twin-mounted cannon on the back, and three engines installed on the rear half of the shuttle's fuselage to provide sufficient power for the aircraft. The fuel filling port is located on the back of the rear half of the fuselage.

"It's been soaked in the lake for so long, can this thing still start normally?"

Chen Xinlu looked at the algae covering the outer shell and the silt sliding down from the engine nozzle, and couldn't help but ask with some concern.

After all, this is not a land vehicle. It is going to carry people into outer space. Whether it can be started is one thing, but if there is any failure during the flight, it is no joke.

Fu Qinghai untied the steel cable and put on a workman's backpack.

I thought: I'm afraid you don't know who I am.

The Chief Technical Sergeant and the only Forging Master of the White Scars, Qingshan Yanhan! Is

there anything I can't repair?

...

After a series of operations such as draining, cleaning, drying, rust removal, welding, riveting, reinstallation...

Fu Qinghai sat in the driver's seat of the shuttle, pressed the start button of the control system, and waited patiently.

"bite!"

The screen lights up.

"Welcome to the Sovereign Colonial Alliance Ship Control System."

"Authentication started..."

An electronic female voice sounded.

The shuttle's systems started up normally.

It turned out to be the Sovereign Colonial Alliance, not the United Space Association (USG) and the Harmony Mining Company (CEC).

"Qingming, crack it."

Fu Qinghai said lightly.

A universal plug extended from the end of the mechanical tentacles of the industrial backpack and plugged into the data interface under the operation panel.

Soon, the screen flashed again, and Fu Qinghai's avatar appeared on it.

"Welcome, Engineer Qingshan."

An electronic female voice sounded.

"Please enter the control command."

"Open the logbook."

Fu Qinghai ordered.

The screen in front of me kept switching images.

When the latest sailing record appeared at the top of the screen, Fu Qinghai glanced over the few lines of brief text, his eyes slightly dulled:

"Shi...Shicun?"

"Voyage log: July 21, 2508, departure point: Ishimura planetary cracker-class mining ship, destination: Earth's surface, coordinates 276-16-836."

Because it is an assimilated item, the time in the navigation log is not reliable, but the departure place and destination... are very questionable.

This is the most recent voyage record of the Hegemony shuttle. As far as I can remember, since the Ishimura was put into service, it has been mining diligently in remote star regions and has never returned to Earth. How could the Earth be its destination?

That means the "Earth" here may not be the "Earth" in the Dead Space Universe.

Could it be that...

Fu Qinghai's breathing became rapid.

Slowly looked up at the sky.

…

As Chen Xinlu, the other two, and Huxley watched, yellow flames gushed out of the shuttle's tail nozzle, the fuselage shook violently, and the turbulent airflow blew away the flying snow fragments. The Hegemony shuttle slowly lifted off the ground.

Twenty minutes later.

The earth has turned into a blue, hazy ball of water.

In front of Fu Qinghai, a huge iron-gray ship was quietly parked on the track.

"Wow..."

Fu Qinghai's eyes lit up slightly.

It was not until the moment he saw the Ishimura that Fu Qinghai knew that his saving of more than 30,000 assimilation points was not in vain and was worth it.

Just for now!

…

The Dead Space universe possesses two technologies that Fu Qinghai is particularly interested in - gravity manipulation and planetary fission.

The technical principle of planetary fragmentation is actually based on gravity manipulation. This is an efficient mining technology that can use a powerful artificial gravity field to tear mineral-rich planets or small celestial bodies into small pieces and drag them into space, and then carry out crushing, refining, processing and other processes.

The Ishimura is a ship based on this unique technology. It is the first and largest planetary breaker mining ship under CEC. The name of the Ishimura comes from Dr. Hideo Ishimura, the inventor of the "Oscillating Point Engine" technology, which is equivalent to the inventor of the "Warp Speed" technology in the Dead Space universe.

Fu Qinghai looked at the spaceship from afar.

Although it is far from being slender, it can still be regarded as a "skinny" ship in appearance. This impression mainly comes from the large number of ribs arranged symmetrically on both sides of the front and middle hull. If you count the eight cantilevers, four long and four short, extending from the bottom of the hull with gravity cables at the ends, the overall look is even more grotesque and cold.

Each planet-breaking mining ship is a uniquely shaped "fishbone spaceship", but none of them is as large as the Ishimura - which is comparable to the destroyers of the Human Empire.

"Dock, target: Ishimura."

Fu Qinghai said.

At the same time, hold the weapon in your hand tightly.

The Ishimura was also a spaceship that had carried the Red Divine Seal and the place where the zombie frenzy broke out.

...

(End of this chapter)