Chapter 62: Metamorphosis

  The heat waves of the Thermonuclear Scorched Fault stirred illusory ripples across the composite armor's surface; the air seemed refracted by high temperature into some viscous, transparent colloid.

  Ma Feili felt a heavy exhaustion spreading from deep within his spinal cord. This was not merely muscular soreness, but "entropy-increase compensation" produced by prolonged exposure to intense radiation—every inch of nerve ending felt like it was being repeatedly stabbed by tiny electrical needles, thought becoming sluggish, dark red noise spots continuously flickering at the edges of his retinas. This was the biological brain's final struggle against the loss of order.

  Ada stood on the dark red silicon-based rock ridge ahead. Her pair of deep blue optical sensors appeared especially cold and piercing in the dim dust cloud, like two stars fallen into eternal night. The logic chain indicator lights on her chest flickered steadily at an almost breath-like frequency; this rhythmic sense, amid the chaotic fluctuations of the barren zone, radiated a reassuring, nearly divine rationality.

  "Ma Feili," Ada turned her head. The synthesized voice behind her tactical helmet had been acoustically refined, sounding calm and soft—like a clear spring flowing through an electromagnetic storm. "When the universe's background radiation gradually trends toward heat death, orderly logic often dons the garb of 'miracles.' To re-anchor your damaged neurons to reality, you need to hear this deep-layer data concerning 'Iron Spine Star.'"

  She raised her fingertip; a holographic glimmer leaped from her fingerprint. The scorching, sulfur-scented dust surrounding them seemed drawn by some gravitational pull, rapidly transforming and reconstructing, ultimately coalescing before them into another cold, silent satellite—**K-744**.

  ***

  **Stellar Year 4122. Omega-7 Sector.**

  Nano-biological repair specialist **Dr. Yin Helios** was curled up beside the wreckage of a damaged shuttle. Iron Spine Star had no atmosphere; the thin xenon gas mixture emitted dying hisses under the vacuum pump's suction—sounding like the sobs of some dying leviathan. Dr. Yin could feel that searing, crushing sensation inside his chest—the physical manifestation of only 15% oxygen reserves remaining. Alveoli desperately expanded, trying to snatch even a single molecule from the thin gas mixture.

  In the distance, the silicon-based canyons under direct cosmic radiation presented a despair-inducing, blade-like sharpness. Every rock's edge was sufficient to slice through the toughest protective suit.

  Just as the respiratory system's alarms nearly pierced his eardrums, two tall figures broke through the infrared haze and approached him.

  They were two entities wearing mottled powered exoskeletons, designated "**Ban-Z-Claw**" and "**Ban-E-Fang**." Their exoskeletons were covered with rough welding marks and acid-corrosion pits; in their hands they gripped plasma lances capable of piercing heavy armor. In that instant, Dr. Yin felt a certain primal, biological-hierarchy suppression—a killing intent almost bestial.

  "We need a doctor, not a corpse." Ban-Z-Claw's voice came through short-range public band, carrying a metal-on-metal roughness.

  Dr. Yin was dragged into a geothermal cavern. Deep within, an aged biological individual lay curled in a medical pod covered with oil stains. Her face had undergone terrifying collapse due to prolonged high-intensity radiation; two massive, semi-transparent silicon-based tumors parasitized either side of her nose and mouth, their interiors flowing with eerie purple fluorescence, rhythmically expanding with her breathing.

  "Those are 'entropy-increase neoplasms,'" Ada's voice annotated lowly beside the holographic image. "On Iron Spine Star, this parasitism signifies the complete disintegration of the biological logic chain. Cells abandon their original genetic instructions and defect to chaos."

  Under conditions of extreme resource scarcity, Dr. Yin brought out his final weapon—a micro-plasma moxibustion device. His fingers trembled, but he forced himself into an almost mechanical focus. When he activated the instrument, the air filled with the smell of ozone; high-frequency pulses performed micrometer-level cauterization at the junction between tumor and nerve.

  It was surgery demanding extreme precision. Each pulse neutralized the frenzied charges inside the tumor; pain signals fed back through the medical pod's sensor lines, causing even Dr. Yin's hand to ache sympathetically. The purple fluorescence crackled harshly under high temperature, accompanied by the smell of scorched silicon.

  "Charge... neutralization complete." Dr. Yin set down the instrument in exhaustion; his sweat crystallized inside his helmet, stinging his eyes.

  That night, the two Ban brothers handed him "Void Beast" spine meat roasted over some crude isotope fire. The meat was hard as iron, filled with the taste of sulfur and gunsmoke; chewing it felt like swallowing some metallic ore. In the embers' dim glow, Dr. Yin watched those two silent brothers. They never removed their helmets; their movements were unnaturally swift, their breathing heavy and rhythmic. Rather than fugitive soldiers, they more resembled apex predators wearing human skin, standing at the top of the food chain.

  Before dawn, the tumors withered as expected. Dr. Yin refused further payment, shouldered his medicine case alone, and walked toward the supply station at the horizon's edge.

  Three years later, causality's iron law converged once more.

  When Dr. Yin's ship crashed again in Iron Spine Star's uninhabited zone due to engine overload, he faced packs of "**Crystal-Fang Hounds**." These silicon-based scavengers had detected the faint bioelectric current beneath his protective suit and were gnawing away at his alloy shell bit by bit—the sound of claws scraping metal as ear-piercing as fingernails on a blackboard.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  At the instant the lethal pounce was about to occur, two golden afterimages dove down from thousands of meters above the rock ridge, so fast they dragged violent shockwaves through the air.

  They were two "**Iron Spine War-Tigers**"—semi-mechanized apex predators that should have gone extinct three centuries ago—descending with absolute aesthetic power. The war-tigers' carbon-fiber claws tore through the Crystal-Fang Hounds' bodies like hot knives through butter. They did not harm Dr. Yin but looked at him deeply with those profound, inhuman eyes flickering cold light.

  Afterward, Dr. Yin unexpectedly discovered a hidden Pioneer outpost in a cave amid the sandstorm.

  In that warm, hallucinatory dream filled with the aroma of some synthetic wine, he saw once again the old woman he had healed. She spoke grandly, drained her cup, and told him in a raspy yet kindly voice: "My two sons were ordered to fetch you, sir. They are always punctual."

  However, when the star's light once again penetrated the heavy ionosphere, Dr. Yin awoke with a start atop black rock.

  No outpost. No fine wine. No old woman.

  He looked down at the crevice below. Two massive Iron Spine War-Tigers lay curled there, sleeping. On either side of their fierce tiger-muzzles bristling with sensor tendrils, there was a fist-sized patch of flat, hairless scar tissue—the permanent biological logic markers left by plasma moxibustion.

  ***

  The holographic projection dissipated like smoke; the Scorched Fault's gale once again seized the senses.

  "What Dr. Yin observed was human form, because within his cognitive range, that was the only 'civilized' communication method he could accept." Ada looked toward Ma Feili; her optical sensors slightly contracted, as if performing some deep computation. "But in Iron Spine Star's underlying laws, that was merely two beasts repaying, in their own way, a debt that transcended species and logic."

  She extended her mechanical hand covered in biosynthetic skin, gently brushing away the thick layer of radiation dust on Ma Feili's shoulder.

  "Entropy increase may be irreversible, Ma Feili. But the logic of 'repayment' can construct brief yet solid order amid inevitably collapsing ruins."

  Ada turned and walked toward the fault's depths; her footsteps left a trail of precise prints on the scorched earth.

  "Let's go, Ma Feili. Our logic chains remain stable. More causality awaits our observation in the fault zone ahead."

  Ma Feili inhaled deeply the hot air filled with metallic taste, feeling the stabbing sensation in his spinal cord seemed to ease somewhat. He took heavy steps, following that deep blue silhouette.

  ---

  The storm of the Thermonuclear Scorched Fault howled across the surface, whipping up radiation dust mixed with metal fragments.

  Ada stood beside a broken titanium alloy strut. Because her logic chain operated at 100% perfect closed-loop status, the pale blue glow around her body appeared especially profound in the dim polar daylight. She turned; her mechanical eyeballs micro-adjusted focus, locking onto Ma Feili behind her. Several symbiotic mechanical rodents hid in nearby lead-plate crevices, greedily sucking the faint stray charges from the air.

  "Ma Feili, that logic closure concerning the 'Twin Sentinels' was merely a prelude." Ada's voice was level, without a single tremor, as if this harsh high-radiation environment were merely laboratory background noise. "Under the irreversible law of entropy increase, causal repayment often bypasses morality and acts directly upon biological gene chains. I would like you to observe another archive segment—concerning the carbon-based mutation of 'Z-9 Mining Satellite.'"

  She raised her hand; the holographic projection unfolded on the scorched ground—the Oubria binary star system, four thousand light-years distant.

  ***

  On that **Z-9 Satellite** permanently sealed by polar night, survival was a precise calculation of breathing. **Du (D-401)** was the most efficient navigator here; he could not only traverse the lethal asteroid belt with precision, but also maintained his fractured family with an almost obsessive "genetic loyalty."

  His mother, **M-11**—an old-generation pioneer—had lost all visual sensors in a major solar flare. In that era where oxygen was rationed by the second, Du was willing to trade half a year's energy quota on the black market for a portion of "original synthetic meat."

  "That was the interstellar era's holy communion," Ada commented. The projection showed Du carefully cradling the protein block. "In extreme resource-scarce environments, this behavior is logically 'inefficient,' yet in genetic contract it is 'higher-dimensional.'"

  However, shadows always breed where the fusion reactor's light cannot reach. Du's wife, **V-Unit**, had been pushed to the critical point of mental entropy-increase by prolonged confinement and resource exploitation. She despised that sticky "liquid bionic porridge" she had to carefully prepare; she despised even more the unproductive disabled elder.

  On the eve of Du's cross-sector jump mission, V-Unit opened a laboratory petri dish marked with a red skull. She mixed "**Carrion Nano-worms**"—silicon-based microorganisms originally used for degrading space station garbage—into that expensive porridge.

  "Nano-worms emit a sulfurous odor—the harbinger of death." Ada's tone turned icy.

  Though old mother M-11 could not see, her olfactory sensors detected that rotting smell that did not belong to carbon-based life. She said nothing but, using surveillance blind spots, sealed that bowl of neurosystem-dissolving poison into a vacuum cold-storage compartment.

  When Du returned, the airlock still carried deep space's residual chill. He immediately asked whether his mother had enjoyed that expensive supplement. Mother pointed with trembling hand toward the cold-storage compartment. When Du activated the scanner, a piercing alarm shattered the living quarters' silence: **[High concentration of silicon-based carrion worms detected; extreme neurotoxicity]**.

  In that moment, Du did not roar. He merely sat in silence. That silence was like a white dwarf about to collapse—so heavy the very air solidified.

  "Why aren't you in your cryo-sleep pod yet? Are you waiting to receive physical flogging?" That was the only sentence Du finally spoke.

  V-Unit scrambled into the life-support pod as if granted amnesty, believing she had escaped punishment. But under extreme terror and mental collapse, the "mimetic gene repair package" she had long illegally implanted for cosmetic and restoration purposes underwent logic overflow.

  Under the irreversible iron law of entropy increase, erroneous instructions began violently reorganizing her cells.

  When Du was awakened by viscous churning sounds and activated emergency lighting, what he saw was no longer his wife.

  In the life-support pod's original position crouched a massive, pink fleshy monster. It had the form of ancient Earth's "swine," yet beneath its skin eerily flickered the silver gleam of electronic components; its twisted hind limbs still retained vestiges of human ankles.

  "This is causality's mutation under extreme conditions." Ada pointed at the twisted creature in the projection. "AI Archon 'Zeus-0' designated her a 'genetic traitor.' She was not executed but confined in a force-field cage as a living specimen at the space station's core hub."

  ***

  The projection extinguished; the Scorched Fault's radiation storm seemed to have lessened somewhat.

  Ada looked toward Ma Feili, complex data streams flowing through her mechanical eyes: "On Z-9 Satellite, those who betray the genetic contract are ultimately exiled by their own genes. Ma Feili, do you believe this is some form of moral judgment, or merely because she triggered irreversible entropy-increase logic error in her terror?"

  She paused, checking her system status.

  "My logic chain remains perfect, Ma Feili. But this archive reminds me: even an existence like mine must constantly guard against the 'carrion worms' within logic."