228: Void Drifting and the Miracle of the "Creator"

The price of the forced jump, like a devil's bill, was presented in the cruelest way the moment the morning star broke free from the tearing of space.

As the violent turbulence and the sensation of dimensional chaos, which felt like it would tear the soul apart, gradually faded, the pale emergency lights on the bridge illuminated the wreckage.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of scorched circuits, the cloying scent of leaking coolant, and a faint, rusty tang of blood.

Groans, hurried reports, and the crackling of short-circuiting equipment intertwined, playing a tragic symphony of survival.

They had not appeared on any known, safe star map.

After several flickers and self-tests, the main screen barely managed to piece together the scene outside: a boundless, slowly churning interstellar dust cloud with a mixed hue of dark red and deep purple.

Huge clumps of dust and cold gas were like a cosmic curtain, blocking the distant starlight, leaving only strangely shaped dust pillars illuminated by weak reflected light nearby.

It was terrifyingly silent here, a physical dead silence that swallowed all sounds and signals.

"The jump engine core has melted down and is completely offline! Probability of restart... zero."

"Multiple main power conduits have ruptured, and energy leakage is severe! Backup power can only maintain minimum ship-wide power consumption for 72 standard hours!"

"Life support systems are damaged, circulation efficiency has dropped to 65%, and carbon dioxide levels are slowly rising."

"The long-range communication array was completely destroyed in the jump stress, and all external contact channels... are completely severed."

"Structural damage report: A total of 47 hull breaches or deformations, 12 of which are in critical pressure-bearing areas. Emergency repairs have been initiated, but the strength is insufficient..."

"Medical bay report: 12 seriously injured, over one-third with minor injuries; urgently need a stable environment and more medical resources."

A series of cold reports struck everyone's hearts like heavy hammers.

The brief relief of having escaped the pursuers was quickly replaced by a more realistic, bone-chilling despair.

They were trapped, trapped in an unknown, complex, and isolated dust cloud tomb.

The ship was severely damaged, energy was running out, the wounded needed saving, and the way home was bleak.

A heavy sense of oppression, like the thick dust cloud outside the window, pressed heavily on everyone's chests.

In this desperate silence, everyone's gaze involuntarily turned to the figure slowly standing straight in the center of the bridge—Excellence.

His face was pale from the immense load and minor internal injuries during the jump, and the blood at the corner of his mouth had been wiped away, but his eyes were like quenched stars—steadfast, clear, and without a trace of panic.

He did not issue Orders immediately but took a deep breath, as if inhaling all the chaos and negative emotions into his lungs, then exhaled slowly.

Following this, a strange, reassuring psychic field radiated out.

This field was gentle yet firm, like an invisible comfort, quietly calming the rapid breathing and pounding hearts of the surrounding crew.

"Medical team, prioritize resources to treat the seriously injured, and activate all reserve medical gel and nano-repair units. Those with minor injuries, assist each other and carry out basic treatment according to the emergency plan."

"Engineering department, split into three teams. Team one, immediately repair the life support core and internal air pressure balance system; this is the top priority. Team two, assess structural damage and use all available materials to reinforce it, ensuring the hull does not deteriorate further. Team three, attempt to repair internal communications and some sensors; we need to know more detailed environmental data."

"Logistics team, immediately take stock of all remaining food, water, energy bars, and critical spare parts, and formulate a strict rationing plan, starting with me."

"Su Mu, organize the security personnel who can still move to patrol critical areas, maintain Order, and assist various departments in moving supplies."

His voice was not loud, but clear, steady, and well-organized.

Every instruction hit the mark, with no superfluous nonsense and no bluffing encouragement, only a pragmatic action plan.

This astonishing calmness and efficient leadership displayed in a desperate situation acted like a stabilizing anchor, instantly steadying the hearts that were about to collapse.

The crew seemed to have found their backbone; although the road ahead was uncertain, they at least knew what to do at this moment and where to exert their efforts.

Under the coordination of Excellence, the morning star, this severely damaged giant ship, began to struggle to repair itself like a wounded giant.

Everyone moved, struggling for survival in the damaged corridors, dimly lit cabins, and in front of sparking consoles.

Excellence himself was not idle; he shuttled through the engineering core area, using his profound understanding of energy flow to guide engineers to bypass burnt-out Nodes, reconnect usable pipelines, and even personally used weak psionic energy to temporarily stabilize several energy circuits on the verge of collapse.

However, as time passed, that most fundamental, most fatal problem hung over their heads increasingly clearly like the Sword of Damocles—energy.

The fusion core of the main engine was already a pile of radioactive waste that needed to cool for hundreds of years.

The backup power was a few sets of high-density capacitor arrays, which were being consumed at a rate visible to the naked eye after maintaining minimum life support systems, lighting, basic circulation, and limited tool use.

The engineering supervisor gave the most ruthless estimate: at the current consumption rate and without effective energy recovery, in at most 60 standard hours, the entire ship would fall into complete energy darkness.

By then, life support systems would shut down, the temperature would rapidly drop to the deep cosmic cold near absolute zero, all personnel not secured in the cabin would become floating ice corpses, and those secured in the cabin... would only be delayed for a moment.

Repair the engine? Lacking key materials and a clean energy environment, it was an almost impossible task in the dust cloud.

Find external energy? The scanner's detection range in the thick dust cloud was extremely limited; apart from cold dust and trace hydrogen, no usable high-concentration energy sources or resource-rich areas were found.

Despair spread quietly again.

This time, even the reassuring psychic field of Excellence could hardly completely dispel the deepening shadows in people's eyes.

Just then, Excellence stood alone in front of the largest observation window, staring at the boundless, slowly flowing interstellar dust cloud outside.

His eyes were not focused on the dust nearby, but seemed to penetrate them, casting toward a more essential level.

In the δ knowledge base, those descriptions of the underlying architecture of "The Weave" and the most basic logic of cosmic energy and matter conversion swirled and collided in his mind like a lit-up star map.

An extremely bold, almost crazy idea gradually took shape.

He thought of the forbidden field mentioned in the δ data, which belonged to the forefront of theoretical physics of "the watchers" civilization and was even partially sealed due to ethical and risk considerations—"Vacuum Energy Extraction" and "Basic Particle Programming Reconstruction."

In layman's terms, this meant theoretically "creating" ordered energy and specific matter directly from the pure space-time background or even primordial matter clouds.

This was no longer simple energy conversion or programming, but touched upon the realm of "creation from nothing."

It required the operator to have an understanding of the essence of energy and matter that was almost at the level of natural law, possess a vast and precise energy control capability as a "tool," and also required a suitable environment rich in "raw materials" (basic particles and energy fluctuations)—for example, this vast interstellar dust cloud before them.

But the risks were equally horrifying.

Forcing a disturbance in vacuum energy could lead to local spatial structure instability or even the instantaneous generation of a micro black hole; errors in particle programming could trigger uncontrollable chain decay or matter annihilation; and for the operator himself, his psychic power and energy core would bear unimaginable pressure.

A slight carelessness would result in consciousness collapse or energy backlash, leading to total annihilation of body and soul.

"Perhaps... I could try 'that'..." The Whisper of Excellence echoed in the silent bridge; the voice was very light, but it attracted everyone's attention like a thunderclap.

"What? Excellence, what do you want to do?" Su Mu was the first to rush to his side, grabbing his arm, her eyes full of fear.

Through the remaining internal communication network, Evelyn's urgent voice also came: "Excellence! I just synchronized and retrieved the δ-level data you might be accessing... No! You absolutely cannot try those theories! That is too dangerous! The probability of success in known models is infinitely close to zero, and the consequences of failure are devastating! We can think of other ways, perhaps we can try to use the remaining energy to create a stronger signal..."

"There is no time, Evelyn, and there is no other way."

Excellence turned his head, his gaze calmly sweeping over Su Mu's worried face, and over all the crew members on the bridge who had stopped working and were looking over.

"The knowledge of δ gave me the theoretical possibility, the inheritance of γ and previous experiences have improved my level of energy manipulation, and here..." He pointed to the Stardust filling the window outside, "there are almost infinite, primitive 'materials.' This is our only chance."

"But you will die!" Su Mu's voice was choked with sobs, and the knuckles of her hand gripping his arm were white from the effort.

"If we do nothing, we will all die." Excellence gently patted her hand, his tone gentle but unshakeable. "Trust me, Su Mu. Evelyn, I need your computational support to remotely monitor the stability of the energy matrix I am constructing and provide real-time correction parameters. This is not just my affair; it is the affair of all of us."

His gaze finally fell upon the captain and the chief engineer: "Please concentrate all of the ship's remaining, safely usable energy—including reserves from some non-critical life support systems—into the energy coupler at the bow observation deck. At the same time, activate all available energy sensing and collection arrays on the ship's exterior, and adjust them to the maximum sensitivity passive reception mode."

Once the Order was given, despite being filled with worry and doubt, everyone chose to obey, based on their consistent trust in Excellence and their recognition of the desperate situation at hand. Like believers about to witness a miracle or face their deaths, they silently proceeded with the preparations.

Under the gaze of everyone, tense to the point of suffocation, Excellence walked alone into the guidance chamber, which was directly connected to the bow observation window and had been urgently cleared and reinforced with energy shielding. He stood beneath the massive transparent dome, with the churning ocean of dark red Stardust outside the window.

He closed his eyes and took several deep, long breaths, discarding all distracting thoughts, fear, and even concerns about his own survival. His consciousness sank into the deepest depths, achieving Resonance with the energy core inside his body that had integrated the power of multiple beacons. Simultaneously, he began to construct an extremely complex, multi-layered nested "Energy Programming" instruction set, following the most stable (if that word could even be used here) model in the δ theory.

He slowly raised his hands, pressing them against the empty void in front of him. Invisible mental power and the surging energy within his body poured out, passing through the ship's hull, and began to weave a massive and precise invisible matrix in the space in front of the "morning star"—a matrix invisible to the naked eye, but one whose terrifying energy disturbances could be captured by sensors.

The core functions of this matrix were "Resonance" and "Weaving." It first generated an extremely weak Resonance with the "vacuum zero-point energy" ocean of the cosmic background and the basic particle clouds within the surrounding interstellar dust at a unique frequency, acting like the most delicate sieve to capture those ubiquitous but usually unusable tiny energy fluctuations and free particles. Then, the more difficult second step began—following the "blueprint" pre-set in Excellence's mind (first, a stable high-density energy crystal structure, and second, some urgently needed structures for basic materials like titanium alloy and carbon nanotubes), he used powerful intent and energy flows to guide, bind, and reorganize these captured "raw materials," performing "programming" and "construction" at the atomic and even subatomic levels.

The process was filled with peril from the very beginning.

Excellence's body visibly tensed up, and beads of sweat as large as peas instantly covered his forehead, only to be dried by the steaming energy. A soft but dazzling energy glow began to radiate from his body, and the air in the guidance chamber warped slightly due to the excessively high energy density. Outside the observation window, in the area covered by the matrix, the space began to show unstable ripples, and the dark red Stardust was stirred by an invisible force, forming eerie vortices.

"Energy flow fluctuation! Unstable Resonance in the third quadrant!" Evelyn's voice came through the communicator, speaking extremely fast. "Inject reverse damping parameters, frequency Alpha-3!"

Excellence frowned tightly, dividing his attention to make adjustments. A trace of blood seeped from his clenched teeth.

Sometimes, the forcibly bound energy would suddenly spiral out of control, exploding into a blinding flash of blue or purple light at the edge of the matrix, the released impact causing the ship to tremble slightly and eliciting gasps from the bridge. Sometimes, a material structure that was on the verge of taking shape would suddenly begin to disintegrate because the state of a certain particle failed to synchronize precisely, turning into a cloud of chaotic radiation.

Every mishap made Su Mu's heart tighten further. She clasped her hands tightly together, her nails digging deep into her palms, but she dared not make a sound to disturb him. In the rear, Evelyn mobilized all available computational resources, fully analyzing the massive amount of data sent back by the sensors to provide crucial stability fine-tuning suggestions for Excellence. Her own forehead was also covered in sweat.

Time seemed to have been stretched out. One hour, two hours... Excellence maintained that posture of pressing his hands against the void, his body beginning to tremble uncontrollably, clearly bearing an unimaginable dual burden of mental and physical strain. His complexion shifted from pale to an unhealthy flush, and then gradually turned to an overdrawn, sickly white. Yet the light in his eyes never extinguished; instead, it grew brighter and brighter—a manifestation of willpower burning to its absolute limit.

The energy readings in the guidance chamber had soared to the dangerous red zone, and unstable phenomena in the external space were becoming increasingly frequent. Everyone understood that Excellence was dancing on the edge of a knife, with an abyss beneath him.

Just as Excellence's body swayed, almost unable to hold on, and Su Mu was on the verge of rushing in—

Outside the observation window, in the center of that violent energy turbulence, a point of pure, stable white light suddenly ignited, like sunlight tearing through dark clouds!

Immediately following, a second point, a third point...

The light grew more intense, gradually gathering and condensing. Under the incredulous gaze of countless eyes, a pure energy crystal—about the size of a fist, exhibiting a perfect polyhedral structure, with what seemed like liquid halos slowly flowing inside—was born from the void in the center of the matrix and hovered there steadily! It radiated powerful, stable, and gentle energy fluctuations, its power output reading climbing rapidly, surpassing the sum of the ship's backup energy reserves in the blink of an eye!

At the same time, around the energy crystal, some basic material ingots with a metallic luster and regular shapes were also "refined" and "shaped" from the Stardust. Although not numerous, the composition analysis showed that they were exactly the precursors for several alloys and composite materials most urgently needed for current repairs!

"It succeeded... Oh my god, it really succeeded..." Evelyn murmured on the other end of the communication, her voice choked with emotion.

Dead silence.

Then, cheers and cries like a volcanic eruption instantly swept through the entire "morning star"! The ecstasy of surviving a disaster, the shock at the miracle, and the infinite gratitude and reverence for the one who created the miracle were all intertwined. Many people embraced and wept, while even more turned toward the direction of the guidance chamber and saluted solemnly.

Su Mu was the first to rush in, and the moment Excellence collapsed from exhaustion, she pulled him tightly into her arms. Excellence's body was cold and heavy, his breathing weak, and his face completely devoid of color, yet a smile of relief—exhausted to the extreme, but immensely gratified—hung on the corners of his mouth.

"I... I told you... trust me..." he said in a voice that was barely audible, before slipping into a deep coma.

"Medical team! Hurry!" Su Mu shouted with a tearful voice.

The miracle created by Excellence became the key to the "morning star" turning the tide in its desperate situation. That pure energy crystal was carefully connected to the ship's energy network, its stable and powerful output instantly restoring vitality to all systems: life support systems operated at full power, lights became bright and warm, and tools and equipment roared back to life. Those created materials were immediately used for the most critical hull structural repairs, greatly accelerating the process.

Utilizing this precious energy and breathing room, the repair work on the "morning star" progressed at an astonishing speed. Two days later, they had restored basic navigational capabilities and partial defensive systems. Although the main engine could not yet be repaired, the auxiliary thrusters were sufficient to propel them slowly through the dust cloud.

Excellence awoke after being in a coma for over ten hours; although he was extremely weak and required a long period of recuperation, his very existence was a beacon of morale for the entire ship. This "Stardust creation" in a desperate situation not only resolved a life-or-death crisis, but was also a soul-stirring display of ability and a unification of belief. Excellence's prestige reached an incomparable height in the hearts of all the crew members. They no longer merely viewed him as a powerful individual or a key navigator, but as a leader they were truly willing to follow, one who seemed capable of creating miracles.

As for Excellence himself, after experiencing this practice that brought him nearly to the edge of touching the laws of the universe, his understanding of his own abilities, his comprehension of beacon knowledge, and even the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders had all undergone a qualitative leap. He truly realized what kind of terrifying yet hopeful power he held in his hands.

The "morning star" adjusted its course and, based on the star map and Excellence's faint intuition of space, began the long and cautious journey home toward the general direction of the "Homeland." Outside the window, the dark red Stardust cloud that had once almost consumed them slowly receded. As for Excellence's ability to "create from the void" in a desperate situation, it was collectively classified by Wang Jianguo and all those in the know as the highest level of secret and the final strategic trump card of the "Homeland" civilization. This was not just a technology, but a symbol—a symbol of the indomitable spirit that could still personally create light in absolute darkness.