Deep Space.
Aboard the Dancer.
Hossie let out a rare cheer as the ship's velocity climbed to 239,530 kilometers per second.
It was a massive breakthrough.
And he was here to witness it firsthand.
Ever since becoming the leader of a star nation, few things had truly stirred him. Most days were just a cycle of routine and repetition—but this moment was something else. Something fresh, something real.
"Too bad we haven't quite hit the target sub-light speed."
"Once the energy reserves stabilize, we'll push past 240,000 kilometers per second."
Just as Luna and Chu had predicted, Hossie had taken action.
Once the initial excitement wore off, he returned to his work with quiet composure—analyzing the enormous datasets recovered from Star City 4.
This journey was incredibly dangerous, and Hossie knew it. That's why he had to prepare meticulously.
Everyone on the Dancer could see Hossie at his station.
"I didn't expect the leader to be this diligent," Nimom murmured.
She herself was overloaded with tasks and had been dragging her feet. But seeing Hossie so focused lit a fire within her—she snapped back into motion.
In this era, the role of a leader was largely symbolic. AI handled almost everything.
A leader was needed only when stakes were high—when choices went beyond calculation.
Truthfully, Hossie didn't even need to be on this ship. He could've sent someone else to investigate Star City 4. If not once, then twice. If not twice, then ten times.
Given enough time and effort, all secrets would eventually be uncovered.
But Hossie thought differently.
Time could lead to answers—but it couldn't bring back the dead.
He had studied the war between the Human Federation and the Olive Branch Civilization, and had come to deeply admire Luna's personal bravery.
That admiration was what later led him to reject the rot within the Eternal Cycle Star Nation.
It marked the awakening of his own will—and his courage.
Luna, as a diplomat, had stood nearly alone against what was once an overwhelming force: the Titled Station.
Even if it meant her own end—she faced it.
If a leader lacked the spirit to sacrifice, how could a civilization move forward?
Could one expect others to take risks they themselves were unwilling to face?
Someone had to go first.
Most people wanted others to take the fall. Even if they accepted sacrifice, they wished to be the last.
Some called it "pragmatism"—but deep down, it was fear. An unwillingness to face the abyss.
This way of thinking was described in the " History of the Old Federation ".
History might not always propel a civilization forward, but it contains the footsteps of those who once tried. And buried in those footsteps were the sparks of greatness.
Especially after meeting Luna in person—and coming to understand the full extent of what she had done—Hossie's reverence reached its peak.
He accepted then that the civilization he had inherited was shaped by those who belonged to a higher plane of resolve.
That higher echelon must be those who feel no personal fear, who dedicate themselves entirely to the collective.
It gave him clarity.
After the war between Human Civilization and the Olive Branch, he'd struggled with doubt.
Now, he had a direction.
He aspired to be someone like Luna.
And he knew most wouldn't understand. Many would call him a fool.
But he wasn't doing this for applause.
He was simply following a voice within.
Without billions of so-called "fools" paving the way—if everyone played it safe—civilization would never evolve.
He was willing to be that fool.
Nimom didn't fully understand his thinking.
She simply admired his drive, then turned back to her own responsibilities.
She was assigned to analyze the massive archive of audio data transmitted from Star City 4.
The server, as powerful as it was, couldn't distinguish what was truly valuable. It could perform broad-spectrum scans—but it was still up to humans to find the real clues.
Back in her quarters—which doubled as her lab—Nimom retrieved a coin-sized device and connected it directly to her body.
The lifeforms of the Eternal Cycle Star Nation had always existed in a vaporized state. This biological form remained unchanged since their origin.
Reproduction among them wasn't a matter of mating. Instead, it involved separating a portion of their own form to create a wholly independent individual.
As for consciousness—it originated naturally from the underworld.
As such, these beings, like before, had no sensory organs.
All their sensations came through external sensors.
For instance, aboard this ship, countless 3D sensors captured environmental data and transmitted it to their internal information-processing structures. These systems then reconstructed a perceptual model of the world—similar to how human brains formed sensory understanding.
It was said that their original perception of the world had once been vastly different from that of humans.
Every species saw reality differently. But in the era of the new human civilization, much of that difference had been standardized.
After connecting to the audio reception device, she began receiving data that had already been pre-analyzed and stored by the ship's server.
She listened to each recording.
The amount of data was staggering—over a thousand years' worth, containing tens of quintillions of individual audio entries.
Even with preprocessing by the server, hundreds of millions of entries still remained.
So far, she had reviewed 2.38 million.
Based on her pace, she estimated she could complete the initial analysis by the midpoint of the ship's journey.
After that, she would perform a deeper analysis on selected samples—narrowing them down from thousands to mere dozens, or perhaps even a handful.
It was painstaking work, requiring specific aptitude.
Although their mechanical bodies were standardized, slight variations still existed, even among individuals produced on the same assembly line.
Her own information-processing structure was 2% more efficient in interpreting audio signals than others—a rare and valuable trait. That difference had earned her this assignment.
The recordings began to play.
Most of it was noise—mundane chatter, background sounds, overlapping conversations.
The chaotic mixture grated on her nerves.
"Too much repetitive, meaningless data. None of it was filtered properly. The server's quality is degrading."
She reviewed the data points flagged by the server, only to discover that most were indistinct background noise.
In nearly every hundred audio files, there were two or three flagged segments filled with unclear static.
She began to suspect that the server's noise suppression systems had failed.
The distortions were too short—just brief bursts, usually no more than 0.2 seconds.
Every one of them was the same—unintelligible.
Shipboard life was monotonous to begin with. Once the workload increased, the routine became even more suffocating.
Aboard the Dancer, crew members typically took a break every ten years.
Ten years later—
A scholar, not seeing Nimom for some time, remarked half-jokingly, "Is Nimom working so hard she's forgotten herself? She doesn't even remember when it's time to rest."
There were only a few hundred passengers on the Dancer. Everyone knew everyone else.
Someone messaged Nimom—but got no reply.
They went to her room, rang the bell—still no response.
Eventually, they had the ship server unlock the door.
Inside, the floor was covered in dust.
Atop the dust lay an audio reception device.
Nimom was dead.
When Hossie received the news, he was stunned.
He couldn't believe there had been a death on his ship.
Logically, this wasn't possible.
They had only been traveling for less than a hundred years. These people hadn't been recruited from the mortal world—they were selected directly from the underworld, where lifespans stretched tens of thousands of years.
A century aboard the ship shouldn't have been enough to trigger any psychological breakdown—let alone lead to suicide.
So—was it murder?
That was even more unlikely.
If it had been murder, the server would've issued an alert.
On this ship, no one—not a single person besides Hossie—had higher authority than the server itself.
Without hesitation, he used his credentials to access the data logs and visual records from before Nimom's death. The server should have everything on record.
"Server, retrieve the logs from the time leading up to Nimom's death."
Five seconds passed. No reply.
Ten seconds—still nothing.
Fifteen seconds. Silence.
"Server, retrieve Nimom's data!"
Hossie repeated the command, his tone sharper. The server didn't respond.
"Then give me a log of everyone's recent work activity."
[Okay!]
This time, the server responded immediately and provided the list.
Hossie raised an eyebrow, suspicious—but he pushed the feeling aside and began scanning the files.
Data on every crew member was present... except for Nimom.
He frowned.
"Server, where is Nimom's data?"
Silence again.
It was as if "Nimom" had become a forbidden keyword.
One engineer, a system specialist, spoke up. "Fourth Great Leader, the server should've triggered an alert when Nimom died. None of us received anything. I believe some of the data may have been tampered with."
Servers still needed occasional maintenance, and each ship had its own assigned software engineers.
Hearing this, Hossie gave a decisive order.
"Shut the server down immediately. Full inspection. Diagnose and repair everything."
A server breach—this was the first time he'd encountered something like this.
Normally, these systems were autonomous and highly secure.
Especially this server—it wasn't just advanced, it was elite.
To breach such a system, one would need either high-level internal access... or technology that exceeded the server's own capacity.
But who could possibly have that?
Ordinary people certainly couldn't.
Even most known powers wouldn't be capable of it.
There were only a handful of entities he could think of who might have such access—but they weren't here. And more importantly, they would never do something like this.
It made no sense.
It was bizarre.
Hossie turned to the others.
"From now on, we'll restructure the workspace. Mandatory grouping: teams of ten."
"Don't worry about distractions—just stay calm and focus on your tasks."
No one objected.
In this age, for someone to die without a trace was almost unheard of.
That unsettling silence had left a mark on everyone.
The cabin grew quiet. One by one, people returned to their stations.
All attention turned toward one priority: inspecting the server.
The system shut down without issue.
The Dancer's server was the latest generation model: LXK0283-A6-c.
The first three characters—LXK—represented the manufacturer's abbreviation.
Then came the model number: 0283, indicating it was the 283rd iteration in the series, starting from 001.
A6—"A" denoted it belonged to the highest grade class, and "6" indicated its top configuration within that class (others ranged from A1 to A5).
The final character, a lowercase 'c', represented its class.
Server classifications were as follows:
s – colossal class (used by planet-class warships)
x – city class (used by Star Cities and sub-planet-class warships)
z – mothership class (standard for capital ships)
c – compressed class (used in ordinary ships)
a – restricted class (used by private corporations for final-phase data processing)
"DataNodes" were different—they were simply localized processing units owned by individual companies.
There was no inherent difference in computational power between the classes. All were capable of high-performance processing.
The real distinction lay in permissions—access levels.
Permissions determined how large the server was allowed to become. Without enough access, scaling up would be pointless.
After all, a server's purpose is to process information. If the intake is limited, additional power is meaningless.
This server used a modular design.
Once the team extracted the unit, Hossie saw its internal structure for the first time.
It resembled a 5x5x5 Rubik's Cube.
That meant it was composed of 125 modular units, each designed with a specific function.
Some were computation modules, others for data storage, operations, power management… While each module had a designated task, that didn't mean they were fundamentally different from one another.
For example, the computation modules were divided further into mathematical computation, physical computation, logical computation, conscious computation, and more—much like how the human brain is made up of the left hemisphere, right hemisphere, cerebellum, hippocampus, and other structures that together formed a unified cognitive system.
In this design, even the malfunction of a single module could destabilize the entire system.
The team began disassembling the 125 modules one by one, analyzing each thoroughly.
Six months later, the findings were delivered to Hossie.
There was no trace of any individual named Nimom in the server's database.
Her existence had been erased—completely.
So thoroughly, in fact, that the server could no longer even form the word "Nimom."
Its silence wasn't resistance—it was the result of being overwhelmed. Just trying to assemble the phonemes "Ni" and "mom" forced the server into using 100% of its processing power.
This level of erasure was terrifying.
"Why did this happen?" Hossie asked.
The reply was immediate—and definitive.
"We don't know."
Not just Hossie, even the technical elites of the Eternal Cycle Star Nation couldn't explain it.
It defied all known logic.
"Can we restore the data?" That was Hossie's next question.
"No. We can't even recreate the word 'Nimom.' It's hidden—obstructed by something we can't identify, much less locate with our current tech."
If they said it was impossible, then it likely was.
"What if we just erase everything and start over?" Hossie asked.
"Do you really want to do that? Wiping the data would mean losing everything. We'd have nothing left."
Clearly, it wasn't a viable solution.
But Hossie felt suffocated.
If this problem couldn't be solved, then what was the point of continuing toward Star City 4?
Maybe this was nothing more than a distraction—a trick played by an unknown enemy.
"Can we copy all the data?"
"We don't have a spare storage unit large enough."
The server's internal storage tech was cutting-edge. The data stored within was unimaginably vast.
"Then transmit the information to other Star Cities. Have them send storage units here via Subluminal Flight Vehicles."
"Our ship travels at roughly 200,000 km/s."
Hossie made his decision.
He had to understand what had happened—before reaching Star City 4.
Because he still planned to go there.
There were no clues yet, so Hossie temporarily shelved the Nimom investigation.
But research on Star City 4 had to continue. He had to know what was happening over there.
Was Nimom's death somehow linked to Star City 4?
That was the key question.
Was this issue isolated to his ship?
Or had it already spread to Star City 1—or even the entire Eternal Cycle Star Nation?
He didn't know.
None of it made sense.
Why Nimom?
Why her?
Hossie transmitted all his findings to Star City 1, to be analyzed by Luna and Chu.
Perhaps they could uncover a clue.
He had hoped that, after shutting down the main server, this incident wouldn't repeat.
But during the next crew member's ten-year work cycle—
Another death occurred.
Identical to Nimom's.
Even more disturbing: this second person had also been working with Nimom's audio recordings.
That's when the realization struck.
"We had it backwards from the start."
"It wasn't that the server was breached and then killed Nimom. It was that after Nimom was killed, the server was breached to erase all trace of her."
Hossie finally saw it.
He had been stuck in the wrong perspective.
If this had been an external attack, then logically, the server should have been the first target.
Only by bypassing the server could an attacker harm crew members.
But the sequence here was inverted—a violation of common sense.
Now, all focus turned to those mysterious audio files.
"Is the problem in the audio?"
"But… how could sound kill someone?"
Hossie demanded, "Who else has listened to the recordings?"
Three crew members responded. "We've reviewed some of the audio."
Without delay, Hossie isolated the three, placing each in a separate, secure room.
He questioned each of the three separately.
"How much of the audio did you listen to? Was it the same version that Nimom and Ba Sai had access to?"
Their answers made one thing clear—the audio they had heard was different from the version accessed by Nimom and the other deceased individual.
They had listened to unprocessed audio—raw data that hadn't passed through the server's filter.
They didn't even know what was supposed to be special about it.
"Then the problem lies in that version. Something embedded in that audio killed those two—and even caused the server to erase Nimom's existence."
For information to produce such effects, it must have been processed—literally transformed.
That transformation could have taken several forms. Perhaps the original sound was altered into a precise frequency that could trigger lethal effects in the listener. Or perhaps particles had been embedded into the audio spectrum—hidden within the frequencies themselves—affecting those who received the signal.
In the first case, the danger lies in the broadcaster. In the second, it's the content itself.
Both possibilities required access to the original audio.
But the recordings Nimom and the others had received were already processed by the server.
So theoretically, the threat shouldn't have existed in the processed version. And yet, the processed version was the one that killed.
This contradiction demanded a definitive test.
They needed someone to listen to that segment of sound—under strict observation.
Hossie began recruiting volunteers to study the data.
This time, those selected would be placed in sound-isolated transparent enclosures, incapable of transmitting any sound externally.
To establish a controlled study, Hossie planned to recruit ten individuals simultaneously.
He had wanted to use clones, but unfortunately, their ship lacked the equipment for biological replication.
After all, none of them possessed physical bodies in the conventional sense. Biological study was a highly specialized domain within the Eternal Cycle Star Nation.
"Are you ready?"
The Dancer, like other starships of the Nation, featured a modular layout.
Each section could be reconstructed or repurposed.
Hossie cleared out a chamber—50 meters long, 30 meters wide, and 20 meters high.
Inside, a transparent cage was erected. Ten private rooms were installed within it, and surrounding the cage were workstation modules, like an open office floor.
Everyone aboard could visually monitor what occurred inside.
Volunteers came forward.
Despite the risk of death, they were not ordinary citizens. Most were researchers, scholars, or soldiers—people who had long been prepared to sacrifice.
The ten individuals entered the cage.
External observers returned to their posts. Surveillance cameras surrounded the cage on all sides, streaming its contents in real time.
Hossie relocated his own workspace nearby.
"Begin analysis."
Everyone resumed their duties—investigating the mystery of Star City 4.
Hossie entered a steady routine, observing the cage at intervals.
This process lasted for years.
Nothing happened at first. Fatigue set in.
Occasionally, Hossie asked for progress reports. Data accumulated slowly, the suspect samples gradually narrowed.
Then came the seventh year.
The outcome he feared came true.
Seven out of ten participants died.
Right before their eyes.
Panic spread.
Hossie stood up. "Did anyone witness the deaths? Any signs or symptoms?"
No one answered.
Not even the three survivors still inside the cage.
No one understood what had happened.
Hossie's consciousness-body grew cold.
He felt… watched.
It was as if some entity had been observing them the whole time—and struck only when everyone had turned their eyes away from the cage.
He reviewed the camera footage.
Just as he feared, the critical few seconds were missing—erased.
There had to be a culprit.
But who?
He scanned the room.
But everyone here had no physical faces—just vaporous forms of consciousness. There was no way to read facial expressions or emotional cues.
"Is there something I missed?"
He ordered the remaining three to continue monitoring the data.
He shortened the reporting intervals.
He also assigned dedicated personnel to watch the cage constantly—not to look away even for a second.
And then—right after giving that order—Hossie felt it.
A jolt in his thoughts.
Something… was missing.
He tried to recall what it was.
Something important.
But not important enough to stop everything.
He gave up trying to remember.
And so, three more years passed.
Another rest cycle arrived.
This time, the relief was palpable.
"Finally... we can rest."
"The data's all just noise… nothing stood out."
"Anyone find anything useful?"
No one did.
It all felt meaningless—repetitive patterns, dead ends.
They packed up their workstations, stood, and began to disperse throughout the ship for leisure.
Then someone turned toward the transparent cage.
"…Does anyone remember what that cage is for?"
"When did we build that thing? Weird."
"…"