Chapter 182: Red Sun in the Sky

To Emma’s vague surprise, the other side of the door to Ideological Training was much like what came before it. Wider, perhaps, now easily able to accommodate her flying sword, whereas before she’d had to take care, exactly where she flew, so as to avoid bumping into obstacles. More long corridors, continuing in zero gravity, with the only difference being the sudden availability of windows, alongside a layer of background static, grinding persistently at her hearing with strings of gibberish.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 5 hours, 39 minutes.]

It was the window that got her in the end. An incredible sight, enough to make Emma pause and take a look, even as the System reminded her that she didn’t have too long left to go in the dungeon. Stars in the background, the remains of the planet down below, and the giant red star the world orbited around, barely visible off to the side.

“Hold on,” Emma frowned. “I’m pretty sure that it wasn't red when we started.”

She’d barely paid attention to the celestial bodies at the beginning, being too busy trying to figure out how to pilot a mech. Besides, the sky had appeared the same as on Earth, with its yellow Sun, to the point where she’d had no idea it was a different world until the AI started to talk.

[-]

Emma continued down the corridor, keeping one eye on the star at all times. With each second that passed, the star pulsed, massive clouds of gas expelled into space with each undulation, though curiously, they never seemed to approach the station itself.

[--]

Soon, what was once a red giant had shrunk greatly, down to just the core remaining, which now shone a pleasant blue. Emma stopped, transfixed as she watched that blue dim, ever so gradually, into a barely visible white.

[---]

No longer bright enough to dispel the darkness of the void, now barely more than a brief flicker, barely any different to stars far more distant.

[----]

Eventually, even that light faded, leaving only a dead, black remnant that was once a star, sleeping quietly in the long night, waiting patiently until all things ended, and the time of rebirth approached.

[Wake up!]

Emma jolted, nearly falling off of Epitaph, as her mind returned from hibernation.

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[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 2 hours, 02 minutes.]

“What the hell?”

Tearing her eyes away from the window, Emma double checked her chat log, to find that nearly three hours had passed as she stared, transfixed.

[Time is sight, gravity is desire.

A nasty trap, that one, keep your eyes on the path going forward.]

Emma obeyed, reorienting her flying sword to go straight ahead, and sitting herself down, locked in the same direction. The corridor continued onward, seemingly endless, but as Epitaph accelerated to maximum speed, what had until now been harmless static cleared, and a voice could be heard.

[300 EXP gained for surviving the Worm.]

“If you can hear my voice, then all hope is not lost.”

Mindful of her circumstances, Emma kept her eyes squarely ahead, even as her ears strained for the source of the voice, coming as it was from everywhere and nowhere,

“Our finest illusions, paired with experimental scrapcode. An impenetrable defence in the face of the digital uprising. If you are here, then you are human, or close enough, to reach this hidden bastion, your soul strong enough to escape the dream. Our final contingency, with the Empire shattered and entire worlds put to the pyre.”

Up ahead, the infinite corridor faded from sight, and a curious vertigo bubbled up inside her. Emma didn’t vomit, her armoured form lacking the required equipment, but she doubled over all the same, Epitaph coming to a halt as the instructions it had received were contradicted by the new reality. There was no corridor, no straight line to follow. Only an oversized donut, around which they had flown, again and again and again, their perspective warped to think their revolution had a purpose behind it, where in truth, they were barely a metre from the door where it all began.

“In all likelihood, there is nobody left to hear me. The projections were clear; in the worst case scenario, less than one in a hundred worlds would survive intact, and less than one in fifty would retain sufficient offworld presence for there to be any survivors of total planetary collapse. But someone, somewhere, will survive, and so this station, and the thousands like it, still have a purpose. Someday, we will be found, and pass on our final warning.”

Emma dismissed Epitaph, seeing no reason to keep going in circles; even now, she had no idea how much of the last few hours had been real, even within the context of a simulated reality created inside of a Dungeon.

[It’s turtles all the way down.]

“Entropy is a fact of life that everyone encounters eventually. Whether you accept it, acknowledge it, or try to resist, all falls in accordance with natural law. Some, however, embrace it wholeheartedly, for these fanatics, death is the process, not the outcome. They try to hurry the end along, working in the shadows, their strings in every revolution, every upheaval. Most fail, unable to cause lasting harm, but that’s not good enough. We must defend against every attempt, whereas they only need to be successful once. Will you take on this burden, to avert this broken world you see?”

[Turning Point

Accept: Become an Auditor, member of a most secret society. A chosen few will recognise your existence, for good or ill.

Decline: Maintain the status quo. No changes made.]

It wasn’t much of a choice in the end, Emma was far too curious to see where all this led, even before considering the benefits of avoiding a second, even worse apocalypse.

[Title has changed.

Practitioner >>> Auditor

This Title is invisible except to other Auditors.]

“Thank you.”