Standing beneath the eighty-arm-length dome of Entry hall 750, Qiao Ming and Yan Zhiqiu watched the horrific, majestic unfolding of the cosmic truth.
The master star compass projector continued its relentless, self-running survey of the heavens. Sector by sector, across the one hundred and eight ancient star domains recorded upon the Broken Slate, the light-projected stars were dying. The brilliant sapphire clusters of the Outer Perseus arm flickered into crimson and put out. The golden nebulae of the Cygnus Veil collapsed into pinpricks of blackness. And the vast spiral arms of the Southern Horizon dissolved into empty, lightless voids.
Of the one hundred and eight star sectors that had lit up the mortal sky during the First Epoch, ninety-two were fully gone. The master tracking data register carved into the jade console displayed the cold, hands-on verdict in scrolling runes of pale starlight: Survey Complete. Extinction Rate: Eighty-Four Point Six Percent. Remaining Stellar Bastions: Sixteen.
“Eighty-four percent,” Yan Zhiqiu whispered, her voice trembling with a grief that spanned galaxies and ages. She fell to her knees upon the green-stone flags, her scarred hands resting flat against the cold stone, her dark eyes staring up into the vast, hollow darkness of the dome. “The Drowned Dao... It was never just about our world, Qiao Ming. It wasn’t merely the melting of ice caps or the breaking of land-wide dams. The cosmos itself is drowning. The stars are being put out one by one by the ancient void.”
