Chapter 146: The Lighthouse, Prison of Souls

On a building next to the ruins of the interstellar spaceship, six individuals—three men and three women—were watching the retreating convoy in the distance.

A chubby man clad in bizarre, heavy armor held a pair of binoculars, keeping them trained on the vehicles while muttering, "I'll be damned. How on earth is that guy who suddenly popped up so powerful?"

"And where did he even come from? Wasn't this entire area completely deserted?"

Hearing this, a long-haired loli beside him turned to their boss and asked, "Boss, Shanda is right. That guy who suddenly appeared is so strong. Could he beat you?"

Their boss was a cold and alluring beauty with silver hair and long legs. She stood with her arms crossed, holding her horizontal blade, her cloak snapping fiercely in the wind.

Without turning her head, she answered concisely, "Haven't fought him. Unclear."

"Is that so~"

The loli was evidently unsatisfied with this answer, but since the boss wouldn't elaborate, there was nothing she could do.

Instead, a long-haired, spirited woman carrying a bow and arrows on her back chimed in, "Boss, do you think he could be from ASH Corporation? From his demeanor and attire, he doesn't look like someone from the surface at all. He seems more like a person from before the Cataclysm."

"Ah, aren't the people from ASH Corporation all on the moon? What would they be doing coming down here?" the loli asked in surprise.

"What else? To check on the experimental results, of course," a masked person said with a sarcastic drawl.

"Ugh, they're so disgusting," the loli muttered in disgust.

At this moment, the "boss" they kept referring to spoke up, "Alright, let's go. There's no part for us to play here anymore."

"What about that big guy?" Shanda the fatty asked.

"We can't catch up to the big guy; we've already missed the window. I'm going back to talk to Master Lai. He never mentioned that anyone else would show up."

"Oh."

The six of them quickly went downstairs and left in a "vintage" Audi concept car.

Meanwhile, Zhou Shu, standing atop the vehicle roof, had no idea that the target he had been waiting for had already left—specifically because they had spotted him.

The vehicles twisted and turned. The Markhor members in the rearmost two armored cars kept firing continuously; the vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns, in particular, rattled away with loud bursts of gunfire that successfully prevented the snake-dog beast pack from catching up.

Yet, they also experienced a terrifying moment. Just when they thought they were safe, a massive Extreme Abyss Beast appeared right beside the pack of snake-dog beasts.

By that time, they had already pulled a hundred-meter lead from the beasts, but that colossal Extreme Abyss Beast opened its mouth and let out a roar, the piercing sonic wave actually reaching all the way to the vehicles.

The astonishing sound wave was so intense that it nearly ruptured their eardrums.

Fortunately, the vehicles soon broke through the fringe of the sandstorm and out of the city limits, and the terrain transitioned from rugged to smooth.

The moment the road surface changed, the drivers slammed their accelerators all the way to the floor, sending the convoy speeding forward and rapidly widening the distance between them and the massive Extreme Abyss Beast.

Zhou Shu merely glanced at the Extreme Abyss Beast without jumping off the vehicle to pick a fight with it. Monsters like this could be encountered anytime once he left the Lighthouse; the surface now belonged entirely to these freaks.

As for the Lighthouse, it drifted constantly in the upper atmosphere, only approaching the ground when deploying and retrieving vehicle convoys. Therefore, heading up to the Lighthouse first was currently the best course of action.

Over at the Lighthouse end, however, they were in a state of panic.

The Lighthouse was shaped very much like a giant wok lid, with a central axis hanging down from its middle, while numerous pods were suspended beneath the lid, much like a giant amusement park ride of flying chairs.

It floated quietly in the sky, painted in gorgeous hues by the evening glow. Who could have guessed it had just passed through a dangerous storm zone?

Their energy reserves had already been critically low, capable of lasting only ten days. To break free from the storm zone, they had ruthlessly burned another portion of their fuel for maneuvering, leaving their energy even scarier.

If Mark's collection convoy failed to return soon, humanity's final Lighthouse would be in grave danger.

At this moment, inside the Lighthouse navigation control room, Jingnan—the cold, military-uniform-wearing beauty who served as the chief commander of the navigation control room—was reporting the situation to the Lord.

"Lord, the Markhors have not yet entered the Lighthouse's detection range. Moreover, we just evaded the storm, but another sandstorm is approaching the Lighthouse. Should we perform evasive maneuvers again..."

The Lord's voice sounded aged, yet powerful: "Wait a little longer. You and I both know Mark; he will definitely return..."

As if to echo the Lord and cut Jingnan off, his words were abruptly interrupted as well.

"Static... whoosh... calling Light... house..."

The moment this voice rang out, Jingnan's spirits instantly jolted. Disregarding whatever the Lord was about to say next, she strode directly to the information display screen, swiped across it a few times, and commanded, "Four o'clock direction, switch frequency band, increase communication power!"

"Yes!"

The communications officer swiftly operated the controls according to the orders, and the audio transmission instantly cleared up.

"Calling Lighthouse, this is Markhor, please respond if you copy."

The communications officer said with pleasant surprise, "This is the Lighthouse. Captain Mark, is that you?"

At the same time, everyone's expressions grew tense.

"Affirmative. Collection mission complete, Markhor requests return."

Hearing this reply, the communications officer stood up abruptly and announced, "It's Captain Mark! He's back!"

With the confirmation, the staff in the navigation control room burst into cheers, and the Lord in the central command hall also wore a relieved smile.

Jingnan, the military-attired beauty, likewise breathed a sigh of relief. She sat back down in the command chair, crossed her legs, pressed the communication key, and said, "Captain Mark, welcome back. We will lower the ES01 descent platform."

"Markhor copies."

At the exact same time, Zhou Shu stood atop the transport vehicle's roof and laid eyes on the Lighthouse. With his exceptional vision, even facing the blinding glare of the setting sun, he could see it with crystal clarity.

Xiao Shou had provided him with data: the Lighthouse's circular disc had a diameter of roughly 1,200 meters, and its central axis was quite long, nearly 1,500 meters. However, the actual habitable main body was only a few hundred meters high—and that was counting the dust-dweller residential areas hanging suspended below, which they colloquially called "pigeon coops."

In a place just this size, over ten thousand people lived.

As the convoy drew closer, the Lighthouse descended lower and lower. Yet, the very bottom of its central axis never touched the ground, hovering instead at a height of several dozen meters, anchored in place solely by several steel cables shot down into the earth.

This was to prevent Extreme Abyss Beasts from climbing up onto the Lighthouse.

When the convoy moved directly underneath the Lighthouse, Zhou Shu realized this thing was indeed quite massive. After all, with a 1,200-meter diameter, it might not look all that big from a distance, but looking straight up, it carried an overwhelming sense of oppression.

Zhou Shu had watched the animation, so he knew that not only was the sheer physical presence of this construct oppressive, but the social structure within the Lighthouse was equally suffocating at every turn.

Every day they wailed about material scarcity, with dust-dwellers living like dogs. A special "cockroach paste" counted as a snack, insect-cakes were the main course, while ordinary upper-class citizens enjoyed milk and bread—to say nothing of the even higher elites.

Right there inside the central command hall, while these Lighthouse higher-ups held meetings lamenting material scarcity and the hardship of life, countless utterly useless ornamental fish swam leisurely in two tanks the size of houses.

Furthermore, the upper-echelon figures all spoke like riddlers, never explaining anything clearly and leaving others to guess.

In the end, after endless guessing, the whole system collapsed.

The audience watching had also felt exhausted; by the ending, the comment screen was flooded with banners reading, "Riddlers, get out of the Lighthouse!" and "I'm tired, just let it all burn."

It was named Lighthouse, and they believed themselves to be the last of humanity, representing hope. In reality, perhaps the very title of the animation was a commentary on it:

A prison of souls!

Now that Zhou Shu had arrived, finding useful information was one objective. He also wanted to see what that "Abyss Walker" armor was all about, while simultaneously testing the true mettle of this Lighthouse.

After all, back in the real world, there was also a certain nation that shamelessly proclaimed itself the lighthouse of humanity.