Lyra's Mechanical Prosthetic Eye suddenly crashed in front of the quantum pedestal in the "Rift Museum", the solder point frequencies of the Scorch Gear going haywire at a rate visible to the naked eye. When she rebooted her visual system, she discovered that stardust solder points were projecting a spectrum she had never seen before—a mixed frequency of twelve civilization traits, yet presenting absolute darkness at the center, resembling a wound torn open by the universe at the boundary between perfection and flaws.
"Ice Drip, locate the source of the dark spectrum." On Lyra's mechanical arm, the symbiont of the Sacred Tree withered completely for the first time, silver-bright patterns resembling the Observer Formula surfacing across the metal surface. "This isn't a natural phenomenon; it's the ultimate form of the Observers... They've finally learned to lurk within the rifts."
"The source is in the 'Zero-Return Starfield' at the center of the galaxy." Ice Drip's holographic projection was sliced apart by black fissures, the turbulent data mixed with the echoes of Chen Mo's Mother's encrypted logs. "Floating there is the death data of 127 civilizations, every single piece repeating 'Why perfection killed us'—using the victims' bones, the Observers built a prison to trap the living." Her voice carried quantum static. "Now, they are weaving an 'Anti-Rift Network' with these perfection templates, attempting to swallow all imperfect frequencies."
Chapter 129