Since the Noah officially set sail, shipboard life had settled into an orderly rhythm.
Whenever Jason had a moment of free time, he preferred to spend it alone in the Captain's quarters.
There was a unique astronomical observation port there. Beyond the thin layer of radiation-shielded glass lay the brilliant, terrifying expanse of the Milky Way.
The universe dark, cold, mysterious, and silent, held infinite secrets.
Looking out, Jason was struck by how tiny and fragile humans truly were. A few degrees too hot, and they die. A few degrees too cold, and they freeze. A little less oxygen, they suffocate; a little too much, they suffer toxicity. Could such a delicate species truly hope to explore even a corner of this void?
If an ordinary person were exposed to the vacuum of space without a suit, their consciousness would last, at best, fifteen seconds, and their life would be extinguished within ninety.
After a mere minute and a half, without rescue, death is a certainty, caused by rapid depressurization, hypoxia, and ebullism.
In 1965, during a vacuum chamber test at a space center, a technician was accidentally exposed to near-vacuum conditions due to a suit leak.
The unfortunate individual remained conscious for only fourteen seconds, roughly the time it takes for oxygen-depleted blood to travel from the lungs to the brain. Fortunately, the chamber was repressurized in time, saving his life. Had he been alone in deep space, he would have been a corpse.
Even Jason, with his enhanced physiology, could not survive alone in the void.
An "Enhanced Human" was not a God capable of traversing the vacuum as depicted in fantasy novels; he was merely smarter, stronger, and more resilient than a baseline human.
But this strength had a hard limit. Facing the hostility of the entire universe, his enhancements might buy him only a few extra seconds of agony.
Therefore, the only way to survive in this dark forest was for civilization to huddle together for warmth.
What terrifying malice... Jason gazed out at the starry sky, lost in thought.
A sensation washed over him, an emotion radiating from the universe itself.
No, he corrected himself. It was not malice. Malice implies intent. This was something worse: a ruthless, chilling indifference.
The universe had no emotions. It simply existed. It operated according to its inherent physical laws, utterly unmoved by the rise or fall of any civilization.
It was too vast, too ancient.
The Milky Way alone contained over two hundred billion stars. Based on deep field images from the Hubble Telescope of the Old Era, there were two trillion galaxies similar to the Milky Way, and that didn't even account for the regions of space humanity could not observe.
Analysis of the cosmic microwave background radiation revealed that the universe had been expanding for 13.82 billion years. However, the physical diameter of the universe was clearly larger than its age suggested; latest research estimated the diameter of the observable universe at 93 billion light-years.
These were terrifying astronomical figures.
Humanity, struggling to occupy a single artificial planetoid, was merely a grain of sand in an endless desert, or a single water molecule in a boundless ocean.
This realization of cosmic coldness hit Jason like a physical blow, a tsunami of existential dread washing over his mind.
Suddenly, his head spun. He felt as though his consciousness had detached from his body, drifting into the pitch-black void. He was surrounded by boundless loneliness, solitude, and countless invisible dangers...
Energy shortages, hull breaches, mechanical failures, asteroid impacts... any single disaster could wipe out the last remnants of the human race.
As the Supreme Commander of the *Noah*, he carried these worries every second of every day. In this moment of vulnerability, the dam broke, and all the suppressed negativity burst forth. He felt nothing but cold and isolation.
Only the scattered starlight around him offered any company...
Wait. What is that?
As his consciousness drifted closer to these stars, Jason felt a faint sense of warmth. But they were so tiny, flickering weakly as if they could be extinguished by the slightest breeze.
He tried to focus on one of the faint stars. Suddenly, a figure materialized within the light.
It was an engineer, a man named Jim, repairing an electrical junction box with sweat on his brow.
Jason's mind drifted to the star beside it. It was Jim's colleague. The two of them were working together, their lights blending slightly.
What is happening?
Jason pondered this, then reached out with his mind toward a slightly larger, steadier star. It was Lily, sitting quietly in her room, reading a book.
She seemed to sense something, lifting her head and looking around restlessly.
Finally, he turned his attention to the largest, brightest star in the cluster. It was Calvin.
The former cult leader was sleeping in his prison cell, but he suddenly woke up, his eyes darting around the room, scanning the shadows.
Jason did not see a star for himself. Perhaps it was because he was the observer, the Enhanced Human looking in from the outside.
Although he couldn't explain the phenomenon scientifically, he understood the metaphor intuitively.
These stars represented humanity. Each point of light was a soul. But even the brightest among them was too dim... too fragile.
Humanity was immature. Even if they developed technology for another thousand years, they would still be insignificant compared to the universe.
With their current level of technology, they hadn't even fully conquered their own solar system. How could they hope to step into the deep dark?
How much did humans really know? How many extraterrestrial civilizations were out there? What was the true nature of the cosmos?
Unknown. All unknown.
Human understanding of the universe was rudimentary at best. They didn't even have the technology for controlled nuclear fusion on their own merit; they were barely scraping by, traveling through space by relying on the Noah, a charity gift from an alien super-civilization.
To venture into the void like this, with only fifty thousand survivors... the danger was self-evident. It was a desperate gamble, a forced hand.
God only knew what they would face next. This was the primal fear of the unknown.
Jason felt fear. He felt terror. He felt lost. But he could never show it.
He was the Captain. Since taking on the burden of humanity, he had never once considered letting go.
The weight on his shoulders was crushing. The Agricultural Transformation, the Noah Project, these were tasks that would break ordinary men.
From dawn till dusk, he held meetings, conducted inspections, reviewed documents, reassured the populace, and constantly studied new data. His rest was perpetually cut short. He often worked for forty-eight hours straight, sleeping only in brief, three-hour bursts.
The pressure was immense, like the weight of a mountain pressing down on his spine.
But Jason could not collapse. He had to bear it.
"Reporting, Captain..."
"Lieutenant Jason, please approve this plan..."
"Sir, we're short on parts in Sector 4..."
The engineers, soldiers, scientists, miners, builders, doctors... everyone looked to him. He could not show weakness. He had to be the pillar.
We must survive. He refused to let humanity perish on his watch.
Even if he had to fake it, he would play the role until it became real. He had to convince the people that there was hope.
But... it's not enough.
He looked at the mental projection of the stars around him. This starlight is too dim. It flickers in the wind. How can it survive the long night?
Humanity needed a leader who was stronger. Wiser. Braver. Fearless.
Jason suddenly made up his mind.
Fine. If that is what they need, then that is what I will become.
Let me be the light.
As the thought crystallized, a transformation occurred in the void of his mind. He felt his consciousness expand, taking on mass and energy. A blazing star ignited in the center of the constellation, a supernova compared to the candle-flames around it. Its size and brightness were billions of times greater than the ordinary stars.
Although it didn't illuminate the entire dark universe, the nearby constellations were instantly bathed in its warmth. The surrounding stars seemed to absorb the energy, shining brighter in response.
At that exact instant, everyone on board the Noah felt... something.
Across the ship, people paused mid-sentence. They stopped their work. In unison, they looked up, subconsciously turning toward the direction of the Captain's quarters.
They felt that a sun had risen. A sun that could lead them through the darkness.
The feeling was strange, like a collective hallucination or a sudden shift in atmospheric pressure, but everyone experienced the peculiar sensation of safety.
In the brig, Calvin, who had been sitting on the edge of his cot, suddenly widened his eyes. He rolled off the bed and fell to his knees.
"He has appeared," Calvin whispered, his voice trembling. "The Son of God has truly appeared!"
He had seen this moment in his fragmented visions many times, but he never knew if they were madness or prophecy. Now, it had come true. He shook with uncontrollable excitement.