Karl von Reiss returned to his quarters. He pulled out his chair and sat down slowly, his back still ramrod straight—a habit ingrained from the military academy.

  He opened a drawer and took out a velvet box. Inside lay an oval metal sphere.

  His fingertip brushed it lightly. Hummm— With a soft vibration, a hologram unfolded in mid-air.

  It was a girl. Long black hair cascaded like a waterfall, and beneath skin so pale it was almost transparent, blue veins were faintly visible. But the most striking feature was her eyes—Deep Violet.

  It was not a color that belonged in a human iris. It was the color of deep space nebulae, a beautiful yet fatal error in the genetic chain.

  Karl’s straight back trembled slightly.

  "It's me, Annie. Brother, how are you? Look, my health is much better than before. You are a soldier; you've given so much for the country. Don't worry about me. I will wait for you to come back. Dr. Irene Zhang's treatment plan is very effective. I know you spent a lot of money on my illness. I don't know where the money came from, but I know everything you do is for our family. You are not a bad person; you just love this home too much. Take care of yourself. I will wait for you to pick me up from the hospital."

  The light flickered, and the phantom image vanished.

  Karl held his posture for a long time, until a drop of scalding liquid hit the metal sphere with a soft click.

  He locked the sphere back in the drawer. It was the last bit of light deep within his soul.

  He lay on his bed, hands crossed over his chest. On this cold warship, memories flooded back like a tide.

  Thirty-six years ago, he was born into a civilian family. His father was a mechanical repairman. His mother died unexpectedly from an illness when he was young.

  Two years later, Annie’s mother walked into their family. This gentle woman got up early every day to make breakfast for Karl and send him to school. She gave him the motherly love he hadn't felt in so long. When she returned home, she cleaned, organized, and wrote articles to earn some extra money. Not long after, Annie was born.

  From the moment his half-sister was born, she was incredibly lovely. Especially those violet pupils—like an elf princess fallen into the mortal world.

  Since childhood, his sister loved to follow him around, clinging to her big brother. She helped her mother with housework. After starting school, her grades were excellent all the way through high school.

  The tragedy struck that summer. The family had planned a trip to the Darwin Nebula to celebrate Karl ranking first in his first-year exams at the Ashen Protectorate of Lethe Military Academy.

  A spacecraft accident took his stepmother’s life and stole his father’s soul.

  From then on, his father became a completely different person. Both wives are dead. He believed he was cursed by birth. He began to drink heavily, and the happy family turned into ruins. His father had no energy left to care for the two siblings.

  Because of this, Annie voluntarily dropped out of school. The girl with excellent grades, who should have become a scientist, became a laborer at the bottom rung of society for her brother's future.

  Even though Karl studied hard and won scholarships, it wasn't enough. The military academy was built for the children of nobility. In a social system monopolized by aristocrats, hard work was the cheapest commodity. His entry was merely an accident.

  It wasn't until an off-campus mission arranged by the academy that he met Marcus Drake. At first, he didn't know the man's identity; he just felt a sense of familiarity with this older man.

  After the family tragedy, Karl tried many ways to earn income to ease the burden on his sister and household. Unfortunately, he lacked the talent for business. The jobs available either paid too little or didn't hire someone with a military academy status.

  When he first asked Drake for help, Drake did exactly what he did today—patted the back of Karl's right hand twice and said one sentence: "The Holy Mother will look after you."

  Years later, Karl graduated with top honors and participated in the military's operation against the "Red Dawn" colonial rebellion. The officer in charge was then-Colonel Heinrich Brenner.

  Over time, his salary was enough to repay the debt of favor to Drake. When he cleared the debt, Drake wasn't surprised. He simply patted the back of Karl's right hand with his left hand again.

  Karl thought he had gained a new life, a sense of freedom.

  But fate loves to pull the trigger just when happiness is about to begin.

  His sister’s genes underwent a sudden mutation. Her skin became whiter and whiter, extremely sensitive to light. She had to wrap her entire body in clothes year-round.

  Karl sought every possible hospital, public or private, that could alleviate his sister’s condition. But nothing worked.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Until one night, he received a call from his sister. Her voice sounded strange, making him uneasy. He rushed home to find her submerged in the bathtub, blood gushing from her wrists.

  He walked into Drake’s room again. This time, in front of Drake, he knelt on one knee, bowing his head; he had never bowed before.

  Drake wasn't surprised by his arrival. He walked over, helped Karl up, and said, "I'm helping you this time for no reason. Maybe a long time from now—when I need it—I will ask you to do a small thing for me. Is that okay?"

  Then, he introduced Karl to a madwoman expelled from the medical community—Dr. Irene Zhang.

  This woman was once famous. She cracked the sequencing combinations of millions of human gene base pairs using her own compiled bioinformatics algorithms. She threw out a theory that shattered the medical world:

  The 85% of human DNA, defined by mainstream science as "Non-coding Regions" or "Junk DNA," was not evolutionary waste. It was the "System Logs" and commented-out high-dimensional code left by the Creator.

  "Look at human blood," Irene had said coldly, pointing at a sample under a microscope. "Iron-based, red, turbid. This is a 'downgraded solution' designed to linger in a low-oxygen, low-energy environment. Iron oxidizes, so humans age; iron is interfered with by magnetic fields, so humans cannot sense the source energy of the universe."

  According to her algorithmic model, based on the evolutionary rules of the cosmos, Earth's naturally evolved creatures, including primates, should have possessed Six-Helix DNA.

  In this way, the primate body would be a natural "Bio-Capacitor." To support this extremely high-intensity phase electrochemical reaction, what flowed in their veins shouldn't be red iron plasma, but a highly efficient liquid crystal—a golden, translucent, non-oxidizing superconducting medium.

  "We are not the survivors of evolution, nor are we the mainstream high-intelligence lifeforms of the universe." Irene’s conclusion turned the faces of the Nobel Prize committee ashen. "We are failed experiments locked in a double helix, or prisoners imprisoned by a dimension reduction."

  Because of these remarks, and the radical live experiments exposed later—attempts to 'activate' the four-helix structure by rewriting the 'logs'—she went from a hot Nobel candidate to a taboo name. She vanished from the medical world.

  But now, under Drake's protection, she served as a mentor in his biological research institute, finally free to restart those forbidden surgeries of God without scruple.

  Drake once had her lead the "Super Soldier" project. It ultimately failed. The success rate was lower than 0.001%, accompanied by horrific side effects like gene collapse and organ failure. The ambition to rewrite "God's Logs" left only a pile of deformed corpses and an astronomical bill.

  But just as war birthed penicillin, this crazy project brought a qualitative leap to Drake's biopharmaceuticals. Although Irene Zhang couldn't create a god, she found a way to let mortals linger on.

  From then on, Annie could only survive by constantly "exchanging blood." Her blood had to be drawn regularly, subjected to high-precision DNA base pair recombination to filter out the error codes attempting self-destruction, and then transfused back.

  But that wasn't enough. Long-term blood modification led to the depletion of hematopoietic stem cells. She needed extra supplies of fresh blood to maintain vitality.

  The blood of a relative was undoubtedly the first choice. Fortunately, as her half-brother, Karl’s blood type and genetic markers were an astonishing match.

  At least once a year, Karl would lie on the cold operating table, watching his red life essence flow through the tube into the girl in the next room. He didn't care about the dizziness from anemia, nor did he care if this would overdraw his lifespan.

  He only knew that in this universe, she was the only kin left with the same blood flowing in her veins.

  The game of power often starts with a seemingly casual party.

  At one of Drake's private dinners, he swirled his wine glass, just as he swirled Karl’s fate: "I remember when your sister was critically ill, how you begged for help. I'm glad to hear she's recovering well."

  Drake smiled, his eyes warm. "Now, I need a favor. Build a good relationship with the Brenner family. Don't ask anything else. Are you willing?"

  Karl had no right to refuse.

  In the following years, like a precise scalpel, he cut into Heinrich Brenner's command structure. He completed "missions" cleanly and efficiently in multiple operations, winning Brenner's favor and successfully squeezing into that closed aristocratic circle.

  When Karl reported his progress, Drake handed him a black VIP card.

  "Take it. Your sister's future medical bills are on the house."

  The card was light, but in Karl's hand, it weighed a thousand pounds.

  When Drake was arrested by the five-nation joint operation, Karl knew it was time to pay up. He stated the pros and cons to Brenner, using the argument that "controlling Drake equals controlling the underground intelligence network of three star systems," and successfully convinced the Admiral to fight for custody of Drake. Brenner agreed after just one night of thought.

  Brenner thought he had caught an ace, unaware that he had invited Crowley onto his own warship.

  Karl always thought every choice was made of free will. Only at the end did he realize that all options had long been marked with a price. He never had a choice.

  "Admiral, regarding the funding chain for the weapon replacement, I have made the arrangements." Karl stood before Brenner, posture upright, tone respectful.

  "Karl, I know you are capable." Brenner looked at the starry sky outside the window, a trace of fatigue in his voice. "Under normal procedures, this batch of weapon replacements would need layers of approval from Congress. But you know the current situation... I don't have time to wait for those politicians to bicker."

  "I understand your difficulty, Sir. Rest assured, before we reach Hades Rim, this equipment will complete its 'iteration'."

  Brenner turned and walked up to Karl. The old man, once a storm in the political world, now showed a rare hint of warmth in his eyes—or perhaps a tactic to win hearts.

  He reached out and patted Karl on the shoulder.

  "Karl, I have always admired you all these years. You are smart, loyal."

  "My youngest daughter, Elena, is coming of age soon. After this mission ends, I want to invite you to her coming-of-age ceremony. You are both young; I think... You will have many common topics."

  Karl's pupils contracted slightly.

  In his mind, what flashed was not the Admiral’s daughter he had never met, but a pair of deep, sickly, yet breathtakingly beautiful Violet Eyes.

  But his expression showed no fluctuation. He simply gave a standard salute: "Yes, Sir. It is my honor."

  "Relax, Karl. In the future... we will be family."

  Brenner smiled, graciously escorting his young confidant to the door, even opening it for him personally. "Go on."

  Karl saluted again, turned, and left. The airlock door slid shut slowly, isolating that office full of power and twilight behind him.

  The cold light of the corridor hit Karl's face.

  In that instant, the humble, grateful, and gentle smile originally on his face peeled off like melted wax.

  What remained was a face as cold as the warship itself, devoid of any warmth.

  (CH118end)