The Giant Turtle Rock Platform quickly broke away from the fringes of the holographic universe and began returning to Zom at top speed. The tiny celestial spheres outside the ship went dark in patches, while the Milky Way and nebula textures flickered and dimmed as if stained with noise before fading away. Darkness spread through the entire "universe," making it impossible not to think of the lights in a planetarium's Astrology Hall shutting off one by one. Hao Ren returned to the bridge and tried to increase the ship's speed again, but this vessel was ultimately just an imitation. It had already reached its maximum speed.
The entire control hall shook incessantly. The ever-darkening starry universe outside pressed in from all directions, and Hao Ren could almost feel the ship's hull being peeled away piece by piece. He even began to worry that the entire virtual world might collapse like this.
Fortunately, as they gradually drew closer to Zom, the collapse around them finally began to subside. The starry lights that had dimmed in broad swaths became frozen scenes in the distant darkness. It seemed that the "world's" collapse was limited to the outer regions, while the core of this virtual universe remained stable.
"How many navigation signals have been sent out?" Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief and immediately turned to the zombie girl's terminal. "Can we still contact the drone swarm?"
"We can contact them, but we've returned to that relay state from before. We can only exchange brief reports, not send navigation coordinates." The terminal shook her head. She was gradually reverting to her "human" state, and all the functions she had painstakingly restored in the border region had disappeared again. "But some of the navigation signals were sent out just now. The reconnaissance drone swarm