Chapter 184 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, Crumbling World (1/2)

Chapter 184: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, Crumbling World

At that instant, Mai Dong felt the area around her warm up as though she had been immersed in warm water. This made her recall Earth’s sunshine. Mars never had such sunshine. As it was a lot farther from the Sun than the Earth, the Sun was nothing but a light-emitting light bulb to Mars. It was bright, but it didn’t bring any warmth.

Mai Dong leaned against the window and looked far out at the golden glow in the darkness.

She suddenly smiled.

The sun was setting. The magnificent flames disappeared into the darkness as the mountain-like shadow seemed to slowly rise in front of Mai Dong.

It slowly and silently flew across Mai Dong’s head like an extraterrestrial spacecraft that suddenly descended. It was like a long, dull blade that carried with it an indomitable strength that came sweeping over. It sliced through the space station’s truss, solar panels, inflatable module, and the arm. Shrapnel scattered everywhere as it tumbled outside the space station, reflecting the fiery red glow like flying snowflakes above a massive fire.

It was clearly a violent and alarming collision, but what Mai Dong saw seemed like a movie playing out in slow motion. It was a silent film. Sound couldn’t be transmitted in a vacuum, nor was it able to transmit time for some odd reason. Everything seemed to happen beyond time.

Time seemed to drag as the boom and tremors of the collision lumbered across the metal frame. The earpiece, pen, and paper in the core module continued their trajectory based on their momentum as snow-white hull fragments floated in a pitch-black background. The girl stared in a daze at the flames in front of her. They were snaking through the fissures in the white hull, the leaking oxidizers a fatal attraction for them. The blue word “Orion” had been scorched black and yellow from the flames. All of this was separated from her only by a window. Loneliness and sorrow effused in the girl’s eyes.

This was an extremely beautiful scene. It was like a crystal palace that was collapsing in an inferno. It was a grand yet tragic death.

However, her sadness prompted her to cry.

The next second, the loud boom and tremors entered the Crystal module. This was a result of the truss snapping. It was the first thing Orion II hit.

Everything in the core module was shaking. The dashboard and control panel were uprooted from the walls as power cables were torn. The girl’s tiny teardrops left her eyes as they formed spheres due to surface tension.

The crystalline water beads traversed across the core module thanks to its momentum, passing through the messy power cables, paper, and notebook computer. Affected by the turbulent air, it began turning as it wobbled. The breeze imbued it with extremely little kinetic energy as it spun to fly towards the glass window.

Looking out through it, everything around her was distorted. Light had been refracted by the water bead and in the distance. There was another explosive flame that only appeared like a bright ring thanks to the teardrop. This ring expanded from one end of the teardrop to the other until the latter hit the glass. With a soft splattering sound, it broke apart into countless tiny droplets.

They then formed into tiny spheres that appeared like golden beads amidst the flames.

Following that, an even more massive force hit the core module. Even the metal frame was cracking from the tremors. The core module’s walls let out a sharp groan as it was pushed to the brink of death.

Mai Dong’s body flew backward as she slammed heavily into the hatch, her vision turning black.

The entire world was spinning and tumbling.

She watched as the leaking high-pressure steam condensed in the vacuum’s low temperatures, crystallizing into shimmering ice crystals.

The space station couldn’t withstand such a blow and had begun disintegrating. Through the window, Mai Dong saw a damaged module she couldn’t identify hurtle past until it slammed into the truss and snap.

When she saw fragments from the incubator scatter, she knew that it was the Hope module. At the instant the module lost pressure, all the plants inside must have frozen to death.