After deterrence collapses, Cheng Xin rides the elevator back to the surface. The plaza that hosted the Swordholder handover ceremony only an hour earlier is now empty, with flags still moving peacefully in the wind and the Gobi Desert and Qilian Mountains unchanged in appearance.

Cheng Xin understands that the apparent calm is false: because Cheng Xin failed to activate the broadcast and the Trisolaran droplets destroyed the deterrence system, the world no longer belongs to humanity. No one contacts Cheng Xin, and the role of Swordholder has effectively ceased to exist along with deterrence itself.

Cheng Xin walks aimlessly out of the compound. The guards salute Cheng Xin without hostility, showing only curiosity because the guards do not yet know what has happened and likely assume Cheng Xin has come to investigate the earthquake.

Near the gate, military officers stand beside a flying transport and look toward the direction Cheng Xin came from. Cheng Xin turns and sees a huge mushroom cloud on the horizon, formed by earth and dust thrown up from where a droplet penetrated the planet.

艾 AA runs toward Cheng Xin, saying she came to visit and brought flowers for Cheng Xin's new place, but the sentries would not let 艾 AA in. 艾 AA mistakes the distant cloud and recent earthquake for a possible volcano, and Cheng Xin struggles to hide the truth, wanting to preserve 艾 AA's happiness for a little longer before the catastrophe becomes known.