Chapter 425: Return to Dust |
At last the clues linked together, and many things could be explained.
Although some mysteries remained, Yu Sheng could now reconstruct more than eighty percent of the truth.
A thousand years ago, an unknown Dark Angel appeared in the Featherwing Sector in the form of a “crystal meteor,” fell on Garrison-3 at the Frontier, and attempted to parasitize Garrison-3. Yun Qing Zi, who happened to be in the Frontier at the time, detected the event and moved to stop it, never imagining his enemy was an “Angel” that could not be defeated by common means. He perished.
At the moment of his fall, Yun Qing Zi refined his final wisp of soul and forcibly fused it with part of the Dark Angel, attempting thereby to suppress it deep beneath Garrison-3, which opened the millennia-long process of “cycle and iteration.” The world believed Yun Qing Zi had fallen a thousand years ago, but no one knew that the last remnant of this ancient great cultivator had been entangled with the Dark Angel in the depths all along, iterating again and again, resurrecting again and again, locked in a stalemate.
Later, the seal Yun Qing Zi left behind was broken. The Dark Angel successfully iterated a “Yun Qing Zi copy” under its control and escaped the prison of Garrison-3, leaving on the planet only an “empty shell” and many confused “Yun Qing Zis.”
The “Yun Qing Zi copy” that was taken away, under the Angel’s influence, had in essence become a “vassal” of the Dark Angel. Whether or not he could recognize this, his actions began to tilt toward those that benefited the Dark Angel. His present objective was to search for something called the “Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy.”
Considering the traits the unknown Angel had already displayed, its purpose was most likely to find a new, valuable planet to parasitize. It was easy to infer that the “Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy” sought by “Yun Qing Zi” was probably not an “object” at all, but a planet.
The Grand Void Spiritual Axis was the strongest possibility.
“Damn it, Xuan Che and the others are in big trouble this time!” Once that chain of logic snapped into place, Irene cried out. “If that is the case, then that ‘bad Yun Qing Zi’ already sent people ahead, close to the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. Which means they have already completed the ‘positioning.’ They will make their move soon, right?”
“Even if they prepare, they will at best delay it. A Dark Angel cannot normally be killed. Back then, the Alglade launched a preemptive strike and then poured in several legions, and they still did not bring down the ‘Goddess of Beauty,’” said Xu Jiali. Although he did not fully grasp the situation in the Featherwing Sector, he had understood most of it by now. “We must find a way to intercept in advance, or like when we dealt with Anka Aila… at the very least we have to locate it.”
Yu Sheng had already turned toward the “Yun Qing Zi” fused with the crystal heart: “Do you know where that ‘thing’ and the ‘Yun Qing Zi’ it took are hiding now?”
Merged into the crystal, the elder had already slipped back into muddled muttering. Yu Sheng had to ask twice before he sluggishly came to and lifted his head to look straight into Yu Sheng’s eyes.
“Fellow Daoist, what a strange question,” Yun Qing Zi suddenly grinned. “Have you not already seen it? The ‘shell’ this old fellow is attached to… its remaining instincts keep forcing it to look toward Sentinel Silence.”
“Of course I suspected Sentinel Silence, but we have been to that planet and failed to find ‘Yun Qing Zi,’ let alone any trace of the parasite,” Yu Sheng said frankly. “They seem to have used some method to hide themselves. We inadvertently broke their ‘barrier’ once and discovered a suspected rift near the edge of Mo City, but when we went back later, we could no longer find that rift.”
Yun Qing Zi frowned.
“This old fellow does not know what that means. The evil thing’s strangeness is beyond counting, especially after it iterated a ‘Yun Qing Zi’ under its control. That is effectively like having ‘wisdom’ to assist it. Many things that were once driven purely by instinct have probably become consciously deployed ‘divine arts.’ You are saying you found no trace of a ‘parasite’ on Sentinel Silence at all?”
“Yes, none at all,” Yu Sheng said with certainty. “Of course, our time on Sentinel Silence was short and we did not search the entire planet. But Sentinel Silence is now a highly developed colony world. Even sparsely populated regions are under supervision and monitoring, and dedicated Star Wardens regularly patrol the whole world. If a parasite truly existed on that planet and had been developing for years, theoretically there should be some traces… unless even those traces have been concealed.”
“…To fool every pair of eyes on the entire planet?” Irene muttered on his shoulder.
No one could answer the doll’s murmur.
Another cracking from the “crystal heart” broke the silence.
As the sound rose, Yu Sheng noticed cracks suddenly appearing across Yun Qing Zi’s body, and the life in the crystallized elder’s eyes faded at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Irene panicked: “Hey, hey, old man, how are you this fast…”
“Not fast, not fast. I have already held on longer than I imagined,” Yun Qing Zi slowly smiled. After another round of cracking, his decline accelerated again, and with each passing second his expression grew more rigid, more like lifeless ore. “You lass, cold with yin energy, yet you still care.”
On any other day, if Irene heard someone tease her like that, she would immediately unroll a roster of his ancestors and start a full barrage. This time she seemed not to hear him at all. She turned and shook Yu Sheng’s head: “Hey, hey, think of something. Aren’t you supposed to be all-powerful?”
Yu Sheng said nothing, only pressed Irene’s arm, then stepped to Yun Qing Zi.
“Fellow Daoist, is there anything else you wish to ask?” Yun Qing Zi slowly raised his head. Now all the remaining vitality in the crystal cavern had gathered into that “heart,” yet even so, only the elder’s torso above the chest could still move. His voice grew more rigid and slower. “This old fellow’s mind can stay clear a while longer. I can still say a few words.”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “What I wanted to ask, I have already asked. As for you, if there is anything you want me to do, tell me. I cannot promise I can do it, but I will try.”
“You have tossed the hard question back to this old fellow,” Yun Qing Zi mused for a moment, then smiled. “The true Yun Qing Zi died a thousand years ago. The ones left here are shells born of obsession and samsara. The body before you is the same. What wish could there be? Even if something could be called a wish, after a thousand years of erosion it should have long since lost its meaning. Enough, enough. This old fellow is not one to fuss.
“However, if you truly have the chance to turn the tide, if you truly have the chance to meet that ‘Yun Qing Zi’ who has become the evil thing’s pawn…”
His voice grew ever lower and slower. The cracking from within the crystal heart spread to its surface. The light inside the crystal flickered like a candle about to go out. As the first shard fell from the “heart,” Yu Sheng heard the trust this elder, who might or might not still be “Yun Qing Zi,” left with him:
“…Do not hold back.”
The last glimmer of life faded from the crystalline eyes, and the gray of death spread from the crystal heart, swiftly covering his body along with countless cracks large and small.
At the very end, “Yun Qing Zi” turned his head to look at Foxy, with a smile on his face.
“How good, that at the last moment this old fellow can still have this brief trace of humanity.”
The next second, that smile shattered on the ground.
The crystal heart collapsed.
The inner glow bled away, and the force that had held the crystal intact dissipated with the cycle’s end. Accompanied by a cascade of brittle snaps, the great crystal turned into a multitude of shattered fragments that tumbled from pillars and crystal branches. Immediately, dense sounds of collapse rippled through the entire cavern and even the whole underground structure.
This entire underground space had been supported by the omnipresent “crystal branches.” Now that all vitality had gone, the cave system could no longer hold.
“Boss! This place is going to cave in, meow!” Bell cried out at once. She dashed behind Xu Jiali, the mechanical sphere in her hands flaring to life and in an instant raising a layer of psionic shielding. Her slit pupils held a trace of tension, but even more of an inexplicable excitement: “Are we about to have a thrilling cave escape? Like the time we blew up the Katosh hive? Should we start running now? Run, run?”
She had barely started to get excited when she saw Yu Sheng casually pull open a phantom door, with the surface right on the other side.
Foxy and Luna immediately ran through the door to call out to Sun Gong on the surface, telling him to lead the teams away to safety. Yu Sheng looked back at Xu Jiali and Bell: “What are you two standing there for? Evacuate. Go up and find Sun Gong and the others. I will open a direct door to the Special Bureau. Take the samples back first.”
Only then did Xu Jiali react, hurrying toward the door. Bell stared wide-eyed from behind: “…Ah, no, at a time like this we should… Hey! Boss! Wait for me, meow!”
Everyone passed through the door to the surface. Only Yu Sheng and Irene remained in the collapsing cavern. Before stepping through, Yu Sheng looked back one last time.
Yun Qing Zi—hundreds of Yun Qing Zis over a thousand years—returned to dust.
“Let’s go,” he breathed out softly, turning to step through the door. “There is still much to do.”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation