Chapter 427: Sentinel Silence |
After returning to the surface, Yu Sheng first escorted Sun Gong and the sample recovery team sent by the Special Service Bureau back to Boundary City, then withdrew with Foxy and the others to a safe zone before the entire ring-crater region collapsed.
Not long after, the entire area collapsed into a staggering abyss before their eyes.
The underground structure of the ring crater had already been completely hollowed out by the Dark Angels’ parasitic mass. After the crystalline heart within that cavern fully died, the unsupported strata kept caving downward, dragging a great swath of terrain around the ring into a dreadful chain collapse. The collapse lasted for dozens of minutes and left everything unrecognizable.
Residual heat still bled from the pit floor. Lifeless, ashen crystals lay mixed with rock and soil. Hollowed stone “conduits” and compressed, deformed strata crisscrossed and slumped, like the bones of a primal colossus a thousand years dead. The “giant pit” was visible even from space and, for the foreseeable future, would likely remain a permanent feature on Garrison-3 that the years could not erase.
Xu Jiali and his psionic attendant did not withdraw with the others. They stayed to witness the earthshaking cataclysm alongside Yu Sheng.
Bell’s eyes went wide as she gazed at the haze still rising over the enormous pit. She pressed a button on her protective suit, and a thin tube rose inside her visor. Focus-inducing vapor extracted from catnip flowed through the tube. She drew in a deep breath and then squinted contentedly: “Potent, meow…”
Xu Jiali glanced at Yu Sheng and spoke offhand: “Does this count as witnessing another ‘angel fall’?”
Yu Sheng shook his head: “No. This was only an empty husk, a cast-off shell of the Dark Angels. I do not even know if it qualifies as a corpse.”
“Tch.” Xu Jiali clicked his tongue and shook his head. “The imaging logs are collected. I should head back to brief the Bureau. Captain Song and the director are waiting.”
Bell shot Xu Jiali a surprised look: “Boss, you aren’t staying to help a friend fight?”
“Help what? Help Yu Sheng? Fight the Dark Angels?” Xu Jiali arched a brow and rapped her helmet with a light knuckle. “You’ve sniffed too much catnip. Come back with me. You’ve been away from Bureau check-ins for ages, and it’s time you showed your face…”
“Oh, okay, meow…”
Muttering, the two passed through the door. Yu Sheng released the handle, and the barren alien world held only him, Irene, Foxy, and Luna once more.
“It’s time to return to Sentinel Silence,” Yu Sheng exhaled, took out his phone to glance at the time, and prepared to open another door to Huixianzhou.
At that moment, a shrill ringtone cut him off.
The phone was in his hand. The caller ID on the screen read “Four Thousand Wicked Disciple.”
A formless unease flickered inside him. Yu Sheng connected immediately. Before he could speak, Immortal Yuan Ling’s hurried voice came over the line: “Where are you? Are you still on Garrison-3? Hurry to Sentinel Silence and confirm the situation, Xuan Che and the others have lost contact!”
“What?” Yu Sheng jolted, and his hand had already swept into the air. A phantom door coalesced in his grasp. “I was just about to go over. Xuan Che lost contact? He messaged me barely a dozen minutes ago.”
“Precisely just now,” Immortal Yuan Ling said, terse and urgent. “My senior brother lost contact at the same time. We do not yet know what happened, but a disciple has just reported in haste. I fear all communications between the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and Sentinel Silence have gone dark. Not even the secure call signs get a response.”
All communications between the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and Sentinel Silence completely severed. At that, Yu Sheng sucked in a breath of toxic air, then replied at speed: “Understood. I am going over now. The moment I find anything, I will contact you.”
Before the words had left his mouth, he pulled open the door into the Huixianzhou guest room and stepped through with Irene, Foxy, and Luna.
In the next heartbeat, they passed through and returned to their lodging on Sentinel Silence.
The hotel room was as they had left it. Furnishings neat and in place. Beyond the window, rain fell in veils and distant neon flickered. Music, faint and unplaceable, carried from somewhere unseen.
Rain and far-off music blended beyond the glass, making the room seem especially quiet.
The living room was empty.
Irene hopped down from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, scampered into the next room, then pattered back: “No one’s in the rooms!”
“Kitchen and bath are empty too,” Foxy reported, sniffing as she returned. “But there’s scent in the living room. Zheng Zhi and Yuan Hao should have been here just now. Also a little condensation near the sill.”
Yu Sheng frowned and said nothing, only raised his phone for a look: “No signal?”
He arched a brow in surprise.
A second later, the phone buzzed. The screen edges dimmed, and a red warning panel popped up. Bold text flashed in the box: “Environmental monitoring anomaly detected, deep threshold probable.”
Foxy happened to see it from the side. The demon fox girl’s ears shot up: “Benefactor, is this…”
“…an Other Domain,” Yu Sheng said, face hard. “And the special alert only triggers when a deep change has just occurred.”
Irene, who had been wriggling about the living room on some inscrutable “investigation,” froze and slowly lifted her head as understanding dawned: “Holy crap?”
A thunderclap detonated in the distance, its rumble like a great beast roaring as it rolled across the city. No lightning showed, only rain coming harder than before.
No phone signal. No way to reach Yuan Hao, Xuan Che, or Zheng Zhi. No traces left behind by them in the hotel room.
The last message he had received was Xuan Che’s, reporting possible widespread cognitive anomalies among the population of this world, including Mo Ran, the city lord of Mo City.
Yu Sheng’s brow tightened as he raced to connect Xuan Che’s last report with the anomalies before him. Foxy’s voice rose at his side: “Benefactor, what do we do now?”
“Search the room again,” Yu Sheng said after the briefest pause, a thought striking him. “Immortal Yuan Hao is a seasoned adventurer with great strength. If something truly happened, he would have tried to leave us a message. It may simply be hidden by whatever is happening now. Look again.”
It sounded like no plan at all, yet Irene, Foxy, and Luna moved at once, combing the modest hotel suite for anything suspicious. As they turned the place over, a jade screen ornament on a low table in the living room began to emit a clouded glow.
Yu Sheng leaned closer. In the misty light, a projection took shape. An ornate celestial skiff drifted slowly between city towers. Lanterns and festival pennants floated in the air nearby. On the foredeck stood a straight-backed man in violet robes with a sword at his waist. His face was shrouded in a blur like fog, indistinct and unreadable.
A voice-over came from the jade screen: “…the new Star-Guardian, Elder Dao Heng, arrived in Mo City today. The celebrations will continue until…”
Irene crowded up beside him: “What’s this, the local nightly news?”
“That would have to be news from over a century ago,” Yu Sheng said, frowning. “Star-Guardian Elder Dao Heng took office on Sentinel Silence more than a hundred years past.”
As he spoke, the image flickered violently. The festive scene cut to a construction site beneath a leaden sky. An unfinished megastructure stood in the wilds. Mechanisms and devices of obscure purpose bustled about the giant tower. A voice at the screen’s corner narrated: “…Refinery Tower Twelve is being built by the Remote Mists Sect. Once completed, Mo City will become the largest spirit-ore refining center on Sentinel Silence…”
The projection kept changing. News bulletins, entertainment programs, and, at times, what looked like simple scenic documentaries. There was no doubt, however, that all of it had happened long ago.
The span of time ran from centuries ago, when mining still flourished on Sentinel Silence, all the way up to the last few decades.
After who knew how many random cuts, the projection dimmed, then stabilized again after a wash of static and color blocks, no longer any “program,” only a dim, hazy curtain of rain.
Rain poured without end. In the distance, neon blurred.
Yu Sheng stared at the projection for two seconds, then snapped his head toward the window.
The jade screen was projecting the very view outside their window at this moment.
A heartbeat later, he noticed the rain trails on the glass were bending, the winding trickles forming characters. He focused, and the twisted writing settled into neat strokes: “Perception Barrier.”
Yu Sheng’s brow drew tight. Before he could think further, the words washed away, and new writing formed on the pane: “We are inside a vast dream.”
This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation