Chapter 473: Cruel Moonlight |
Lanyang, deep in the ocean, the deeper you go the darker it becomes.
Sunlight can only penetrate about two hundred meters below the surface; beyond that, light grows ever weaker and photosynthesis fails entirely.
Once you pass depths of a thousand meters, you enter the true “midnight zone” of the deep sea. Here you cannot see your hand in front of your face, and only the bioluminescence organisms produce can faintly illuminate their immediate surroundings.
Yet if you continue descending, farther and farther...down to several thousand meters, in a trench within the abyssal layer, in a realm where sunlight has never ventured, a brand-new light slowly kindled, piercing the darkness.
At first glance it looked soft, without sharpness or heat, like a sheet of cold mist pressed along the trench and spreading outward. It was not blinding; you could even call it gentle and mellow, like a harmless white night-blooming cereus opening in the trench.
But it soon revealed a cold, no—an overbearing side!
The moment its radiance spread, the clay and diatoms that had lain sleeping on the seabed for who knew how many years began to behave like sewing pins attracted to a magnet, drifting toward the light’s center, the “bright moon.”
Huge clumps of seaweeds that had sunk deep roots into rock crevices could not withstand the “bright moon’s” seemingly gentle but actually domineering force. Their leaf tips bent like wheat stalks pressed by a gale, then their deep-set roots were ripped free, tearing away chunks of rock as they flew toward the light’s center.
Nearby schools of deep-sea fish could not escape that pull either; they swirled along with the water that was forming a growing vortex and were swept toward the light’s core.
The domineering gravity generated enormous tensile stresses inside those basalt boulders, tearing them apart from within. The shattered stones tumbled toward the light’s center, becoming part of the “bright moon” along with the seaweed and fish.
The most terrifying thing was that all of this happened in silence. Apart from the low hum of seawater being churned by the gravity, there was almost no other sound.
Then the “bright moon” began to rise.
It rose slowly from the depths of the trench, not fast, but like its light, apparently gentle yet irresistibly overbearing. It seemed as if nothing could stop its ascent; where it would stop rising, no one knew.
The trench where it was born was left with only a continuously crumbling bottom after the “bright moon” rose a little. It was like a plate licked clean, not even a scrap remaining.
Yes, this “bright moon,” like a gentle version of a consuming mist, slowly but inexorably devoured everything within its gravitational range into its luminous body.
It continued to rise.
.....
In a stone cave at the edge of the island, Guan Tong frowned, his right hand wrapped in shadow lines trembling.
“Troupe Leader, give it up,” Uenoshi said beside him, trying to persuade him. “A submarine weighs thousands of tons. Even you can’t save them.”
When Guan Tong’s shadow deployed in the sea spotted the submarine being pulled and sinking toward the seabed, it immediately transformed into a giant shadow pillar, bracing the submarine’s hull to stop it from descending and lifting it upward.
It wasn’t easy, because the shadow had to endure two forces at once: gravity from the deep ocean below, which kept strengthening, and the submarine’s own weight. As Uenoshi said, that was a massive object weighing thousands of tons.
“This submarine can still be saved,” Guan Tong said. “Lift it a little higher and it should be able to escape the gravity vortex using its own propulsion!”
If he hadn’t seen it, fine. But since he had seen it and there was a chance to help, Guan Tong did not want to watch the dozens of lives inside the sub be squandered.
Sensing a weakening pull, he directed the solidified shadow to haul the sub upward, then gritted his teeth and slightly increased the output of his reserve Mind Power. With an explosive thrust, he forcibly pushed the submarine up another two meters.
Those mere two meters were enough. The crew had jettisoned everything expendable—torpedoes and such—to reduce weight. The operator handling the propulsion was highly skilled and timed it perfectly; at that instant they cut the power to minimum and successfully let the submarine break out of the gravity vortex’s radius!
“They’re saved!”
The dozens onboard who had narrowly escaped death cheered. The captain squeezed his calf hard: “Never thought we’d live to see this day. We must be the lucky gods blessed by fate!”
“Luck may have helped, but whoever saved you was probably a Mind Power construct...” The young man who could hear the frequency of everything spoke up. “Although I can tell who it is by frequency, it was some kind of Mind Power creation that lifted the sub...so you should be able to recognize it when you hear it next time.”
The others froze at his words.
Seconds later the captain recovered and asked in disbelief, “You mean an Ascendant used Mind Power to lift our submarine? How did they do that?”
The young man shook his head. “I don’t know how. But the helper must be a top-tier Ascendant—no doubt about that. I recorded the Mind Power frequency; I’ll recognize it next time.”
....
“Phew...done.”
Guan Tong watched the submarine leave and exhaled, immediately dissolving the giant shadow pillar to save Mind Power.
He had spent a lot of reserve Mind Power to save that submarine. Uenoshi watched without commenting on that choice and focused on the Rules instead.
“It looks like the bright moon’s position has been confirmed.”
“Mm, right under that submarine, in the deep sea.” Guan Tong said as he deliberately materialized a nearby shadow line.
If a submarine weighing several thousand tons could be captured by the gravity here, a single hair-thin strand would be drawn in even more easily. That hair-thick shadow line was instantly grabbed by the gravity and shot down into the deep, plunging toward the embrace of the “bright moon.”
“Do you see anything?” Uenoshi asked.
Guan Tong closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not yet. At this depth it’s pitch black. The shadow doesn’t emit light; even if it could share vision with me, it wouldn’t help...but once it gets close...!”
Before he finished, a strip of cold, pale white mist-like light crashed into his sight without warning.
That gentle-looking yet forceful light made Guan Tong feel unsettled. He immediately felt his body violently pulled forward!
Uenoshi, who had been watching him closely, reacted quickly and slammed a hand on his shoulder, pressing him down hard: “The gravity is pulling you through the shadow line!”
Guan Tong snapped back to awareness and cut his connection to the shadow line. The strong pulling force stopped at once, and his feet stumbled as his heart steadied.
“The gravity...the bright moon’s gravity is too strong. From that distance, it still affected me through a hair-thin shadow line...thanks, Uenoshi.”
Uenoshi shook her head. “So we can’t scout it?”
“That’s not it.”
Guan Tong explained that wrapping a shadow line around his hand was just a habit; the shadow could exist as an independent entity, it just couldn’t split into two different individuals.
If the bright moon’s gravity forcibly captured everything in its range, then let the independent shadow be captured—being captured wouldn’t prevent sharing its vision back.
Yet...
The thought of the light he had glimpsed a moment ago chilled him to the bone.
The radiance the “bright moon” gave off was not the same as the moon from his hometown. The latter inspired longing and nostalgia in poets through the ages, while the former only felt weirdly cold and sinister.
He knew this was probably psychological. Knowing that thing could cause catastrophic damage to humanity if mishandled, it was hard to develop any fondness for its glow.
Thinking that, Guan Tong summoned his shadow again.
When it stood before them, Uenoshi showed a trace of surprise: “It...looks a lot like him.”
Normally when you see Guan Tong’s manipulated shadows, they take various transformed forms—shadow lines, shadow blades, even a shadow domain, and so on.
But the shadow now in front of them was not the original form; it was a humanoid shadow that shared Guan Tong’s body shape. This was the first time Uenoshi had seen that specific form.
Guan Tong smiled. “After all, it’s your shadow. It’s unsurprising it resembles you. Go.”
With a thought, the “Shadow Guan Tong” turned and shot away in a quick bound, soon vanishing into the ocean.
Uenoshi then understood his intention. “Besides reconnaissance, you want to test how the gravity affects a shadow identical to you?”
“That’s partly it, but I don’t think it’ll reveal much.” Guan Tong said. “The shadow’s body strength far exceeds my human body. If my human body went down there, it couldn’t withstand the extreme water pressure.”
Even if he used the shadow as an armor, Guan Tong didn’t believe he could safely dive thousands of meters.
Still, this could be a test. If the humanoid shadow could resist the pressure, then in a worst-case scenario he could attempt a dive.
Sensing his thought, Uenoshi said, “If necessary, I can dive. Put your shadow on me; the shadow’s defense plus my scales should hold under high water pressure.”
“Hmm...maybe. But it’d be best to avoid deep diving if possible. The bright moon’s gravity is too strong—once it captures you, human strength alone makes escape nearly impossible.”
“Can’t we use a teleportation-type item?”
“What if you’re tied up and can’t use items? After being captured, there might be a tiny window to use devices, but I think you’d rapidly be rendered immobile. Then no items would work.”
“...True.”
Uenoshi had to admit Guan Tong was probably right.
Guan Tong thought that items might be unusable, but his Body Swap ability should remain unaffected—provided he retained consciousness and life at that time.
Judging from the captured submarine, the bright moon formed a gravity vortex. If someone is grabbed and their body starts spinning rapidly, how many seconds could they endure without losing consciousness?
“By the way, are you going to broadcast the bright moon’s position?” Uenoshi asked.
“No need for me to send it. The submarine should have floated to a depth where communications work; the captain will report it.”
“They won’t know you saved them, will they?”
“That doesn’t matter.” Guan Tong didn’t care. “We’re all the same kind. Everyone’s working to pass the Rules. If we can help within our means, we should help. You can’t start turning a blind eye to people’s lives just because of a strange message from that Dialoguer—thinking they’re rivals for rule-passing slots.”
Uenoshi nodded thoughtfully. Then Guan Tong’s gaze sharpened suddenly. “Someone is approaching the cave.”
“Keep controlling the shadow. I’ll handle whoever comes.” Uenoshi didn’t hear anything either, but she trusted Guan Tong’s superior senses.
“No. I don’t think they’re coming for us...let’s hide first and see who they are.”
.....
“We have news! A submarine has detected the gravity sphere—the bright moon—location!”
As Guan Tong predicted, the submarine he had saved rose to a communicable depth and the captain immediately sent the coordinates of the earlier sea area, reporting that the bright moon lay below those coordinates.
Once the Human Consortium nations received the report, they moved other vessels toward the target location following the original plan, but to avoid being captured they kept a safe distance.
At the same time, each country’s decision-making departments launched emergency analysis and discussions.
Inside the Countermeasures Research Office in Beixing, the experts exclaimed as they reviewed the data.
“The submarine was captured by the bright moon’s gravity at a depth of a thousand meters below the surface. This is an extremely dangerous signal! If its rising speed is fast enough, surface areas could be affected soon!”
“The surface area may already be affected. Real-time monitoring shows a large number of anomalous signals in that area. We can judge that a giant vortex caused by gravity is forming. A ring-shaped tsunami explosion might just be a matter of time!”
“What interests me more is the report saying an external force lifted the submarine out and allowed it to escape the vortex. Where did that external force come from?”
“The critical point now is that a gravity sphere has appeared, and in just one day it has shown terrifying destructive potential. We must stop it from rising quickly, otherwise its power will only grow, and it might end up destroying the entire Lanyang!”
“Report!” Someone entered the office to report, “The deep-sea detectors we deployed to the target area were quickly affected by the gravity sphere and lost function; they only captured some halos. Based on combined assessments, the gravity sphere currently seems to be located at the edge of the abyssal layer.”
“The abyssal layer’s edge—so we’re talking about depths of around five to six thousand meters...Humanity is helpless at those ocean depths, right? No weapons can be launched down there.”
“What if we do launch weapons?” Li Meng suggested. “Since the bright moon’s gravity pulls everything within range, humans could directly place a large amount of high-yield explosives within its attraction radius and let it draw them in, then detonate them all at once...”
At this remark, everyone wore thoughtful expressions.
Li Meng’s idea resembled a trope from alien sci-fi movies: an invincible alien ship leaves humanity powerless, and the solution is the protagonist deliberately letting explosives be taken aboard the ship and detonating them inside.
It sounded plausible, but would it really work on the bright moon?
No one could reach a conclusion. Finally, after a moment of thought, Gao Liangwei deliberated and made the call: “Then let’s try it.”