The mont they glimpsed the unfamiliar starry sky outside the porthole, an eerie and unsettling silence descended upon everyone in the control room.
A mber of the Hermitage, still sowhat steady, staggered to his feet, wobbling as he made his way toward the tall, thin old man in a white robe. His movents were slow and laborious, not only due to the shock of the “pillar of order” exiting the jump, but also because the gravity system of the entire “tower” had malfunctioned. Gravity in the hall had beco chaotic, pulling in all directions.
“Sage, where are we now?”
The elderly figure known as “Sage” had a grim expression. One hand gripped the armrest of his chair tightly as he leaned forward, taking a long ti to respond in a low voice: “…The jump process was disrupted. Navigator, report.”
“Y-yes!” Another Hermitage mber answered hastily, “Our pre-set jump point should have been near the ‘bright river nebula,’ at the gravitational collapse point. It’s a very easy-to-spot bright dust cloud, but now, none of the external monitoring caras can see it. The star chart comparison… the entire navigation system is offline. Manual calibration will take a long ti.”
“First, check the damage to the pillar of order. Confirm if the inner shell is leaking, then figure out how to repair each subsystem,” Sage ordered. “Prioritize the repair of navigation and the engines. We need to figure out where we are—then fix this damned gravity system!”
“Yes, yes!”
Sage took a slow breath, forcing his voice back to a calm tone. “What’s the status of the space calibrator and the ‘holy coffin’ chamber?”
“We’ve just made contact with the core module. The space calibrator is undamaged. The holy coffin chamber has so damage, but the Saintess hasn’t been affected. She’s still in recovery.”
Sage lowered his eyelids, hiding the glare in his eyes. He lightly tapped his fingers on the armrest, muttering under his breath in a voice too low for others to hear: “…That useless fool…”
After a mont of unbearable tension, he lifted his gaze, his voice becoming cold and stern: “Speed up the repairs. Get the ‘artificial Saintess’ out of that iron coffin imdiately.”
“But… but the damage to Saintess is severe this ti, especially to the mind barrier. If we force a catalyst, there might be problems in the future…”
“As long as it doesn’t lt down today, we’ll deal with future problems later,” Sage interrupted sharply. “I need her back in action now… I have a bad feeling. Our troubles aren’t over yet.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sage nodded, his expression finally relaxing just slightly.
One of the Hermitage mbers near him, emboldened by the slight change, finally spoke up: “Sage, what do you think attacked us? Could it be so kind of jump interference technology from the Special Affairs Bureau?”
Sage slowly shook his head. “The pillar of order is equipped with the most powerful phase engine and core defense system. To interfere with it, they’d need a large, fixed disruption device set near a stargate or fortification. The Special Affairs Bureau only recently beca aware of the ‘deep layer Boundary City’—they didn’t have the ti, nor the reason, to build such a thing there.”
He fell silent for a few seconds, then continued, “The battle data sent back by the artificial Saintess showed that the trouble started after those suspicious figures entered the thick fog… all the issues began after they appeared. The collapse of the concealnt mask also happened because of them. But the key question is—who are they? And how did they do this…?”
Suddenly, he stopped, his eyes wide with shock. He stared out the porthole, his face twisting into an expression of disbelief and even terror. His gaze was fixed on sothing, as though he had witnessed the most absurd and terrifying sight in the universe.
Soon after, others in the room also turned their gazes in the sa direction.
One of the figures Sage had just ntioned, one of “them,” was pressed against the porthole, studying the Hermitage mbers in the hall.
This person was wearing a simple, almost shabby-looking casual jacket, and in one arm, he cradled sothing furry that resembled a tail. He was exposed to the vast emptiness of space, without any protection, staring at the people in the hall like an intrigued observer.
Then, as if noticing that he had been seen, the figure smiled—an easy, bright smile—and waved at the Hermitage mbers, giving them a cheerful “yeah” gesture.
The control hall erupted in panicked screams, followed by the angry shouts of Sage and a few of the smaller commanders, trying to restore order.
“Quiet! Calm down! Send out the knights, take care of that monster!” Sage bellowed.
The figure outside the porthole began climbing along a protrusion on the high tower’s exterior.
“He’s moving!” soone cried out in alarm. “He’s heading toward the radar array!”
The chaos in the hall was deafening. After narrowly escaping a deadly crisis, the entire Pillar of Order had plunged into a state of perilous disarray. A strange figure—one that looked like a human yet defied all logic—gazed at everyone through the viewport, a sight that broke the fragile hold on sanity many had managed to maintain. So desperately worked to restore order, determined to eliminate the figure who, though it appeared human, could not possibly be one.
“Sage” sat among the crowd, silent. His face was ashen, eyes fixed on the now empty viewport. The figure had moved out of sight, now hidden in the blind spot of the Pillar of Order’s outer shell. What was it doing? What did it intend? How had it managed to “follow” them after the High Tower’s teleportation failure? Who was it? What was it?
Yu Sheng carefully crawled along the outer shell of this strange High Tower, one arm still clutching Foxy’s bushy tail. This made him think of Irene, who often crawled through the dark corners of their ho—under tables, coffee tables, and sofas. But there was a difference. While Irene’s crawling seed dark and eerie, Yu Sheng’s was healthy, sunlit, and purposeful. His crawling had a positive goal: to find an entrance and bring so surprise and joy to the heretic cultists hiding within this flying tower.
If they didn’t feel joy, that was fine; after all, Yu Sheng himself was in high spirits. He paused on a relatively flat part of the shell, taking a brief rest before tilting his head upward to gaze at the vast, dark expanse of space, the stars twinkling quietly in the depths.
“How beautiful…” he murmured to himself.
He couldn’t voice it aloud, though, for he was unable to breathe in space. At first, this had felt incredibly strange, and he had even prepared himself for the worst—half an hour later, he imagined he’d be staring back at Irene, wide-eyed, unsure of what to say. After all, one minute he was in the dark, and the next, he found himself in outer space, thinking he was as good as dead.
But after a while, Yu Sheng realized that breathing was not essential to his survival. It was just a characteristic of being alive, sothing he had always taken for granted. At least, that was how he understood it.
As his thoughts drifted, he gazed out at the deep space before him, feeling as if his mind too was expanding with the endless void. He had heard that so of the more powerful cultivators from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain could survive in space. How did they manage it? Did they sohow “optimize” their need for breathing?
He wondered if Irene could do the sa—she seed not to have lungs or a heart. What about Foxy? She was quite capable… perhaps she could too?
Lost in his musings, Yu Sheng was suddenly snapped out of his reverie by a voice in his mind: “Hey, hey, Yu Sheng! Are you alive? Dead yet? You want to co back to life?”
The voice was unmistakably Irene’s, her tone as irreverent as ever.
“I’m alive,” Yu Sheng replied with a hint of annoyance, “I’m floating in space right now. Let tell you, these heretic cultists turned this tower into a damn spaceship. Didn’t you know? But when it activated teleportation, I gave it a little ‘nudge,’ and now it’s kind of broken. It’s floating around aimlessly. I’m hanging on its shell right now, trying to find an entrance. Haven’t found a good spot yet.”
There was a long pause on Irene’s end, as if she had been stunned into silence. Finally, she responded with a shocked exclamation: “What the heck! You can do that?”
“I’m surprised too,” Yu Sheng thought back, “By the way, tell Foxy her tail hasn’t moved since I brought it over here. Not sure if I broke it.”
A few monts later, Irene replied: “I told her. She says the distance is too far and the connection cut off. After the tail disconnected, it’s pretty much useless. Just toss it sowhere, or open a door and send it back ho. She’ll make you a new collar when you get back.”
Yu Sheng thought for a mont and casually opened a door to Wutong Road No. 66, tossing the tail through.
“I sent it back ho. How’s everything on your end?”
“The Special Affairs Bureau people are here. Xuan Che’s explaining things to them. The commander of that deep diving unit even ca by earlier, asking where you went. I told him that Foxy shot you out with her tail, and he imdiately gave himself a shot…”
Yu Sheng: “…”
“Hey, when are you coming back?” Little Doll asked.
“I’m going to try and find a way into this ‘tower’ without blowing it up. Seems like it’s pretty fragile,” Yu Sheng replied. “If I can, I’ll bring back so souvenirs. I an, we’ve co all this way. It’d feel weird to go back empty-handed.”
“Alright then, just don’t die too fast.”
“Got it, got it.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)