The planet scanning system of the Mass Effect is undergoing mode adjustnts, with a vast antenna array pointed towards the "Saint Realm," a place surrounded by the United Fleet yet still fiercely resisting, guarding countless secrets.
Baili Qing sat on the "psychic amplifier" specially crafted for her, trying to temporarily set aside her subtle emotions.
A low hum emanated from below the "Throne," and so crystallized circuit lines connected to the platform began emitting a faint glow. The enormous circular structure suspended above the entire hall resonated with a pleasant sound, then slowly descended, floating above the throne like a solemn halo.
A pair of illusory eyes slowly settled in front of the throne, and Baili Xue’s voice drifted into Baili Qing’s ears: "I’m waiting for you in the reality dinsion..."
"Okay."
Baili Qing said softly, and before her words fell, she had already closed her eyes.
The darkness lasted only a brief mont. In the next instant, all the radars and antennas of the Mass Effect transford into extensions of her eyes—a pure white giant dragon drifted through space with consciousness, bathing in the distant starlight and the flashes of countless close-range artillery fire.
Baili Qing’s gaze focused on the lush blue-green planet.
The vision was distorting, the light was fading, and the whole world was silently collapsing in perception. The planet seed to transform into a gigantic void, its deford space-ti structure surging towards her like an abyss.
There was no ti to react, and Baili Qing felt herself falling into that infinite distorted abyss.
Her mind was being torn by imnse power, dragged into an endless vortex of mory and perception by the roaring "knowledge." She struggled with all her strength to stabilize her consciousness, trying to discern what lay behind the chaotic space-ti structure. For a mont, she even felt her mind disintegrating, felt as if she saw the Soul Wilderness where cathedrals and crystal giant trees stood—but in the next instant, those "voices" booming in her mind abruptly vanished into nothingness.
"Sister..."
In the darkness, soone was calling her.
Baili Qing instinctively turned her head.
She found herself trapped in a "crystal" constantly growing.
The crystal stretched endlessly, origin unknown, direction unclear, as if all ti and space had frozen at the end of the world, turning into this layer of transparent, colorless, hard ice.
She heard distant rumbling and dying roars, sothing collapsing down, soone dying afar.
Panic and fear surged, but it wasn’t her current feeling—it’s a deeply ingrained emotion from mories, as deep as the soul itself, yet so distant it seed to co from another world’s "life."
Baili Qing tried hard to turn her head, trying to look toward the direction of those rumblings and roars, but only saw endless transparent crystals, growing infinitely in space as if to subrge the world.
"Sister...sister..."
Baili Qing’s vision blurred for a second. Her gaze refocused, and imdiately, she felt icy fingers trying to reach for her palm.
She saw another figure, buried deep in the ever-growing crystal clusters.
It was a young girl, with so resemblance in the brows and eyes, only a ter away yet separated by the unyielding crystals that continued to grow.
From the crystal clusters, a long, blurry streak of gold-red extended from behind the girl into the depths of the crystal.
She seed to have crawled from a very far place, now unable to move any further.
"Sister..."
The weak voice repeated by her ear, Baili Qing feeling the fingertips at the edge of her hand growing even colder than before. Her body couldn’t move; those hard crystals unshakeably imprisoned her, like death itself locking her entire being. She could only move her eyes within a limited range, struggling to look at that small figure—saw a strand of gray-white hair like her own, hanging on the girl’s cheek.
"I’m sorry..." The small figure apologized to her, "They said the capacity is full, the ’Cocoon’ can only take one person... But I miss you. I won’t go forward anymore, won’t take your place, but can I... stay by your side..."
Intense emotion grew and surged, Baili Qing tried with all her might to open her mouth, wanting to say sothing, wanting to call out the other’s na, yet felt her consciousness locked in this endless crystal prison, unable to budge its confines despite all her strength.
She saw the crystals continue growing—they gradually beca a faded gray-white, and then kept multiplying, kept thickening.
The crystal clusters crawled onto the girl’s face, continuing to spread along her cheeks, piling up.
"Sister... I want to sleep, you should sleep too..."
That face was subrged in crystal, swallowed until only the eyes remained, and it seed as if the crystal enveloped not just the "face" of the other person — in almost an instant, Baili Qing forgot the appearance of that face, and in the next mont, she forgot the sound of the other’s voice.
A heaviness akin to death-like drowsiness and exhaustion surged in, the vision rapidly darkening with the growth of the crystal, her eyelids heavy as if they weighed a thousand pounds. Maintaining even this simple opening of her eyes felt like resisting the collapse of the whole world—toward the end, Baili Qing could almost see nothing. In the quickly descending darkness, the only thing she still rembered was the pair of pale gray, fading eyes in the middle of the overlapping crystal clusters that looked very much like her own.
Only those eyes remained.
Only those eyes were rembered.
"Sis..."
"Sis... Sis..."
"Sister!!"
Baili Qing suddenly opened her eyes wide.
She saw a pair of illusion-like eyes frantically shaking in front of her.
Those eyes darted around the "Throne" as if they had lost control, seemingly anxious to co over and help with sothing—but she had no body, nor hands.
As a "hallucination" born of imagination, she couldn’t engage in any "real contact" apart from optical phenona with her "sister."
Yet Baili Qing had already regained consciousness—she broke free from the imprisoning force that seed to spread from the depths of ti and space, feeling her mind and the control over herself gradually returning to her body.
"I’m fine," she whispered, her voice carrying a hint of hoarseness she herself hadn’t noticed, "How much ti has passed?"
"A little while... three minutes, maybe two," Baili Xue quickly said, her voice frantically anxious for the first ti, "But I couldn’t see you just now, you were sitting right there but I couldn’t see you, suddenly everything around turned dark, you, you just seed like..."
"I may have ’seen’ too far." Baili Qing interrupted her, instinctively looking into Baili Xue’s grayish eyes for two or three seconds, as if by instinct trying to retrieve sothing just lost in the "Dream Realm" from those eyes. But rationality and calm surfaced unreasonably, suppressing her emotional fluctuation.
Baili Qing instinctively reminded herself — this is just a monster born from the loss of control of her childhood abilities, a reality ford from hallucination, a nightmare that would reverse and replace her own reality with the slightest negligence.
This danger was unrelated to the will of those very "eyes" but was an inherent "characteristic" present since her very mont of birth.
"Wh-What’s the matter?" The eyes shook mid-air, emitting a slightly uneasy sound.
"No, it’s nothing." Baili Qing forced herself to wave her hand spiritedly.
She heard a distant, deep rumble, the low roar of the mass projector charging resonating inside the ship, as part of her senses remained connected to the ship’s antenna array, and the iron and fire streaking through space, falling toward the planetary surface reflected in the depths of her consciousness.
The battle wasn’t over, there were still people waiting for her "observation results."
"This planet..."
Baili Qing turned around, her "gaze" crossing the thick walls of the "observation chamber," and the overlapping corridors and armor outside, focusing on the ho planet of the Hidden Monastery Order.
"This planet is hollow."
...
"What the heck?! Hollow?!" Erin stood on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, utterly shocked—even though the professional concept eluded her understanding, the phrase "the planet is hollow" was enough to stir a storm in her less-than-brilliant mind, "You an, those cultists dug out the entire planet, and the ’second Gate of Eden’ is the planet itself?!"
"What kind of technical prowess is this..." even Yu Sheng couldn’t maintain his composure, but he imdiately sensed sothing wrong, "Wait, but that doesn’t make sense, Luo’s research on Zolda Black Stone has only been going on for a few years, even if the Hidden Monastery started constructing the Gate of Eden synchronously from Luo’s research, could they have hollowed out an entire planet in these few years...? And with such a large-scale project, if it were completed recently, why on the surface is there no sign at all..."
"So the greater possibility is that this planet has gradually been hollowed out over the past hundreds of years," Baili Qing stated seriously, "It has a lush ’shell,’ but only this outer layer is ’natural,’ underneath is a layer of structurally complex and extrely durable support—further in is the Gate of Eden. I think those cultists first hollowed out this planet, and then after the Gate of Eden project started, conveniently hid the second gate in the original center of the planet..."
At this ti, Baili Qing was still in the "observation chamber," communicating with the ship bridge through the ship’s communication system. Her figure hovered above the communications platform’s holographic projection. For so reason, the background behind her seed intentionally blurred, allowing only her upper body to be clearly seen—Yu Sheng speculated this might be due to so facilities on this ship belonging to "technical secrecy," so he didn’t think much of it.
"Anyway, the conclusion remains the sa regardless of the process," Red slightly furrowed her brows, thoughtfully saying, "’The second Gate of Eden is the planet itself’... things aren’t looking good."
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