Chapter 1100: Chapter 1100: Little Thing, Oh Little Thing
The originally clear image had now beco a blur of distortion, you could barely make out the original form and those remarkably distinct gigantic wings. Roughly estimating, even the lost Thought Body Angel had a higher resolution than this projection. Watching this fuzzy and unstable projection that seed ready to lose power any mont, Sandora curiously asked, “Is it sothing?”
“Alaya—I ant to say that,” I scratched my head and briefly explained what had just happened, “That’s how it is. My sister and I think this might be an image left from a long ti ago, most likely left by Alaya back then, but we don’t know what recorded this, my sister even thinks it could be this flower…”
“An image of Alaya?” Sandora’s face showed a look of surprise. She certainly didn’t doubt my words, it was just that this discovery was indeed unexpected. Her gaze then fell on the small pedestal in the center of the clearing, contemplating the blue flower, “This kind of plant… hmm, I rember now. We saw it in the Sky Tower! You rember, right? There is a layer in the Sky Tower that has a built-in primordial forest. The plants in the forest glowed with this kind of pale blue light, and so short plants’ leaves also had this dark blue crystal-like texture.”
With Sandora’s reminder, I rembered too. No wonder I felt a sense of familiarity with this flower—though I’d never seen it on Earth, it didn’t exist on Mother Star Gaia either. So, the last ti I saw its kind was in the Sky Tower?
The Angel Sister stood silently in front of the pedestal, facing the old blurred illusion from two or three ters away. Her usually blank face suddenly showed a complex expression. She then lowered her head to look at the flower on the pedestal, and softly said, “Lord Brother, may I take this flower with ?”
It was rare for Alaya to show such a sorrowful and heavy expression. This usually dazed Angel Sister mostly appeared serene and tranquil, with a gentle smile on her face. But now, seeing the light blue wildflower on the pedestal and that image which might have been left by herself many years ago, she showed this expression. She might never recall what happened back then, but so emotion unrelated to mory resurfaced. This emotion, using the blue wildflower as a dium, was transmitted across millennia to touch this dazed angel’s heart. After I gave my consent, she reached out to the small wildflower: “I will protect it.”
Alaya’s hand gathered Holy Light, and at the mont the small shield opened, she enveloped the wildflower in Holy Light. The miraculous divine power wrapped layer upon layer, preventing it from instant weathering once its protection was hastily removed. Eventually, the wildflower transford into a specin with a faint golden aura and tallic texture, which Alaya carefully cradled in her hands.
“I’ll take you outside to see the world,” the Angel Sister whispered.
The old illusion still stood silently before the pedestal; of course, it didn’t react to the surroundings but the Angel Sister nodded slightly towards it, as if bidding it farewell. Then she exhaled lightly: “Lord Brother, let’s keep moving forward, maybe others are waiting for us ahead.”
The reunited four resud their journey, but this ti I felt an inexplicable heaviness. This weight ca from an intuition that so ancient secret was about to be unveiled here, yet I was unsure if I was ready. Shaking my head, I tossed those chaotic thoughts aside, my heart easing: What’s the point of preparing? Ever since I woke from that sleep four years ago, nothing has ever happened when I was ready…
“I just examined these fragnts,” Sandora followed on my other side, pointing at the surrounding broken staircases and platforms speeding past us, “There are no traces of external attacks; everything has spontaneously disintegrated into this state. So, these fragnts aren’t quite like ruins destroyed by explosions or other ans. I analyzed the information flow regarding the space boundary and discovered a ‘Senarus Reconstruction Phenonon,’ aning the original orderly information collapsed due to internal reasons, then randomly reorganized into a long-term balanced state.”
“This place collapsed from the inside?” I had learned to automatically filter out things I couldn’t comprehend while talking with Sandora, focusing on things I could understand to process, “Do you think the giant gatekeeper knows that the ruins it’s guarding have internal issues?”
“Who knows,” Sandora lightly leapt onto a large stone pillar floating horizontally in the air, looking around, and suddenly called out in the public channel of the Spiritual Link, “Pandora! I see you! Stay right there, don’t move!”
I followed Sandora’s line of sight and finally saw a different glow flashing on a platform thousands of ters away. Enhancing my vision, I distinguished the figures beside the light. Among them, Visca was jumping and waving towards us, pulling out her ship cannon attempting to shoot signal flares at us—this move was thwarted by a punch from Lin Xue standing beside her, while Pandora stood with her back to us, seemingly lost in thought gazing at sothing—great, we found another three, at this rate the team will soon be all together.
Thousands of ters wasn’t far for us, even without using space transmission or similar skills; it was just a few steps away. Soon the four of us reached the small platform where Lin Xue and the Pandora sisters were. Visca had already prepared, as soon as I landed, she leapt onto , swiftly climbing around like a nimble little monkey and finally hanging onto my neck, not moving. Pandora, with a sisterly deanor, leaned over gently rubbing against my leg, then stylishly pulled Visca off her brother, and began chop-chopping on her head. These sisters have such a peculiar bond…
“You’ve already regrouped, huh?” Lin Xue imdiately noticed Sandora, Monina, and Alaya with us, pouting as she spoke, “You didn’t run into any trouble on the way, did you?”
Miss Lin expressed her concern in a reluctant tone, I knew her temper well, just silently acknowledging was best, don’t get too smug, or she’d give you a round of over twenty fighting techniques from ancient and modern tis. Thus, I smiled, “Of course, we’re fine, though I heard Alaya got stuck in the staircase a couple of tis…”
“Seems like you encountered the sa thing we did,” my sister glanced around the platform, suddenly noticing a not very clear projection hidden under the shadow of a small broken wall segnt nearby. Instantly, everyone’s focus shifted to the projection—it looked just like the old illusion of Alaya we encountered!
It was a very short humanoid shadow, petite in size, vaguely wearing a neat uniform. Though the face of the shadow couldn’t be discerned, it was blurred to the extent of losing all details, but I imdiately guessed the identity of this projection, then grabbed Pandora and placed her in front of the projection: a perfect fit.
“Judging by the height, it’s definitely Pandora.” I lifted my head, speaking seriously.
Lin Xue exhaled: “I was hesitating to say it, you’ve got guts.”
“Bang!” Just as Miss Lin finished speaking, I felt a heavy headbutt hit my abdon. It was Pandora with a blank face who ramd into . If I wasn’t mistaken, she had even looked up to gather montum before the collision…
“Cough, anyway… we encountered the sa situation, only the projection was Alaya’s…” I hunched, holding down Pandora’s still expressionless and persistent head-butting, and described the situation we encountered, “That’s how it was, although at the start we could still see the face clearly.”
“It suddenly feels like we’re in so ghost story,” Lin Xue couldn’t help but purse her lips, “Where ancient stone brick walls store images from many years ago, and during storms or lightning, ghostly figures pop out to scare people…”
I felt the sa, except those ghosts in the stories tended to appear years after the involved person had long passed, while here, the shadows in this twisted space appeared while the actual people were still very much alive. And one of those individuals has been trying to headbutt in the stomach at over 300 kiloters per hour since earlier…
With the Pandora Sisters and Miss Lin, only the team of Bingdisi, Qianqian, and Lin remained ungrouped with everyone else; the others were waiting outside the Hall of Gathering—oh, and there’s still Dingdang, who is currently missing. However, now I’m in high spirits, at least there are lots of good news now. First, everyone is confird to be in the sa space, avoiding the hassle of scattering into parallel spaces. Second, this space has been confird to be finite, aning Dingdang is surely sowhere here, finding that little guy is just a matter of ti. Finally, we haven’t encountered any guards so far—the chance of encountering enemies seems to be zero. Unfortunately, the probes Sandora released were all swept away by the chaotic information flow within space, otherwise, we would’ve found little Dingdang by now.
Even though the number of these broken wrecks around us seed endless, after continuing on for who knows how long, we finally saw the highest point of our target: above, amidst the deep darkness, all the twisted corridors, steps, and hanging platforms had sharply decreased in number, and at the end of our sight there was only a huge circular platform floating at the highest point, surrounded by the fragnts of five or six broken floating bridges scattered sporadically. The destination was within reach.
“We’ve reached the end!” I said on the public channel of the Spiritual Connection, “It’s a large circular platform.”
“Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. We must have taken different paths,” Bingdisi’s voice sounded a bit blue, “By the way, your wife destroyed public property. Just giving you a heads-up, she persuaded that Little Dragon to knock down several pieces of crystal, saying she wanted to make a present for you. There’s nothing I can do about her. You’ll have to handle it yourself.”
“Ah Jun, Ah Jun, we saw the tapes Pandora left behind twice!” Qianqian excitedly interrupted, “I thought we’d caught up with you, but it turned out to be recordings from years ago. I wonder what they used to record it, there was no projector—did you guys see it?”
Sandora and I couldn’t help but look at each other and simultaneously asked in the Spiritual Connection, “Could you see the face clearly?!”
We both had the sa thought suddenly because when we saw Alaya’s old shadow before, it was very clear at first, almost making mistake it for the real person. But when Alaya actually appeared, the projection beca a blur, and when the Pandora Sisters encountered their own projections, they couldn’t see the faces from the start. We hadn’t thought this was strange at the ti, but now thinking back to confirm seed sowhat pointless, especially since Qianqian’s group encountered the sa situation. Hence, Sandora and I asked this question.
“Face?” Qianqian paused for a mont, and then her characteristic cheerful voice rang out, “Of course! Otherwise, how could I mistake it for a reunion with Pandora! Especially clear, one of the two projections was listening to soone speak, the other was staring blankly at their weapon, wearing that familiar military uniform. Oh right, it turns out Pandora was only one ter two so many millennia ago…”
: “…Pandora’s about to cry, you better co back and comfort this girl yourself.”
After temporarily ending the communication with Qianqian, Sandora looked at : “I guess when the real bodies of those old shadows appear, they interfere with the signal, which is why we encountered that situation. Alaya couldn’t see her own image clearly, and neither could Pandora.”
“We could return to confirm it later,” I nodded, looking up at the platform, “Let’s head up there first.”
Around the highest platform, there were many large stone floating bridges that had broken into segnts, and one of these bridges connected perfectly with the stairs beneath our feet. Everyone followed this precarious path suspended in the void to the platform, discovering that it was a large circular plaza.
“Ah! Ah Jun! You’re here?”
As soon as I stepped onto the plaza, before I had a chance to take in the surroundings, a soft, especially familiar cry reached my ears. I turned my head to see a small, indistinct green figure rushing at . With a ‘pia’ sound, it stuck to my nose. This sensation of sothing rubbing against my face was all too familiar—
“Dingdang! What are you doing here?!” Unable to contain my imnse joy, I reached out and grabbed the Little Thing, rubbing it against my face vigorously. A massive stone in my heart suddenly settled; it was such a relief that the little one was okay. I had worried all the way here for nothing!
Even though I hadn’t worried too much about Dingdang’s safety before, the fact that this Little Thing was missing ant I couldn’t say I wasn’t at all nervous. I just had to remain calm. Now, seeing Dingdang safe and sound floating in front of , everyone’s faces revealed expressions of great relief. The Little Thing, held by for quite a while, finally protested loudly, “Ah Jun! Too hard! Dingdang’s about to be squished flat!”
I quickly let the Little One go, helping her tidy up her tiny dress and wings: “Still haven’t said, what are you doing here? We’ve tried connecting with you spiritually several tis before, but it didn’t work. What exactly happened?”
“Spiritual Connection, oh, it seems to be interfered with on this platform,” Dingdang pointed her toothpick-sized little hand around, “Also, there seems to be a layer of a barrier around the platform. Dingdang’s not very good at dealing with this, got transmitted here and ended up stuck.”
Under Dingdang’s guidance, I noticed that the massive circular plaza, equivalent to several football fields connected together, was surrounded by a very dim shield. Yet, we hadn’t encountered this thing on our way up. It seems it’s a one-way barrier?
Sandora frowned and tried touching the shield with her hand, encountering quite a resistance, where the shield made contact with her hand, there rippled a circle of pale blue ripples. After just a few centiters, Sandora had to withdraw.
“It seems like we’re trapped in here,” Sandora glanced back at , “but using a powerful attack, we should be able to penetrate it. It’s a shield facing inward, doesn’t seem like it’s for protection, maybe just to partition the space—and now it can’t be closed anymore.”
Such a shield could trap Dingdang, this Little Thing’s combat ability… But then I thought of how I occasionally locked her in a cupboard, and this little one could only bite her way out, so nothing was surprising. The only unexpected thing was that Dingdang was transmitted here alone, trapped by a shield, and not scared at all. I initially thought I’d have to console a crying, teary-eyed Little One. Now it seems Dingdang was quite at ease here.
“Because Ah Jun would definitely co to find Dingdang,” the Little Thing looked at , her face full of assured trust and joy. “At first, I was a bit scared, but after eating a piece of candy, I wasn’t scared anymore. Don’t be fooled by Dingdang’s small size, Dingdang’s also a veteran of battles! Besides, Dingdang’s grown up! Dingdang’s at the age of leaf changing!”
The Little Thing seed a bit elated, bouncing around on my hand while cheerfully bragging about being a grown-up. Seeing this scene, everyone showed knowing smiles: as proud as the Little One boasted, she must have been terrified for a while. Otherwise, why would she be so thrilled after seeing us? Half of this bouncing energy was sheer happiness, while the other half was probably to dispel that sliver of fear. However, I didn’t expose this, and besides, Dingdang wasn’t wrong: she was indeed battle-hardened. Usually just watching this Little Douding sell cuteness, roll around, and bumble about, I’d almost forgotten she was a Goddess who joined the Star Domain Expeditionary Army, even a proper captain of a combat squad. The Three-inch Ding ca through the battlefield!
“Didn’t find anything useful here either.”
Visca squatted on the ground, fiddling for quite a while before looking up with a disappointed face.
“Ah, sothing useful! There is sothing here!” Dingdang suddenly seed to recall sothing, fluttering her wings and pulling my hair, “This way, this way, there’s a Commander’s Sword that looks rather ancient! Seems to be sothing left behind by those who evacuated back then!” (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welco to co to Qidian (qidian) to vote for recomndations, monthly tickets, Your support is my greatest motivation.)
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