Chapter 932: Chapter 932: Did the Banquet Just Suddenly Start?
The yokai of the Fantasy Country are quite peculiar creatures. Perhaps due to their unique Race, they remain in a state of excitement almost constantly, ready to host a party at any time and place for all sorts of whimsical reasons. Sometimes, I even wonder if seeing more than three yokai together will inevitably lead to a gathering, which is not hard to imagine for the Fantasy Country.
Just like now, originally the yokai were just following Yukari Yakumo to join the fun and listen to tales of the ghost ship. However, someone came up with an idea, and this merry bunch surprisingly prepared the tools for a party right on the spot, reasoning that “since so many people are gathered, of course, we must hold a party!”
Such a wondrous theory, that as long as many people are gathered, a party must be held for celebration. I can’t fathom how delighted they would be if they visited the Xizhimen Overpass…
Originally, I thought that if they were to hold a party atop Mount Olympus, Zeus would surely have objections, especially since this crowd boldly occupied the sacred temple at the mountain summit. Yet surprisingly, the owner here was unexpectedly tolerant, not only refraining from obstruction but also actively bringing out food unique to Mount Olympus from the temple, asking other Artificial Gods to help deliver it to the plaza. Then, the towering giant over ten meters tall even joined the yokai on the ground, chatting away without any barriers.
I grabbed a passing male Atlantian, nearly three meters tall, and voiced my doubts: “Zeus doesn’t seem to mind the yokai’s antics? Isn’t the summit of Mount Olympus supposed to be the Holy Land?”
The giant bowed to me, smiling as he replied: “There is no temple on Mount Olympus that is a Holy Land; that is merely the servant’s residence. The true Holy Land is beneath your feet.”
I thought for a moment: “So if I walk around this plaza, would you all be trapped here?”
Bingdisi kicked me swiftly: “I was just waiting for you to say something like that!”
The young Atlantian across from us was startled by my words, then actually pondered it for a moment before decisively shaking his head: “There’s nothing mentioned about that in the Divine Canon, so I presume it’s okay.”
Bingdisi was dumbfounded, staring at this honest, noble young Atlantian Artificial God, then suddenly grabbed her forehead with a long sigh: “Ah, this kid surely did his classmates’ homework every day before graduating elementary school. I used to bully such honest kids back in the day.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this Rogue Goddess who used to snatch lollipops from neighborhood kids, so I shifted my attention to the young man in front of me and casually asked: “What’s your name?”
I was just asking casually to divert Bingdisi’s attention, but didn’t expect him to reply with such an astonishing name: “Prometheus, you can call me Prometheus.”
I was instantly shocked, staring straight at this young Atlantian who called himself Prometheus, then glanced over to Zeus in the distance. I knew that theoretically, this should be someone in the uncle range of Zeus if mythologies corresponded one-to-one with real Atlantian Artificial Gods.
Thus, I was quite tangled.
Bingdisi, more outspoken than I, had also flipped through Earth’s myth histories during idle times, so she wasn’t unfamiliar with the name Prometheus. She casually asked: “Oh, Prometheus. I know the name; you’re the one who stole the Fire Seed…”
“Ah, that,” Prometheus scratched his head. “I was having a barbecue in the sun chariot while patrolling, and accidentally dropped a burning stick. That forest fire was quite big, and then…”
“Then he was beaten for three days and nights, hanging on Mount Olympus,” another voice suddenly interjected. I turned, seeing a smiling young girl standing beside us—standing at least two meters four tall, this long-haired girl in silver-gray hunting attire mercilessly exposed Prometheus’s embarrassment and then curtseyed to me and Sandora. “Artemis, you should be familiar with this name.”
I knew she was referring to another Artemis in Avalon, the Saint Realm Avalon’s Artemis, and the Moon God Artemis in Atlantis City. These two have always been a special sight here. I often joked with the “smaller” Artemis, who didn’t mind. Now it seems this larger Artemis is also quite familiar with her same-named sister.
Furthermore, the story of Prometheus gave me a revelation: never trust the things in myths, because you can’t even imagine how nonsensical their original versions are—don’t mention anything else, even the infamous Golden Apples just cost two cents more than Red Fuji apples …
“They really have no sense of urgency.”
Sandora, Bingdisi, and I sat away from the yokai bonfire, together with Yukari Yakumo, watching the lively group merrily celebrating. Even Sandora couldn’t help but utter a complaint.
“Yokai are really difficult to generate a sense of urgency,” Yukari Yakumo, sipping a drink brewed from an unidentifiable plant stolen from some unknown yokai, said languidly, “When Atlantis fell, all they thought was ‘ah, if this falls, it might hit our heads,’ and things that extent. Honestly, it’s really hard to feel assured with such folks.”
“What’s up with the ghost ship?”
I glanced at Sister Zi and asked in a low voice.
“Something that happened yesterday,” the Gap Monster replied, “I returned to Fantasy Country to handle some matters. You must know, after working at the Time-Space Administration for so long, I have some understanding of cross-world teleportation, and my Ability is quite suitable for operating these things solo. So, nearing the end, I left the standard route, trying to fall into the material layer from the World Edge.”
I wasn’t surprised by Yukari Yakumo’s boldness. Generally, for travelers attempting cross-world travel, abruptly leaving safe routes and entering the unstable materialized World Edge is dangerous. But Yukari Yakumo was different. Firstly, she has always had confidence in her Ability. Secondly, she was a half-expert who had worked in professional departments for a long time. Although due to the limits of her Life essence, she couldn’t traverse the Void in body, bouncing at the World Edge (this isn’t the “boundary” geographically but conceptually, separating a world’s describable part from its indescribable part, one end being the Main Material Plane, the other a buffer zone of concepts and Law, and extending outward to the World Barrier, similar to a virtual partition on a hard drive,) wasn’t much of a challenge for her. As a yokai who had nothing better to do and loved causing trouble, she not only habitually punched holes in the Great Barrier of her Fantasy Country to tease Ling Meng but also liked to frighten the navigators of the Dimension Hub every now and then.
“Then I encountered those large ships at the World Edge. Although I don’t understand how you classify various ships, I guess they were Interstellar Warships, capable of fighting,” Yukari Yakumo continued, “Spaceship, Interstellar Warship, cross-world teleportation, and Dimension Hub—these terms coming out of the mouth of this Fantasy Country CEO might sound strange, but I’ve gotten used to it. After all, Ling Meng uses beam guns now, and Chiruno carries a no-fluorine inverter tag; you can’t refuse the Four Modernizations of the Fantasy Country for any reason. They were smaller than your Spaceships, with the largest no more than fifty kilometers. More than a dozen in number, their exteriors were tattered, revealing internal structures. These ships appeared suddenly and showed no signs of disintegration, even while drifting in the unstable World Edge, so I guess they exceeded the material limit Defense at least. They had propulsion; it’s unknown what type, but their bodies were lit, and they moved automatically.”
“Are you sure they’re unmanned?”
Sandora asked.
“Confirmed,” Yukari Yakumo nodded without hesitation, “I tapped on one of the spaceships a bit, and there was no sign of counterattack, so even if they still have power, the crew is probably all dead.”
“And then the spaceship detached from the Material Plane,” I mentioned what Yukari Yakumo had just said.
“Yes, it suddenly disappeared, not like it was swept away by a spatial disturbance, but more like it left that world on its own.”
“Hades encountered the same thing, right?” I glanced into the distance, where a giant over ten meters tall was applying medicine to his forehead. He could have sought a repair specialist to maintain his artificial body, but it seems he’s been held up, and the injury isn’t severe for an Atlantis Artificial God. Although there’s a hole in his head exposing the bone, I reckon it won’t take long to heal.
“Yes, he encountered it a bit later than I did, in the morning during a border patrol when he ran into the Ghost Ship, and it was a real collision,” Yukari Yakumo said mischievously, “with a relative speed of over fifty-five Mach…”
You wonder who she learned it from!
What Yukari Yakumo and Hades encountered was very strange, and it’s no wonder they got nervous and convened to discuss it on Mount Olympus. They encountered Ghost Ships at the World Edge, with power but no response, appearing and disappearing suddenly, possibly capable of inter-world travel. Their technological level is below that of the Empire, but they should qualify for direct communication, perhaps more advanced than the Pan-Galactic Civilization Community, with unknown origins and intentions. This wealth of information is enough to alert the Command Center.
“Did those spaceships just skim past the Imperial Border?” I pondered while teasing the restless little Cat Demon beside me, winding Cheng Miao’s tail around my hand and slowly letting it go, making Lan roll her eyes repeatedly. “If they’re really crossing the Void to come here, that would be a big problem.”
“Who knows about this matter now?” Sandora asked while looking into Yukari Yakumo’s eyes.
Mother Zi glanced around at the bustling demons in the square with an innocent expression, “You could say the whole world knows…”
Sandora and I: “…”
“Alright, arrange for XLTV to announce it tomorrow, and Yukari, prepare for your involvement. The Time-Space Administration needs to increase its staffing,” I sighed while holding my head, “raise the alert level on all Macro World routes recently, don’t let any private vessels stray off course. If those Ghost Ships drift into the Main Material Plane, leave it to the military to handle.”
First things first, although this is the first time I’ve heard of such drifting Ghost Ships between worlds, it’s obvious they’re dangerous if they suddenly enter the Main Material Plane. A fleet of uncontrolled but fully powered Giant Battleships would be a calamity anywhere they crashed. A simple example is the unfortunate Hades: I sincerely doubt anyone other than the Empire’s specifications could survive a collision with billions of tons of metal at fifty-five Mach with just a band-aid…
The two Ghost Ship incidents so far occurred at the World Edge, but such phenomena are unpredictable, and we can’t rule out their potential to crash directly into the Material World. Even the civil corridors of the Time-Space Administration could be affected. If that happened, it would undoubtedly be the most sensational rear-end collision in the world.
“The Time-Space Administration’s civil corridor safety level is less than one-third of that of military corridors,” Sandora shared my thoughts, “due to the vast scale, many systems are hastily assembled, making a large Ghost Ship fleet breaching the civil corridors not impossible.”
Sandora made a good point, but feasible solutions are limited. As she mentioned, the scale of the Macro World is so vast that, despite the Empire’s super efficiency, a large part of this network is made up of temporary solutions. To avoid the threat of Ghost Ships to civilian lines, we decided to have the Time-Space Administration increase its personnel, dispatch more Executors to patrol all worlds, ensure the first moment of detecting Ghost Ship traces, and temporarily lower civilian line passage permits to relieve work pressure on the Time-Space Administration.
This is an expedient measure; we cannot let the Macro World Network run in permanent slow motion just because of a few Ghost Ships. Though with the efforts of the Time-Space Administration, this network will eventually become robust enough to withstand ordinary Void drifting objects without fear. In the short term, identifying the source of those Ghost Ships is more important.
Regarding “Ghost Ships,” if they’re Earth’s, I’m not unfamiliar. Captain Jack’s adventures have taught us well about Earth’s Ghost Ships. But in an interstellar or world context, the origin and existence of Ghost Ships are more intriguing. Space Battleships are extremely sophisticated devices, hard to imagine functioning with full power without control and actively starting inter-world engines. We could assume they have intelligent autopilot systems, but that doesn’t explain why when Hades collided with those Ghost Ships at fifty-five Mach, there was no reaction from them.
“Ghost Ships with all crew killed but still functioning do exist,” Sandora explained what she knew about Ghost Ship cases, “many Interstellar Warships have very powerful endurance capabilities, and at a certain level, assisted by self-looping and various transcendent systems, they can operate continuously for millennia. These warships drifting in the Universe or between worlds become Ghost Ships, much like Earth’s Ghost Ships. However, ones that not only have power but can also leave the current world on their own, such Ghost Ships are unheard of.”
“The key is, we still can’t find where those Ghost Ships went,” I mused while stroking my chin, “we might have to wait for them to appear again. Since they first contacted the Macro World’s border, they probably have drifted close to the Imperial territory. In that case, strengthen the Leaving World Garden System’s scans around the Macro World, and increase border patrols. I reckon they won’t be long in appearing again.”
Sandora nodded, but before she could speak, an especially lively voice came from beside us: “Wow! The party’s started?! I’m not late, am I?”
Surprised, I looked up to see Qianqian leading a group of little ones rushing over. This perpetual child was at the helm, followed by a row of little girls of all sizes resembling a train set, who joyfully burrowed into the demons’ bonfire as soon as they greeted me. Next came Big Sister with a smile and Miss Lin looking idle and whistling, followed by four members of the Tiaozi Five. These four promptly occupied a prime spot and set up a Mahjong table, with Mahjong tiles shining brilliantly, clearly the legendary Dragon God Scale Mahjong. Then, Sayaka poked her head out from the crowd, with Dingdang sitting smugly on her head. How these two ended up together, I don’t know, but it was apparent Sayaka didn’t often join the lively events organized by the demons. Everything seemed fresh to her; she even considered swapping the Dingdang on her head with Alice to play with a Doll for a while…
Even more surprising was that the Little Ghost Anwina, who rarely leaves home, was also among the entourage. The extremely crowd-averse Ghost Maid was sneakily darting here and there, trying to minimize her presence, as if escaping while maneuvering to hide behind Sandora and me, shivering and flickering like an LED.
“Whoa, everyone’s here?”
When Big Sister sat before me, I finally got the chance to ask, “Was it Qianqian’s idea again?”
“What time do you think it is?”
Big Sister rolled her eyes at me, pointing to the Sky, “She’s always been like this, playing outside without a notion of time, never knows when to come home.”
I looked up; the Sky was already shrouded in darkness. The Atlantis Continent might have drifted beyond the continental boundaries, and after leaving those, “light” gradually fades. Translated to the outside world, it’s about evening, so I smiled awkwardly. Bingdisi nudged my elbow: “Why do I feel like your sister is like your mom?”
Then… Big Sister heard…
(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it at . Your support is my greatest motivation.)