Chapter 941: Chapter 941: Talking to Them
The restraint device for the energy plug has malfunctioned. Although its hardware structure remains intact due to its abnormal design specifications, the energy pipeline has overloaded and burned out. Now, for system self-preservation, the entire energy plug component is locked firmly in mid-air, unable to fully drop into the receptacle slot below.
The bottom of the energy plug is already level with the ground, and dangerous energy sparks continuously burst from the contact point between the base edge of the large cylindrical body and the crystallization ring on the ground. Each spark carries enough power to pierce through the armor of light warships. If not for an abundance of highly energy-resistant materials mixed into the manufacturing of the energy plug container, this cylindrical sealed space would have likely been breached by now.
According to Sandora, the material used for the restraint device fixing the energy plug is something with an outrageous physical strength. Without large machinery and ample time, even leader-level apostles cannot cut through it by brute force. Moreover, the mix of Star Gold Stone materials in it makes the restraint frame’s resistance to energy attacks terrifyingly high at 99%—essentially ruling out the possibility of breaking it with a cannon.
If we had enough time, Sandora and I would not worry about being unable to slowly cut through this thing, but now the issue is time, so I can only contact an outside spectator—calling in the strongest guy I know.
Due to the treacherous environment, space transmission can’t be used hastily. Lin can only “run in” herself; however, because Sandora and I have already cleared the path and left obvious tracks, Lin’s speed is much faster than when we came over earlier. Less than ten minutes later, she burst in, accompanied by a clanging sound echoing all the way from outside. This clumsy Dragon God girl indeed doesn’t use her head much; she charged in following the principle that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, turning at right angles at all forks. This could be inferred from her lowering her head and yelling loudly as she rushed in—so much so that when she came charging in with her wall-like dragon scale shield raised, I almost instinctively kicked her back out—of course, due to the huge disparity in strength between us, the final result was Sandora having to pry me off the energy plug.
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
Dragging her shield behind her, Lin apologized like she was bullied and crying, timidly shrinking back. I rubbed my dizzy head and waved my hand to indicate that I hadn’t been knocked out and—of course, now the thing to be more grateful for is that the energy plug hadn’t been knocked out of position.
“The environment here is bad, how long can you hold out?”
I looked at the Dragon God girl. She had a layer of faint golden energy shield surrounding her, which should be her divine power—because reportedly, Lin doesn’t use conventional magic. She only has three types of power: brute strength, the dragon’s physical form, and the instinct of a god. This layer of shield is evidently the third one. Lin’s Dragon God body is highly resistant to damage, but ghost energy is extremely powerful, second only to the void, and even the god’s body would be burned by ghost energy. Moreover, Lin’s strength among the Divine Clan Tiaozi Five is almost at the bottom level, with only her defense being somewhat strong. Without talents like mine that are immune to energy, it’s unknown if she can endure until the task is completed.
“It’s fine, I’m very robust.” Lin weakly smiled and clenched her fist, making an air-popping sound in her palm, “About an hour. It’s really hot here…”
An hour is not too long, but it’s already enough, so Sandora explained her work to Lin.
“Press this cylinder down into the hole below as smoothly as possible, without any shaking, especially when it reaches the bottom; absolutely don’t let it touch the surrounding crystallization ring, or all the energy will spray from the ring. You have ten minutes, then Ajun and I will rush to the core area at full speed.” Sandora explained the task in detail to Lin, and listening on the side, I felt my scalp tingle, realizing what a difficult and insane task Lin was about to do manually.
An enormous cylinder with a weight of tens of thousands of tons and nearly the size of a building, fixed in mid-air by dense and locked ultra-strong restraint devices, Lin now has to use her brute force to push this entire system downward by fifty-two meters, locking the entire energy plug into the receptacle below, without even shaking a millimeter during the process!
Because the receptacle below the energy plug is only slightly larger in diameter than the cylinder above, akin to the level of hunger required for Dingdang to fit in after three days of starvation, and Lin must complete this operation from the top of the energy plug. Any tiny movement she makes above will result in significantly amplified shaking below, this difficulty…
To ordinary people, this is like wearing thirty pounds of lead on the arms to thread a needle, and when threading the needle, the thread can’t even touch the eye; anyone who proposes such requirements would surely be pressed to the ground by homemakers for a severe beating.
Even Lin, with her tremendous Dragon God strength, frowned at the precision required for this task, requiring absolute control—not only strength but also pinpoint accuracy. This mission’s requirements are too demanding; first, she must have absolute ultimate strength to achieve precise displacement under hefty external forces easily; second, she must possess good eyesight and strong psychological quality, which I feel Lin might lack in the latter.
“Alright, I’ll try… No, I will succeed! Please leave it to me!”
After a few seconds of contemplation, Lin retracted her precious shield and said resolutely to Sandora and me, “After pressing this column down, do I need to keep it from moving?”
“Wait for our signal; I will constantly monitor the energy numbers in the core area. Once the ghost energy well halts operation, you can let go, and by then, Ajun and I should have successfully entered the core area.”
“Understood. I’ll start now.”
Lin nodded knowingly, then transformed into the Dragon form; however, compared to her god form which spans hundreds of meters, this dragon form is petite, only a few meters long, almost a little cramped in this narrow space. But there’s no choice; only by approaching her god form can Lin more skillfully control her strength. She isn’t like Bingdisi, an old hand who can exert 100% of her power in any form.
Lin flapped her wings and flew to the top of the energy plug, swiftly cutting off some relatively easy-to-break restraint devices according to Sandora’s prompting, then she let out a clear call and began to exert downward force on the massive stuck device.
Don’t assume Lin can’t find leverage in mid-air; she is a god, and it’s easy for her to create solid points to leverage in empty space. What I’m considering now is another matter.
“Sandora, how do you think she will come down later?”
Recalling Lin’s unique mouth-first landing method, I felt worried.
Sandora: “…”
“Squeak—” The harsh sound of metal snapping and twisting began to echo in the surrounding air from all directions. The restraints so strong as to be outrageous, under Lin’s force that violates humanitarian standards, started resonating under strain and then, the gigantic energy plug began smoothly and slowly descending.
At this moment, I was completely speechless: how high is the physical strength of this thing? It’s hard to state an exact value, but even a small asteroid striking it wouldn’t deflect it. However, such an indestructible thing really could be pushed down by Lin’s brute force—and as stable as grasping a feather, with not even a millimeter’s wobble!
And the most extreme part is I looked up and found that Lin actually only used one hand… oh, one paw…
“Careful! The speed shouldn’t be too fast!” Sandora loudly reminded, “Or the restraint device will rip off the energy plug’s shell.”
Then she pulled my arm hard: “Come, to the core area!”
We dashed through the passage shrouded in thick smoke and ghost energy lightning, the sight along the way was shocking. All metal obstacles were torn into pieces by shock waves, making the path easier to navigate, and at many corner walls, I saw top-to-bottom oval embossing. Combining all this, two facts come to light: first, Lin’s shield is very hard; second, that girl’s physical education teacher died early…
The road to the core area is a wide avenue; aside from the erupting energy sparks, twisted metal obstacles are barely seen, greatly facilitating our advance. Soon Sandora and I arrived at the core area door, and at the same time, the ghost energy coagulation phenomenon in the surrounding air suddenly started to decrease.
“Looks like Lin has pressed down the energy plug,” Sandora quickly operated on the database gate that appeared undamaged, “Ajun, help form a barrier at the gate; when the main door opens later, don’t let the external energy storm in.”
I immediately complied, as the wide gate finally emitted a slight mechanical transmission sound. After some residual Ghost Energy Sparks shot out from the connecting parts on the door, it slowly began to open.
Because it had been in the high-concentration Energy Field for too long, even the gate had been charged, becoming something akin to an “Energy Battery.”
As per Sandora’s reminder, I set up a Spirit Barrier at the end of the corridor to block the extremely high-intensity Ghost Energy on the other side. Due to the interference in the flow path, one could clearly see a large number of crystal-like light clusters suddenly appearing in the air beyond the Spirit Barrier. These light clusters clung to the Spirit Barrier upon appearing and quickly formed something as beautiful as ice flowers in winter, crystal clear and emitting a blue glow, beautiful yet with deadly danger.
These are Ghost Energy Crystals condensed out of thin air. If there were an inductive coil nearby, these “ice flowers” could even directly generate Secondary Ghost Energy Crystals. In fact, this is also the production method of a small number of Ghost Energy Crystals—the energy concentration and activity outside have obviously reached an extremely dangerous Critical Point. Sandora’s reminder was very correct, even if the Ghost Energy Well stopped operating, the abundant energy here would destroy the spaceship’s wreckage.
“Just ahead is the database.”
Sandora lightly tugged me back to reality from the pretty crystals on the barrier and then took the lead to walk toward the crystal tower in the center of the hall.
The core area is the most well-protected place. Until Sandora opened the door here, it had not suffered from the Energy Storm invasion, so upon entering the hall, I felt as if I had entered another world.
Outside, the energy rampaged, explosions followed one after another, and the sea of fire seemed continuous. With every step, Ghost Energy Sparks bombarded us in multiples, while in the hall, everything was calm with no explosions or dense smoke. All the equipment was operating quietly, numerous control terminals lined the walls, and data exchanges were occurring on these terminals. Once the gate closed, only the low humming of the equipment remained, like an ordinary control hall just vacated and not yet fully shut down.
“All the equipment has been activated and is operating normally. It’s possible this entire experimental module was pre-programmed for unmanned operation, which fits the positioning of the Abyss Deep Diving Ship,” said Sandora. “It’s a database model I’ve never seen before.”
The so-called database was just dozens of meters ahead. It was almost worthy of being described as magnificent—a crystal tower connecting the ground below and the high ceiling above, emitting a faint blue light. A layer of translucent light film floated on the surface of the database, expanding and contracting gently as if breathing with the bright and dim of the crystal tower. At the extremely high top of the crystal tower, a web-like complex of crystalline pipes intertwined and gathered at the connection between the tower and the ceiling, continually spreading rings of light, visually splendid.
I’ve never seen such a beautiful database before.
“Fortunately, the main structure is undamaged, and the operating system is intact,” Sandora stood in front of the crystal tower and lightly touched the fluctuating light film. Several rapidly refreshing holographic projections instantly emerged in the surrounding air. “This database is really strange. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”
“How should we handle this? Move the whole thing back?” I glanced at the towering crystal tower before me. I hadn’t imagined the database would be such a vast entity; I thought disassembling a bunch of Memory Cores would suffice. But even though my Personal Space has a vast capacity, could this really be disassembled within a few dozen minutes?
“There’s no other way; it’s impossible to transfer all its data in a short time,” Sandora swiftly operated the holographic projections in front of the crystal tower, her brows slightly furrowed. “Its basic principles are unknown, and its information storage methods are unprecedented. Was this thing really made with Empire Technology?”
Despite her puzzled self-talk, Sandora successfully found a way to enable the database. The blue aura on the crystal tower brightened significantly in an instant, and a monotone synthesized electronic voice echoed in the surrounding air: “External information connection request detected, verifying request information, submitting to Empire Central Data Network—Severe error, Empire Central Data Network not detected, network nonexistent. Switching to local mode operation.”
“Local recognition library successfully started, determining external link request, applicant: Sandora Kervy Yurasis, permissions, NT, Emperor, confirming receipt of Leader information, service mode open. It is an honor to have your personal inquiry, Your Majesty Yurasis.”
I was silent for a few seconds and said, “Sandora, that ‘Your Majesty Yurasis’ refers to you, right?”
Why does that sound so unusual?
Sandora gave me a sidelong glance: “Don’t tell me you haven’t remembered my full name. In specific circumstances, my title is Your Majesty Yurasis. Nevertheless, it’s surprising that my information was logged in its local service library, saving me a lot of trouble.”
As Sandora spoke, she called up the structural diagram of the database itself, intending to find out how to safely disassemble this crystal tower. Meanwhile, I idly looked around: my role seemed to be that of a bodyguard here, best to let Sandora handle the professional moments.
“Hmm?”
While walking around the database hall, my eyes swept over a collection of holographic projections nearby, and something suddenly caught my eye, making me stop instinctively. “What is this… Sandora! Come take a look at this!”
“What’s the matter?”
Thinking something was amiss, Sandora executed a Space Jump, appearing beside me. However, I merely directed her gaze to a piece of holographic projection in front of us: “This seems like a side note casually written by a Researcher. What do you think it means?”
“This… could it be…” Sandora’s gaze fell on a line of text, her face showing an expression of disbelief.
The text reads as follows:
At XX moment XX coordinates, the deep-diving ship entered the marked Abyss Gate. Scanning devices began receiving strange signals, manifesting as chaos. After special processing by Chief Ocam, the signal exhibited a certain pattern, currently under analysis.
…The deep-diving ship traveled for more than three days; strange signals persisted, indeed there were “things” in the Abyss Domain. Chief Ocam’s conjecture was verified, but more substantial evidence is needed.
…On the sixteenth day of navigation, confirmed that the Abyss Gate was at the extreme edge of scanning capability. Space within the Abyss was descriable, at least the deep-diving ship successfully performed “Displacement” within. Chief Ocam decided to continue forward, but we left a jump coordinate to prevent losing the Abyss Gate’s position if we ventured too deep. We have gathered a certain amount of intelligence and must return to the Main Material World alive to upload the information.
…Shield strength of the deep-diving ship has begun to decrease; the power of the Abyss has affected the second isolation layer. The Ghost Energy Well’s output still has remaining capacity, but the technician team judges that the Starship’s Defense System has reached its limit. There is still some distance to Chief Ocam’s calculated “Call Beacon”—unfortunately, we cannot reach them from this position, but before the Starship’s return, we have decided to attempt a call.
…On the thirtieth day of navigation, on the return journey. Shield is nearing the red line but has stabilized with backup devices. Previously, we safely passed the jump coordinates, and the Abyss Gate and the Main Material World have reappeared within sensor range. The crew is filled with triumphant joy; emotional module adjustment is needed to prevent job errors. Calculations indicate the prior tentative call has reached the other side but given the Starship had not reached the “Call Beacon” when the call was made, the signal may have fully decayed to zero.
…On the fortieth day, the deep-diving ship is about to exit the danger zone, confirming the mission is nearing completion. In the end, “they” did not respond.
We shall prepare for the next deep dive, for the Empire.
—End—(To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to come to Qidian () to vote for recommendations, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)