Chapter 965: Chapter 965: Another Theory
“Hey, Ah Jun, you seem to have something on your mind?”
Sandora, truly attuned to my thoughts, could see I was just in a knot about something, even though I hadn’t realized it myself yet. She came over to ask, catching me off guard.
Qianqian, with her sharp ears, overheard Sandora, who hadn’t lowered her voice much, and bounced over, grabbing my arm nervously: “What? What? Ah Jun, are you in a bad mood? Ran into trouble in the Divine Realm?”
In the household, if Qianqian learns about something, it’s as good as everyone knowing. She has a way of broadcasting any news. I originally intended to tell only Sandora and Big Sister about what I found in the Divine Realm, but now it has to go public. Even the little ones approached with worried faces, forming a circle around us. I could only smile and wave them off: “Off upstairs, go play. It’s not about a fight this time, Father God showed me some strange things, that’s all. No need to worry, okay?”
Upon hearing it wasn’t a fight, Mercury Lamp instantly showed a lack of concern, flapping her wings and heading upstairs. She’s now one of the more obedient kids here, naturally followed by the doll girls with their sister, as Little Baobao was drawn back to her room by her nanny. Finally, the living room quieted down, leaving just us adults.
“Father God led me to the bottom layer of the Divine Realm,” I said bluntly as I threw myself onto the sofa, glancing at Sandora. “That place should be the oldest part of the Divine Realm, where I saw an unprecedentedly ancient Abyss Gate—as Father God described, that Abyss Gate is older than the history of the Divine Realm, even one of its very foundations.”
Next, I seized the moment to reveal more intelligence about the Abyss Gate.
As soon as these words came out, the surroundings erupted in surprise. Even Miss Lin the Prophet looked stunned, while Lilina folded her arms and shook her head knowingly: “Conspiracy, a blatant conspiracy, yes. The true puppeteer is Father God, and our leader here has actually been swapped by Father God. Father God’s ultimate goal must be to rule the Void without cavities… Hey, leader, don’t…”
“This must be the most unruly clergy ever,” Bingdisi turned her head, looking at Lilina flailing upside down in the basket, and muttered, “Even plotting against Father God—it seems that the clergy I know wouldn’t accomplish this even with two pounds of stimulants. Dingdang is quite a talent.”
Although many expressed surprise, there were still two who remained unmoved. One was Bingdisi, who knew the inside story, and the other was Sandora for the same reason. As for the remaining group of four, while their situation was better than Big Sister’s, there was still a hint of surprise in their expressions. It seems that the matter of the Divine Realm’s “Bottom Layer Abyss Gate” hasn’t reached widespread knowledge among the Divine Race, only circulating among the middle-tier Divines. Newbies like Yelsen might be aware of this ancient Abyss Gate’s existence but not its true nature—not unexpectedly, considering the crystal jungle gate set up by Father God. I doubt these daydreaming newbie immortals could ever stand in front of the Crystal Lake.
“I do know about the Abyss Gate at the bottom layer of the Divine Realm,” Sandora said leisurely, “Back in the Old Empire Era, some emperors who were invited to the Divine Realm by Father God had the chance to view the Abyss Gate. But unlike you, Ah Jun, who was led by Father God across the Crystal Lake directly into the domain of the Abyss Gate, that’s unprecedented.”
Lilina somehow sneaked back in and nudged my arm: “Leader, shouldn’t you wipe your shoes first? That’s more disgusting than stepping in dog poop.”
No one paid attention to this girl. I then spilled the whole thing about the Void catastrophe, which, according to Father God, seemed meaningless to life outside the Void Creatures. Besides us three “tribesmen” vaguely sensing it, ordinary life can’t predict or analyze the catastrophe. However, I felt Sandora and Qianqian might be interested; the former could be used as Baidu directly due to her vast knowledge, and the latter… well, she’s interested in everything.
Upon hearing about the Void catastrophe, everyone’s expressions changed, but after I finished speaking, at least half of them settled back down. Miss Lin leaned on the sofa, looking up: “Scared me into thinking it was doomsday for a moment, only to find out even Father God with a five-billion-year plan doesn’t know when it will happen.”
Qianqian clutched my arm nervously: “Ah Jun, Ah Jun, if there’s really a big catastrophe, would it be troublesome?”
Seeing her scrunched nose, I was 200% sure her worry about “trouble” wouldn’t go beyond the soy sauce prices rising at the east end of the street or no discounts on eggs at the supermarket on Sunday evening. Her sense of alert has always been rather whimsical.
“Turns out it’s something quite meaningless,” Sandora agreed with Father God’s opinion, “It can’t be predicted, analyzed, nor its existence confirmed or consequences understood. For you Void Creatures, it’s merely a conceptual thing—though it might be worth investigating, even if just theoretically…”
“Did you not just say it’s meaningless?” I glanced at Sandora.
Sandora shrugged her shoulders: “You know very well the Xyrin Apostles have a bit of an OCD, hearing something new and having to figure it out or they’re restless.”
I nodded, nearly forgetting these folks who became gods by sheer will have this quirk.
“Alright then, the Void catastrophe thing is just a backdrop. Actually, there’s another matter we should immediately research—” I clapped my hands to attract everyone’s attention and lowered my voice mysteriously, “Sandora, your previous construction waste might have accidentally smashed Father God’s basement…”
Everyone: “…Speak human language!”
“They discovered a spaceship fragment at the bottom layer of the Divine Realm, spat out by that ancient Abyss ancestor.” I spread my hands, “Because of this, the Abyss Gate has been upset for several days. Basically, Father God called me over mainly to quickly remove the unfortunate thing—oh right, nearly forgot about this. I have to give it to Taville quickly; it’s been soaking in the Abyss Gate for who knows how many years. Who knows what might go wrong.”
Sandora was left dumbfounded by the news and suddenly pinched my neck: “Ah Jun! This is the main point, alright! You should have said this first!”
“Uhh… Father God told it to me in that order, he went off-topic at the time…”
Miss Lin face-palmed with a long sigh: “Is this truly not the inherent trait of Void Creatures, Father God’s got the same quirk as you.”
I nodded: “At the very least, there’s definitive data showing that at least two-thirds of the Void Race have a tendency to daydream.”
I noticed I had caught Father God’s infection, now fond of emphasizing the Void Race’s population—it’s too hilarious!
Taville had long returned to regular work at the research center, but under my and Sandora’s half-forceful orders, she split off some less crucial research projects to her assistants and other research teams. Now she personally leads only a few key weapon projects and tasks requiring acute scientific acumen, such as restoring Old Empire technology. Her workload is reduced by nearly a third, noticeably revitalizing her spirit compared to usual. I told you from the start; this Glasses Sister has been overextending herself. Look how thoughtfully Sandora and I care for our subordinates…
When I brought back the unknown wreckage from the Divine Realm to the research center, luck was on my side—Taville was there in person. Normally, it’s always her mass projection I’m dealing with; I could almost consider her a sister to Gaia. Taville was busy scolding a newbie low-level assistant, which I rarely saw—a new sight today. I wondered what mistake that seemingly good-natured researcher made.
“She developed a new single-soldier missile using an oversized spatial accelerator, extending the blast radius from one kilometer to nearly five kilometers!” Taville pointed angrily at the researcher apologizing profusely.
“Isn’t that great,” Sandora grinned, as Pandora and Visca both smiled, “A revolutionary advancement, it could be used as a small fortress cannon.”
“The cost is that the missile lost its super space propulsion function, reducing its range to four kilometers.”
Everyone: “…”
“Her every idea is revolutionary, but the outcome is catastrophic.”
Taville sighed and let this miraculous researcher go, repeatedly emphasizing before she left: In the future, under no circumstances should she be allowed to complete projects independently.
We handed over that mysterious mechanical wreckage to Taville — though I wanted more than once to say it seemed like something fished out of Father God’s toilet, but fearing Sandora and Lin Xue’s bite, I held back — Taville developed unprecedented interest in it, both in its origin and structure, capturing his coffin-obsessed heart thoroughly. While the origin of the object is still unclear, Taville has already drawn a conclusion using his expertise: the wreckage likely isn’t part of a warship’s main structure.
“It could have been cast off by the spaceship, but isn’t part of the ship’s structural components,” Taville said, “the still intact parts of the wreckage show Imperial warship identification marks, but the thing lacks an external energy transfer valve. It might be an independent workstation or information gathering platform, because we discovered inside the wreckage a very powerful antenna matrix. Furthermore, there’s an initial hypothesis: this might come from an Abyss Deep Diving Ship.”
This is incredible news, yet Sandora and I weren’t too surprised. This is quite easy to imagine as the deep-diving ship is the sole record among imperial constructs to have performed missions deep within the Abyss Gate. Aside from this crazy contraption, I can’t think of anything else Father God could fish out of his toilet… the Abyss Gate.
Sandora added her viewpoint: Since the wreckage is not one of the ship’s structural components, what exactly was its function — Taville explained this using the blueprints of Abyss Deep Diving Ships and voyage logs.
“The deep-diving ship’s logs mentioned the starship, during its final mission, bypassed its radar limits to reach the deepest point. To ensure it could find its way back, the deep-diving ship left a ‘beacon’ at the radar’s critical point. I suspect this wreckage might be part of the beacon’s base.”
I realized and corrected, “It should be the burnt remnants of the base, it looks too battered.”
Taville ignored my comments, continuing seriously: “Unfortunately, this base doesn’t carry a data recording device, or it’s already burned out. In any case, we couldn’t find useful data on it — the only confirmed anomaly is: the Abyss didn’t completely destroy it. This wreckage barely shows any signs of Abyss damage; all its marks stem from a shield overload explosion.”
Sandora’s expression became serious, “Clean as if it never had contact with the Abyss?”
Taville nodded.
I suddenly found myself puzzled. Although I hadn’t noticed before, with Taville pointing it out, I now realized the issue — something soaked in the Abyss Domain for god knows how many years managed to remain even slightly intact? Moreover, it’s barely showing any Abyss reaction — this is extremely abnormal!
Despite the Abyss Gate’s special nature in the Divine Realm, which Father God said is now harmless and no longer impacting the real world, it’s still an Abyss Gate. Could the other side be equally harmless? More importantly, this wreckage was originally not in the Divine Realm’s Abyss Gate. It started from an Abyss Gate discovered by the Empire, drifting in a truly dangerous and insane Abyss Domain… something else worth thinking about.
“Aside from the lack of Abyss reaction, there’s another piece of information,” Taville indeed mentioned this, “the deep-diving ship never reached the Divine Realm— the voyage logs show the ship started from a remote world’s Abyss Gate, later returning the same way, but this beacon’s base drifted out from the Divine Realm…”
“The two Abyss Gates are connected.”
Sandora nodded, “Or more broadly speaking: perhaps all Abyss Gates are interconnected!”
“The other side of the gate is a unified world: the Abyss Domain,” Taville said slowly, “This is a theory postulated long ago — albeit somewhat niche — which posits Abyss Gates, as the name suggests, are outlets to another world, separated from ours by a ‘membrane,’ with Abyss Gates being holes on this membrane. Entering an Abyss Gate from one side of this membrane could potentially reappear from another Abyss Gate if survival is possible. However, this hypothesis has remained unverified, as no probe has been built that can swim long enough in the Abyss Domain. Even the strength of deep-diving ships is insufficient to test this hypothesis — the time they endure inside the Abyss isn’t enough, nor is radar strength sufficient to scan for another Abyss Gate…”
“Though now this theory is essentially proven,” Sandora continued, “the beacon released from a remote world’s Abyss Gate managed, after ages, to surface from the Divine Realm. Yet how was this achieved?”
I was left dumbfounded by Taville’s miraculous conjecture, then puzzled by Sandora’s question. Indeed, how was it done? The deep-diving ship presumably has greater endurance than a beacon, yet couldn’t persist long enough in Abyss conditions to locate another exit. How did this small beacon base endure so many millennia and emerge unscathed from the Divine Realm?
At this moment, Big Sister suddenly remarked gently, “Things supposedly infected by the Abyss ultimately appear so ‘clean’ before us — hasn’t this happened before?”
Seeing everyone puzzled, Big Sister slightly hinted, “Remember the last Star Ring Fragment?”
I immediately recalled it, the non-flammable trash from the Old Empire that crashed on the gods’ turf — so, everything revolves around trash and recycling trash, doesn’t it?
“Barrier Star has two star rings, one shattered into pieces, all infected with Abyss, over ninety percent likely the star ring was severely eroded by the Abyss environment before blowing apart. Yet a fragment that crashed in the Star Domain management world was clean. Isn’t this similar to the situation with the beacon wreckage in front of us?”
I felt my breath growing rapid, gradually becoming excited; it felt like I might once again witness history unfold — these three or four years have been almost historical.
“Things entering the Abyss aren’t necessarily infected; occasionally, they emerge unscathed… On the other side of the Abyss, what’s happening; could there be safe zones? Or more specifically, even within Abyss Gates, could there be entirely ordered ‘isolated islands’?” Taville’s words descended; I exhaled: that was a historical statement.
“Hey, the database retrieved from the deep-diving ship has been analyzed, right?” I asked.
A few days ago, Taville already extracted the database from me — this process sounds so shocking, so let’s not delve too deeply into it, I’ll get psychologically scarred from excessive thinking…
Taville nodded, “Yes, the database contains most of the deep-diving ship’s more precise blueprints, voyage logs, some incomplete Old Empire technology, and vast coordinate intelligence. However, these coordinates are now useless. With the Old Empire’s collapse, they likely became imaginary with the empire’s territory disintegration.”
I spoke slowly, “Do you think we should build another deep-diving ship… cough cough, I know, we agreed not to recklessly send people into the Abyss, but if we use deep-diving ship principles to create unmanned probes and toss them into Abyss Gates to see what’s up?”
((^o^)/ Network restored!!)(To be continued. If you enjoy this work, welcome to Qidian () to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)