Chapter 1283: Salvaging the Cargo

The heavy doors leading to the “Main Control Room” swung open. Yet, not only was Amber utterly baffled, even High Lord Gawain—the so-called “Satellite Sage”—couldn’t fathom how this had happened. He refused to believe that the half-elf’s “pat-and-fix” method had truly repaired the ancient security system. After much thought, the only explanation he could settle on was coincidence—though he didn’t believe in coincidences at all.

“Well, it is ancient tech, after all. Over a million years old. No wonder it’s bound to have glitches… Wait, did you hear something inside?” Amber muttered beside him.

Gawain strode past her, heading through the doorway. The moment he stepped inside, a flood of flickering red lights assaulted his vision, instantly setting his heart racing. Then he took in the scene within the Main Control Room.

It was an enormous, fan-shaped hall, filled with countless consoles that looked like control panels, alongside ancient devices whose functions were completely indecipherable. Bathed in the ominous red glow, countless holographic projections hovered above the equipment, their interfaces flashing with harsh red warnings and chaotic symbols and graphs. Dark crimson stains marred the once-silver floor and walls, pockmarked with deep pits and corrosion—signs of some terrible poison having ravaged this place. It was as if a colossal beast, its veins coursing with deadly venom, had stalked through the hall, leaving behind a trail of toxic scars.

The room was filled with a relentless cacophony of alarms, shrill and nerve-wracking—the very sounds Amber had heard moments ago.

“This doesn’t look good…” Amber followed closely, eyes wide as she took in the devastation. “I’m guessing this place didn’t look like this when it was operational…”

“It’s the Taint of the Inverse Tide… I knew it,” Gawain murmured, shaken but not entirely surprised by the sight beyond the door. The glaring red warning lights and continuous alarms filled the chamber as he stepped toward the consoles stained with corruption. At the far end of the fan-shaped hall, a massive hemispherical device dominated the space. Above it, a giant holographic display flickered with chaotic lines and countless years’ worth of warning messages. In the center of the distorted image, a broken line of text caught Gawain’s eye:

System critically damaged. Unknown intrusion out of control…

Footsteps echoed behind him as the others entered the room one by one. The flashing alarms and warning lights made everyone tense and stunned. Even Victoria, who usually maintained a calm, indifferent expression, instinctively gripped her battle staff tighter and edged closer to Modir. Melita stepped forward from the group, her voice low and grave.

“We’re too late… maybe by decades, maybe centuries. This place has already been corrupted.”

“Yes. The corruption is complete. And after the damage was done, the culprit vanished without a trace,” Gawain said, surveying the ravaged control room. The signs of contamination were horrifying, yet the perpetrator was nowhere to be found. “There’s no spatial rift visible, and the chamber itself shows no signs of breach… How did ‘that thing’ get in—and how did it leave?”

Melita exhaled softly. “Perhaps it ‘evolved’ here, gaining some ability to move beyond the laws of matter… Or maybe it had another escape route.”

“But the ship is still flying,” Kamail floated over, his voice buzzing. “Maybe the damage isn’t as severe as we think—at least it’s still carrying out its patrols between the divine realms.”

“Is it, though?” Gawain frowned deeply, his voice slow and heavy. “Is it really still patrolling? Every control system here is in collapse, the mainframe unresponsive. The entire control room is like a corpse, yet the ship continues its routine cruise for centuries on end. Don’t you find that more terrifying than if it had crashed?”

“A headless corpse isn’t scary. What’s scary is when it’s still alive,” Daniel’s face was bathed in the red glow, his voice low and chilling. “Especially when it’s been living like that for hundreds of years after losing its head…”

Daniel’s words sent a cold shiver through everyone. They all realized the true horror behind this dead control room and the ship that kept cruising as if nothing was wrong. Then, the floor beneath them rumbled—a deep vibration, as if the ship’s engines were initiating some massive operation.

Amber practically jumped, clinging to Gawain’s arm like a koala. Gawain instinctively turned toward the largest hemispherical hologram.

The chaotic lines on the projection trembled. Despite the system’s collapse, some remnants still stubbornly operated. He glimpsed blurry external surveillance feeds, and at the edge of the ship’s course, a massive shadow loomed. Among the flickering characters, he barely made out the words: “Approaching… home port…”

…

Far above the corrupted, darkened wasteland, storm clouds churned with raw energy. Charged clouds crackled with powerful currents, their bright flashes briefly illuminating the perpetually dim ruins below. Amid the rumbling thunder, Filna, overseeing the deployment of rune stones, suddenly lifted her head, her expression darkening as she stared into the sky—not at the clouds themselves, but seemingly beyond them, toward some distant point.

Beside her, Lerna, also supervising the site, looked up simultaneously. The twin elves fell silent for a moment before Filna broke the quiet, her voice echoing directly in Lerna’s mind.

“Do you feel it?”

“Yes. Someone opened the Main Control Room door on Ship Three… that locked door,” Lerna replied coldly through their mental link. The usually smiling elf’s face was shadowed with an unfamiliar gloom. “An intrusion.”

Filna bowed her head slightly, as if listening for faint sounds from afar. After a moment, she said, “Identity confirmed: Star Chart Keeper. An ancient alien access code.”

“The Star Chart Keeper? That pitiful warden?” Lerna’s eyes hardened. “Isn’t she trapped in her miserable ‘sanctuary’? Locked in by the false constructs she spawned herself… How could she have escaped?”

“That wretched warden is still trapped. She won’t break the stalemate for another hundred thousand years, I can feel it…” Filna said through their shared link, raising her gaze to the endless wasteland. “Maybe it’s just a few crawling things, stumbling into forbidden ground by accident…”

“Do we ignore it?” Lerna frowned.

“The cost is too high. Our mortal forms are too weak to maintain a deeper connection,” Filna shook her head after a moment’s thought. “But no need to worry. Ship Three hasn’t sent any further alerts. Those weak intruders—even if they reach the control room—can’t affect anything. And if they dare try, the automated defense systems will correct their ‘mistake.’”

“Maybe. But it’s still a variable,” Lerna said, eyes on the distant plain where treants and mutated giants labored. A deep blue rift had formed in a pit below, quietly resting in the earth’s hollow. “I don’t like surprises. Perhaps we should speed things up—make these clumsy creatures exhaust their remaining value.”

“If these fools were even remotely useful, we wouldn’t be stuck in this wasteland so long,” Filna said icily, watching the mutated and treant priests like swarming insects and rotting wood. “Not only are they inefficient, but the rune stones they produce keep failing.”

Lerna narrowed her eyes, reminded of recent incidents. “Rune stones… There have been multiple failures lately. Those painstakingly crafted stones vanish without a trace soon after being deployed into the deep blue currents. Bolken can’t find the cause—his reports always say ‘under analysis,’ ‘under study.’”

“Perhaps we expected too much from these cultists. Their crude skills can’t handle the knowledge we gave them—even something as basic as making polarized controllers.”

“But they’re all we have,” Lerna said, shaking her head. “If quality is lacking, then compensate with quantity. They don’t tire, and for their ‘great cause,’ they’ll work day and night. Increase rune stone output, accelerate adjustments to the deep blue network… The variable has appeared; the plan must be completed swiftly.”

Their mental conversation ended. The twin elves remained silent, standing atop a massive stone, overlooking the nearby “construction site.” To the treant priests wandering nearby, the two elves appeared motionless except for the occasional glance skyward.

Not far off, the stabilized deep blue rift lay quietly in the earth’s pit. Two mutated giants trudged toward it, carrying a black stone tablet etched with complex runes, glowing faintly—ready to be cast into the rift.

…

In the realm of water elementals, deep beneath the boundless sea.

A river of glowing blue currents flowed through the ocean depths, separated from the surrounding seawater by a shifting, intangible “interface layer.” This underwater river was a breathtaking spectacle, yet the native water elementals kept their distance. They disliked the pure magical energy saturating the deep blue network—it was harmful to their health.

But the elemental creatures from other regions didn’t share this dilemma. Not only did they appreciate the beauty of the magical energy currents, sometimes they even longed to dive headfirst into them.

Two sea witch sentinels hovered in the seawater, very close to one of the deep blue energy streams. One had long, pale purple hair; the other’s blue locks cascaded over her shoulders.

They gripped their trident-shaped lightwave blades tightly, particle pulse rifles strapped to their waists, eyes fixed intently on the surging blue “river” before them, their bodies taut with alertness.

These two royal guards had been assigned here as sentinels, tasked with monitoring the tides of the deep blue network channel. At this moment, they were fully focused.

Suddenly, the pale purple-haired sea witch seemed to sense something in advance. Her trident lifted slightly. The next instant, a swift black shadow darted through the rushing blue light current—an unknown entity moving at incredible speed through the energy torrent. But even that was no match for the well-trained royal guards’ reflexes.

The trident shot forward, the lightwave blade slicing effortlessly through the intangible energy flow. A crisp “ding” echoed through the water. With a flick of her hand, the purple-haired witch sent a large, pitch-black cube shimmering with faint glimmers flying out from the deep blue current, tumbling through the endless sea toward the distance.

“Hey! Got it, got it! Vera, hurry and reel that thing in—use your big tail!”

“No need to tell me!” The blue-haired sea witch, Vera, spun around swiftly. Her long serpentine tail stretched out through the water, instantly extending several times its length. In a flash, she wrapped it around the seemingly heavy black cube. The weight yanked her down sharply, but the next moment she controlled the surrounding seawater to anchor herself firmly, then dragged the cube back toward her.

“Done, Caroline,” Vera looked up at her comrade. “Let’s head back to the outpost.”

Caroline, the purple-haired witch, smiled brightly. She slung her trident over her shoulder and curled her tail around the edge of the black cube. Together, they hauled the hefty prize toward the massive shadow faintly floating on the sea surface not far away.

With a splash, the two sea witch sentinels surfaced on the boundless ocean, where the eternal downpour still showed no sign of stopping.

At the edge of the outpost, a small platform automatically lowered. The two witches placed their heavy “cargo” on it, then nimbly leapt out of the water onto the platform. It rose steadily and slid sideways. Moments later, Caroline and Vera returned to the outpost’s resting area, their prize in tow.

One after the other, they pushed and pulled the heavy black cube onto an empty patch of ground.

Nearby, three identical black cubes already sat quietly in a row.

Each cube bore a large damaged area—scars from the powerful strike of the lightwave blade. The intricate internal structures had been completely destroyed by the impact, rendering them useless.

Vera gave her tail a strong flick, nudging the fourth cube into its designated spot. The last faint glow of runes on its surface faded as its internal system collapsed, leaving four pitch-black cubes neatly lined up.

“Another one down. Including this latest catch, that makes four in just a few days,” Caroline said, eyeing the dark cubes with a puzzled expression. “So what exactly are these things…? What are we supposed to do with them…? Why hasn’t the Queen responded yet?”

“Seriously? Do you think the High Witches can analyze and discuss all this without taking time?” Vera glanced at her partner. “We just have to be patient.”

(End of chapter)