Chapter 1285: Kindred Runaways

Outside the control room, silence still reigned. Bright lights illuminated the long corridor, and the steady hum of machinery echoed faintly from deep within the ancient walls and floors. It was as if two worlds existed—inside the control room, the alarm lights flickered relentlessly and sirens wailed nonstop, but standing outside, it all felt unreal, like a cruel illusion.

The ship continued to “operate smoothly” and “normally,” even though its core control center had completely collapsed, and its main system hadn’t issued a single command. It was like a hollow steel shell, every component running on its own without any higher orders. Countless self-operating parts worked together to keep this iron giant afloat—but what mysterious force drove them remained an enigma.

Gawain and his group returned to the brightly lit corridor. Earlier, walking here had felt uneventful, but now, surrounded by the glowing lights and the steady mechanical drone, an inexplicable chill crept over them from all directions. It was the cold sting of uncovering a hidden truth—they were walking inside a strange shell, every part of which was moving under the influence of some unknown power.

These parts might even have “eyes.”

“I’m getting nervous… I’m really getting nervous…” Amber muttered, her eyes darting anxiously around. “I just feel like this ship can… sense us…”

“Stop scaring yourself,” Gawain said calmly, glancing at the jittery half-elf before striding forward. “Let’s get outside quickly.”

They quickened their pace, rushing through the connecting passages and wide-open bulkhead doors they had explored slowly before. Amber kept worrying about traps or automated weapons suddenly springing up in the corridors, but luckily, nothing happened. Soon, they reached the bulkhead leading to the “Steel Land.” Outside, the dark, chaotic “sky” felt more reassuring than the brightly lit interior of the ship.

Back on the “Steel Land,” Victoria immediately found the memory crystal she had placed on a nearby platform. Carefully tucking the potentially vital data storage device close, she turned to the group’s leader. “Your Majesty, what’s our next move?”

After their mission at the Tower of the Reverse Tide, she knew this legendary ruler—versed in mysterious knowledge and able to read the ancient Voyager script—understood much about these ancient “relics.” Though curious, her loyalty and trust made her accept it all as fact without question.

Gawain looked up, recalling the blurry images he’d seen on the malfunctioning terminal—perhaps a navigation device?—and started walking toward the distance. “This way. I suspect this direction leads to the ship’s docking area.”

The group followed swiftly. Suddenly, a tremor shook the depths of the massive ship again, but this time, everyone remained much calmer.

The ship was slowing down, possibly adjusting its orientation. It seemed equipped with independent gravity generators, so the crew barely felt the changes, but one thing was clear: it was preparing to dock.

At that moment, a faint glow appeared in the dark chaos beyond the shield. Mary, walking at the edge of the group, instinctively looked up and gasped softly, “Ah! Something’s emerging over there!”

Gawain raised his head, following Mary’s gaze. In the dim haze, a massive structure was slowly taking shape—a jagged-edged polygonal giant, roughly resembling a snowflake. The distance and darkness obscured details, but its vague outline unmistakably shared the same origin as the colossal ship beneath their feet. Scattered lights dotted its surface, illuminating parts of the land while other areas remained shrouded in darkness.

In the next moment, the steel giant began to slowly “sink” toward the ship’s edge. Gawain realized: the ship was adjusting its posture, steering toward this enormous facility—its “home port.”

Melita stepped aside, enveloped in a shimmering light. She transformed swiftly into her dragon form, her deep, commanding voice resonating: “Everyone, get on! We need to hurry. This ship might dock soon—our time to explore is limited.”

The group climbed onto the broad back of the dragon. Melita beat her mighty wings, soaring carefully within the ship’s shielded space, skimming perilously close over decks and platforms. The ship’s edge soon came into view.

“What’s that?” Amber, perched behind Melita’s neck, craned her head downward, suddenly alert.

Gawain moved closer, following Amber’s pointing finger. His brow furrowed as he took in the scene below.

This was an unexplored area, located at the polygonal edge of the ancient ship—like some kind of interface. On the silvery alloy deck, Gawain spotted what looked like plant remains.

Massive branches, withered, twisted vines, huge fallen leaves scattered across the deck, and smaller shrubs or flowers stubbornly growing among the ruins. The enormous plant remnants had clearly been dead for a long time, but the smaller greenery sprouting from them was alive and thriving, lush and vibrant under the ship’s artificial lighting.

“…It looks like a very, very, very huge… plant,” Melita’s voice came from ahead, tinged with awe. “And those things are just parts of it… By my egg chamber, look at those thinnest twigs—each as thick as a beam! I don’t think even the great Thorin Tree was this big!”

“Definitely the remains of a giant plant, with smaller plants growing from it…” Gawain murmured, equally amazed. Suddenly, he remembered something and turned to Kamail. “You mentioned before that when you first saw this ‘Steel Land’ from afar, you thought you saw something hanging off its edge, right?”

“Yes,” Kamail nodded, now seeing the huge vines and dead branches approaching below. “That must have been these things. But back then, I didn’t realize they were actually a bunch of dead plants.”

Amber scratched her head, pointing at the torn ends of the vines and roots at the ship’s edge. “Look, there are clear tear marks—like they were ripped or violently broken off. The branches and leaves obviously dried out and fell from a larger organism.”

Gawain nodded thoughtfully. Just then, Daniel, perched on the dragon’s back, looked up toward the distance, his expression grave. “Everyone, I think… we’ve just seen that ‘larger organism.’”

“Huh? What do you mean…” Amber started to say, then glanced toward the dark void beside them. Her face froze, eyes wide with shock. “What the hell is that?!”

The ancient ship completed its final posture adjustment and deceleration. Ahead, the “home port” finally revealed its full form to the unexpected visitors. Gawain and Amber saw a man-made structure far larger than the ship beneath them, floating in the darkness. Compared to their vessel, this was the true “Steel Land.” Its scale defied human sight—even the keenest supernaturals could only see its iron-gray alloy surface stretching endlessly into the dark, swallowed by sparse lights and mysterious glows.

At the edge of this colossal “Steel Land” was the “port,” an irregular polygonal docking zone perfectly matching the ship’s edge.

What made Amber gasp wasn’t the ancient giant floating in the dark, but what lay on the “port” itself.

A tree—a dead, fallen giant tree that had long since withered away, its massive canopy blotting out the entire port area and nearby roads and facilities. Its leaves and many branches had dried and vanished, but the remaining structure was still magnificent, reminiscent of a sprawling layered city. Most of its roots had snapped off, unable to penetrate the Voyagers’ sturdy alloy, and now lay scattered as debris across the port floor. The entire tree leaned over at the port’s end, with a small part of its canopy extending beyond the “giant structure”—exactly where the plant remains on their ship’s deck corresponded.

Amid this vast, awe-inspiring ancient ruin, patches of green could be seen—plants nourished by the decayed remains, or perhaps… the “echo” left behind by this colossal being’s death.

Melita let out a low growl. Even a dragon who had lived through countless ages couldn’t help but marvel: “I’ve never seen anything like this… Even the Thorin Tree seems smaller by comparison.”

“This thing definitely didn’t start out here—the vibe’s all wrong,” Amber quickly assessed. “Looks like it ‘fell’ here from somewhere else. No idea if it was alive when it fell, but it’s definitely dead now. And our ship just happened to dock right where this giant tree died, so some of its remains ended up on the deck… Honestly, I think I’m starting to figure out what this thing really is.”

“It’s not hard to guess,” Gawain said in a low voice, “that Amon has described his old ‘courtyard’ to us more than once. At the heart of his divine realm stood a colossal tree called the ‘Cycle.’ Atop its canopy was a city named ‘Life,’ while its roots twisted like vines, entwining a massive tomb known as ‘Death.’ In fact, the great tree of Solin was shaped under the influence of this mythic vision—that’s why it looks the way you see it now. And what we’re looking at here…”

He trailed off, but Amber, standing nearby, instinctively finished his sentence: “Is most likely the original.”

She paused briefly before continuing, “This time when we return, we should have a proper talk with those two in the Rebellious Courtyard. First, we discovered Mimirna’s home, and now we’ve found Amon’s Cycle Tree, withered and dead, lying within the Remnants of the Voyagers… And judging by the traces at the scene, that tree practically crashed right into the place.”

“That’s not the main point,” Gawain frowned, lowering his voice. “The real question is why the tree is here at all… As a remnant of a divine realm, how did it end up in the Voyagers’ ruins? Did it drift here on its own? Or was it brought here by the ship we’re standing on?” He paused, then added, “In theory, such a collision shouldn’t have happened… Wait—collision?”

Suddenly, he stopped speaking as a vivid image flashed through his mind—the scene he once saw in the surveillance logs from the Celestial Station:

A mighty stag, wrapped in radiant energy and holy light, surged from the planet’s surface into space, resolutely charging headlong into the space station left behind by the Voyagers.

If the massive steel structure floating here in the dark chaos corresponds to the Celestial Station in space, and if Amon corresponds to his divine realm… then this might just make sense.

When the deity’s true form chose to ram the Voyager’s space station, the divine realm it left behind simultaneously collided with the “Mother Port” the Voyagers had left deep beneath the sea. This aligns perfectly with the conclusions drawn by Typhon’s technical experts about gods: that a deity and their divine realm are essentially two sides of the same coin.

The more Gawain thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Yet he couldn’t shake the strange, bittersweet feeling in his heart—Amon probably had no idea about any of this. He likely didn’t know what happened to the divine realm he left behind when he crashed into the Celestial Station.

He might not even have been aware of the ship patrolling within his divine domain, or the existence of the Mother Port.

As they spoke, the ancient ship gradually approached the port ahead. The fallen “Cycle Tree” sprawled across the harbor like a vast, ominous black cloud, pressing down heavily on the onlookers, who instinctively held their breath. Melita quietly lowered the ship’s altitude, carefully searching along its edge for a suitable landing spot. Gawain snapped out of his reverie, lifting his head and fixing his gaze on the direction of the steel behemoth.

Like the ancient ship, that massive steel structure gave no response to the Voyager identification signal he sent out.

That thing… was an even larger “hollow shell.”

The dragon slowly descended along the ship’s edge, and almost simultaneously, a moderate tremor rippled beneath Melita’s feet. In the vast emptiness of the “world,” the sound of a colossal locking mechanism activating echoed out.

The ship had docked at the “Mother Port.”

(End of chapter)