Chapter 1450: Deep Within the Firmament

A low, resonant hum filled the air as some ancient machinery deep within the compartment sprang to life. The faint, nearly imperceptible gravity that had plagued them moments before suddenly snapped back to its normal strength. Asherena felt the reassuring weight beneath her feet once again. Nearby, Cassandra—the sea witch—who had been coiling her tail around a pillar to avoid drifting away, suddenly slipped and landed with a soft thud on the floor. The iron commander, Alice-RS6, calmly disengaged the magnetic locks on her limbs and leapt down from the wall to the ground.

“Artificial gravity’s back,” Asherena said, lightly stamping her foot, her eyes wide with surprise as she looked toward the engineering commander, Mr. Nicholas. The rotund “iron ball” with a comical grin was lazily drifting through the room. The nearby lights and sunlight streaming through the observation window cast dazzling reflections across his rounded surface. “How did you manage that?”

“Simple,” Nicholas replied without turning his head, drifting slowly as he inspected the equipment. “I just ‘peeked’ inside the partition layer to check the energy conduits. When I spotted an abnormal break or disturbance, I cleared it up. Like this—snap.”

At his words, Asherena heard a faint mechanical click nearby, followed by the sound of something powering up. At the far end of the room, a gate that had been stuck half-open slid smoothly aside, revealing a pitch-black corridor beyond, which instantly flooded with light.

The engineering commanders present were stunned—now they truly understood why the Cecil Empire had entrusted this rotund gentleman with such a critical task.

Nicholas then added, “But my ability isn’t all-powerful. I can ‘see’ the structures behind metal, spot faulty energy lines, but I don’t really understand the Pathfinders’ technology. The lighting circuits and gravity generator power lines were already installed in the previous compartment, so I just compared and adjusted accordingly. The rest isn’t so straightforward.”

“That’s already a huge help,” Alice-RS6 said expressionlessly as she approached. “Your ability to perform a non-destructive scan of the entire compartment’s metal structure and energy lines in such a short time solves the most difficult part of the repair work.”

Just then, Cassandra—the sea witch who had fallen earlier—crawled over, muttering as she moved, “We’ll need to be more careful from here on. This is the first compartment where gravity’s unstable. Looks like we’re moving away from the ‘safe zone’ of the station. Beyond this point, we might encounter ‘dead compartments’—areas where energy’s been cut off and systems have been dormant for years. These fault zones are just as dangerous as the exposed void of space.”

Asherena nodded thoughtfully at Cassandra’s warning, then lifted her gaze to take in the newly explored, unfamiliar compartment.

It resembled a lounge or a connecting section—a spacious rectangular area with few devices, but featuring a vast observation window facing out into space. Near the window were bench-like structures, and along the walls and beside the gates stood strange cylindrical crystal containers. Inside, withered plant remains and water delivery systems were faintly visible.

Asherena’s mind wandered. She imagined the days 1.87 million years ago, when the Pathfinders briefly lingered above this planet. Back then, this space station surely wasn’t the cold, lifeless shell it was now. Diverse intelligent species from the Pathfinder fleet would have come and gone here, living and resting in this temporary “waystation.” They would have paused here, conversed, observed the small planetary system below, the creatures on the surface, and the massive gas giant looming in space.

Perhaps they spoke of the future, of their seemingly endless “deep space expedition.” A million and eight hundred seventy thousand years have passed. Most of those beings who once stopped here are likely long gone. But do their descendants still continue that long voyage? Does that ancient, mysterious fleet still wander among the stars?

Asherena turned back to see the sea witches, dragons, and iron men hauling equipment and supplies inside. Alice-RS6 was directing soldiers to carefully inspect and document the unfamiliar objects in the compartment. Cassandra swayed her long serpentine tail as she slithered to the massive observation window that nearly spanned an entire wall, gazing out into space with a distant look.

Outside the window, a magnificent, glowing arc slowly drifted into view from the side—that was the “sun” illuminating the land of Loren, an astonishing gas giant.

“What are you looking at?” Asherena approached Cassandra, surprised to see a rare serious and slightly melancholic expression on the sea witch’s face. Normally, such a mood on a sea witch was as unlikely as a dream—they were usually as lively as if on some kind of stimulant. “You seem… sad?”

“I’m just thinking it’s time for us sea witches to face reality,” Cassandra said softly, her gaze fixed on the radiant, slowly advancing cloudscape of the gas giant. Even from this great distance, the turbulent cloud crown was awe-inspiring and oppressive. “After all, that thing has hung over our heads for so many years. Now it’s right in front of us…”

“Sea witches? Face reality?” Asherena blinked, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“See that bright, scorching cloud sea?” Cassandra gently flicked the tip of her tail, pointing at the ‘corona’ outside the window. “This gas giant bathes the planet we live on in light and heat. Everything depends on it.”

“Of course,” Asherena nodded instinctively, though still confused by Cassandra’s unusual mood. “That’s only natural…”

“Natural, huh…” Cassandra murmured, almost to herself. “But in our ‘knowledge system’ and ‘common sense,’ gas giants aren’t supposed to emit light or heat—they’re ‘cold bodies’…”

Asherena was about to ask more when Cassandra shifted the topic. “How far have we moved from the orbital elevator’s transit compartment?”

“Roughly over ten kilometers. We even passed through a vast ‘empty ring zone’ that was intimidating in scale. But compared to the entire Firmament Station, our current range is just a tiny, insignificant fraction,” Asherena said, shelving her questions to focus on the matter at hand. “This station is truly enormous.”

“Yeah, enormous to a scary degree… Not just with our current manpower—even if we sent all the deep sea witches and deepwater technicians from Antavian here, we couldn’t repair such a massive orbital structure,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “And the compartments ahead seem increasingly unsafe. So far, it’s just gravity failure. If we encounter toxic leaks or mechanical malfunctions next, that’ll be a real nightmare. Like I said, those dangers rival the exposed void of space… maybe even worse. Because if we’re just exposed to space, our protective gear can help somewhat. But if we face rogue Pathfinder machines, a layer of protective clothing and fragile personal shields won’t hold up.”

Hearing the sea witch’s sober analysis, Asherena felt a chill.

She knew the sea witches’ opinions had to be respected in this entire repair operation. Though their exuberant, carefree nature often made them seem unreliable, there was no denying that they were the only group in the world who truly mastered spaceflight technology and had built “big ships.” Even if their ships were now stranded and their technology had declined or failed, as a former interstellar civilization, their accumulated experience and knowledge still far surpassed other races.

Asherena glanced back at the entrance the team had passed through earlier.

From the vanguard’s boarding of the Firmament Station to the arrival of the main forces in waves, with supplies sent from the planet’s surface into space, this joint operation had already lasted several dozen days. The engineering teams had split into squads to explore around the orbital elevator’s transit hall, then, guided by Commander Nicholas, found passages to adjacent compartments. Now, they had moved far beyond the initial transit compartment, venturing into unfamiliar regions of the colossal station.

As they delved deeper into this massive, cold steel giant, the true state of the Firmament Station gradually revealed itself.

The “assembly hall” directly connected to the orbital elevator and the entire “transit compartment” could be considered the station’s “safe zone.” There, energy supply was stable, artificial gravity functioned normally, and life support systems operated orderly. The engineering teams had established their main supply and research base there.

But as they moved into other rings of the Firmament Station, Asherena’s team began encountering truly “dead compartments”—completely cut-off energy supplies, chaotic gravity fields, pitch-black connecting corridors, and tomb-like sealed rooms with clearly failing air circulation.

These hazardous zones were terrifying.

More than ten sea witches serving as vanguard explorers had sacrificed their lives during these explorations—some multiple times.

It proved that Cassandra’s decision to set up a large water elemental pool near the orbital transit compartment was absolutely wise—it greatly saved time replenishing the vanguard.

Fortunately, so far the exploration and repair had proceeded without major incident. Under Nicholas’s command and the efforts of other engineers, the dormant compartments along the way had been gradually re-energized. But given the staggering scale of the Firmament Station, it was uncertain whether the upcoming compartments would be as cooperative.

“I want to hear your thoughts,” Cassandra’s voice broke through Asherena’s reverie. “We’ve been operating inside here for dozens of days, and the area we’ve explored is just a tiny, insignificant segment of the entire orbital station. According to Mr. Nicholas’s perception, even in these explored zones, there are vast, complex structures deep within that remain uncharted—”

The deep-sea witch paused for a moment, then spoke thoughtfully, “Those sealed mechanical compartments, pipeline chambers, and the power core obviously aren’t open to ‘visitors.’ Forcibly dismantling them could trigger unpredictable consequences. After all, although His Majesty High Lord Gawain Cecil helped us bypass the space station’s access restrictions, many of its systems might still have ‘automatic countermeasures’ in place—something even His Majesty can’t fully control.”

Meeting the sea witch’s serious gaze, Asralena immediately began to think. In fact, she’d been mulling this over for quite some time, and now she decided to share her thoughts openly. “I don’t think we need to repair the entire space station—that was never realistic from the start.”

Cassandra raised an eyebrow and flicked her tail. “Oh?”

“It’s such a massive orbital structure, a ‘permanent facility’ left behind by the Voyagers to monitor the planet’s orbit. It’s been running unattended for over 1.8 million years. Surely it must have some kind of… ‘self-repair’ function, right?” Asralena mused aloud. “Even the mages’ towers have magical constructs and tower spirits assigned to cleaning and maintaining the mana nodes. So, a space station left by the Voyagers should be even more advanced. But after all this time we’ve spent here, where are those systems?”

Cassandra nodded gently. “…The entire station is in a deep hibernation state. Except for a few areas we or His Majesty have ‘externally activated,’ most systems have shut down. That probably includes the ‘self-repair’ mechanisms you mentioned.”

“Exactly,” Asralena said. “Think about what we’ve seen so far: many compartments are without power, but their hardware doesn’t seem heavily damaged. If we can restore power to those areas, they ‘come back to life.’ At first, I didn’t think much of it, but now… aside from that huge hole near the observation window in the transit chamber—whoever made that—we have to ask: is this enormous space station really broken?”

“And even that ‘big hole’ is small compared to the whole station. It doesn’t even span a full compartment, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of similar compartments throughout the station. As one of the largest facilities the Voyagers left on this planet, would the entire station really be offline for so many years just because one compartment was breached? Not even our own creations have such a flaw…”

“Indeed… I don’t think the station’s hibernation is related to that hole,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “Though it was quite a sight when we saw it near the transit chamber’s observation window. So, if I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting we locate the station’s self-repair system and find a way to reactivate it?”

“That sounds a lot more feasible than sending hundreds of people to manually fix a giant space station that orbits the planet in synchronous orbit,” Asralena replied, spreading her hands. “And we don’t even have blueprints, experience, or the necessary knowledge. Of course, my idea is a bit of a gamble, but we’re already exploring this place, right? Who knows what we might find along the way. So I think it’s worth focusing on this possibility.”

“…I agree with your assessment, Lady Asralena.”

(End of chapter)