Chapter 1452: Traces of Corruption

A tense atmosphere hung heavy in the dimly lit hall, the air seeming to freeze under its weight. From the depths of the chamber came a low, ancient hum—like a distant echo from another world. To Asalina, it sounded unreal, almost dreamlike. Yet, despite the mounting tension that stretched on for several minutes, nothing stirred.

The floating orbs of magical light hovered silently in midair, their presence failing to “provoke” any response. The massive doors leading to the corridor stood wide open, but the light spilling in from beyond was mysteriously suppressed by an unseen force, barely reaching a few meters inside. Behind the exploration team, a hazy, gray-black mist clung to the air like a shadowy veil.

No alarms blared. No guards stirred. No unspeakable horrors leapt from the darkness. Apart from the eerie environment itself, the hall was utterly still.

“Maintain alert,” came the cold, clear voice of Alice RS-6, breaking the oppressive silence. As she issued orders to her soldiers, her gaze lifted toward the shadowy structure looming at the hall’s far end—an immense shape resembling a colossal tree. Suddenly, a narrow crack appeared on the polished surface of her forehead, and a delicate artificial crystal emerged. This intricate sensor projected a flickering light screen, which was quickly swallowed by the surrounding darkness, but its scanning field had already swept the area.

“No active targets detected. No energy traps or active spells.”

The accompanying siren vanguard began to move, maintaining their intimidating battle stances. They advanced in pairs along the hall’s perimeter, their scales, tentacles, and armored shells producing a chilling clatter on the alloy floor.

Asalina watched these deep-sea allies edge closer to the shadows, feeling as if they might be swallowed whole at any moment. Yet their forms never fully vanished—the hall’s gloom was not absolute darkness. Though dimmed, the illumination from the lamps and magical orbs still provided faint light.

“Clear.”
“Clear here too—just some humming machinery.”
“There are a few terminals still running, nothing unusual.”
“Only a cluster of pillars over here…”

Voices echoed from the dim recesses. The vanguard relaxed their stances and regrouped—their fierce combat posture powerful but ill-suited for delicate technical work or detailed exploration.

Only then did Asalina allow herself a slight breath of relief, though she remained wary. Perhaps there was no immediate danger, but the very existence of a hall so thoroughly shrouded in abnormality within a space station built by the Pathfinders was deeply unsettling. She frowned at the vague outlines of ancient devices and the faint, nearly extinguished lights, muttering under her breath, “What on earth is going on here…?”

“There’s a potent shadow force lingering here,” whispered the red dragon Bellanta beside her, stepping toward the massive “tree” structure at the hall’s center. “But we don’t know if it’s an external corruption or something the Pathfinders left behind. Either way, this thing is clearly the core of the place…”

“Be careful. Don’t go alone!” Asalina warned, hurrying to follow Bellanta’s lead.

Soon, the entire team stood beneath the strange growth. Cassandra craned her neck upward, seeing countless dark thorns and crystalline formations sprouting from the floor, twisting skyward to form a vast canopy near the ceiling. Between the tangled thorns and crystals, something else seemed hidden.

Asalina raised her hand, conjuring another magical orb. Though its light was dimmed by the gloom, it illuminated a small patch of the thorny surface.

“Quantity can make up for quality,” she murmured, watching the orb’s glow. “If we create more light sources, maybe we can get a clearer look.”

The dragons immediately unleashed more illumination spells. Nearly a hundred glowing orbs materialized above the team, drifting upward along the towering crystalline thorns. Asalina’s eyes widened, tracking the shifting pools of light as they revealed more details: the sharp crystals were a deep purple-black, their surfaces flickering with iridescent hues. Though vine-like in shape, they were clearly mineral in nature—chaotically grown, not botanical.

The orbs reached the top of the thorns, settling among the branches. It was then Asalina finally saw the truth: the “giant tree” was actually an overgrowth. Deep within the thorns lay a massive device—something like a pillar, its top connected to the dome by numerous radiating branches, its base extending into several control terminals. The purple-black thorns had grown thickly around it, entwining to form the tree-like shape.

“There’s something inside… it’s been encased,” Bellanta said cautiously, stepping closer but wary of the sharp crystals. “It looks like a large terminal, somewhat like the one in the assembly hall, but more advanced… I can sense faint activity. Could it still be operational?”

Asalina said nothing, circling the enormous growth and studying its form. Suddenly, a strange anomaly caught her eye, and she stopped abruptly.

“There’s something here!” she whispered, summoning a magical orb that cast a murky, obscure light, pushing back the shadows just enough to reveal the odd shape.

A chill ran down her spine.

It was a patch of corrupted, scorched decay—like the mark of a corrosive, terrible force that had invaded this place, leaving a stain several meters long on the floor. The corruption crept into the thorns, which showed signs of decay and damage. The purple-black crystals were stained with a grimy gray-brown film, their surfaces cracked. The “contaminated zone” even stretched upward several meters.

Others rushed over at Asalina’s alarm. Bellanta’s eyes widened as she took in the corrupted traces.

“This is…”

“Traces left by the Tides of Reversal,” Asalina said, her heart pounding. “No doubt about it—the signs are unmistakable.”

Bellanta’s eyes snapped open wide in realization. “Scan the surroundings immediately!”

The team sprang into action, conducting a thorough search of the dim hall. Yet after careful inspection, the only contamination found was the patch Asalina had discovered.

“The Tides’ corruption always spreads in continuous patches, never scattered,” Bellanta said, shaking her head. “So this should be the only infected area…”

“And it’s from who knows how many years ago…” Asalina bent down, examining the unsettling stain. Her gaze followed the corruption into the withered crystalline thorns. “These thorn-like crystals…”

“From what we can tell, they’re actually preventing the corruption from spreading further, protecting the central device,” Alice RS-6’s calm voice interjected. Her eyes glowed faintly as she scanned the floor and the dying thorns. “They’ve all ceased activity.”

Asalina was silent for a moment, then finally broke the quiet. “The Tides of Reversal are dead, right?”

“The Death Certificate and autopsy report from the Divine Authority say so,” Bellanta nodded. “Several senior advisors confirmed it. It should be reliable.”

“So what we’re looking at is an ancient clue—something that happened long ago. The Tides tried to corrupt the firmament but were stopped by these thorns,” Asalina said thoughtfully. She stood and looked toward the corrupted thorns nearby. “We need to collect samples, especially of the contamination.”

“I’ll do it,” Cassandra volunteered, stepping forward with sample containers and cutting tools already in hand.

She approached the gray-brown, corrupted crystalline thorns cautiously, touching them lightly with a high-frequency cutter.

The next moment, a sharp cracking sound echoed through the hall—as if a delicate balance maintained for hundreds of thousands of years had shattered. Before Asalina could react, the entire patch of corrupted thorns crumbled into a pile of shattered fragments.

“This…” Cassandra was startled, glancing around innocently. “I only touched it a little. You were watching…”

“Maybe it was just too fragile,” Nicholas’s deep, trembling voice came from behind, grave and serious. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is… something’s been exposed.”

Cassandra turned back and saw that the broken thorns had left a gap in the dense growth that had encased the massive device at the hall’s center. Through the opening, a control terminal-like apparatus was now clearly visible.

The structure extending from that device connected directly to the massive pillar rising from the thicket of thorns. All the lights on its surface had long since gone dark. Clearly, the apparatus had ceased functioning—but Nicholas could still sense a faint energy pulsing deep within this dormant terminal.

This was different from the other compartments, where devices had fallen completely silent due to total power loss.

“It’s still running, just with its external interfaces shut down,” Nicholas said uncertainly. “Maybe I can try to reactivate it. Also, we need to report what we’ve found here.”

Asarena nodded immediately. “I’ll take a few people to the nearest comm port.”

Out here in the vast emptiness of space, neither the dragon clan’s message spells nor Alice’s Iron Network could reach beyond their limits. Even the sirens’ psychic songs couldn’t contact their homeworld. Yet Asarena and her team still had a way to communicate with the surface—relying on the “resonance” between Gawain Cecil himself and the Sky Station.

The station was equipped with several “communication ports.” Once activated, Gawain, far below on the surface, could directly contact the engineering teams working inside the station. He could even “see” their activities in real time. Because of this, the compartments housing these ports had become vital relay points—engineers’ only link to the surface.

After Asarena and her team left the Shadow Hall to reach the nearest comm port, Nicholas and the others remaining behind resumed their study of the sprawling thorns and the massive device encased within them.

Whatever the origin of these thorns, one thing was clear—they had stopped the spread of the Reverse Tide’s corruption many, many years ago.

With that confirmed, the eerie, sinister-looking purple-black crystals no longer seemed so threatening.

They were the opposite of the corrupted floor beneath them. That made them a good thing.

“Now, let me see what this thing actually does…”

Floating before the gap in the thicket, staring at the ancient terminal revealed within, Nicholas’s voice was eager.

He had roughly figured out how to wake the terminal, but out of caution, he had been observing it for some time.

Berlanda and the others nearby were visibly more tense than Nicholas. They watched the commander intently as he hovered beside the silent machine, carefully inspecting and probing it, barely daring to breathe—though many of them didn’t need to.

After a long while, Nicholas finally confirmed the next step. He moved forward and gently “tweaked” an internal component of the terminal with an invisible force.

A faint hum immediately filled the air. In the next moment, the device, dormant for who knew how many years, began to stir. A series of blinking lights appeared across the terminal’s surface and the structure connecting it to the giant pillar behind.

Then, above the terminal, a flickering holographic image sprang to life. A line of Pathfinder script appeared in the center of the projection.

Before departure, the engineering team—including Nicholas—had crammed to learn the Pathfinder language.

They could read the words on the projection, but their meaning left them baffled—

“Star Chart Keeper offline.”

(End of chapter)