Chapter 1454: The Original Point of Contamination

Connected mentally to the Sky Station, High Priest Gawain listened intently to Asalina’s report, catching every detail without missing a single one.

Inside the Sky Station… there existed a mysterious “Shadow Hall.” Even without considering the shocking traces of Reverse Tide contamination, the very presence of this hall was astonishing. Why would a facility built by the Forerunners contain a space so out of sync with the station’s overall design? What was the purpose of this hall? Had it been there from the start, or had it gradually transformed into its current state over time?

If the Shadow Hall was originally just a normal chamber that later became corrupted, was its transformation linked to the Reverse Tide contamination? But if it had been part of the station’s design from the beginning, then the Forerunners must have had a reason for including such a place… What could that reason be?

“We’ve inspected other parts of the hall,” Asalina continued her report, “and found that the energy supply throughout the hall is normal. However, many devices have entered a dormant state, which differs from the ‘power loss sections’ we encountered earlier.” She paused briefly before adding, “Commander Nicholas believes this indicates the Shadow Hall has a higher priority for energy allocation. So, while most of the station is in hibernation, this hall still maintains basic operations.

“But we still can’t determine the nature of the shadowy force inside the hall, nor whether it was always like this. What we do know is that the original lighting has clearly been affected by the ‘dim environment.’ The shadow force occupying the hall is evidently very powerful, and… the Forerunner equipment shows no reaction to it, allowing it to move freely within the hall.”

Gawain fell into thought. After a moment, he asked, “You haven’t crossed the hall to check the other side yet, have you?”

“Not yet,” Asalina replied immediately. “The situation there is strange, so we’re proceeding cautiously. Until we understand the nature of the Shadow Hall, Commander Nicholas has ordered us not to advance.”

Gawain exhaled slightly. “Good. Maintain that caution. Is Nicholas still inside the hall?”

“Yes,” Asalina answered. “I’m about to inform him that I’m going to try extending my perception over there, hoping to find an active communication node within the hall.”

“Understood. Let him know.” But before she could finish, Asalina was interrupted. “Ah, Miss Bellranta, who’s guarding the hall, just sent a message… Commander Nicholas has activated that large device wrapped in thorny structures!”

“He activated it?” Gawain’s voice rose with interest. Through the station’s monitors, he caught a flicker of surprise on Asalina’s face. “Any findings?”

“…The terminal only displayed one line of information—‘Star Chart Keeper Offline.’”

…

“What’s a Star Chart Keeper?” Cassandra craned her neck, curious, staring at the ancient device Nicholas had just activated. The text projected in the air flickered slightly, as if the projector’s focusing mechanism was struggling after a long dormancy. “Was it a former staff position here? A Forerunner role?”

“Literally, it sounds like someone responsible for managing star charts… a navigator? Or maybe just a kind of ‘warehouse manager’?” Nicholas’s voice buzzed with uncertainty. Though he could crudely power up the terminal with brute force, he didn’t fully understand Forerunner technology or how to operate their devices. Faced with this ancient machine, dormant for who knows how long, he was as much guessing as experimenting, just like the other engineers. “I’ll see if it responds to any other commands…”

As he spoke, a small electric arc sparked between him and the terminal—a precise method he’d developed for interacting with these relics.

The next moment, the terminal emitted a faint beep, and a line of red glowing text appeared, accompanied by a warning buzz: “Error: Star Chart Keeper Unauthorized.”

“…Seems this device is specifically meant for the ‘Star Chart Keeper,’” Bellranta, the red dragon mechanic, finally broke her silence, calmly observing the terminal’s behavior. “We need the corresponding authorization to proceed.”

“Where are we supposed to find this so-called ‘Keeper’?” Cassandra muttered. “This whole station’s been sitting here for 1.87 million years. Is there even a comms terminal to send a message to the Forerunner fleet, asking them to send someone back to unlock it for us?”

“In theory… that shouldn’t be the case,” Nicholas murmured, floating before the ancient terminal, scanning the deep structure of nearby devices as he pondered. “The Forerunners set this station and the entire space facility cluster to run automatically over 1.8 million years ago. And according to the dragon records, they clearly had no plans to return. So if they never intended to come back, why leave a hall that requires ‘Star Chart Keeper’ authorization to activate? Normally, they’d either lock the area down completely, leave it open, or set a condition that doesn’t require the fleet’s return to unlock it.”

Cassandra caught on. “You mean… the ‘Star Chart Keeper’ mentioned here probably wasn’t a member of the Forerunner fleet?”

“If you’re leaving a place forever and leaving behind a ‘legacy,’ you either entrust it to someone or lock it down completely. You don’t just leave a sign on the door saying, ‘The key’s with XX, leave a message if you want in,’” Nicholas shook his head. “That’s how I see it.”

Cassandra pondered this, and almost simultaneously, Gawain’s voice echoed from all directions inside the hall: “I agree with Nicholas’s assessment.”

Immediately, a faint hum rose from nearby machines. The dim lights on the hall’s ceiling flickered a few times. In the darkness, several monitors powered on one by one, their indicator lights flashing so faintly they were almost invisible to the naked eye—lights on surveillance, broadcast, and communication devices all blinking in sequence. Gawain’s will had reached the hall through the newly activated information link, allowing him to observe the space and communicate with the engineering team.

Cassandra blinked, then laughed. “You always make quite an entrance when you ‘arrive.’”

“Oh, Your Majesty! You’re here!” Nicholas greeted happily. Though he couldn’t see Gawain’s form, he knew that everything happening in the hall was as vivid to Gawain as if it were right before him. As a “metal orb being” capable of directly perceiving machine operations and energy flows, Nicholas had understood the connection between Gawain and the station more deeply than anyone since their first conversation upon boarding the Sky Station. “Have you seen the hall’s condition?”

“Clearer than you all,” Gawain’s voice was low. Through the mental link, his mind already held a full image of the Shadow Hall’s state. In another layer of his “impression,” he saw a series of dimly lit spots connected by lines—each representing a chamber Nicholas and his team had activated since arriving at the station.

These activated devices formed an ever-growing, intertwined network in Gawain’s mind. Thanks to this network, he could extend his consciousness into newly discovered chambers. In a sense, Nicholas and his team’s actions were continuously expanding Gawain’s “field of vision” within the Sky Station.

Now, at the edge of that vision, he saw the Shadow Hall and the massive ancient device at its center—

A huge multi-faceted pillar stretching from floor to ceiling. Through the special visual modes transmitted by the monitors, Gawain could clearly see the parts of the pillar hidden within the thorns. By switching between different visual filters, he examined its details: the top and bottom of the pillar branched out into numerous structures, which connected to many devices and pipelines deep within the hall.

To Gawain’s senses, this device was stylistically at odds with the surrounding Forerunner equipment, yet it blended naturally into the hall. The entire hall itself seemed like an extension of this pillar, existing solely to support its operation.

Silently, Gawain toggled through the multiple visual feeds. These “views” weren’t purely optical, so the hall’s dimness didn’t affect his sight. He also saw the “thorny structures” encasing the central pillar—after the monitors’ automatic correction, the crystalline thorns appeared semi-transparent and ghostly, like a shimmering armor guarding the pillar.

Within the Shadow Hall, Gawain’s voice fell silent for a moment. But the hum of machinery gradually grew louder in the darkness, accompanied by faint clicks as devices switched modes and the soft rotation of ceiling monitors. Cassandra and the others understood that Gawain was using his “miraculous ability” to manipulate the surveillance equipment for a closer look, so they waited quietly without pressing him.

Meanwhile, Asalina returned to the hall with her team from the corridor. Their pace was obviously slower than Gawain’s mental projection, and they had just arrived.

“Has he reached this point already?” Asalina asked Bellranta quietly.

“He’s been observing here for a while,” Bellranta replied softly.

Asalina nodded. Just then, Gawain’s voice suddenly sounded in the darkness: “The traces of Reverse Tide contamination are near the gap in the thorns? I see an anomaly there.”

“Yes,” Asalina said immediately, stepping to the corroded, sunken floor. “This is where the contamination was found. Also, some of the thorns nearby showed signs of pollution before suddenly shattering, which created this gap—exposing an interactive terminal that had been wrapped in thorns.”

“Do you think the thorns blocked the contamination back then?”

“That’s our guess,” Bellranta said. “The evidence at the scene suggests it, and those thorns seem to be protecting this central… pillar.”

“Hm…” Gawain hummed softly, then asked, “Can you estimate when the contamination occurred based on the traces?”

“That’s… hard to say,” Asalina admitted, troubled. “The station’s environment is sealed and unlike any surface world. Everything here feels frozen in time, making it difficult to find reference points to measure time’s passage. Plus, we don’t know how these ‘thorns’ change over time…”

The mystery deepened, but Gawain’s mind was already racing, piecing together the puzzle of the Shadow Hall and the ancient secrets it guarded.

“Roughly speaking, this must have happened a very, very long time ago—on the order of hundreds of thousands of years. It couldn’t have been recent,” Alice RS-6, who had been silent until now, suddenly broke the silence. “I scanned the particulate deposits around the contamination traces. Although our actions have slightly disturbed the site environment, the scan results are still reliable.”

“Hundreds of thousands of years…” Gawain’s voice was filled with surprise. “So, at least a hundred thousand years ago, maybe even several hundred thousand…”

“Back then, the Reverse Tide’s power already tried to invade the Aether?” Belranta’s eyes widened in shock. “But at that time… it should still have been trapped in that tall tower beside Talrond…”

“Don’t forget, although the Reverse Tide’s core was imprisoned in the tower, its power was constantly spreading outward. This spread escaped the notice of both the dragons and the Dragon Gods. In fact, even before it broke free, these radiating forces had already corrupted the Sentinel system,” Gawain’s voice rang out. “So it’s not unimaginable that it also ‘radiated’ part of its power toward the Aether station in a similar way… Actually, it makes more sense that it first corrupted the Aether itself…”

Belranta was momentarily confused by Gawain’s line of thought. “It makes more sense that it corrupted the Aether first? Why?”

“The Voyagers left two sets of systems on this planet: one is the Sentinel homeport and its fleet, monitoring the Deep Realm; the other is the Aether space station and its affiliated facilities, monitoring the present world. This facility group includes satellites and small stations near the Aether, as well as corresponding ‘support sites’ on the surface…”

Gawain’s voice echoed deeply through the hall. He felt his thoughts gradually clearing, ancient clues slowly connecting through the fog.

Though the Reverse Tide was already dead, these newly uncovered clues were far from meaningless—he felt himself drawing closer to a crucial piece of history, a truth everyone had overlooked.

“…Back then, the Reverse Tide’s core was trapped in that ‘tall tower’ off the coast of Talrond, and that tower was located in the present world. So, according to the Voyagers’ classification of their facilities, it should be considered part of the Aether system.

“Therefore, I’m afraid the Reverse Tide’s first target for corruption wasn’t the Sentinels… but the Aether itself!”

(End of chapter)