Chapter 1456: The Star Chart Keeper

Thanks to the relentless efforts of Cassandra and several sea witch sisters, the dense thickets of brambles that had layered themselves around the massive pillar in the center of the Shadow Hall were finally being peeled away in chunks. These crystalline growths, of unknown material, might once have possessed some extraordinary “properties” or incredible power. But after the passage of countless ages, any such marvel had clearly faded. Now, aside from their hardness, they were no different from ordinary stone.

The molecular blades, vibrating at high frequency, sliced through the brambles before them. The tough crystals clattered down from the pillar’s surface as Cassandra, in her sea demon form, finally paused her dozen or so tentacles. She retracted some of the cutting blades back into her body and used the freed limbs to cling to the pillar’s raised structures, bringing her upper body close to carefully examine it.

Under the dim lighting, the intricate yet exquisite, strange yet cleverly constructed patterns were fully exposed. They seemed to carry an ancient, mysterious beauty.

“This is incredible…” Cassandra murmured softly. “I’ve never seen anything like this before—nothing like it is recorded anywhere in sea witch history. And I consider myself quite knowledgeable among my kind.”

“Even the sea witches don’t recognize it…” Gawain’s voice echoed from the shadows around the hall. He had been watching the sea witches’ progress closely, as well as the patterns revealed on the pillar. “But whatever it is, it’s definitely not the style of the Voyagers.”

“Yes, it’s not Voyager style—the difference is too obvious…” Cassandra muttered to herself, her gaze scanning the pillar from bottom to top, studying its peculiar design. It was constructed from some kind of alloy, its gray-black shell hard and finely textured, with complex raised structures and numerous indicator lights embedded in the crevices, faintly flickering. It looked very “advanced.” Yet, alongside these high-tech features, the surface was covered in arcane, intricate, and enigmatic markings—lines that twisted and warped like countless runes linked end to end, with no discernible beginning or end. The effect was a paradoxical sense of primal religious totem.

“This thing has to be made by the Voyagers. It’s an advanced data interaction device, with an extension at the base connecting it to other data terminals. But at the same time, it’s covered in these mysterious ‘runes’…” Cassandra whispered. “I can’t tell what these runes do, but they’re probably not just decoration…”

“Can you sense any magical energy flowing through the runes, or any interaction between the environment and the runes?” Gawain asked from the darkness.

“No,” Cassandra shook her head. “It’s possible the runes’ activation mechanism is too complex and subtle for us to detect with our magic perception—you know, sea witches aren’t very skilled at sensing magic.”

“…Then bring everyone in,” Gawain said after a moment of silence. “Let’s all study this together. And keep clearing the remaining brambles around the pillar and on the ceiling. See if there are any more clues.”

Though Cassandra had removed much of the growth on the pillar itself, many brambles still clung to the floor and ceiling around it. Clearing them all would take some time. While the sea witches continued their work, Nicholas, Asalina, and the others waiting in the corridor returned to the Shadow Hall.

For the first time, they saw the true form of the massive central pillar—and finally grasped just how strange this “out-of-place” object really was.

Nicholas floated in midair, slowly circling half the pillar. He knew Gawain could “see” what was happening here, but the monitor’s perspective was limited; some details might escape his notice. That was why on-site personnel were essential.

And sure enough, during his half-circle, Nicholas spotted details previously overlooked.

“There’s a nameplate here,” Nicholas suddenly called out, drifting to the side of the pillar. “It has writing—‘Anchor Point Generator’… That must be the name of this big thing?”

“Anchor Point Generator?” Gawain frowned in his mind. He focused on the progress in the Shadow Hall, eyes fixed on the massive pillar that blended high technology with religious mysticism. The strange name sparked many guesses in his head. “Anchor point for what? Why would the Sky Station have something like this…”

While Gawain pondered this new clue, Cassandra and the sea witches methodically finished clearing the remaining brambles. The huge, multi-limbed sea demon form was perfect for this kind of heavy labor (though it could also be used for side jobs like impersonating dark gods, deep-sea terrors, or horror bosses). With the crisp sound of crystals breaking and brambles falling to the floor, Cassandra let out a pleased voice: “Done!”

The next moment, a strange humming suddenly filled everyone’s ears. The sound came from deep within the “Anchor Point Generator” at the hall’s center. It wasn’t loud, but it seemed to pierce into each person’s mind. Asalina was the first to react. Her eyes widened as she stared at the huge dark pillar, and she saw the countless patterns on its surface suddenly come alive!

All the lines shifted position; every edge began to ripple and writhe. The eerie, grotesque scene was like a bizarre hallucination. In that brief “vision,” Asalina felt as if she glimpsed something through the changing patterns.

The markings formed words—or some kind of images that directly conveyed information. She saw a vast, frozen mass of data trapped inside, describing an ancient, elusive existence in a grand yet vague way. This “description” maintained the stability of that ancient being. She couldn’t explain the feeling clearly, because the information—or “impressions”—appeared directly in her subconscious, then vanished like morning dew the next second.

Rubbing her eyes, Asalina found the patterns on the pillar unchanged. The flood of “information” had been a sudden, implanted false memory. She thought she had been in that strange state for hours, but judging by the scene, it had only lasted a moment.

But then Belranta spoke, confirming what Asalina had “seen”: “Did you see that? Asalina, just now… an indescribably vast amount of information flooded into my mind, but I couldn’t understand what it was…”

“I saw it too,” Asalina said, still shaken. “But I don’t even know what I ‘saw.’ I just felt like I briefly understood some truths, but now it’s gone, leaving only…”

Only hollow echoes, impressions that something had once been there. She had witnessed something beyond mortal comprehension, yet it hadn’t harmed her fragile human mind. Instead, it dissipated harmlessly like a breeze. She wanted to say this, but the words felt strange on her tongue.

Before she could speak, Nicholas’s voice suddenly interrupted their conversation: “Information? What information?”

Nicholas seemed completely unaware of the changes in the pillar’s surface patterns or any “unspeakable truth forms.” He only sensed the energy inside the pillar suddenly stirring. The device, long in deep sleep, was humming and rapidly waking up. The terminals connected to the pillar lit up one by one, and faint lights appeared on the ceiling.

Then, the pervasive shadows in the hall seemed to recede somewhat—not completely, but the oppressive darkness no longer felt suffocating. The light spilling from the ceiling brought warmth and a sense of safety. The shadowy power still lingered, but it felt as if it had shifted from a state of extreme, uncontrolled release back to orderly operation.

All these changes were clearly linked to Cassandra and the others having fully cleared the brambles.

“It seems we’ve repaired something here…” Nicholas said gravely, his voice resonating with a metallic tremor. “I can feel the energy surging through the hall. All the equipment is waking up gradually. This huge central pillar is the core of the change. Its surface lights have doubled since before. I’m going to check if the connected terminals are operable.”

Gawain listened to Nicholas’s report, watching the astonishing transformation in the Shadow Hall. Deep in his mind, the “light spots” and “lines” representing the Sky Station’s system statuses subtly shifted. The light spot for the Shadow Hall brightened noticeably, and many previously hidden lines emerged from the mist. Through these secret connections, Gawain felt himself linking to new databases and command libraries. He knew some ancient permissions were loosening, and some long-sealed logs were entering his access list. All this data clearly pointed to the mysterious Shadow Hall and the enigmatic “Anchor Point Generator.”

“Try activating the terminal to your left front,” Gawain’s voice suddenly rang out from above the hall. Following the “lines” he saw in his mind, he directed Nicholas to start the corresponding hardware. This would help him better understand the newly “awakened” compartment. “Input the original command: 00-01-01-22-15-05.”

Nicholas immediately complied. Over the past weeks, he and Gawain had done this countless times, and it had proven effective.

The terminal, just awakened with the Anchor Point Generator, accepted the external command. Its holographic interface flickered, briefly attempting to reset, but within a millisecond, Gawain’s will took control. Fragmented logs stored inside were projected.

At the same time, broken pieces of logs surfaced in Gawain’s mind—annotations made after the Shadow Hall’s construction, or perhaps instructions left by the Voyagers for certain individuals—

“…The Anchor Point Generator will activate at… The target entity will be maintained in… stable condition…”

“The target individual will receive the Star Chart Custodian’s access rights once the Anchor Generator is activated. At that moment, the system clock resets to zero and begins running. The Celestial Station’s data link will open to the Star Chart Custodian upon the clock’s initiation…

“Note: After activation, the Star Chart Custodian must not disable any of its subsystems or subordinate permissions. This task is perpetual, continuing until the ideal model emerges and meets the required standards…

“…The link between the Star Chart Custodian and the Anchor Generator is set to high priority. Provided the Celestial Station itself remains operational, under all circumstances, the energy supply to the Anchor Generator and the Custodian’s survival must be ensured first and foremost…

“If the Star Chart Custodian unexpectedly dies or fails, the Anchor Generator must immediately reboot and reset the Custodian’s status. If the Custodian goes offline while still alive, the Anchor Generator should lock to the last online state and continue running, maximizing the Custodian’s chances of survival…

“If the local planetary system undergoes a permanent catastrophic event, making the probability of civilization reemerging within any calculable timeframe effectively zero, the project may be terminated early. Should the Star Chart Custodian still be active under such conditions, then… all available energy will be directed toward launching… executing evacuation protocols…

“Note: The Sentinel System must not establish direct data exchange with the Star Chart Custodian to prevent the Anchor Generator from losing focus. If the Anchor Generator loses focus or enters a secondary state… it may cause erroneous data replication and overflow within the Custodian’s system…”

Fragments of the system log flowed through Gawain’s mind like a rushing stream, yet the information buried within only deepened his confusion. He scoured the ancient device—possibly dormant for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years—searching for more fragments to piece together the puzzle before him. But all he found were irrelevant Celestial Station operational records and hardware logs. In the end, he had no choice but to refocus on the streaming log fragments themselves, and there, at the tail end of the data, he caught this message—

“…To the Star Chart Custodian, we pay our respects. To all beings born and yet to be born on this planet, we offer our blessings. May fortune be with you—the starry sea is vast, the universe cold, and the journey long, but you are not alone.”

As Gawain finished reviewing the fragments in his mind, the vanguard team gathered in the Shadow Hall also saw the same message projected above the terminal. Asalina felt utterly bewildered, more so than she had ever been before. “What on earth… is all this supposed to mean?”

“It’s an ancient plan left behind by the Pathfinders on this planet,” Gawain replied, his voice low and serious. “It seems their arrangements here were about more than just ‘monitoring.’”

“From what I can tell, this so-called ‘Star Chart Custodian’ depends on something called the ‘Anchor Generator’ to maintain stability—or rather, to stay alive,” Belranta mused thoughtfully. “This mysterious entity is the core of the entire plan… but who—or what—is it exactly?”

(End of chapter)