Chapter 1457: Amber’s Abnormality

What exactly was the “Star Chart Keeper”? That question lingered in everyone’s minds as they stood inside the Shadow Hall. In this ancient space station sealed away for countless millennia, buried deep within yet another enigma left behind by the Pathfinders, a fragment of an age-old plan had suddenly been unveiled. And the mysterious “Star Chart Keeper” clearly played an extraordinarily special and crucial role in it. This revelation stirred not only curiosity among the group but also a vague sense of unease.

“Hopefully it’s not another ‘Sentinel,’” Belranta muttered softly, voicing the concern shared by many. “I’ve already got a bit of a psychological shadow from those ‘Ancient Minds’ the Pathfinders left behind…”

“Judging from the scene, this ‘Star Chart Keeper’ doesn’t seem to have been corrupted by the Reverse Tide like the Sentinels were,” Gawain’s voice came from above in the hall. “Most of those thorns were probably just the Anchor Generator’s self-defense mechanism. That device isolated the contamination from back then. But… no one really knows what condition the Keeper is in now.”

“Whoever it is, they’re clearly not here at the moment,” Cassandra’s gaze fixed on a nearby terminal. “It says the Star Chart Keeper is offline.”

“Yes, offline, not dead,” Gawain said thoughtfully. “From the system logs, it seems the Anchor Generator has a way to detect if the Keeper is still alive. If the Keeper dies unexpectedly, the generator can reboot to ‘reset’ it. But right now, the device is in offline standby mode—meaning the Keeper is alive but unreachable.”

“Trapped somewhere? In deep hibernation? Or is the system itself malfunctioning?” Asalina frowned. “Could this ‘offline’ status be related to the Reverse Tide contamination that hit this hall years ago?”

Belranta’s eyes scanned the logs projected above the terminal, then he glanced at Asalina. “You think the Star Chart Keeper might be hiding somewhere inside the Celestial Station? Or maybe even here in our world?”

“Who knows?” Asalina shrugged. “At the end of the day, we don’t even know what the Keeper really is. A machine? An ancient lifeform? Or just a piece of data stored in some device on the station? The fragmented logs only make things more confusing.”

A heavy silence fell over the hall as everyone pondered the possible explanations behind the cryptic data. The quiet stretched on until Gawain’s voice suddenly broke through.

“All we can conclude for now is this: the Star Chart Keeper still exists, somewhere unknown to us. It may have been watching our world’s development all along, waiting for us to reach a certain stage according to the Pathfinders’ ancient directives. There’s an independent, large-scale system in the Celestial Station dedicated to this purpose…

“But currently, the Keeper’s condition is clearly deteriorating. It may have already lost the ability to operate, or at least to respond to the station. And its ancient mission… is obviously failing.”

Nicholas, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up. “From the last message in the system logs, the task the Pathfinders gave the Keeper was at least well-intentioned.”

“That’s probably the only comforting part of this whole situation,” Gawain replied gravely. “But after 1.87 million years and the spread of Reverse Tide contamination, we can’t blindly trust the ‘goodwill’ left by the founders. The Sentinels are a stark example. Although the Keeper doesn’t seem to have gone down the same path, we shouldn’t be overly optimistic.”

“We understand,” Nicholas nodded solemnly. “So what about this Shadow Hall and the Anchor Generator… what do we do? Just leave it be?”

“We can’t ignore it,” Gawain’s voice was firm. “So far, the hall itself hasn’t undergone dangerous mutations. Leave some people here to continue studying the equipment and see if other terminals hold more clues. Also, closely monitor the Anchor Generator’s status—but be careful not to perform any destructive ‘tests’ that might trigger the security system’s automatic countermeasures.

“There’s still a lot of data streams here beyond my control. I’ll identify the devices linked to those streams later. You should prioritize monitoring them—that will help me unlock more access permissions for you.

“The rest of you, keep moving forward. I’ve found the route to the next ring. All the gates along the way are unlocked. Preliminary analysis suggests it’s an ecological and observation compound. I’ll mark the path and safe zones for you soon. Proceed carefully, step by step, and stay safe.”

Nicholas’s body sank slightly, his tone serious. “Understood.”

Gawain gave a short hum and ended the intense mental connection. A sudden sensation of weightlessness pulled his senses downward. In the familiar dizziness, he once again felt his body on the planet’s surface, along with all the tactile sensations it brought. He opened his eyes slightly, and the unchanged study room came into view.

…Or so it seemed.

Looking down, Gawain saw his desk in utter chaos. The files he had just organized were scattered everywhere. His ink bottle had been knocked over, spilling half its contents onto his sleeve. A pile of sunflower seed shells—of unknown origin—littered the floor, trailing from his body to the nearby bookshelf, where books had toppled in a mess that looked like five hundred enraged geese had fought a dark duel here.

“…What the hell?!”

Snapping out of the mental haze, Gawain jumped up with a curse. The next moment, he spotted the culprit sprawled across the carpet opposite him—Amber lay there like a dried-up salted fish, surrounded by the scattered seed shells and ink stains on her hands, all pointing to her as the guilty party.

“What are you doing?” Gawain hurried around the desk to her side. His first thought was that someone had tried to assassinate him, and Amber had bravely fought off the attacker in a three-hundred-round duel, leaving the room in ruins. But that didn’t fit Amber’s usual behavior, nor did it explain the seed shells everywhere. So he quickly discarded that mental image and anxiously checked her condition. She looked like she might have died suddenly—but then he heard a faint snore.

She was sleeping soundly.

Gawain swore he’d never been this baffled, not even when he first learned about the Star Chart Keeper from the Celestial Station’s logs. All his accumulated experience and wisdom couldn’t explain this bizarre scene.

He reached out and gently flipped Amber over. She was unharmed, just covered in ink on her face and hands. Relieved, he patted her cheek. “Wake up, wake up, don’t sleep anymore.”

“Mmm…” Amber snored softly, curling up like a cat on the carpet, wriggling a bit before suddenly jolting awake and nearly springing off the floor. “Ah, damn it!!”

Gawain barely dodged her head as she almost bonked his chin. Standing up, he pressed a hand on her head. “You’re awake? Explain what happened—did you fight a seed-shell-wielding assassin or have a dark duel with my ink bottle after getting drunk?”

“Seed shells? Dark duel?” Amber looked just as confused as Gawain, blinking for a long moment before finally clearing her head. Then she noticed the mess by the desk and the ink and shells on Gawain. She shrank back, almost physically shrinking a segment in height. “What if I told you a vicious assassin tried to kill you with sunflower seed shells—would you believe me?”

Gawain chuckled. “What if I said I’d triple your salary next month—would you believe that?”

Amber immediately lifted her chin. “I could believe that. When’s the raise?”

“Don’t change the subject!” Gawain slapped her back down. “What really happened? Was it you? And why were you lying on the floor?”

“…What if I said it all started with a cramp?” Amber ducked her head, sneaking a glance at Gawain. “I was just trying to help you get the seed shells off your clothes…”

Gawain looked down at himself, shaking off the shells from his collar and hair, expression blank. “Well, I appreciate the thought. I’m not even going to ask why I have seed shells on me. You can pick a wall to stand against.”

“I’m serious!” Amber jumped up. “I don’t know how it happened—I was just guarding you, then suddenly got a cramp. My limbs went out of control. I wanted to call for help, but when you started ‘meditating,’ I activated the study’s protection system. It wouldn’t turn off. Then I don’t know how I ended up on the floor—I just remember feeling incredibly relaxed all of a sudden…”

Amber rattled off her strange and unsettling experience, punctuating it with wild gestures and on-the-spot demonstrations.

Her story was bizarre and full of exaggerations, but Gawain’s expression grew serious shortly after she began. He listened carefully until she finished, then said, “So it wasn’t really a ‘cramp.’ More accurately, you felt parts of your body moving against your will, conflicting with your own intentions?”

Amber blinked, surprised. “…You actually believe that? I thought you’d…”

“You usually come off as someone who talks without a filter—but I know when you’re serious,” Gawain said, eyeing the shadowy assault goose. “Did you notice any signs before this happened?”

“Signs? None at all,” Amber shrugged helplessly. “Does biting into two bad sunflower seeds count? If not, then it was just sudden.”

Gawain frowned, deep in thought. Then he asked, “When exactly did this happen?”

“About when?” Amber thought for a moment. “Was it less than an hour after you went into ‘meditation’?”

Gawain kept his brow furrowed, silently studying Amber’s face. Inside his mind, countless thoughts churned and twisted, but Amber found his gaze unsettling, almost chilling. Her ears twitched nervously. “W-why are you looking at me like that? I’m telling the truth, and you just said you believed me…”

“I know you’re telling the truth,” Gawain said slowly, his expression serious. “It’s just… I’m having some completely unfounded associations.”

There was definitely something strange happening to Amber—Gawain wasn’t about to chalk it up to a simple cramp. And the timing of these anomalies? Thinking carefully, it seemed to coincide with when Cassandra and the sea witches began cutting through those purple-black “crystal thorns.”

Rationally, these seemed like two unrelated events. What connection could there possibly be between the Shadow Hall, orbiting far away in synchronous orbit, and Amber, who had lived her whole life on the surface? Gawain couldn’t find any clues or evidence linking the two.

But on an instinctual level… he couldn’t help but think back to what had happened at the Sky Station.

Because that was the only thing he could think of that might be connected to the strange phenomena Amber was experiencing—at least, they seemed to be happening at the same time.

And that hall was saturated with abnormal shadow energy.

“Unfounded associations?” Amber looked at Gawain, puzzled, her ears twitching slightly in the air. “Are you… saying something’s wrong over at the Sky Station?”

“The ‘Star Chart Keeper,’” Gawain suddenly said, locking eyes with Amber. “Does that term mean anything to you?”

Amber blinked. “Star Chart Keeper? Never heard of it. Is it a new position the Administration is planning to add? What do they do?”

Her expression was genuine—of course, Gawain never really expected her to know the name.

“We found a hall at the Sky Station shrouded in shadow energy,” Gawain explained without holding back. “Inside was a strange pilot device, and its nameplate identified it as an ‘Anchor Point Generator.’ At the time, the generator was covered in a mass of purple-black, thorn-like crystal growths. Cassandra and the sea witches cleared those thorns away—and that timing should line up exactly with when your body went out of control.”

“After clearing the thorns, Nicholas and the others extracted the remaining log data from the device. From that data, we learned about an entity called the ‘Star Chart Keeper’…”

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(End of chapter)