Chapter 1508: Full Power Operation

On the surface of the ancient and towering Shadow Throne, shimmering streams of light coalesced into intricate, arcane patterns. The once weathered and austere throne seemed suddenly infused with a translucent glaze, as if made of stained glass. Along the throne’s backrest, faint glimmers that had been hidden began to emerge, swiftly forming a star map that continuously evolved and updated itself. With every step the Lady of Night took toward the distant rift, these patterns and the star map grew ever clearer. Far beyond, in a place beyond sight, a deep rumbling steadily grew louder.

Wilde, standing by a stone pillar, was struck silent by the transformation. Though he had some inkling that the Lady of Night was preparing for something monumental—and that the time to act had come—he had not expected such a dramatic upheaval. Not only was the star map activated, but its power was visibly stirring. The seasoned adventurer couldn’t help but glance toward the Lady, who had just descended from the throne. “May I ask now—what exactly are you planning? Didn’t you say the star map was a gift sealed by the Voyagers, and it couldn’t be activated until the day the mission was fulfilled?”

“When mortals break their chains by their own strength, the day of mission fulfillment arrives,” the Lady replied, her mood light. Standing before the vast swirling rift, she glanced back at her throne, the star map’s glow reflected in her amber eyes like distant stars twinkling in the night sky. “Granted, I did use a little trick within my ‘authority and responsibility,’ but that’s a reasonable deviation. Though the coming-of-age ritual must be completed alone, since they’re already on the right path… I think giving them a gentle push is hardly unjustifiable.”

Wilde was silent for two seconds before speaking again. “Won’t this cause the mortal world’s trajectory to deviate from the Voyagers’ design? Are you sure the Voyagers won’t object?”

The Lady of Night laughed softly and turned toward the ever-spinning vortex. As the rumbling thundered closer like a gathering storm, her voice descended like a decree from the heavens: “The Voyagers never dictated the fate of mortal beings—because they themselves are mortals.”

With that, the imposing ancient deity stepped into the swirling dust vortex. As her figure vanished into the Shadow Divine Realm, the distant rumbling abruptly ceased. The sudden silence brought a strange stillness, and in an instant, everything in the shadow desert froze—the restless winds, the dust swirling near the throne, even the shifting lights on the Shadow Throne itself.

An eternal twilight hue, dim and amber like the Lady’s eyes, spread across the sky. In this world ruled by black, white, and gray, this amber was the only color.

The rumbling echoed throughout the entire habitat section. The low, terrifying sound resembled an invisible colossal beast crouching somewhere deep within the station, emitting a soul-stirring growl in the darkness. Along with the rumbling came faint tremors beneath their feet, flickering lights nearby, and suddenly appearing streams of dazzling characters and humming noises on various control terminals.

Nicholas “Egghead” was leading a team to restart an energy node in one of the ecological modules when he first sensed the abnormal energy surge in the nearby power lines. A strange metallic resonance coursed through his body, and he quickly rose higher, looking toward the source of the rumbling. “What’s going on? Restarting an energy node shouldn’t cause such a commotion…”

Iron Commander Alice immediately activated the magnetic mechanisms in her boots—a trick she’d learned during her time working on this ancient space station. Abnormal energy surges and mechanical vibrations often preceded gravity fluctuations. Even if gravity remained stable, magnetic locks helped brace against sudden events. “Not sure. We haven’t touched any equipment here yet.”

Nicholas swiftly turned to survey the vast, dimly lit chamber ahead. Beneath the astonishingly high dome stretched a landscape that could only be described as a sprawling wilderness: plains, hills, and a dried-up artificial river illuminated faintly by dim lights. Wilted plant debris littered the barren ground, and in the distance, abandoned houses and towers loomed in the darkness.

If not for the towering alloy walls flanking this “land,” the star-reflecting polymer windows, the ancient weather control systems overhead, and the dark dome enclosing it all, he might have found it hard to believe this wasteland was actually inside an ancient space station, far from any planet.

“The energy surge didn’t originate here…” Nicholas wasn’t focused on the ecological module’s scenery but was instead monitoring the ancient power conduits buried deep beneath the ground, shielded by multiple layers of protection. After a quick assessment, he ruled out any connection between the surge and the energy node in this module. “The rumbling seems to have come from the other end of the habitat section… Who’s over there right now?”

“Ms. Azalina is leading a team of technicians inspecting the corridors,” Alice replied quickly. “I’ve already messaged her to follow the direction the rumbling came from and look for clues—see if any new anomalies have appeared in the station. Should I patch their feed through?”

“Do it,” Nicholas said without hesitation. “Also, have the squad that went down the left corridor return the same way. The station might be undergoing some kind of change. Until we understand what’s happening, no one should venture into unfamiliar areas.”

“Yes, Commander.” Alice nodded and immediately connected to Azalina’s team’s data link. As the channel opened, one of Alice’s eyes retracted, replaced by a crystal-clear projection lens. Images flickered inside the lens before stabilizing into a first-person view of a figure moving swiftly through a corridor. Azalina’s voice came through the comm: “Commander Nicholas, we’re inspecting the modules along the main axis corridor.”

“Any clues?” Nicholas asked quickly. “Where exactly is the rumbling coming from? Has the station’s hull been breached?”

“We can’t pinpoint the source yet. The sound is resonating inside the hull, blending into a single roar,” Azalina replied as she ran. “But it’s rapidly fading, and there are no follow-up alarms or sudden air pressure changes. I think we can tentatively rule out hull damage. Along the way, we’ve seen many terminals spontaneously powering on or rebooting, with dazzling interactive interfaces. It feels more like something was suddenly activated…”

“Stay safe,” Nicholas said after a pause, the only advice he could offer as he waited.

The Skyward Station was enormous—so vast that the small team under his command felt overwhelmed. At first, this wasn’t obvious, since their exploration was limited to the orbital transit module nearby. A few hundred people divided into a dozen squads could cover every corner. But as more modules and ring belts were reactivated, their manpower quickly became stretched thin.

Moreover, as repairs progressed, Nicholas and his team confirmed that the station’s hardware was largely intact. Aside from the initial collision damage zone, over ninety percent of the structure remained undamaged. As they had suspected, this miraculous engineering marvel had simply fallen into a protective slumber due to the Reverse Tide contamination hundreds of thousands of years ago. With the right approach to restarting its energy nodes, vast sections could awaken.

This made repairs smoother than expected but also brought the manpower shortage problem to the fore.

“If His Majesty Gawain’s homeworld barrier project proceeds smoothly, our manpower shortage here should improve soon,” Cassandra’s voice interrupted Nicholas’s thoughts. The deep-sea witch seemed to have been pondering the same issue. “Right now, we have far too few people stationed in Skyward.”

“I don’t know which path they’ll ultimately choose,” Nicholas said after a moment, the hum of the sphere around him filling the silence. “I’m good with mechanical engineering and metallurgy, but preserving a civilization—that’s outside my expertise. What about you? Your kind, the merfolk, aren’t affected by the magical tide, right? So the pressure on you shouldn’t be so great…”

Cassandra was silent for a moment, her tail tip idly tracing circles on the floor. After a while, she shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s not that optimistic. You should know, we merfolk have recently gained the ability to sense the world’s ‘magic’…”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that,” Nicholas bobbed his body slightly. “I heard you couldn’t perceive magic before, which stalled your society’s development and technological revival for hundreds of thousands of years. Only recently have you evolved this sense… Are you saying this means you’ve become susceptible to the magical tide?”

“It’s still just a hypothesis, but theory supports it,” Cassandra shrugged. “The magical tide is an observer effect gone haywire under the universe’s primordial oscillations, and magic is the key medium and carrier in this process. We merfolk used to be completely blind to magic, so no matter how out of control the observer effect became, it didn’t affect us. We only saw the land civilizations spiral into madness and self-destruction. But now it’s different—we’ve… ‘adapted’ to this world.”

“That sounds like a curse rather than a blessing,” Nicholas said, his tone complicated. “You’ve gone from a chosen race immune to the magical tide to a mortal species vulnerable to its destruction…”

“Chosen to crawl on the seabed for hundreds of thousands of years, spending time tapping on an ancient ship and reminiscing about a distant glorious past?” Cassandra smiled wryly. “Is it better to give up comfort for an uncertain future, or sacrifice your people’s development for temporary peace? For many ordinary races, that peace has lasted so long it feels eternal. It’s a hard choice for many.”

The ancient deep-sea witch shook her head, her voice soft and distant. “Personally, I look forward to that future full of possibilities. We merfolk don’t lack ‘time,’ but we’ve wasted far too much of it. Even the youngest sister has spent a hundred thousand years on this unchanging planet… But Commander Nicholas, stones can exist on a planet for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. Do you envy their ‘longevity’?”

Nicholas was silent for a moment, then said with a hint of emotion, “I always thought merfolk weren’t the type to ponder such deep, sentimental questions.”

“We sea sirens also have our deep-thinking philosophers and sensitive, delicate artists,” Cassandra said, tapping the ground with her tail, clearly a bit annoyed by Nicholas’s stereotypical view. “Every race has its moments of getting drunk, right…?”

Nicholas felt like something was off about the second half of her sentence, but before he could say anything, a voice suddenly cut through their conversation over the comm channel—Asalina’s voice, sharp with shock and unease: “We found it! Master Nicholas—the anchor generator’s status is abnormal!”

Everyone’s attention snapped to the image Asalina transmitted. The room fell silent the next moment.

Asalina’s squad had reached the “Shadow Hall” where the anchor generator was housed. Now, she and her team stood beneath the massive pillar, looking up at its shell that stretched all the way to the dome above, its surface shimmering with dazzling, iridescent light.

Countless streams of light traced the intricate patterns on the generator’s surface, while a low, humming drone filled the entire chamber. Surrounding the ancient totem-like shell, massive holographic interfaces hung from above, cascading with staggering data, symbols, and incomprehensible graphics—like a torrential downpour pouring from the sky.

Standing in the Shadow Hall, Asalina was enveloped by the deep hum, the surging energy, and the vibrations of the machinery—like standing in the eye of a storm, her mind shaken.

There was no doubt: the anchor generator was running at full power.

But… why?

Asalina in the hall and Nicholas on the other end of the comm channel spoke in unison: “Report immediately to His Majesty (Gawain)!”

…

At the same time, deep within the otherworldly depths, the realms of the gods undulated and sank as they had for millions of years.

An eternal, unchanging chaos cloaked the “Deep Sea” surrounding the depths, while the collective consciousness of mortal beings washed over the central cluster of projections within this chaos. These projections, known as the “Divine Realms,” stirred with waves both great and small.

The power of mortal thought sustained the fragile yet mighty order of each Divine Realm, maintaining their long yet fleeting balance. Under the collective subconscious “definition” of mortals, these “Kingdoms of the Gods” quietly operated. Many had long since strayed from their original paths; some had even drifted close to the chaotic, frenzied edge of the Deep Sea itself, showing signs of imbalance and distortion—but against the vast scale of the Divine Realms as a whole, all these changes moved with agonizing slowness.

And within this slow, immense, seemingly eternal cluster of projections, a discordant light suddenly emerged from the darkness.

A colossal ancient god appeared, draped in magnificent yet mysterious robes that spread like storm clouds in the dark.

The Lady of Night stepped forward, wielding a black-and-white scepter, emerging from the violently shifting shadows—standing directly within the chaotic darkness between the realms of the gods.

(End of chapter)