Chapter 889: The Record

The sudden gleam that appeared in the corner of his vision instantly jolted Gawain to full alertness.

He immediately focused all his attention—twelve million percent—fixating on that unexpected light. Under his intense scrutiny, the playback speed of the footage slowed to a crawl, revealing every minute detail with crystal clarity. His first instinct was to identify the source of the light. He quickly realized it wasn’t coming from the planet’s surface, but from somewhere near the upper edge of the atmosphere. It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere—no warning, no trajectory—like an invisible door opening at the atmospheric boundary. Then, an object moving at an incredible speed shot toward the orbital facility!

As the flying object grew larger in his view, the hazy glow gradually resolved into a distinct silhouette.

If his body had been there in that moment, Gawain was certain he would have been staring wide-eyed—

A majestic stag, bathed in a faint white radiance, emerged from the light and shadow. It carried with it a thin veil of atmosphere from the edge of the planet’s atmosphere, trailing behind was a streak of high-energy reaction like a comet’s tail, piercing through the cold, silent void of space, heading straight for the monitoring station’s vantage point—with unstoppable momentum, and a terrifying, resolute determination.

At one point, when the stag was close enough, Gawain even caught a glimpse of its eyes through the footage. They were not ordinary eyes—not human, not mortal—but somehow filled with a deeply human emotion. He sensed a complex mixture of acceptance of death and desperate resolve burning within them.

But the gaze lasted only a fleeting moment.

The next instant, the stag and its radiant aura exploded into a brilliant burst of “flames” on the screen. A powerful shockwave erupted from the corner of the footage, scattering countless fragments, sparks, and gases venting from the space station’s hull, filling the entire monitoring display.

The image began to shake violently, alarms blared in his mind, and the hull of the space station—if that’s what it was—resounded with terrifying, continuous crashes. The picture quickly distorted and dimmed. Gawain saw the battered stag plummeting from synchronous orbit, while a golden-glowing flying device suddenly surged in from off-screen—likely the station’s defense system, now awakened and initiating its mission to eliminate the intruder.

Amid the ensuing fire and explosions, the footage abruptly ended.

In the darkness, a system prompt echoed deep within Gawain’s mind: “Historical log playback complete—above footage from final monitoring record of Sector C-16.”

After a brief silence and a moment of reflection, Gawain calmed his racing heart and asked internally, “So… it was the God of Nature who crashed into this facility, causing all subsystems to go offline?”

The system gave no reply, silence serving as its answer.

But Gawain didn’t need one. The facts were clear—the stag’s form was unmistakable. Anyone who had seen it once would never confuse it. It still lay quietly in the deepest recesses of the Defiant Fortress, imprisoned in the Shadow Realm by a mass of ancient debris. The so-called God of Nature, created by the Cult of the End of All Things using divine corruption factors, was nothing but a crude imitation compared to that truly sacred figure.

“Dealing with the stuff left behind by the Godslayer fleet really requires a strong heart…” Gawain muttered bitterly to himself. “What the hell did I just watch…? A stubborn god charging into synchronous orbit to crash into a space station and commit suicide?”

The sentence was full of absurdities, yet the biggest joke was that it was all true.

He then tried to use that collision as a key point to search for more records, but beyond the short clip he had already seen, the facility’s database yielded nothing else of value.

After a while, Gawain gave up on that line of inquiry and instead began to explore the facility’s secrets through this connection. Since he had established contact using a fragment of the Starry Legacy, he wasn’t sure how stable the link was. If this was his only chance, he couldn’t afford to lose it.

After many failed or unresponsive attempts, he finally extracted a valuable name from the facility’s main control system’s intermittent feedback:

Skyward Station.

At last, he could confirm that the structure he was connected to was a massive space station, not just a small monitoring satellite.

“Skyward Station…” Gawain repeated the name in his mind, then asked with little hope, “What is the purpose of Skyward Station? What mission does it have in orbit?”

“Error: insufficient query permissions or upper-level database not accessible. Please check data link. If issues persist, report to the Supreme Technical Committee.”

A predictable response. The main system of Skyward Station was clearly malfunctioning. For most queries, it either gave no answer or something like this.

Gawain was curious about this so-called “Supreme Technical Committee,” but questions about it went unanswered. Not that it mattered—the committee probably vanished into the annals of history long ago.

“How many orbital facilities are still operational? What is their status?” he asked next.

This time, the main control system finally gave a somewhat useful reply: “Querying connected units… orbital facility list provided.”

In the next moment, a three-dimensional panoramic view of space facilities appeared before Gawain’s mind’s eye. He immediately recalled a similar overview he had seen before when using a fragment of the Eternal Stone Tablet. But soon he realized this image was different—

The previous one was a rough, incomplete schematic, with each facility represented only by a glowing dot, devoid of detail. This time, perhaps due to higher access privileges or the unique nature of Skyward Station itself, he saw a miniature model. The space facilities around the planet were rendered as pale blue, semi-transparent holograms—this display method conveyed an astonishing amount of information.

The most jaw-dropping sight was an enormous ring-shaped structure.

It hovered above the planet’s equator, encircling the entire world!

Just by comparing it to the planet, Gawain could estimate the staggering scale of this ring. Staring at the hologram, he finally realized that this was the very facility he was connected to—the Skyward Station!

He had imagined it was large, but never to this extent! The last schematic he saw via the Eternal Stone Tablet had shown Skyward as nothing more than a single glowing dot orbiting the equator.

The difference between a schematic and a miniature model was staggering.

After several seconds of stunned silence, Gawain’s emotions settled, but a thought thundered through his mind: For millions of years… above the Loren Continent… something like this has been drifting?

“…Skyward… is this orbital ring?”

He muttered to himself, but the cold, mechanical prompt gave no response.

He wasn’t surprised.

Regaining his composure and focus, Gawain scanned the miniature projections, searching for his own “satellite.” He thought he found it—several flickering “small devices” near Skyward Station above the Loren Continent. They seemed to be synchronized with the massive main body through some kind of spatial anchoring technology, monitoring the Loren Continent’s direction. One of these might have been the “container” he had inhabited for tens, or even millions, of years.

While stabilizing his connection to Skyward Station, Gawain tried to glean more information from the hologram. Concentrating on several orbital facilities, after a few attempts, additional data surfaced from the projections—

“Glowing One Station. Status: dormant, database offline, main system offline, power failure, backup power: critically low. Unable to awaken. Operation: ignore/abandon.”

“Zenith Seven Satellite. Status: severely damaged, all systems offline, orbit deviated, backup power: critically low. Unable to awaken. Operation: ignore/abandon.”

“First Starbridge. Status: unknown, all systems offline, spatial anchor failed, orbit deviated, backup power: none…”

Gawain’s gaze swept over the rest. Aside from a few facilities marked as “low power operation,” the rest were nothing but extensive damage reports and glaring red alerts.

As expected… the results were similar to the last overview he had seen, only this time the information was more complete, making the dire situation even clearer.

The shock he felt when first seeing the Skyward Station’s hologram gradually faded. Gawain cleared his mind and looked again at the orbiting projections. Suddenly, he no longer saw a marvel of advanced technology, but a vast graveyard.

A cemetery, with tombstones standing for millions of years.

And the Loren Continent—the home to countless generations of living beings—was the largest tomb in this colossal graveyard.

The thought brought a faint pang of melancholy.

But that sadness was quickly shattered by a sudden wave of dizziness.

An unbearable fatigue and vertigo surged from the depths of his consciousness. Gawain felt all his senses deteriorating and misaligning at a terrifying speed, faster than when he first connected. He realized he was losing his link to Skyward Station—a previously unknown sensation of “soul fragmentation” rapidly stripping away his ability to think clearly!

Just as he felt himself about to slip into unconsciousness, a loud, piercing, almost obnoxious voice shattered the darkness, as if it could wake the dead, yanking him back to reality—

“Hey, hey, Old Zongzi, wake up! You’re not looking good! Oh man, your shield’s smoking! I’m calling for help! Oh crap, you’re smoking too… Ah, it’s burning me!”

Gawain’s eyes snapped open. Through the blurred, distorted vision and pounding headache, he saw a small figure swaying before him, someone vigorously shaking his shoulder.

As his sight cleared, the blurry figure resolved into Amber’s face.

Gawain struggled to focus, dizziness still swirling, but he hadn’t passed out. Then he noticed the intense heat around him. The Guardian Shield resting on the desk was glowing red; the contact point between shield and desk was scorched, and the edges of several stacks of papers nearby were curling from the heat.

As Gawain opened his eyes fully, Amber jumped back half a step, waving her hands frantically and shouting, “Oh my god… you’re finally awake! Did you know you were smoking just now? I swear, your clothes almost caught fire!”

Only now did Gawain fully regain his ability to think clearly. He realized that just moments ago, he had narrowly escaped a truly perilous situation—the process of connecting with the Sky Station was completely different from linking up with a satellite. The enormous “cost” involved had almost cost him his life.

It was Amber who had pulled him back at the critical moment.

“I was in danger just now,” Gawain said, looking at Amber, who was hopping excitedly and waving her hands. “Thanks to you.”

“Huh? Danger… I knew something was off when you started smoking!” Amber paused for a moment, then burst into cheerful excitement. “Looks like my guarding paid off! I’ve been your bodyguard for years, and I finally succeeded once…”

Gawain: “…”

(End of chapter)