Chapter 1039: Chapter 1039: Fallen Apostle in the Shadows – Abyss Sentinel
Seeing that Big Beard, the assistant technician, was unharmed, we all felt a sense of relief. After all, the safety of the engineering team was the most important thing for the three of us jumping down this time. Although Bingdisi has criticized me more than once after the jump for being the Leader but getting carried away with excitement from time to time, and also criticized Sandora for having fallen from a once calm and stern Queen to a silly girl who gets carried away with her husband’s excitement, that female hooligan looked quite happy, patting Big Beard on the shoulder forcefully and said with conviction, "It’s good to be alive, you’re awesome, huh! For your bunch of troublemakers, both Empire Leaders have jumped into the Abyss Gate themselves!"
Big Beard’s expression was very complicated, extremely complicated, so much so that I couldn’t tell which emotion he was trying to convey the most. Basically, there were at least twenty different looks scrolling on his face, especially after Bingdisi’s lukewarm provocation, it seemed as though Big Beard was about to commit suicide on the spot to apologize to the world: "Your Majesty, I acted on my own, putting the Imperial Leader at risk..."
"Alright, alright, I’m getting goosebumps..." I quickly waved my hand, having seen the so-called "frontline battlefield scientist" in action before. Now he’s changed his career to play the sentimental tune, but unfortunately, my personality can’t tolerate this the most, "How is the situation with the engineering ship... okay then, tell us exactly what happened down below, you suddenly ended communication, what unexpected incident did you encounter? What’s the deal with that Fallen Apostle starship? Did it sabotage the Abyss Gate?"
"We sabotaged the gate." Big Beard spoke astonishingly, with pride on his face as he said this.
"You... sabotaged the gate?" My mind couldn’t process it for a moment, "You need to explain this properly!"
Big Beard led us to the control center of the engineering ship, where there were obvious signs of post-chaos, many large data terminals had already stopped working, the crystal panels bore the cracks left by small-scale explosions, and the flashing warning lights had yet to completely settle down. According to my shallow starship knowledge, the major alarm signals on those holographic projections currently displayed lethal faults in the ship’s power group, navigation group, and communication group, which should be considered fortunate: at least the ship’s defense system wasn’t in a terrible state, although the shield output was somewhat inadequate, it could still block the Abyss’s erosion for the moment, preventing the engineering ship from facing the same fate as that black Fallen Apostle starship.
In the hexagonal control center, near one side of the floor, it had already been opened by repair personnel, exposing the main pipe flickering with energy sparks underneath, several autonomous machines were nimbly drilling in and out of the intertwined mechanical devices, like spiders weaving webs. According to Big Beard’s briefing, workers were making every effort to repair the ship’s power core, and the soonest it would take ten minutes for this ship to restart. Earlier, Sandora had already established contact with Big Sister, and the Abyss Gate on the outside world side had been thoroughly suppressed by Qianqian, delaying for another half an hour would be no problem, so it seemed we had ample time to hear Big Beard tell us what they encountered in the Abyss Domain.
"This is the Fallen Apostle’s Abyss Sentinel, I’m no strategic analysis expert, but this is absolutely a very, very dire situation." Big Beard pointed at the holographic projection in front of the captain’s seat, revealing what we had just "captured" (where Bingdisi could express pride), the black misty starship, but behind this ship were two similarly-sized but differently-shaped silhouettes, looking like a small-scale patrol squadron, "The ship you see is just one of them. We encountered a total of three such Sentinel ships, one carrying strange armaments, another seemingly an auxiliary function ship, and this one appearing to be a scientific research or engineering vessel. The Fallen Apostle must have manufactured these things in bulk, prowling the Shallow Layer Zone like assassins in the dark. If not for us happening to salvage databases today and these Sentinels coincidentally discovering this gate for the first time, I’m afraid we wouldn’t realize until they caused big trouble. When we guided the first database to rise, these ghostly things suddenly wandered in from the Shallow Layer Zone, but we had slight initiative: the Imperial Engineering Ship you’re on is equipped with a cutting-edge Abyssal Multispectral Radar personally designed by the Taville Chief Technician, purposefully crafted to detect inconspicuous targets in the Abyss, the three Fallen Apostle ships appeared in our sights while they were blind. Yet, this timing is very brief, and I dare not confirm when they might discover this gate and then call the entire legion over, so we shut down all communications to prevent enemy interception, transmitting the database out in extreme silence, the database actually included our report, and then..."
"And then you tried to shut down the Abyss Gate and found a way to take down two enemy ships," Sandora smiled, "The Empire’s excellent soldiers should be like this, though your decision remains somewhat reckless, the situation you foresaw indeed could occur, you did effectively block the route the enemy might take to attack the Empire. But I’m curious how you actually accomplished it?"
"The Taville Chief Technician long researched the stability mechanisms of the Abyss Gate, and I was fortunate enough to be selected into one of the long-term research teams. We compared confidential data shared by the Divine Race and discovered that if operations were carried out on the Abyss Domain side, making an Abyss Gate collapse was actually quite easy; it just requires performing a quick information oscillation at a critical location to leak information from the Main Material World to the Abyss Domain in reverse. This dangerous technology would cause the gate on the Abyss side to collapse, while the gate on the Main Material World side would erupt outward, but I believe people outside have the ability to evacuate in time or destroy the gate or test site."
Big Beard seemed to consider more thoroughly than that tech maniac from Taville—he probably knew that one of the Emperors in front of him was semi-illiterate, so he went straight to explain what he did, without delving into why it would be effective from a scientific perspective: as you can imagine, that would be a lengthy science lecture, likely not finishing before I fell asleep...
If the Fallen Apostle had the ability to use the Abyss Gate as a springboard to attack the Imperial Mainland, then Big Beard can be said to have saved many lives. However, I still had some confusion: "The engineering ship isn’t armed, how did you manage to eliminate two enemy ships and come out unscathed?"
"Not completely unscathed, as you can see, we were also attacked—though not seriously," Big Beard wore a proud smile on his face, "This is a sturdy ship, its defense isn’t much inferior to a main battlecruiser, and the enemy’s sentry seemed to be an unmanned patrol or exploration ship, which shouldn’t be classified as a warship at all. They even had a ship that was just an auxiliary communication platform, barely with any defenses. I was involved in designing a generic armed modification device, carrying a batch of experimental model parts with me. We started by using the engineering ship’s probe launcher as a floating bomb ejection platform, then modified two ’drifting bottles’ that were originally meant to be discarded. You know, some of the databases we later salvaged were severely damaged, but the shield device and storage tank could still be barely used. Using some other things, we created two oversized stealth mines and inserted them into the ejection platform. Bear in mind, the heavily corroded databases looked just like the wreckage after a spaceship explosion, so when our engineering ship appeared, the enemy mistakenly thought that all the floating debris around were remnants from the explosion of the engineering ship’s escape tower: but in fact, two big ones were mixed in there. They launched an attack on the engineering ship, nearly breaking through a layer of shield; it was a dangerous situation, our energy core was damaged, but Kovell patiently let the stealth mines slowly approach the target—and then we took out two ships, but there was nothing we could do about the last one. However, just as we were preparing to ram it, you appeared..."
I listened, dumbfounded, deeply understanding what "frontline battlefield scientist" meant. Taville’s definition was still a bit conservative; this was simply a magical creature that could randomly pick up some scraps on the battlefield and assemble them into high-powered explosives to blow people away! The situation at that time was definitely not as relaxed as Big Beard described, casually using the wreckage from the deep-diving ship database as the shell, and managing to create bombs capable of destroying Fallen Apostle ships? Well, I understand those databases come with their own navigation systems and thrusters, and if you replace the core equipment, you can use them as missiles, but the most crucial part is still the explosive power issue—yes, I have every reason to believe this Big Beard’s personal space was filled with powerful explosives and advanced weapon components, just waiting to pick up some junk on the battlefield to assemble tons of bombs—of course, he referred to those explosives as "experimental model parts"...
At this moment, the engineering ship’s power core finally successfully rebooted, and the command center resounded with the sound of various devices activating in sequence, the relaxed atmosphere only truly permeated then: only when the spaceship resumed operation did the people here genuinely escape danger. We established contact with my sister, who was anxiously waiting on the other side of the Abyss Gate, and learned that the situation on the other side was relatively optimistic: all personnel had been evacuated, the obelisks surrounding the Abyss Gate were completely destroyed, but Qianqian was using her power to solidify the entire gate; even with the mutated time vortex, it was difficult for the Abyss Power to advance further. Qianqian was right; she was now worlds apart from before, strong enough to suppress an Abyss Gate with her individual power!
In fact, the power of her, Big Sister, and Lin Xue continued to grow at an astonishing speed. No one knew when this growth would end. Nowadays, they still possess human bodies, but Bingdisi speculated that their souls had completely mutated, just like the Dark Goddess and others beside the Father God, ascending from mortals to Gods—possibly, not until that day would their growth cease.
"If we pass through the gate now, the Abyss Gate will collapse immediately, and Qianqian won’t be able to suppress it," I communicated with Big Sister through the spiritual link, "You all withdraw. Have Avalon open a gate to the Void above the Abyss Gate; when we dash out of the Abyss Gate, we’ll charge straight into the Void, eventually detouring back to the Starport, and then you should immediately have Avalon banish this universe. This requires a well-coordinated effort, the quicker, the better."
Sister paused, her response carrying a hint of amusement: "Qianqian said, trust the tacit understanding between yourself and your man. We’ll wait for your signal; as soon as you set off, Qianqian and I will immediately lead the last few people to teleport back to Shadow City."
"Alright, then... three, two, one, go!"
The engineering ship’s onboard computer immediately responded: "Spaceship power furnace at full power, maximum acceleration. Target Abyss Gate, power chamber ready for impact preparation..."
The engineering ship accelerated to high sub-light speed in an instant, then smoothly passed through the Abyss Gate. I saw the overwhelming flames of the Red Giant Star flashing by in the external projection, those mad plasma storms seemed to want to pull the engineering ship down from mid-air, keeping it forever in this world about to be banished, but these scenes were instantly replaced by darkness. The engineering ship entered the Void Navigation state, and we completed this charge within three seconds.
"The test site has already been banished, but the Avalon system is still pointing to that universe," came my big sister’s voice with a sigh of relief through the spiritual link. "Taville said he wants to track and observe the universe’s demise process, can’t be helped. Glad to know you safely completed the task. Hurry back now."
The engineering ship returned to the Shadow Space Starport without a hitch, but since it just completed a mission in the Abyss Domain, it needed purification from top to bottom: actually, I wrapped the ship in my Void Domain and docked it directly within the Ghost Energy Barrier set up by the starport. Bingdisi joked about this all the way, saying how my Void Creature functions are just incredible, even useful as a delivery package in crucial moments. When docking, she insisted on having a dock agent stamp ’Package Received’ on the armor of the engineering ship, saying it’s like signing off on my face...
Sandora’s explanation was that a certain unreliable someone is once again in their erratic euphoria phase. She suggested we tie Bingdisi up and throw her into solitary confinement for a few millennia to observe. I must say these two truly are eternal best frenemies...
All crew members of the first engineering team were subjected to purification treatment, and the three of us who hung around the Abyss Gate for half a day were no exception. However, my own purification process was the simplest; just switch to the Void once more in a clean environment, and anything related to the Abyss on me would be cleared off, leaving me refreshed. It’s probably akin to a complete transformation, just that mine’s much simpler. Bingdisi’s comment was on point: "Others would take half a lifetime to cultivate a transformation, but you just need to toss your face away..."
I thought to myself, it’s not like I wanted a faceless Void appearance. If you have the guts, try mocking King Huron, who becomes a walking mosaic after turning into his Void Form...
Seeing me so effortlessly complete my self-purification, Sandora felt especially envious and snuggled up to me: "Ah Jun, can you purify me too? A part of me became Abyssalized and it always feels particularly uncomfortable after high doses of Ghost Energy exposure."
I thought for a moment, saw no one around, then pulled her into my arms amid her exclamation. The young girl’s body, soft and warm, was quite pokey—she quickly retracted her claws. Initially surprised, Sandora soon comfortably nestled in her boyfriend’s embrace, looking up at me with a giggle: "Ah Jun, give me a kiss..."
Me: "..."
Sandora: "...Uh, you don’t have a mouth right now, do you..."
One of life’s greatest agonies surely includes this: a lover asking for a kiss only to find oneself without a mouth. It’s probably as embarrassing as Yang Guo wanting to embrace Little Dragon Girl only to find himself lacking equipment. I suddenly felt the most urgent task in my current Void form is to get a mouth, and if possible, a nose too: Qianqian likes to pinch my nose for fun, and so does Little Baobao. I held Sandora, gently enveloping her in my Void Halo, and softly asked: "Hey, don’t you find my current look strange? Last time Mercury Lamp was almost scared by it." The girl didn’t let me hold her to sleep for a whole week afterward.
Sandora hummed: "Do you find my claws strange?"
I thought about it and figured that given our family’s collection of odd individuals, we must have a unique aesthetic standard.
"Hey, hey, you two are almost done, right?" Bingdisi’s voice irritatingly chimed in, "Show some restraint with the PDA. Even a purification turns into a cuddle session. Oh, no cuddling, Chen’s got no mouth in this form."
Embarrassingly, Sandora wriggled out of my arms, looking at Bingdisi with feigned anger: "All purified? I remember you were the most contaminated, turning into a big light egg and swallowing the whole ship..."
Bingdisi’s face twisted instantly, pointing at Sandora in exasperation: "Prioritizing lover over friends, huh? Why don’t you mention how I salvaged the last bit of wreckage?" Then she waved it off and said to me: "I purified myself, don’t need soaking in Ghost Energy like those soldiers. You forgot? I’m a High Order God. When I need purification, I just turn into pure light..."
This suddenly reminded me, and I curiously asked: "Wait, aren’t you from the Dark Divine Race? How come you turn into a ball of Holy Light? Besides, with your personality, what part of you is holy? The fact you can glow so brilliantly always seemed morally inexplicable to me..."
Bingdisi swung a kick but was intercepted by Sandora, then gritted her teeth and said: "I’m a walking moral code! Did you know, just recently, I commanded my Priests that all prayers to me, Bingdisi, must start with ’Oh my god’ and end with ’For the love of god’, that’s a god’s privilege..."
I pondered: "They’re praying to you, right? How many curses do you endure in one day?"
Bingdisi froze for a moment, then dashed off: "Oh, for the love of god! I need to amend the Bible immediately!"
Sandora and I: "..." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to visit Qidian () to cast recommendation votes and monthly votes, your support is my greatest motivation.)