Chapter 1036: Chapter 1036: Something’s Wrong
The deep-diving ship continued moving in the Abyss Domain for a total of three and a half days. At first glance, this seems like a poor performance. Just three and a half days, not even as long as some powerful Imperial Commanders can sustain operations in the Abyss Domain. However, when considering another fact, perhaps no one will question it: it is heading towards the area with the most severe Abyss pollution, where the distance traveled has long surpassed the stability limits of material world products. With each step forward, the pressure it has to endure multiplies several times. Initially, it may still be within the region Sandora ventured into back then; after that, it enters uncharted Death Zones.
The design strength of the deep-diving ship to resist Abyss pollution far exceeds any existing starship of ours. It can almost achieve perpetual motion while cruising near the Abyss Gate, only breaking down when constantly venturing deeper into danger zones until reaching a limit. According to the navigation speed of the deep-diving ship, its point of collapse has passed the Abyss Shallow Layer Zone and has likely touched the "Strange Frontier."
The Abyss Shallow Layer Zone is Taville’s way of describing it, roughly layering the known environment of the Abyss, with the Abyss Gate as the entrance. Near the Abyss Gate is the Abyss Shallow Layer Zone, where the pollution is severe but not lethal, having unstable passages for safe transit between Abyss Powers—these are the gaps observed when the mist surges—making the danger level of the Abyss Shallow Layer Zone greatly reduced. As long as these gaps can be accurately found, even intermediate Xyrin Apostles can fight in the Abyss environment. There is a distinct dividing line when crossing this shallow layer zone that has never been observed. However, Taville deduced its existence from data extracted from the deep-diving ship’s prototype database at the time, theorizing that all Abyss Mist should abruptly end after this line. On the other side is a uniformly concentrated heavily polluted area, where the Abyss no longer presents a measurable state. At the same deep dive depth level, the pollution intensity in every unit of space is the same and will multiply with increasing depth. This region is called the Abyss Deep Zone. Since there are no ’superior’ safe passages as in the Shallow Layer Zone, and no mists can be delimited, navigating this zone poses a significant challenge for the deep-diving ship; there are no shortcuts for safe routes, everything relies on the ship’s protective performance. If the deep-diving ship can advance after crossing that dividing line—even if only an inch—it indicates that the starship’s design philosophy is correct, and its protective system indeed possesses characteristics for sustained work in the Abyss Domain, although its strength may need enhancement. In other words, the dividing line between the Deep Layer Zone and Shallow Layer Zone also determines the destiny of the deep-diving ship. If it fails to cross and survive in the deep, a redesign will be necessary.
Failing to cross the dividing line suggests the deep-diving ship relied entirely on safe routes to pass through the Shallow Layer Zone.
Fortunately, the deep-diving ship seems to have crossed the dividing line on the second day after departure, then continued navigating for about thirty-five hours, reaching the so-called "Strange Frontier."
The term "Strange Frontier" is from Sandora, representing the analytic limits of our current technology on phenomena deep in the Abyss. There’s no clear dividing line between this region and the Abyss Deep Zone. Its delineation is based on data retrieved from the deep-diving ship’s prototype ship database beforehand. According to the database records, after the deep-diving ship reached the deep layer zone for some time, all research data sharply declined. It appears the research team led by Ocam was unable to collect any useful information after advancing a certain distance in the deep layer zone, indicating that the bizarre sights in the deepest domain of the Abyss surpass the comprehension range of current technology, and the onboard instruments become bewildered by the phenomena occurring around them. The ship can still travel, but crew members no longer recognize the constellations around it—that’s the sensation. Clearly, the definition of Strange Frontier somewhat depends on the sophistication of onboard instruments, or our existing technological level. Given the New Empire’s technological capability, the Strange Frontier would likely arrive much sooner than what Ocam faced back then.
Beyond the Strange Frontier, there are two more nebulous layers termed as the "Barrier Zone" and the "Bottom Layer." They are conjectural at present, with no evidence to prove their existence. Ocam couldn’t transcend beyond the death threshold of the "Strange Frontier" either. Taville conceived the existence of the Bottom Layer based on the recurring "Abyss Ordered Signal Phenomena" and further topped it with a "Barrier Zone."
Our speculations about the Abyss Domain are ninety percent grounded in such hypotheses and deductions, and the deep-diving ship or the entire deep-diving plan aims to substantiate these conjectures with something more substantial.
The Abyss Gate silently floats on the blazing red surface of the Red Giant Star, encircled by a series of Ghost Energy Obelisks flickering in an orderly pattern to maintain the gate’s stability. From afar, it resembles a pitch-black small round hole puncturing through the luminous outer shell of the Red Giant, exposing the icy, dark true core of the star. Externally, the Red Giant’s surface appears tempestuous, with crimson plasma storms roaring past at tens of thousands of meters per second, whereas the Abyss Gate remains still like a pool of black water. Internally, however, it’s just the opposite; beneath the Red Giant’s tumultuous surface lies order. Each plume of plasma erupting is founded on laws accurately describable by multiple mathematical models. To a scientist’s eyes, the Red Giant is steady and silent like a quietly burning small flame, yet the Abyss is wild and twisted, bizarre, aberrant, challenging all laws of the material world, unreasonably overturning everything: despite seeming to be nothing more than a placid pool of black water.
Two customized "Ferryman" class medium barges hover a few kilometers above the Abyss Gate. At this distance, it’s tantamount to one foot stepping into the Death Zone, so these Ferryman class barges have been outfitted by Taville with new shields specifically against Abyss corrosion. These barges, like other common engineering vessels, prioritize functionality. Their appearance is square and extremely flat, resembling a playing card floating in outer space: a playing card twelve kilometers long. Several large rectangular openings penetrate through the barge’s hull from top to bottom, with force field traction systems constructed along the edges, resembling some ancient extraction wells. At the center of this traction system is a space gate leading to the barge’s Gnaku. The traction system can draw objects over without direct contact, while the space gate transports these objects to a high concentration of Ghost Energy environment, where the Abyss is neutralized and purified, ultimately securing the items in the Gnaku.
However, the Ferryman barges don’t have the capability to pull objects directly from inside the Abyss Gate. To "fish out" the Drifting Bottle from the other side of the Abyss Gate, special personnel working under extreme conditions are required, and this task must be manually operated: we cannot afford any accidents in this project.
Still in that space workstation adjacent to the Abyss Gate, now functioning as the frontline command center for the deep-diving plan, the project team staff are intensely monitoring the condition of the first batch of engineering teams. They’ve entered the Abyss Gate, currently moving within the outermost layer of the Shallow Layer Zone. Although it’s relatively close to the Main Material World’s safe zone, it’s only so when compared to deeper areas. The engineering teams have limited protection; their "salvage ships" are built on the principles of the deep-diving ship. However, since they attempt to retrieve tangible material from the Abyss environment, the salvage ships have a higher likelihood of contacting pollution substances, so the entire operation has to be conducted with utmost caution.
On our communication screen, a middle-aged man with a big beard dressed in an Assistant Technician uniform appears. He is the leader of this brave engineering team. The engineering team has established contact with the command center within the Abyss Domain. The transmitted images show noticeable distortion and stuttering—even though they’re operating only a few dozen kilometers from this command center, the communication situation is not promising, which gives me an incredible feeling, as if instead of using extremely advanced Imperial Technology, we’re conversing with soldiers using an old radio from World War II.
The stout middle-aged man has rugged facial features. Although dressed in a researcher’s attire, I truly think he resembles an Imperial Soldier wrapped in a white robe. Taville introduced this subordinate assistant to me, describing him as a "Frontline Battlefield Scientist," essentially a type of Empire-specialized technician who prefers assembling new bombs on the battlefield while collecting enemy casualty data rather than working in laboratories on theories—it makes sense for him to lead the engineering team through the Abyss Gate as an Assistant Technician.
"The environment here is harsh, the hull is slightly shaking, and gravity inside the ship just increased by one percent," the big bearded "Frontline Battlefield Scientist" spoke in a rough voice, his gaze not lingering long on the communicator, instead swiftly scanning around, seemingly paying attention to numerous constantly refreshing data, "maybe a lot of things are trying to kill us."
"Mind your shield readings; a new pollution surge is emerging within the Abyss Gate," Taville frowned, one of her mass projections personally monitoring the readings inside the Ghost Energy Obelisk by the Abyss Gate, "it seems continuous interaction between information from the material world and the Abyss Domain is causing this gate to loosen slightly."
"Certainly, Chief Technician." Big Beard’s gaze drifted to the side, seemingly confirming Taville’s warning before deftly operating the console, "We see that dense fog, its scale is immense, the Abyssal Aura escaping from it has already touched the work ship. Our outermost shield is undergoing self-decomposition, but it’s far from reaching the danger point. It looks like we can withstand this impact. We can’t change positions; those safety databases that fell from the deep-diving ship are returning. Their operational state is poor, so I just set the work ship as a temporary navigation tower to safely bring more databases back... oh, the impact is coming... bzz..."
Big Beard’s voice was suddenly replaced by a burst of loud static, and the images from across the Abyss Gate turned into massive, twisted bright lines. The surging Abyss Power disrupted the orderly arrangement in communication signals, causing them to collapse into chaotic noise. That bold Big Beard really used the work ship to directly withstand the impact, making everyone tense except Taville, who remained calm: "It’s only a communication interruption. The work ship’s design is strong enough to face various crises in the Shallow Layer Zone. I know Vida, he likes to gamble but doesn’t like to lose his life."
As Taville said, the work ship soon reappeared on the communication list, and from the intense noise, Big Beard’s report could be barely heard: "The impact is still ongoing, Chief Technician, we see large patches of gray-black... at least gray-black fog after equipment processing, they enveloped the work ship. It’s as if they can distinguish that the work ship doesn’t belong to their world. The shield system is refreshing rapidly, the contaminated shield attempted an internal self-destruct but was promptly stopped. We are still sending navigation signals to ’Drifting Bottles,’ the impact might have affected one or two databases, losing their traces... oh, damn, the work ship might be slightly contaminated, I’m not sure, but two Escape Towers suddenly disintegrated just now..."
The signal interference was extremely severe, images transmitted from across the Abyss Gate almost turned into frame-by-frame visuals, but Big Beard’s expression remained relaxed. However, behind him, more and more alarm lights were appearing in the control hall—things didn’t seem as relaxed as his tone. Sandora decisively gave the command: "Ascend immediately. We’ll send down a second engineering team. Send up a brief report on the spaceship status now; I want the scientist team to analyze the reason for your contamination right away."
"Maybe... it’s not that troublesome, we can handle this minor issue, Viham has already gone to check the damage at the Escape Tower base. The warning system hasn’t issued an alert yet; our shield remains intact, it’s likely just an accidental situation," Big Beard’s voice suddenly became clear, and the images also returned to normal, "Oh, the impact passed, quick to come and quick to go. Alright, Chief Technician, Your Majesty, let’s talk about what we confirmed: the databases fallen from the deep-diving ship may have encountered more severe impacts than expected, we only received seven navigation requests, yes, over a hundred databases, only seven returned alive to the Shallow Layer Zone, and just now two more suddenly lost contact. We must stay here to continue providing navigation for the remaining five databases, they can no longer return home on their own. More storms are forming, if navigation signals terminate or there’s a delay when switching to the second engineering team, those databases have a ninety percent chance of being lost—that’s the last bit of the whole plan’s result, I must protect the Empire’s property! No need to send a second engineering team, in one minute we can transport the first database out of the gate, please prepare to receive."
Big Beard’s stance was resolute, and it seemed his expert team could indeed solve these issues, so Sandora did not persist further, instead instructing them to complete the task swiftly and letting Taville check properly afterwards.
Big Beard saluted before disconnecting the communication.
Soon, the barge waiting on the Abyss Gate’s side received the engineering team’s "cargo delivery" signal. I don’t know who’s idea it was, but their communication password was like this: Open the door, your delivery...
A barely noticeable small vortex appeared in the middle of the Abyss Gate, from which a little thing glowing dim blue floated out. Compared to the hundreds of kilometers radius of the Abyss Gate as a whole, this blue little thing was as inconspicuous as sesame seeds on a flatbread—alright, I admit my words were lacking at the moment. The work ship successfully captured the first elevated database and transported it out of the Abyss Gate smoothly, when this sesame floated off the flatbread... ahem, as if turning the brain around was quite challenging, anyway when this inconspicuous little thing floated out of the Abyss Gate, the entire command center immediately filled with a relaxed ambiance.
As long as one database returns to our hands, the entire plan is more than halfway successful.
"Great, we’ve spotted the target—though its condition doesn’t seem great, its shield has almost extinguished and it’s not accepting our external commands, there might be some system damage, hopefully the database protection program designed by the scientists is still functioning normally... our tractor beam has captured it!" Report came from barge number one, and then we saw many faint indicator beams radiating from the walls of the central rectangular passageway of the barge. These beams swiftly wrapped the database that just drifted out of the Abyss Gate and pulled it into their space gate for receiving cargo, "Detected strong Abyss reaction, there’s a danger signal uploading along the tractor beam... barrier system is functioning well, we’ve confined the contamination. This thing needs a thorough cleaning, with a nauseating smell pervading it."
How big is an escape database? Actually very small, in the Abyss environment, a smaller size means easier access to efficient protection, those drifting bottles equipped with navigation systems and the current most efficient propulsion engines are individually about the size of a small car, while a "Ferryman"-class barge’s size is measured in kilometers, using such a massive thing to bring home something the size of a small car looks somewhat ridiculous, like Megatron gingerly picking up a Dingdang from the grass. But we have reasons for doing so: only something the size of a barge can carry enough equipment to ensure normal operations when close to the Abyss Gate, and it also needs to carry a set of "Cleaning Device" for rapid Abyss purification to sterilize the just salvaged drifting bottles. We did consider letting high-speed mobile small spaceships sweep past the Abyss Gate to recover databases, which might be more efficient and not so ridiculous, but there’s a chance of spreading contamination to the salvage team: not worth it.
Soon, guided by the work ship, other databases detached from the Abyss Domain one after another, the entire salvage process seemed even smoother than we anticipated, nearing completion. Among them, only one "Drifting Bottle" was lost, it was severely infected, its shield completely extinguished, the shell twisted like tangled threads, this thoroughly abyssalized mechanical body erupted with the glow of impending self-destruction. Upon arriving at the Main Material World, it immediately attempted self-detonation to disperse the Abyssal Aura around it—fortunately, a large number of Guard Towers were already nearby, watching intently, and before it exploded, high-concentration Ghost Energy Beams completely purified everything. The polluted database only generated a tiny spark in outer space, then was promptly engulfed by the brilliant light of the Red Giant Star, followed by Taville feeling extremely pained...
"First engineering team, your mission is completed, return immediately."
Sandora breathed a sigh of relief and ordered through the communicator.
No response. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please visit Qidian () to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)