novelThe Wind Blows
| ← Ch.1687 | Ch.1689 → |
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
While the goddess of creation was in the deep end of studying, in the deepest, darkest part of the Plane of Dreams, a dark current roiled within an ancient, dark and chaotic prison.
The place had been in total silence for the last 10, 000 years, as though all celestial bodies were frozen in ice. There was no evolution of life, and no changes to the stars as the river of time seemingly forgot about this dark realm, freezing it when the seal took hold.
Yet, this "freezing" was just an illusion in the eyes of short-lived mortals. During the last hundred centuries, this prison was never truly in a state of peace, not even once as the ancient terror sealed within it struggled to escape at every possible moment. And it was not the first time the red alert parameter had been triggered since the wardens of the prison had been fighting a ceaseless battle for 10, 000 years. This battle was not visible through the naked eye, and the only signs were either a lonely star suddenly dying out or a piece of space debris suddenly disappearing.
A lonely star stood by the edge of the dark border. There were no other celestial bodies around, and its orange-red surface roiled in flames as streaks of fire fought against the planet's own gravity well and the stabbing cold. It looked like there was a wall of gleaming spears in the dark space. Yet, the light from this star was not about to shine far. About half a celestial unit away, bizarre darkness, like a writhing beast or mud, crawled slowly. It had no physical form, and it did not even project any gravity or radiation, but the planet's radiance halted before this writhing darkness as if was being consumed by the void.
Suddenly, something changed within the writhing darkness, and the seemingly aimless, scattered "mud pool" started to have some resemblance of order and cohesiveness as it charged toward the dark border. The solitary orange planet in the system reacted too; its brightness increased exponentially as did its astral body, and the orange flames turned into blazing white-blue flames in a thousandth of a second. A wall created by gravity and dimension distortion also blocked its access to the darkness.
The dark "mud's" movement was stopped, and after a momentary standoff, everything returned to normal.
However, not all disturbances would return to normal. In a place 200, 000 light-years away from that sentry post, another star could not hold up against the writhing darkness. The distorted dimension was torn apart by brute force as some sort of destructive force invaded the core of the ancient star. Countless of unknown black lines appeared all over the star's surface, and it began to crack along the lines. As some rune-like objects disappeared the moment the planet came apart, everything was consumed by the darkness into nothingness.
In another sector farther away, one by one, a ripple of information rang across the solitary stars in the form of a language, unintelligible by mortals and floating around like a breeze between stars.
"Sentry Post N-66 is lost. Sector 73 to 76 is non-effective. Interior defense has fallen to 32%. Probability of containment failure has increased to 68%."
"We have lost two-thirds of the interior sentry posts, and the remaining ones are not faring well. The central sentry posts are affected too. In the past few days, over twenty-odd unusual energy spikes have breached the interior defense and directly attacked our central nodes."
"The attacks are ever-increasing. The prisoner's activity is rising; it has awakened."
"Situation critical, situation critical, situation critical."
After a short silence, the murmurs from within the stars rang again.
"The good news is, we have confirmed the existence of 'reinforcements'.
"We have detected a series of unknown facilities being built rapidly at the edge of the Dark Abyss. The energy signals are similar to the unmanned drones we detected earlier..."
"And one of the facilities is broadcasting our brethren's unique pulse. It is probably a transmission relay."
"While we do not know the details yet, one of our brethren outside is trying to establish contact with us."
"It probably has something to do with the energy explosion deep in the prison. That explosion weakened the prisoner by at least one-fifth."
"However, it also caused a spike in the prisoner's activity. After the explosion, the prisoner's actions have shown a high level of logical thinking."
Several seconds of silence later, another even more ethereal voice joined the murmurs, "Insufficient data, unable to perform an accurate assessment. But based on the sixth contingency plan of the ancient accords, we should view the latest changes as a signal to initiate the 'final battle'."
The owners of the murmurs from a few other stars were visibly shaken for a moment before a few of the voices acknowledged the ethereal voice with a respectful greeting, "Chief Warden."
The voice referred to as the chief warden continued to ring, "... The hour of the final battle is upon us. Regardless of whether reinforcements are coming or not, the breach of the interior defense perimeter is before us. Nightwatchers, prepare for battle."
Not one of them dissented, and all the Nightwatchers immediately voiced their determination at the very first opportunity. They were very clear that even without any reinforcements and support from the goddess of creation, even if their strength was hopeless when taking the Mad Lord head-on, even if the "final battle" would mean total annihilation of their kind, from the moment they chose to stay in that star system, they had already prepared for such a possibility.
After they received the orders to initiate the final battle, the chief warden added, "The second order is to attempt contact with the facility outside the prison."
This time around, there was a voice of curious dissent, "Chief Warden, exchange of information with the outside world is dangerous. This could weaken the seal on the Dark Abyss."
"Based on the fifth contingency plan of the ancient accords, when the containment is about to fail, and if there is an appearance of highly-intelligent lifeforms making contact, we should disengage all information lockdown and establish contact. We have also learned that our brethren's unique pulse is coming from that facility, we cannot ignore it."
"Very well, as you command."
Deep within the dark space, the murmurs between the stars once died down again, and a deathly silence cast itself a veil over the entire sector once more.
A few minutes later, a star at the very edge of that dark part of space suddenly shone brighter. Following that, countless crystal-like strands disengaged from the star's surface into space and rapidly crystallized into a material form. In the center of the layers of crystals, a glowing silhouette made out of energy clouds and light points could be seen.
After a moment, a fusiform starship appeared above the star, and upon basking in the star's light for a short while, it transformed into a beam and flew in the opposite direction of the Dark Abyss.
A few consecutive jumps later, the pilot finally reached his destination as the dark and chaotic sector was now far, far away behind him. Before him was a vast sea of stars.
While almost impossible to detect by normal optical means, the ship could still detect the majestic structure created by the droid swarm. There was a massive antenna array, and the pulse from his brethren was broadcasted continuously from it.
As long as he went forward, he could leave the terrifying prison of the Dark Abyss and enter the warm embrace of the Worlds of Order. Yet, the starship stopped in its original position. Being a Nightwatcher, he knew that once he crossed this line, there would be a massive breach in the defense of the prison because any data leakage beyond the permitted level would allow the Mad Lord to directly project its powers onto the Worlds of Order.
This was as far as he could go in order to establish contact with the outside world.
The fusiform shuttle stopped, and using the Dark Abyss as an anchoring point, it lifted the fore of the ship while the crystalline structure transformed into a sail-like structure. The crystal sail basked in the starlight coming from the Worlds of Order, and it glittered in space.
The starship carefully adjusted its angle as it ensured every sail was facing the droid structure before it used the lowest possible output to communicate.
"This is the Nightwatchers. The prison of the Dark Abyss has received your signal. Greetings, brethren."
The simple greeting was immediately sent through the vast space across multiple amplifications and transmission relays without any delay to the data processing center on CAR. With Asurmen as the top member of the signals team, being online 24/7 the entire time, the greeting was relayed to his mind the moment it was sent.
Even with the Denizens of the Star's usually unshakable will, Asurmen was flustered for a moment, and he even thought that he was hallucinating.
However, the transmission was clearly recorded by the recording device.
"We have made contact! We have made contact!" Geddon, who was on duty with Asurmen had also heard the greeting, and even the stone-willed giant leaped out of his chair, almost toppling everything beside him. He immediately activated the team's comms and simultaneously contacted Salaman who was on the Core's system, "We have received a direct transmission from the Dark Abyss! I repeat, a direct transmission from the Dark Abyss!"
At the same time, Asurmen fully recovered and this Denizen of the Star quickly tuned the frequency of the droid relay station to strengthen the signal quality, and replied, "This is Asurmen from the CARS signals team. It is a pleasure to hear the voice of our brethren once again."
"The same here. No one thought we would ever hear the voices of our brethren. The world outside—"
"Please listen, " Asurmen interrupted, not letting his brother finish."Let all sentries know that the goddess of creation has returned. We will soon launch a glorious and decisive counterattack, so before the day of reckoning, please converge your strength. Do not confront the Mad Lord head-on! We will need your reinforcements in the battle to come!"
After that, Asurmen turned to Geddon, who was busy with the comms control station."Geddon, what's the status of the Core? Have we managed to contact the goddess?"
"We have already reached Commander Salaman. He says that Mother is still busy with her homework, the last half of her question. She will come over once she is done!"
"Umm... tell the goddess that she does not have to rush. The transmission is stable, and I have passed on the important messages. Let her focus..."
| ← Ch. 1687 | Ch. 1689 → |