Chapter 1724: The Clues
The Revelation…
Hao Ren’s vision was integrated with the probe’s field of vision. Under his control, the tiny device, only a few centimeters long, deftly angled itself in the air, scanning the entire wreckage into a vision sensor.
It was difficult for the human eye to accurately measure the volume of an object at a glance, but the various sensors and computational modules of the probe soon transmitted basic information of the wreckage to Hao Ren’s mind. Some basic data emerged from the wreckage: it was 12.15km long, 4.55km wide at its widest point, and mostly made of molecular layered polymers. Judging from the coil structure exposed at the fracture of the armor, its armor had the ability to further enhance its strength after charging.
It was a really huge thing with great technology.
The massive and complex hull structure of the gray starship showed obvious signs of distortion and bending, indicating that it was most likely captured then bent like this by a sudden terrifying force. Hao Ren initially speculated that it was some kind of gravitational weapon like a black hole moment, but there was another reason for the complete loss of the starship: there was a huge hole piercing through its belly. All parts of the hull near the wound had been fused together, and metals that had melted and cooled again floated like frozen blood around the wreckage, stretching for miles.
“It looks very much like the damage done by a concentrator weapon. Primitive mad minions rarely attack in this way…” Hao Ren said to himself as he steered the probe around The Revelation. “So it’s possible that the original friendly forces of these warships have been eroded and transformed into enemies by the mad forces…”
The Revelation floated near a dark cloud of gas, which could be seen everywhere in Gorgon’s Abyss. It was a distorted space with a depressing red background that seemed to be wrapped in layers of dirty fog. Apart from the Gorgonian demons (and their remains), there were only large and small pieces of broken rock as well as eerie clouds floating around. It was maddeningly drab.
The probe deftly avoided a cloud of solidified metal surrounding The Revelation. Hao Ren gasped as he zoomed in on an opening on the side of the wreckage.
Silver alloy “monsters” that looked like manta rays were parked neatly in that opening.
It was the “Gorgon Lords” who had raged through the Black Pine Forest not long ago.
The Gorgon Lords, considered to be the ultimate demons, were everywhere in the lair, like cannon fodder at the bottom of the pile. Thousands of them were lying down neatly in the belly of the giant starship, ready to spring. They were not aircraft carriers but fighters!
Those things were hidden in Gorgon’s Abyss… How did the indigenous civilization of L’Haronne survive to this day?
Huge doubts welled up in Hao Ren’s mind, but soon, his doubts were cleared.
The probe sent in scans, showing that all of the Gorgon Lords docked inside The Revelation were in a dormant state, and their energy response was as low as zero—meaning that they were not only asleep but also completely depleted, therefore they could never run again.
Hao Ren turned the probe with a chill, shifting his focus to another direction.
In the vast chaos of the different dimension, tiny black spots could be seen darting from cloud to cloud. Those were the Gorgonian demons in action. Most of them were unmanned weapons with body sizes ranging from a few meters to dozens of meters. The largest one was just like a “giant manta ray”, which Hao Ren once thought was an aircraft carrier. There were quite a few of them, but after he saw the hangar of The Revelation, Hao Ren realized that the Gorgonian demons were, in fact, only a small part of those ancient weapons.
In the more distant clouds, several other large shadows were visibly floating like fragmented mountains in the depths of the clouds. They were actually starships the size of The Revelation, but they were all in a dormant state.
“Terminal, are you seeing this?” Hao Ren was calling the MDT that was on standby in his mind.
“Ahhh, I’m synchronizing my field of vision with yours. I can see it all. Isn’t this a bit of a surprise?”
Hao Ren wanted to continue watching. “I’m going to switch to the other two probes. You record everything.”
In the next second, the vision of probe No. 2 entered his mind.
He saw huge pieces of rubble floating in front of him with connected pipes and supporting beams on them. On the surface of other floating debris, there were buildings like towers or factories.
“Seems like a typical asteroid belt complex,” the MDT’s voice resounded in his head. “They’re supposed to have some defensive facilities and energy arrays, but it appears that they have been scattered, drifting away—you see over there, those support beams are showing signs of cracking.”
Hao Ren noticed something strange on one of the floating rubble and immediately ordered the probe to approach it.
His field of vision was rapidly zoomed in. He gaped at the sight of what lay on the floating rubble.
It was a body, a human body!
Perhaps it was due to the absence of oxidation and decay in Gorgon’s Abyss, the mummified remains were in a fairly good condition. It was an old man with white hair and a magnificent purple robe with gold trim. His purple robe was decorated with faded crystals and precious metals, but they did not seem to all be ornaments, as they were arranged in a complicated way, surrounded by symbols and patterns that seemed to serve a special purpose.
The gorgeous old man was leaning on a pipeline in the asteroid factory. His face was distorted as if he had suffered a lot before he died. A long staff inlaid with large quantities of crystal, silver, and pure gold lay near his body. But like the crystals on the old man’s robe, these crystals and precious metals embedded in the long staff had lost their luster, as though they were made of plastic.
“He looks… like a wizard… Could he be a superb L’Haronne scholar who died here studying Gorgon’s Abyss?” Hao Ren muttered, controlling the probe to circle around the corpse and search carefully.
A moment later, the probe actually found something. There were words on the pipe, which the old man was leaning on. Although the words had lived through unimaginable years in that place where time was almost at a standstill, all the words were still visible.
As the probe hovered over the text, Hao Ren read the translation.
“My name is Marchieri. I am the chief wizard of the Holy Tumen Empire. I stepped into this destroyed land on the orders of His Majesty Tumen. I went too far into the area and was discovered by the ancient guards. Teleportation has been disrupted. It is impossible for me to survive.
“I have transmitted all information to the first orbital station in Tumen before teleportation is completely cut off. In the meantime, I will use my own magic to build a barrier, and I will stay in this space as long as possible, waiting for rescue.
“But if I am not saved, and anyone sees this useless body, please convey my last words to His Majesty Tumen. The following is what I saw after communications and space travel were completely cut off.
“All the collapsed history is tilted towards the ‘source point’ where the final end awaits our fragile world. But in that point of collapse, I saw a crack that did not belong in our world. I cannot say for sure who started it and when it started, but it is there. Let me boldly assume, in the distant future, that the inevitable end will be postponed indefinitely, and that our world can be saved.”
The probe circled the old man’s body and the modified asteroid several times but found no more clues.
“MDT, what do you think?” Hao Ren asked in his mind.
“First of all, according to the information I’ve collected and compiled so far, there’s no such thing as a ‘Tumen Empire’ in L’Haronne. There’s no such thing in history,” said the MDT. “Secondly, the old wizard, Marchieri does not call the ancient weapons of Gorgon’s Abyss ‘demons’, but ancient guards. This proves that his knowledge of these runaway weapons is more accurate or closer to the truth than L’Haronne’s current understanding. Third, and most importantly, he mentioned a term that sounds a lot like a space facility.”
“The first orbital station in Tumen…” Hao Ren nodded slightly. “It can’t be L’Haronne’s product—whether it’s this or the one before Rheia fell into her long slumber.”
“So… this wizard named Marchieri is another cosmic debris that collapsed into this place?” the MDT said, hesitating. “But this ‘debris’ isn’t like the Black Pine Forest or Gorgon’s Abyss. His timeline… seems to lie before the formation of Gorgon’s Abyss?”
Hao Ren suddenly thought of a sentence he had read in Rheia’s textbook.
“The end of the world will lead to the collapse of time and space, and the collapse of time and space will lead to the stacking, distortion, and even nesting of ‘history’ that originally developed linearly.”
A prehistoric man may see a flash of light at the end of the universe. A man facing the end of time could suddenly return to prehistoric times. And if one civilization was advanced enough to partially control the rules of the universe, they might even be able to systematically and purposefully observe the entire process of their universe’s destruction.
Hence… was this old wizard from the Tumen Empire an observer…
Or something even more bizarre?
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