Chapter 726: Chapter 725: Fragment from Beyond

Freyia.

Is that her name?

Yu Sheng crouched down in front of the tombstone, reaching out to feel the crisscrossing engravings on it.

A gentle breeze blew from the depths of the mist, carrying a sound as pleasant as wind chimes. Yu Sheng glimpsed a flash of white light at the edge of his vision, and when he looked up, he saw a pure white figure slowly drifting down from the mist, landing on a nearby tombstone.

She sat on the tombstone, her pure white wings hanging down to the ground from her back. She propped her chin on her hands, her legs swinging slightly, as if smiling over at them.

"Freyia?"

Yu Sheng tried calling out her name.

The girl laughed softly, nodding, yet she still didn’t speak. She merely floated up and circled Yu Sheng and Erin twice, then landed on another nearby tombstone.

Yu Sheng realized that even here, within the subconscious space of the other party, he still couldn’t understand what this "Artificial Angel" was thinking—she seemed to always be immersed in her own world of thought, everything she did carried a stream of consciousness quality.

But there was one thing he vaguely perceived: it seemed as though she was guarding this cemetery.

At least Yu Sheng had now confirmed her name.

"Her name is Freyia?" Erin asked curiously, "Then all these tombstones around... Well, I think I can guess."

Although there was a small incident when "coming in," things were progressing relatively smoothly. Since he had already figured out the other’s name, Yu Sheng thought it was about time to leave.

However, just as he stood up to bid farewell to the figure sitting on the tombstone, something deep in the mist caught his attention again.

Yu Sheng saw a faint glow, undulating like ripples on a lake’s surface within the depths of the mist, its distance indiscernible.

"What’s that over there?"

Despite knowing that Freyia next to him likely wouldn’t respond, Yu Sheng instinctively raised his hand, pointing into the depths of the mist, questioning the "angel" on the nearby tombstone.

Freyia jumped down from the tombstone, suddenly raised both hands high in the air before Yu Sheng, gesturing as if describing something very tall.

Yu Sheng: "..."

Good news, Freyia responded to him.

The bad news was he couldn’t understand what this stream-of-consciousness angel’s response meant at all.

Yu Sheng furrowed his brow slightly, cautiously inquiring again, "Can I go over there?"

The other party nodded—this was finally a response that a person could understand.

"Let’s go take a look over there," Yu Sheng turned to beckon the giant Erin beside him, "I’m a bit curious."

With that, he took a step toward the mist’s depths.

"Hey? Hey!" The Puppet Lady was momentarily stunned, then quickly caught up, chattering as she walked, "Slow down a bit, stop being so impulsive, hey I can’t keep u..."

Mid-sentence, she realized and glanced down at her body in the consciousness space (1.67 meters), and immediately chuckled, "Hey, I almost forgot, I’m a tall 1.67 meters here..."

Yu Sheng had always wanted to remind this silly Puppet that 1.67 meters was hardly considered tall, but given her current unfortunate state, he never had the heart to say so.

As they spoke, he and Erin had already moved past the surrounding tombstones, and beyond them lay the boundless mist and barren land overgrown with wildflowers.

Freyia followed along, drifting leisurely near Yu Sheng. Though he didn’t know why, she seemed to be in quite a good mood.

Yu Sheng again asked her about the mist and the distant faint glow, but still received no useful information.

The faint glow drew gradually closer.

Yu Sheng gradually saw within that faint glow a gigantic shadow.

The light flowed like water in the mist, the "water’s" center rising like a mountain, and then suddenly, the mist parted before his eyes, and Yu Sheng saw the "mountain’s" appearance.

A giant, hundreds of meters tall, sat quietly at the end of the mist, gazing down upon the direction of the tombstone cluster.

"My god, Puppet Progenitor!" Erin jumped, her first instinct to leap onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder, but with her current height of 1.67 meters, she couldn’t reach. So she backhandedly summoned her treasured frying pan from the mist, eyeing the giant’s silhouette as if facing a great foe, "What the heck is that?! That Skeleton? Didn’t that thing blow up with the Saint Realm?!"

"Calm down first," Yu Sheng quickly waved a hand, keeping his eyes fixed on the luminous giant as he spoke rapidly, "Look closely, this is just a shadow."

Erin finally calmed down, realizing that the giant before her remained utterly still and that she sensed no trace of life or hostility.

She still gripped the frying pan tightly (though it was just a projection summoned in the consciousness world), while taking another careful look at the giant.

It was indeed a massive figure, like the Shadowless Skeleton, hundreds of meters tall, but the skeleton was covered with a layer of illusory light, giving this giant an appearance of flesh and blood. Its face was blurred, seemingly without features, and its entire body appeared semi-transparent, just as Yu Sheng said—it seemed merely a shadow.

Yu Sheng composed himself, cautiously continuing to approach the giant’s illusion.

His mind racing with thoughts.

Why does the already deceased Shadowless Skeleton leave behind an Illusion here? Has this Illusion always existed, or did it only recently appear here? Is it related to the special technical path of the "Living Saint"?

Could it be because the "Living Saint" derived its technology from the knowledge carried by the Shadowless Skeleton, hence why the latter’s projection appears in the collective Consciousness Space of the former?

At this moment, Yu Sheng’s contemplation was suddenly interrupted by Erin’s exclamations: "Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng! There’s someone here! An old man!"

Yu Sheng hurriedly walked over to her side.

He saw the figure described by the Puppet Lady—the same half-transparent shadow, hunched over, wearing a hooded cloak, and a face that looked exceptionally old and vague.

He stood on the wilderness before the giant of light, with his head raised as if gazing at a mountain, and in the old man’s hand, he tightly gripped a long staff, on top of which was tied a tattered banner.

That banner also froze in the air, a phantom that cannot be touched.

Upon seeing this figure, Yu Sheng’s brow immediately furrowed slightly.

Beside him came Erin’s voice: "This old man... looks familiar."

Yu Sheng furrowed his brow tightly and murmured quietly: "The blind Omen Prophet, Kongdaman..."

Erin blinked and suddenly recalled something: "Ah, the one mentioned by the old handsome guy? The Prophet he saw in the ruins after he fell into the Black Star?"

"It’s possible. Look at the banner in his hand," Yu Sheng raised his hand and pointed at the near-rag-like "banner" tied on the old man’s staff, "This might be the Omen Banner, with faint patterns on the edges, resembling the piece of cloth I got back then."

"Seems like it?" Erin said hesitantly, frowning, "But how did he end up here..."

As she spoke, she cautiously approached the phantom.

The Omen Prophet of the Omen Goddess theoretically... should be her Envoy.

But she had long forgotten those matters.

As Erin approached the phantom, the banner that was frozen in mid-air suddenly moved slightly.

Before Yu Sheng could react to what happened, a voice echoed through the air.

Broken, blurry, as if separated by a distance beyond time and space.

"...When I finally met Him, I realized He was just a response machine capable of limited reaction to external information... This God born too briefly does not possess a complete Mind...

"Clearly, this path does not work... Although the existence before me is powerful, it cannot comprehend the significance of the World Bridge... It cannot help us repair that bridge.

"...The energy of the current fragment is exhausted, I cannot leave here... Hopefully, other ’me’s can find a feasible path... Our choices are limited.

"...The ark is closing, that ’Captain’ won’t wait for us forever, the window of time is very limited...

"In any case, I hope the others can make contact...

"And, may my Lord be safe..."

The voice gradually faded, and the tattered banner returned to its static state.

Yu Sheng looked up, exchanging glances with the wide-eyed Puppet.

"...He was referring to me at the end, wasn’t he?" Erin scratched her head, muttering.

"No doubt," Yu Sheng said slowly, then after a few seconds of silence, he continued as if talking to himself, "I just didn’t expect... this Omen Prophet actually contacted the Shadowless Skeleton. What remains here should be some kind of echo left from their contact... And through the connection between the Shadowless Skeleton and the Living Saint, this echo remained in Freyia’s subconscious space."

"From what we just heard, he didn’t just interact with the Shadowless Skeleton," Erin spoke while pondering, "He mentioned fragments, and other ’me’s... Did one person split into several directions?"

The Puppet mumbled, suddenly scratching its face: "That’s pretty much like me."

Yu Sheng subconsciously thought of those six groups of mass-produced Puppets in the valley and didn’t know what to say for a moment.

A moment later, he withdrew his gaze from the phantom of the giant and the elder.

Indeed, only an echo was left behind, apart from the muddled "message" Erin had activated, there was no more disturbance here.

Freyia floated over from the side again, circling above the clearing, as if prompting them to leave this place.

"Let’s head back," Yu Sheng turned to Erin and nodded, "I need to organize the matters here and send it to Baili Qing to have a look."

Erin: "...I think that Ironclad Expression owes you over 200 lives from a past life, if I were her I’d explode at you now."

"What do you mean by that!" Yu Sheng immediately widened his eyes, "Their Special Service Bureau’s daily work is to deal with these strange occurrences, and here I am voluntarily summarizing key intelligence and sending it over, that’s saving them from dire straits..."

Erin reacted quickly for once: "Where’s the dire straits from?"

Yu Sheng’s counterattack was strong: "From the past life you smashed down, otherwise where would the World Bridge come from?"

Erin: "...Yes, that’s true."