Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 234: Shutdown

Yu Sheng’s vision swayed for a long moment before he could finally make out Squirrel’s shape. The little creature was perched on his cheek, licking his nose with its tiny tongue.

Nearby, Irene’s frantic voice rang out. “Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng, are you awake yet? Holy cow, you just scared me half to death. When you fell from that height, I thought for sure we’d need a shovel to scrape you up…”

“You could phrase that more nicely,” Yu Sheng said at last, rolling his eyes. Once he was fully awake, he saw the little doll standing next to his head, and Foxy—the Demon Fox Maiden—crouched at his side. She was staring straight at Squirrel’s licking, then reflexively licked her lips. At that, Yu Sheng twitched at the corner of his mouth as unpleasant memories rose in his mind. “…Don’t tell me you plan to lick me too.”

Foxy quickly wiped off some imaginary drool. Then she gave Yu Sheng a goofy grin. “Heh… As soon as I saw you were okay, I felt relieved…”

“I—I was scared too,” Squirrel said, hopping down from Yu Sheng’s face and rubbing its paws. It mumbled, “I jumped right after you, and then Foxy caught me with her tail—she’s amazing. She can even fly! The three of us sort of floated down, and then we saw you lying here like you were asleep. Irene was still trying to guess if you were just-dead or just-alive…”

Yu Sheng propped himself up and sat upright, not paying much attention to Squirrel’s final remark. Instead, he started looking around.

“What is this place?” He rose to his feet and surveyed the surroundings, his brow furrowed. “How long ago did you come down?”

“We just landed a few minutes ago,” Irene replied at once. She then pointed upward. “But when we came down, we noticed there’s a thick ‘shell’ overhead. This area used to be a big, sealed structure. Except there are a bunch of holes in that shell—there’s a really big one you fell through.”

Yu Sheng let out a small sound of acknowledgment and said nothing more.

The area around them was dim, though not in total darkness. Faint lighting—like emergency lights—glowed along the ceiling and walls, allowing him to see. He noticed that this was a huge space, yet unlike the cold, metallic interiors elsewhere in Anka Aila, the ground here was made of soil.

Farther off, he could see many withered remains half-buried in that dirt, along with a suspicious, rotting substance that had spread throughout the soil. He looked up again and, in the gloom, faintly made out the “shell” Irene had mentioned—a massive dome, already damaged many years ago.

Slowly, he realized where they were.

“…So this is the ‘ecosphere’ Anka Aila carried.”

Irene cocked her head, her crimson eyes blinking. “Huh?”

Yu Sheng bent down and scooped Squirrel into his arms. As he walked forward, he spoke casually. “It’s a scaled-down version of the Homeworld ecosystem, meant as a ‘blueprint’ and ‘seed’ for rebuilding an ecological system in some new homeland. If I’m not wrong, there should also be a genetic vault here, kept in cold-sleep or some even more advanced stasis. But just like this ecosphere, it’s definitely been ‘dead’ for ages.”

Irene looked dazed, not sure how much of that she understood. But Foxy nodded thoughtfully and kept pace, as though following Yu Sheng’s explanation. “They build things like that back where I’m from too, to develop ecological planets. They’re always made by the big developers.”

Irene stared at her. “Your hometown has everything, huh?!”

Foxy simply grinned and swished her tail in pride.

Meanwhile, Yu Sheng continued walking through this “ecological wasteland.” His eyes drifted over the withered corpses, the dried-up riverbeds, and the exposed pipelines in the soil. He tried to imagine what it had looked like in the past.

He knew this had been Anka Aila’s “child”—an angel fallen from some far-off, doomed world, leaving behind its reflection here in Homeworld’s last ruin. [If that reflection had truly been born in the Borderland,] Yu Sheng thought, [it would have spelled disaster for everyone.]

Even for Anka Aila itself, it would be the same. That shadow could never become the homeland in its memory, nor bring back its Creators. It would only watch another nightmare crawl out of its corpse. And by then… the “Dark Angels” would truly be out of control.

A slight tremor rumbled beneath their feet. Then came a low, distant roar.

Yu Sheng stopped at once. Foxy’s ears instantly perked up.

“Did you hear that?” Irene asked, nerves on edge. “I think something’s moving, deeper in.”

Right then, Yu Sheng’s face changed slightly. He became very still, as though listening for something.

A calm, gentle whisper rippled across a dimension normal senses could not detect.

After a few seconds, Yu Sheng inhaled sharply, his eyes going wide.

“Irene! Wake up everyone in the Sheltering Wasteland. Have them retreat to the real world for now!”

“Uh… what? Alright!” Though Irene was confused, she snapped to action as soon as she saw Yu Sheng’s expression. She moved quickly, but still blurted questions as she did. “What is it? What’s going on all of a sudden—”

“Anka Aila is shutting down,” Yu Sheng said, spinning around. His face had gone pale.

Irene froze in place. The next instant, she gave a yelp. “Holy—?!”

“We have to evacuate. This place is about to go,” Yu Sheng said, snatching the little doll and slinging it onto his shoulder. He prepared to open a Door back to the real world. But then he remembered something else and stopped short. “Wait, there’s still Hunter… We have to go back in! There’s still time!”

“Hold on! If Anka Aila is shutting down, what about the Black Forest? What about Fairy Tale? And Squirrel?” Irene asked, now perched on Yu Sheng’s shoulder. With her feet off the ground, her brain suddenly worked better. “If all of Fairy Tale collapses, then Hunter won’t have anywhere to go!”

Yu Sheng hesitated, standing in place.

The low rumble rose into a harsh roar. The tremor underfoot grew stronger. This ancient, colossal, and heavily mutated ark was collapsing from the inside out. At that moment, Yu Sheng had a sudden idea.

“…We’ll connect it to the Valley.”

Irene’s eyes went wide with shock.

“They’re both Otherworlds. They’ve both been ‘parasitized’ by the Dark Angels. And I’ve already spilled blood in both places more times than I can count. If we managed this once, there’s no reason we can’t manage it again,” Yu Sheng said, taking a measured breath. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “I’m going to merge Fairy Tale with the Valley.”

“What do you need us to do?” Irene asked at once.

“…I have to perform this step myself, but it’ll take some time,” Yu Sheng replied, opening a shimmering Door. “You and Foxy head out first. Explain what’s happening to everyone ‘outside.’ For years, Anka Aila has been ‘sunk’ into the Borderland. Now that it’s shutting down, it’ll break away and disintegrate. Let the Special Affairs Bureau know.

“As for me, I’ll send Squirrel and Hunter back to the Black Forest. Then I’ll start the ‘merging.’ Irene, send one of your bodies to warn the Cursed Children in the Valley that there might be some…big changes soon. Have them stay put in their camp and keep away from anything that starts ‘shifting.’ Got it?”

“Got it, got it! So once again, I’m going in two directions at once.” Irene bobbed her head, then clambered onto Foxy’s back. She waved her hand. “You handle it, okay?”

Foxy glanced back at Yu Sheng, looking worried. “Benefactor, are you going to…”

Yu Sheng raised his thumb and grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m definitely dying here.”

Foxy gave a helpless huff and flicked Yu Sheng’s arm with her big tail. Then, just before the next violent quake hit, she jumped through the Door with Irene in her arms, returning to the real world.

…

The instant every monitoring device went haywire and alarms blared, Li Lin could practically hear a barrier shattering. It was as if a dark wall had concealed a great Mirror that blocked reality from a nightmare, and now that Mirror had cracked under the strain, splintering into pieces.

Then everyone present heard a rumble from deep underground.

The thunderous noise grew in strength. A colossal, immeasurable energy surge spiked on the far-end sensors. In an instant, Li Lin saw how the Orphanage’s barricade collapsed without a sound. Sixteen temporary force fields vanished by half, and the rest wobbled. Next, a beam of light rose into the night sky—

That beam erupted from the center of the Orphanage. Within the glow, two twisting strands—like a pair of “Umbilical Cords”—were uncoiling and drifting upward, silently dissolving.

A radiant shape floated up inside those shattered walls.

Bai Li Qing watched it with an icy expression. Then she raised her phone. “Prepare to initiate ‘Dome Fracture.’ We may lose our signal soon. Before that—”

She got no further. A Door suddenly appeared three meters away. Foxy and Irene burst out of it.

The little doll dashed through the Door, shouting, “Wait! Whatever that ‘fracture’ thing is, hold off on it for now!”

Bai Li Qing stared in confusion at the two who had just hopped through the Door.

…

Moments later, Li Lin received new orders, looking flabbergasted.

He turned around and gazed over the wreckage of the Orphanage wall. Through the broken remains, he could see the brilliant cluster of light slowly rising into the night.

He raised his walkie-talkie and took a steadying breath.

“All…all units, maintain alert and keep monitoring. Check all recording devices. We may be witnessing the very first…Angel’s Descent.”

This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation