Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1350: That’s Not the Abyss Gate!
"That concludes the birth of the Xyrin Apostle," Anses, the ancestor, sighed, feeling slightly parched after speaking at length. Being in a mortal body, he was inevitably constrained by his physical condition in some aspects.
The Original Body was initially designed solely as a weapon against the Abyss, a fact that came as no surprise to Sandora and me. In fact, the core memories of the Xyrin Apostle also contain vague impressions related to this. The Apostle’s primary mission: to fight against the Abyss, is etched into their thinking cores almost like a racial instinct. The life form of the Xyrin Apostle itself corroborates this: their talents and ways of thinking all serve warfare. One could say this is a species meticulously crafted specifically for war, so I was not at all surprised by the ultimate purpose for which the Original Body was designed.
However, what was initially just a mechanical soldier for fighting the Abyss ended up becoming the successor to the civilization of the old Xyrin people — certainly, many things must have happened back then. Anses casually mentioned the decision back then to transfer the civilization, but any observer can see how astonishing such a decision was. It required not only foresight but an entire race’s realization of the dark end they were facing.
Can you imagine the Earthlings under what circumstances would create an artificial human more powerful than the current humans, and then with the realization to leave the stage of civilization together with all of humanity, hand over human civilization to their creations? This is exactly what the Xyrin people did back then.
"The decision was indeed difficult," Anses certainly understood the look on Sandora’s and my face, he nodded calmly, "The new government was under significant pressure, as were the citizens. Everyone knew it was necessary, but nobody liked the fact. It is easy to understand: we are humans too, we fear death, fear being forgotten, fear losing everything we created with such great difficulty, nobody can calmly give up the civilization of their entire race, make some grand statements, and then gracefully exit the stage — nobody, not even the Holy Sage can achieve that. We created the Original Body, whose performance exceeded expectations: efficient, brave, powerful, resilient, naturally capable of spiritual connection, and self-improving at an astounding rate, but the thought of these new species taking over the Xyrin Civilization, and us creators having to exit... honestly, many people had conflicting feelings."
"Were there no other options at the time?" I couldn’t imagine how difficult the exile was back then, hence the question.
"What you said, many people back then asked the same," Anses smiled silently, "’Was there no better choice?’ ’Couldn’t we coexist with the Original Body?’ ’Must the old humans perish, is there no alternative?’ — such questions were repeatedly raised for a long time, and the less firm factions within the new government were almost shaken, but this wavering further convinced the steadfast factions of one thing: mortals have too many flaws, hard to shed emotions, the current debates just proved that the weak-willed old humans had to exit the stage, otherwise the Xyrin Civilization stood no chance of defeating the Abyss."
"Let me give you an example," Anses noticed I was thinking and suddenly laughed, "This is a true story that happened when the Original Body was about to be successfully developed, and it almost led to the complete collapse of the Xyrin Civilization on its path of escape—" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
After leaving the Hometown World, we were always under the shadowing threats of the Abyss, no one knew what was happening, but the Abyss Power was rampaging over a vast area, the Fleet couldn’t stop, and we kept encountering the debris of worlds destroyed by the Abyss. Over hundreds of years, we never managed to escape the polluted zones of the Abyss."
"It might have been a large Abyss Gate causing resonance in the surrounding worlds, or perhaps multiple universes simultaneously bursting with pollution." Sandora explained to me through our spiritual connection, "With the technology of the ancestors back then, navigating the Void must have been very slow."
"In such dangerous situations, the Fleet had several near-destruction instances," Anses continued, "It’s quite ironic, we declared revenge, but back then, we had to give everything even to flee. The most dangerous moment was when the fourteenth ship of the Ark Fleet was swept into a collapsing cosmic debris—"
"Was it infected by the Abyss?" Sandora whispered.
The little doll finally stopped running around, she came over and grabbed my arm, the little girl felt bored while listening to the history of the Mother Star, but now she seemed attracted by the new story.
"Yes, heavily polluted, the most active Abyss contamination event, the fourteenth ship almost instantly turned into a highly poisonous nest, half the population turned into monsters in a blink of an eye, the remaining half faced a difficult decision:" Anses showed a bitter expression, "You all are so advanced, you must know that one of the ways the Abyss spills over is through information exchange: if the Abyss is active enough, it can spread through any form of information exchange, whether sounds, words, pictures, or even glances and gestures, as long as communication with another individual happens, there is a chance to spread. These include distress signals."
Of course, I knew about this means of contamination, in fact, Sandora’s High Order Spiritual Plague also emerged after she was transformed by the Abyss, taking advantage of this super-dissemination of the Abyss.
"As long as the fourteenth ship called for help from other spaceships, there’s a chance contamination could spread out instantly." Sandora said solemnly, this was the deadliest scenario for ordinary civilizations, the Xyrin Apostle constructed firewalls within the spiritual network and had a potent resistance against this sort of contamination due to their ghost energy environments, but for mortal races using conventional communication systems, they barely knew how to set up barriers on their communicators and radio (just an example here) bands that could filter out the Abyss. Such barriers involve information processing technology and high-level ghost energy control technology, which far exceeded the technological levels of the ancestors back then.
Even if the Xyrin Apostle had measures regarding network barriers, the Old Empire was still destroyed by pollution far exceeding firewall strength. This reveals the enormous danger of such contamination.
Anses continued in a low voice: "The situation back then was extremely dangerous, and it wasn’t until after an investigation that we realized our race was nearly on the brink of total extinction once again. The Abyss Force on the fourteenth ship could spread to the entire Fleet at any moment, you have to understand, it’s not just the captain sending out a distress signal that would lead to the spread of contamination — a captain wasn’t necessary, a signal station wasn’t necessary, as long as one citizen on the fourteenth ship, using their personal communicator, sent a farewell message to a friend or relative on another spaceship, there was a chance the entire Fleet would be contaminated!"
I instantly broke out in a cold sweat: yes, a captain’s issued distress signal wasn’t needed, the Abyss contamination wouldn’t be picky about a "sufficiently sophisticated channel", it was all-pervasive, and even the lowest-level communication channels could serve as infection media. I believe the Xyrin people at the time still retained civilian communication networks, and it wasn’t difficult for ordinary civilians to make a phone call to their relatives on other spaceships.
Even if the captain of the fourteenth ship had the authority to lock all communication channels of the entire spaceship, what if he didn’t make it in time? What if he were a second late, and a civilian had already called home?
What if— the captain himself fell into panic?
"Whether out of fear, panic, a desire to survive, or other human emotions, for millions of civilians to have one person bid farewell to friends or family, how easy that is," Anses clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white, "The fourteenth ship was a giant ship with a population of nearly ten million, and at that time, four hundred twenty-three thousand people had the ability to contact other Arks. Before the captain ordered the destruction of the spaceship’s communication tower, there were four hundred twenty-three ticking time bombs that could destroy the entire civilization — fortunately, the captain of the fourteenth ship was a decisive and unyielding person. He acted instantly with his ultimate authority, blowing up the entire ship without much thought, before anyone opposed the decision or the weaker faction sent a distress call to the other ships."
Anses finished his story, and I found my palms were drenched in cold sweat, even Sandora beside me looked relieved: returning to that time, if that captain had been just a second slower to react, or if he had softened his heart for just a moment, held a slight bit of false hope, there wouldn’t be a later Xyrin Empire to speak of!
"If we return to that scene," Anses looked directly into my eyes, "entrust the fate of the entire race to four hundred twenty-three thousand mortals who are afraid to die, can fear pain, lose their minds, cry and sob, or to a group of rational beings who can shut off all emotions and collectively self-destruct at critical moments, what would you choose?"
"If we wanted to scrape by, find a stable world to live out the rest of our lives, and flee again when the Abyss came, then naturally we could choose the former — as long as we ran fast enough, there would be no problem, but if we wanted revenge, to fight those things with the dignity of a warrior until the demise, then we must choose the latter: let the mortals step down, and not hinder the Original Body at all. Even if when fighting the Abyss it’s no longer us the outdated old Xyrin people, at least we as parents cleared the space for the children in our way, at least we weren’t failures."
Anses mentioned the word "hindrance", a heavy and jarring word, but after fully understanding the terrifying adventures of the exile era, I could only acknowledge: this word was the only fitting one.
Fighting against the Abyss requires more than merely mortal courage. The Xyrin Ancestors, living with the premise of revenge, fully understood that to defeat a cold and ruthless enemy, one must be even more cold and ruthless—at least until they could grasp overwhelming technological superiority. Focusing on willpower was the only method they could think of at that time.
"So we made the Original Beings the inheritors of our civilization, teaching them everything we could, and then the Exile Fleet split into two parts," Anses said at this point, his tone unexpectedly relaxed. "We also developed during our escape: by collecting materials from cosmic debris we happened upon, we built a batch of new spaceships—more advanced, faster, and equipped with experimental precision navigation devices. We handed these ships to the Original Beings, instructing them to find a completely opposite route from the Exile Fleet’s current course, and to move forward without ever looking back. From that day on, the Xyrin Apostle replaced the old humans. No old human remained on the Original Beings’ ships because any mortal could become a weak link breached by the Abyss. The Exile Fleet continued on its original course, hoping to find a stable world untouched by the Abyss to attempt to rebuild civilization. But...as you all eventually guessed, you discovered the Ark Debris, and the fleet ultimately could not evade the Abyss’s pursuit. The fleet’s destruction indeed stemmed from mortal weaknesses: the panic of the populace and erroneous decisions by the leader led to the fleet’s annihilation. At least when my spaceship disintegrated, there was no echo on the communication channel, so there were probably no other survivors."
Anses finally finished recounting this long history, and the common room fell into prolonged silence. Even the usually active doll girl sensibly quieted down, nestled on my lap while clutching my arm, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Anses. I gently stroked her hair: "You erased much of the Creator’s information from the Original Beings’ memories, didn’t you?"
"Yes," Anses nodded with a smile. "I proposed this resolution and received support from the majority because everyone knew that, although the Original Beings’ emotions were indifferent, they would eventually develop a complete emotional module. If they had too much information about the Creator in their memories, I feared they would turn back to ’find their parents’ too soon. At that time, we were still uncertain about the critical point for switching between emotional and rational modules, so we could only erase their Creator information to mitigate the risk."
"So all these years we haven’t been able to remember what our Creator looked like," Sandora spoke softly, as if talking to herself. "To make such a decision, by the standards of the Xyrin Apostle, is incredibly brave."
"But mortal courage is always temporary. Do you know how many people impulsively wanted to turn around and chase the Original Beings’ departure direction when the fleet was about to be destroyed, foolishly hoping those children would protect them?" Anses gave a meaningfully sly smile. "Among those people were brave warriors who would never be weak when facing other enemies. However, the Abyss precisely affects human minds, and mortal willpower can be easily softened by the Abyss, leading to mental derangement."
Neither Sandora nor I spoke.
"Tell us about the Abyss situation that erupted in the Hometown World," Sandora licked her lips and asked a question many were concerned about. "According to your description, it was an extraordinarily large-scale outbreak, even in my memory, it’s rare to see such an Abyss calamity spreading across multiple worlds. Did it initially appear as a ’gate’? How large was it?"
"Gate?" Clearly, Anses didn’t possess the knowledge the current Xyrin Apostle had. Back in his time, the concept of an Abyss Gate wasn’t explicit. "Is this your modern terminology? It’s somewhat like that, I remember its scale exceeded five light-years, spanning across Colonization Point No. 46, dividing the Sun and the colonies into halves..."
"What?!" Anses’s words were abruptly interrupted by a cry of surprise from Sandora. "You said the Abyss Gate was how big?!"
"...Five light-years," Anses was taken aback. "Is there a problem?"
"The Abyss Gate couldn’t possibly be that large," Sandora nearly jumped with shock; it’s rare to see Her Majesty the Queen so panic-stricken—the last time was probably when I suggested she go on a diet. "Its nature causes larger Abyss Gates to collapse faster. There’s a critical point: an Abyss Gate below that point will self-destruct after the world is destroyed, while one above that point will collapse before it pollutes the world. Moreover, the self-destructive lifespan of an Abyss Gate exponentially decreases as its scale increases. An Abyss Gate of five light-years..."
"Would likely collapse as soon as it appeared," I now easily understood such conceptual matters. "It might tear away a large piece of cosmic space before collapsing, but such a supermassive Abyss Gate would fail to cause significant harm in time."
Sandora bit her lip: "Not only would it fail to cause harm in time, theoretically, an Abyss Gate can never reach such a scale. It’s mathematically impossible. Methods for triggering supermassive pollution involve several Abyss Gates superimposing, at least the latter has precedents. Wait, Anses, you just mentioned that this Abyss Gate divided a star and a colonial planet...into two?"
"Ah, yes, it was like a giant scar cutting through the Universe, slicing Colonization Point No. 46 in half," Anses used his hands to illustrate a line.
I realized something was amiss.
The Abyss Gate—I had seen it myself, and it couldn’t "cut" any target; this was determined by its geometric shape. The Abyss Gate appears as an absolute planar circle; no matter from which angle you observe it, it’s a planar circle. So how could a five-light-year diameter circle divide a star system?
In the observer’s view, it would swallow the star system like a black hole because it would never appear as a "long, narrow wound" to the observer.
"Let me confirm: was the shape of that Abyss Gate a circular opening?" Sandora looked into Anses’s eyes and asked.
"Opening? No, it was a rift, perfectly neat, like a squinting eye—massive—spanning five light-years," Anses traced a line with his hand, "with the ends closed and the widest part in the middle measuring 0.3 light-years. It vertically sliced everything in its path, and the celestial bodies around that eye were the first to become polluted."
Sandora and I exchanged a horrified glance.
"That isn’t an Abyss Gate!" Sandora said to me through our Spiritual Connection. "That’s a type of Abyss phenomenon never seen before!"
"Is something wrong?" Anses finally realized the situation was a bit complex and promptly asked curiously.
"No, Ancestor, please take a rest first," Sandora didn’t have the time to mind the address, using that awkward "dead man’s name" again. Then, she grabbed my hand, preparing to leave, "We need to consult experts. The intelligence you’ve provided is extremely useful."
"Oh, as long as it’s useful," Anses hesitantly nodded, waving goodbye to us, "as long as it’s useful...you all go ahead." (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote and cast monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)
