Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1389: On Site

After two hours of full-speed travel, the shuttle arrived at the universe where the accident occurred.

This is a small world located in a remote region. The basic cosmic constants differ significantly from those of the Capital World, resulting in a material density far lower than that of the Capital. Data shows that this world is completely devoid of dark matter, and there are almost no large galaxy clusters in space. Although still very young, the star formation movement within it has almost stalled, making outer space appear particularly dim, cold, vast, and lifeless—this is not a place suitable for the birth of high-level civilizations or for colonization. It is harshly barren but is still an excellent location for deep dive experiments. The low material density and sparse celestial bodies can prevent the rapid spread of Abyssal pollution, and the environment unsuitable for life made it easy for the Engineering Corps to evacuate while constructing the Trial Port: It is said that only two constant star systems in this universe have life.

A true wasteland in every sense.

This, of course, is not the universe where the original deep dive experiments were conducted, as the Abyss Gates and Deep Dive Ports have a "shelf life." With continuous testing, sampling, external stimulations, and throwing messy things like probes into the Abyss Gates, each such exchange of information leads to a decline in the gate’s stability. Once stability drops to a certain point, the test risk naturally increases, so the Abyss Gate initially used for deep dive has already been destroyed along with the whole universe. Currently, this is the new testing ground we found a few months ago. Of course, if this test field is also abandoned, the deep dive project can still continue. Abyss Gates will never go extinct, and there are a few more qualified Abyss Gates available in Taville’s material library—this is definitely the most dangerous "material" ever reserved in the Empire’s history; years ago, I could never have imagined that I would use a few of these things for experiments in my own backyard...

After completing the registration, the shuttle passed through the space barrier currently under lockdown, and the current state of the port was revealed before us. Taville pointed to the space outside the porthole, where there was a large patch of modular space structures: "In the middle is the control center, with monitoring stations and observation towers above it. Originally, there were four observation towers, but now two of them have been scrapped, and the remaining two have stopped working due to energy disruptions."

I nodded, carefully observing the situation outside. The current distance is already close to the "Radiation Critical Point" of the Abyss Gate, with the shuttle slowly orbiting at low speed about a dozen kilometers from the fully shut-down control center. I had the opportunity to confirm if there had been any other damages beyond the control center. In the surrounding space, many large, independently floating structures could be seen. These structures had silvery-white outer armor and a fully enclosed design, most of them either obelisk or polyhedron-shaped. They were various auxiliary facilities of the port, such as data centers, material transmission stations, auto-turrets, or garrisons. In addition to the iconic blue energy patterns on the surfaces of all buildings, there was also a layer of pale golden halo floating around them. This halo was actually Holy Light—a small squad of Xyrin Angels recently participated in the Deep Dive Project, and their expertise in Holy Light Power could be endowed on anything, acting as an additional layer of protection besides Ghost Energy Shield for the facilities here. Coupled with Holy Light’s extreme sensitivity to the Abyss, these Holy Light-endowed facilities could also serve as alarm devices. Currently, the condition of these buildings seemed quite good, suggesting that the unexplained explosion had not spread to other facilities, essentially ruling out the possibility of Abyss interference: The Abyss excels in pollution and spread, and if it could truly destroy the most heavily protected control center, there’s no reason for the surrounding facilities to remain intact.

My gaze finally focused on the control center pointed out by Taville: It was conspicuous and quite large, and though it was a dozen kilometers away, I could clearly see every inch of its detail with my enhanced vision. It was a gigantic square platform, with a side length of a few kilometers (estimated roughly by judging the platform’s size based on a small warship docked above it). Its lower part was a two-layer structure—at least it had become a two-layer structure now, with a gap between the two layers resembling a horizontal rift. Within that rift, massive energy streams continually erupted, with colossal "lightning" jumping several kilometers in outer space instantaneously. Judging from the damage to this two-layer structure, there should have been some armor plates or vertical bridges connecting the upper and lower layers, but now only torn metal stubs could be seen protruding from that line of breaches, with damaged crystal circuits and various pipelines slightly swaying from the impact of energy streams.

The upper half of this platform housed the main architectural facilities, with a large hexagonal building situated at its center. Surrounding its ground was a large area of extremely dim, web-like light flows, possibly indicating some residual Ghost Energy within the station’s energy network. Those crystalline networks emitted extremely dim blue light, making them discernible at a glance, and the hexagonal building was undoubtedly the central monitoring station: the heart of this control center. Initially, I thought the monitoring station was intact at least on the surface, but upon closer observation, I found a crack at one corner. Estimating the distance, I deduced that the "small crack" was likely enormous—which was really bad. It seemed that the explosion in the lower layer of the control center had even penetrated the monitoring station above. How big must this explosion have been?!

Surrounding the upper platform were four enormous obelisks, naturally meant for monitoring the Abyss Gate. I immediately noticed two of the towers completely scrapped: They were diagonally distributed, with their lower parts burst open like blown-up balloons, and originally indestructible recharge armor was torn into a tragic state due to internal destruction. Jagged metal girders maintained the connection between the towers and the platform’s lower half, resembling the gruesome bones after the skin and flesh were stripped away. Fortunately, these metal girders were sturdy enough that the observation towers weren’t completely blown away—even though keeping them here seemed to serve no purpose.

The remaining two diagonal towers appeared intact, yet due to an energy supply interruption, they were entirely dark, with only a few sparse lights flickering on their surface. There should be critical equipment with independent energy sources there.

The whole control center is so battered it looks like it was blasted through by the enemy, energy is completely paralyzed, most places are shrouded in a lifeless darkness. Lin Xue silently watched this scene and couldn’t help but grit her teeth, "Looks miserable..."

"Find a place to dock first, gather the security heads and those closest to the explosion point when the incident occurred," Sandora said in a low voice, her expression not looking good since seeing the state of the control center, "By the way, have those closest to the explosion point been revived?"

Taville was silent for a moment, seemingly communicating with the Resurrection Center, then shook his head, "Frontline personnel were seriously injured, their souls need to recover before resurrection can start, but you can communicate directly with their souls."

"Okay, go ahead and arrange it," Sandora nodded, "Also, upload the structural diagram of the control center and all the readings from the Abyss Gate before the incident."

The shuttle finally docked atop the practically destroyed control center, at one corner of the upper platform there was a small landing point and a temporary workstation. This workstation was set up after the incident by Deep Dive Port’s head (actually one of Taville’s mass projections), and once unfolded, it’s about the size of a small office building, adequate as a workspace and command post for various working groups. The expert team we brought met here with the incident response team organized by Deep Dive Port itself, and then everyone got busy with their work. I stood by the shuttle, looking at this majestic space station—without energy supply, it had completely lost its luster, those huge armor plates seemed especially desolate under sparse lighting, far away was the central monitoring station, where I saw the crack: it appeared several meters wide, over ten meters long, rolling outward, it should be a violent impact from within that pierced the building’s canopy. Numerous autonomous machines were bustling around in view, repairing burnt lines, welding broken support beams to prevent further structural collapse of the platform, or installing various sensors. Originally there should be a stable gravity field and open air circle, but now I feel the gravity beneath my feet is less than a third of normal value, and the surrounding air circle is also gone.

I jumped lightly, and feeling discomfort due to the inability to breathe, I awkwardly wiped my nose, this action was seen by Taville.

"After the energy supply was cut off, all non-essential equipment shut down, remaining energy was shifted to the database and core machine room," one of Taville’s mass projections suddenly appeared beside me, "The database has been preserved, as for the core machine room... we couldn’t enter yet so it’s uncertain about its situation. The gravity field and open air circle are merely comfort-providing features, they were among the first batch to be shut down." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I waved my hand, "It’s alright, just a bit unaccus... what the hell?!"

I stared at this mass projection of Taville in horror—her appearance is shocking! A large penetrating hole in the abdominal area, her legs from the thighs down are completely empty, thus can only float in mid-air and talk to people. This looks exactly like the battlefield scenario where someone was nearly torn apart! Of course, there are no signs of blood or muscle-baring grisly scenes, firstly Xyrin Angels don’t have blood or human-like body structures, and secondly, what I’m seeing is just a mass projection, the marks on her body look scary but aren’t real, yet... it’s still creepy.

"Oh, wasn’t on site during the explosion at the lower level, but I was in the monitoring station, just over there—" Taville’s mass projection, looking gruesome, said indifferently, even pointed back at the monitoring station and its large crack, "A Ghost Energy jet blasted through the dome, sparks blown onto my body ended up like this, anyway it’s a mass projection and still operational so didn’t bother with ’recovery regeneration’, I’ll take care of it once things are less hectic, efficiency first."

I was at a loss for words. Though she appeared as a bespectacled young woman, her rugged demeanor was enough to send shivers down one’s spine. Knowing there was no way to persuade Taville to swap out this projection body using human thought processes, and unable to bear seeing her in such a dismal state, I reluctantly took off my broad coat and draped it over her, covering from her chest down past her abdomen and the breakage zone of her lower body: "Let’s settle for this. I’ll try to consider you as a coconut tree spirit, otherwise, watching you sway back and forth like this feels awkward..."

Mass Projection Taville: "...Oh."

Bidding farewell to this truly striking mass projection—or not quite a farewell, considering Taville’s main body was standing right nearby and all mass projections were directly controlled by Taville—we moved with Sandora and others to the accident handling center, also known as the temporary workstation beside it.

An assistant technician connected the control center’s structural diagram to the holographic projection, while the image of the Abyss Gate stood nearby. Another intact mass projection of Taville introduced the explosion site and circumstances at the time: "It has now been confirmed that the initial explosion site was here, in sections A-13 to A-15 of the Lower Zone, where all Superspace output ends of the power furnace are concentrated. Whether the explosion destroyed the power furnace, or the furnace itself exploded causing destruction elsewhere, the chain reaction started here. Subsequently, all energy lines of the control center overloaded, with explosions racing from the Lower Zone to the Upper Zone along the main energy conduit, blasting every connecting bridge and barrier along the path, ultimately resulting in the destruction of Observation Towers No. 1 and 3. Moreover, a wave impact reached the monitoring station three seconds after the initial explosion ended; this explosion did not completely destroy the monitoring station but pierced its dome, leading to all equipment going offline thereafter. Fortunately, within those three seconds, the automatic disaster recovery system activated, preserving the monitoring station’s database. However, the main control room, deeply buried beneath the platform’s armor plates and near the initial explosion site, is now shrouded by an immensely dense Ghost Energy Field, rendering it inaccessible for the time being. The probability of the main control room being completely destroyed exceeds eighty percent."

"Is there anything special in the main control room?" Sandora slightly raised an eyebrow.

"Data, because all information collected from the Abyss Gate must be filtered and verified before being forwarded to the database. As a result, the main control room has a caching mechanism. Detailed investigation data from the Abyss Gate during the explosion is stored there and hasn’t been uploaded to the database yet..."

"So, the rescued database is of no help in scrutinizing the cause of this incident, right?" Sandora shook her head, "The contents in the database are all outdated materials from a buffer cycle before the explosion."

"We have external source observation records," an assistant technician stood up, "concerning the Abyss Gate. Days ago, Lady Lin Xue hinted at establishing an extra observation point for the Abyss Gate. Although its functions are limited, we do have some basic information."

Surprised, I turned my head to look at the young miss beside me. She appeared with an enigmatic expression suggesting the world was under her control, nodding and swaying her head unreadably—as a matter of fact, she’d been doing that for over ten minutes now, leaving me wondering if she had taken the wrong medicine. Yet, upon noticing my gaze, the young miss displayed an even more profound smile: "Crafting the future is a meticulous affair; some things are meant to be done not said, others are meant to be said not done... Hey, wait until I’ve finished speaking before you turn your head..."

I had already turned my head to watch Sandora analyzing the Abyss Gate’s monitoring data. From the appearance on the screen, the Abyss Gate remained unchanged—a flat black 2D disc—possibly displaying slight edge contractions under the control of surrounding Suppression Towers. Nonetheless, the various graphs recording its monitoring data were refreshing at an astonishing pace, the numbers dizzyingly complex. Though I couldn’t quite grasp... Well, I couldn’t understand at all, Sandora nodded as she scrutinized the data, finally frowning: "There’s no issue with the data, it seems the Abyss Gate hasn’t shown any activity... except for one minor information overflow, though the overflow amount scarcely outweighs that of a meteorite."

"Do you suspect something came out of the Abyss Gate and struck the control center?" I asked.

"Check the architecture of the control center," Sandora pointed at the holographic decomposed diagram, "That’s the energy cell’s protection... Oh, even if you don’t understand it, it’s okay. In summary, the safety coefficient for this architectural complex is extremely high; internally collapsing is virtually zero probability barring external factors. The explosion originated from the Lower Zone’s Energy Center, indeed, a location protected by four layers of armor and two independent Shields that look impregnable, yet compared to internal collapse’s probability, armor and Shield at least have the possibility of being breached."

One protective system near devoid of vulnerabilities, another firmly tangible yet with defensive limits—indeed, the latter carries a higher likelihood of being compromised.

The expert team arrived at the same judgment as Sandora: external factors are far more likely to have led to the control center’s ruin than internal factors. Despite the internal explosion ultimately demolishing the entire site, this internal explosion seems to be triggered from beyond.

Hence, I could only concur with Sandora’s view, but still somewhat puzzled, I turned to Taville (main body) beside me: "Was anything captured flying out of the Abyss Gate before the explosion?"

The main body of Taville remained stationed in Shadow City, yet her mass projection physically witnessed this site, so asking her directly suffices—come to think of it, the capability of the bespectacled girl truly seems miraculous; I reckoned you could query her about any situation at research facilities within the Empire, and she’d easily qualify as a direct witness...

"No such report exists," Taville nodded, yet quickly shifted tone: "But we cannot exclude the possibility of something exiting the Abyss Gate. It’s uncertain what can be observed emanating from the Gate, given the Abyss’s unique characteristics, any overflowing entities within potentially exhibit as chaotic data until crossing the radiation critical point, when reverting back to original form: substance or energy. Therefore, it’s not observable whether it’s ejecting substances (or energy) inside the radiation critical point surrounding the Abyss Gate—everything is disguised, only judged by overflow information from the gate’s indication might suggest it’s leaking objects. Certainly, this limitation applies solely to relatively ’natural’ things; should something like a Deep-diving ship emerge from the gate, it autonomously annuls Abyss impacts."

This explains Sandora’s immediate examination of any information overflow from the Abyss Gate.

And at that moment, another tremor emanated from the deep underground, reverberating with a rumbling resonance throughout the workstation. (To be continued. If you enjoy the work, feel free to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets on Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com)