Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1394: Flashpoint

I really didn’t expect Father God to come over himself. That morning, I was in the yard, holding a tea canister filled with popcorn and scattering it on the ground to feed the Little Crow and Wild Dingdang (does this scene look familiar to you? Yes, just like feeding pigeons in the square—which those mini Medwen and Wild Dingdang have been treated as pigeons for days now), when suddenly I heard the gate of the yard clang twice. I ran over to see Father God standing outside, dressed like a returning overseas Chinese on a home visit, grinning at me: "I came for a visit—can you pay the fare for me?"

I couldn’t afford to be surprised, so I peeked through the gate and saw a yellow and white taxi parked by the roadside, with someone who looked like a driver looking around in confusion: there is a permanent Mind Interference Field set up by Sandora around our house, anyone approaching within a certain range would lose their "focus," and that driver would probably soon forget why he drove here.

I found out that Father God came by taxi from the bus terminal, so I quickly ran over to give the fare to the driver. By this time, the driver was already preparing to leave, seeing an unfamiliar person suddenly appearing out of nowhere to hand him money, he was greatly shocked, waving his hands repeatedly at me: "Settle the fare when we reach the destination, our company has rules, we can’t privately accept fares for rides these days..."

This driver is truly an honest person. I hurriedly tossed the money into the car and ran back: otherwise, I’d be dragged into driving around for twenty kilometers. Once I got back within my house’s perimeter, the taxi driver was bewildered for a few seconds, before he ignited the engine and left. I grabbed Father God’s arm: "Why did you suddenly show up? If you’d told me earlier, I would have gone to buy some leeks..."

Father God: "..."

"Of course, I would also have prepared something else for you..."

"No need, a casual visit doesn’t require so many formalities," Father God smiled warmly, "The main thing is that the data giant database has compiled everything, the situation... it’s a bit complicated, and I have to personally explain it to you. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not bad news, there are leads, but it might take some effort to find your homeland."

I knew he must have something necessary to handle personally, so I pulled him towards the house, but barely took two steps when dozens of small fairies with either black or green colors flew up from the bushes, split into two groups according to colors and clung to Father God and my trouser legs—The green ones are Wild Dingdang, naturally pouncing towards Father God, while the black ones are Little Medwen, obviously hanging on me. I figured the Wild Dingdang must have spotted Father God first and excitedly rushed forward, while the mini Medwen followed suit. Two groups of little creatures clung to the pant legs of what seemed like towering giants in their eyes, eagerly climbing up, their enthusiasm akin to a carnival: do creatures only three inches tall naturally bear silly and carefree Halos?

Father God looked at the Dou Ding Goddess hanging on his pant leg and said thoughtfully, "Oh, yeah, recently I heard a lot of Life Goddesses taking turns to come and play here, this bunch of little ones mentioned having a big gathering, several groups have already come—giving you quite some trouble, huh?"

I bent down, let my hands drop, allowing the black-haired, black-skirted Medwen Split Lifeforms to all hang onto my sleeves, and then placed them all on my shoulders, shaking my head: "Not at all, these little ones are quite interesting, you see, they’ve already bonded with my group of Crow God here, Medwen’s happy too."

Just saying this made me realize: palm-sized Life Goddesses and equally sized Crow God, their temperament and intelligence are similar, these two groups of Little Things are indeed naturally matched as little partners, no wonder Medwen’s been excited from morning till night lately, it’s because their "children" found playmates, the silly bird’s also happy.

Father God finally noticed the tea canister filled with popcorn still in my hand, looking quite stunned: "...do you usually feed your house Goddess like this?"

I hadn’t had the chance to reply when several little Medwen bounced their way to the edge of the tea canister, grabbing popcorn from it to eat—they waited so long without being fed, so they had to feed themselves. Some Little Crow remembered their new friends, grabbing air and "poof" creating their eggshells, then filling the eggshells with popcorn to give to the Life Goddesses perched on Father God’s shoulder, soon enough, these Little Ones were all munching, and all I could hear beside Father God and me was a faint "crunch crunch" sound. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

I opened my mouth, raising the tea canister: "I can’t help it, when they play, they barely eat properly, so I have to feed them like this, otherwise, they’ll eat all the grass in the yard in days..."

Father God: "...I can imagine."

I led Father God into the house, loudly calling the family that we have an honored guest. The Tiaozi Five had already sensed the big boss’s arrival, quickly coming out to greet, followed by Sandora and Big Sister greeting Father God, finally Lilina came running: this cheeky girl promptly bowed to Father God, "Hello, Chairman..."

Father God kept a cheerful smile while returning each greeting, eventually couldn’t help but remark: "Each time I come, there’s always such good vibes: your place is genuinely lively, especially when everyone’s here."

As Father God spoke, he looked around, especially at the Tiaozi Five: except Bingdisi, who remained carefree, the others were all nervous, especially the timid Lin, who almost buried her head in her chest by now—it’s a wonder she could bury herself in such a small chest. He waved to the group of jolly fellows: "Go do whatever you should be doing, it’s not a meeting at the temple you know, why be on guard, just treat me as a guest visiting your house."

Once Bingdisi and Monina left, Father God finally felt something off and rubbed his chin: "Hey, wait a minute, they are supposed to be guests at your place too—how come it feels like they’ve almost become part of your family?"

Father God had just finished speaking when Dingdang popped out from my shirt pocket, the Little Thing rubbed her eyes and finally saw who was standing in front of her, delightfully waved: "Oh! Father God! Are you visiting Dingdang’s house?"

Everyone: "..."

I awkwardly turned my face away: "Well, Anwina, could you please prepare some snacks, I’ll chat with Xingchen."

Soon the crowd visiting Father God dispersed each other, leaving only Sandora and me in the living room, oh, and a Dingdang as a bound item. As I helped Dingdang comb her hair with a fork, I lifted my head to look at the mild-mannered Divine Race elder brother sitting opposite me on the tea table, "You mentioned the data giant database has results? The location of the Hometown World..."

"No direct data was found for your Hometown World," Father God began to speak, and I saw Sandora’s face darken, but soon his words took a turn, "The indirect data was found. It’s now confirmed that a soldier from the Divine Race Expeditionary Army indeed visited your ancestor’s Hometown World, it must have been during the era before Xyrin People began exploring the Universe. Due to urgent wartime circumstances, the soldier didn’t make contact with the local civilization, so Xyrin’s ancestors didn’t know what Divine Race was. For certain reasons, this visit record was noted without a detailed coordinate..."

"How could this happen?" Sandora frowned, "Weren’t you supposed to register every found world?"

"But the initial reporting system isn’t the same as the current one. Nowadays, newly discovered worlds are instantly synchronized to the Divine Realm giant database, whereas, in the past, Divine Race’s world management and Void communication technology were imperfect. If it’s a very distant Expeditionary Army, their communication resources with the Divine Realm were very precious, newly discovered world coordinates could only be managed by the Divine Race who discovered them, later to be reported to their squad commander upon retrieving troops, and finally, upon returning to the Star Domain, the squad commander would report these coordinates and world data to the Pantheon for organizing and recording them together."

I opened my mouth, couldn’t help but say: "Uh, turns out you also developed step by step... I’ve always thought you appeared fully formed, glowing and omnipotent... So, the Divine Race soldier responsible for world coordinate management met with an accident back then?"

"The Divine Race merely has a high starting point. If it does not develop, wouldn’t it become stagnant water," Father God said unhurriedly, then heaved a gentle sigh, "Do you remember that day in the Book Tower when you and I found some strange records left by a reconnaissance soldier? That soldier discovered several universes visited by a high-level civilization, but in the subsequent data, we couldn’t find any records of expeditions to those universes by the Expeditionary Army..."

When Father God mentioned this, I vaguely recalled having seen some documents like that. Those documents were extremely, extremely old, seemingly left by a reconnaissance soldier of the Star Domain Expeditionary Army’s Twelfth Legion. The data felt as if it were left unfinished, which piqued Father God’s curiosity. However, at that time, both Father God and I regarded those documents as severely outdated archives, and since both of us were focused on searching for Hometown World’s coordinates, we didn’t pay much attention to it.

"That very reconnaissance soldier," Father God sighed. "Later, I found the records from the Twelfth Legion of the Expeditionary Army and realized that the files you and I had seen were indeed fragments. That soldier died on the eve of the Expeditionary Army’s return to the Divine Realm—without having had the chance to deliver other investigation reports and the coordinates of several newly discovered worlds to her commanding officer. But in other files, we found visitation records she sent back in advance, confirming that the reconnaissance soldier had contact with your Hometown World."

"Died in action..." Sandora’s expression dimmed, "And she has been dead for so long... What could possibly be left?"

"If nothing was really left behind, do you think Xingchen would come personally?" I reminded her from the side, and Sandora suddenly realized, her eyes shining with expectations as she looked at Father God.

Father God nodded: "I came to tell you that the relics of that reconnaissance soldier might still exist. She likely recorded the world’s coordinates in some object—divine creations are immortal; as long as they’re not destroyed, they will ignore the passage of time."

I widened my eyes since I and Bingdisi had visited the Holy Spirit Tower and hence had a deep-seated impression of the "death" of the Divine Race. After death, they leave behind neither soul nor body, and because incidents that can cause even Gods to turn to ash will also destroy everything near them, they almost never leave any relics after death. But from Father God’s meaning now, did that soldier leave something?

"That reconnaissance soldier sensed she might not return during her last communication with her superior. She mentioned that she had sealed all the reports she hadn’t had the chance to send in a creation of hers." Father God drew a scroll from his breast; after activation, it formed an image midair: A female Divine Race, clad in form-fitting golden soft armor, with golden hair cascading over her shoulders—apparently the fallen reconnaissance soldier: she was female.

This seemed to be that final communication. The Goddess appeared to have fallen into a world twisted by the Abyss and feared that a mass upload of data might propagate pollution, so she transmitted only this brief report. She mentioned sealing everything within a "core" and preparing to perish with the universe in the final minutes of this short image segment, explaining how to retrieve that core from the vast void...

"The Expeditionary Army tried to find that core at the time but found nothing. The doomsday impact might have disrupted the divine technique left by this soldier; the core was lost in the void." Father God put away the scroll, stating regretfully.

"Have you found clues now?"

I asked in surprise. An artifact that lost its whereabouts billions of years ago and that the Divine Race Expeditionary Army sought but couldn’t find was found just when we needed it. This stroke of luck felt ironically profound—for both the Empire and the Divine Race, having fortune of this magnitude felt unreal—as I had ceased to believe in such luck descending from the heavens since the day little Qianqian first wrapped a stone in candy paper and gave it to me.

As expected, Father God lightly shook his head, evidencing that things weren’t that straightforward: "It’s not that clues were found now, but clues existed long ago; it’s just that no one went to recover them."

Sandora and I both showed puzzled expressions, and Father God laughed as he explained: "Many items are adrift outside with clues, yet for various reasons temporarily left uncollected—you all know how far the Divine Race Expeditionary Army ventures, and if we casually drop something, it often entangles the forces of creation itself. To be honest, the peculiar relics we have strewn about aren’t fewer than the ones you have. Otherwise, why would there be so many stories of divine artifacts and relics in human legends?"

I felt a pang of embarrassment; it seemed Father God was well aware of the Empire’s tendency to scatter indestructible waste globally. Remarkably—the Divine Race’s habit of scattering such waste might be even worse?

"Around 230 billion years after the original Twelfth Expeditionary Army, another expeditionary army accidentally scanned for that artifact," Father God stated leisurely, "But it had drifted very, very far away, diverging to worlds widely beyond any Divine Race expedition route. Thousands of billions of years later, that soldier’s report had long lost its value, and recovering the artifact in the expedition’s dangerous regions necessitated sending a substantial segment of the army specifically for that task or, alternatively, deploying the expedition’s High-level Commander—neither feasible. So we marked it to know its real-time location and decided to reclaim it when a future expedition plan passed nearby—dragging on until now."

Understandingly, Sandora and I nodded; this indeed was an unavoidable issue.

The relics of fallen soldiers—in terms of personal sentiments, nobody would want it adrift in the depths of the void, but when you think about it: You’re leading a group across treacherous lands where, with one misstep, territorial enemies could cost you your life (since Divine Race expedition routes traverse Abyss cataclysm disaster zones); after enduring hardships to bring the survivors back, someone suddenly tells you, "Hey, I left the newspaper I just bought in the enemy’s main base, boss could you fetch it for me...?"

Even if that newspaper were someone’s relic, and even knowing the newspaper lay on the enemy’s doorstep, I figure no sane person would agree to fetch it—especially considering the newspaper being last year’s.

Thus, even knowing the location of the relic, the Divine Race did not take action, leaving it undisturbed in the Far Border for many years; and based on Father God’s tone, I conclude the Divine Race has many such monitored yet irretrievable items—an overwhelmingly ancient race. At a rate of dropping a grain of sand each billion years, it would have been enough to fill the oceans several times over by now. Not to mention, is the Empire lacking in such things? Through four to five years of statistics and research, we have identified countless ancient facilities either within the Fallen Apostles’ domain or the Imperial Frontier, as per historical documents—but most of these are valueless like small watchtower detectors or drone depots; they’re all considered relics, yet reclaiming them isn’t worth the flight "fuel" cost...

"Now it looks like that artifact must be retrieved," Sandora sat up, expression deadly serious, "Your personal visit suggests it’s no longer within your Divine Race’s influence. Where is it now?"

"That’s the difficult part. After so many years of drifting, it landed several tens of thousands of years ago at a very delicate location," Father God drew two circular halos in the air, then pointed at the narrow point between, "On one side is the Abyss Empire, on the other is you; that artifact now rests along your disputed boundary with the Fallen Apostles’ tense division, at the furthest point from the Divine Realm. You should be familiar with it, as about eighty percent of your border scuffles with the opposite side occur around this point."

The Divine Race relic recording Hometown World’s coordinates was right beneath the noses of the New Empire and Fallen Apostles!

Sandora’s mind raced, already deducing many things, and she smirked: "That area... We have at least a hundred manned and unmanned surveillance stations monitoring this zone..."

I shifted slightly: "The bad news is, the Fallen Apostles have more monitoring stations watching the area than we do..."

Father God shrugged: "That artifact is inside a native world there, and the situation is indeed such a headache." (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to qidian.com to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)