Chapter 234: Shutdown

The view before Yu Sheng's eyes swayed for a while before he could make out the shadow of the squirrel—the little creature was squatting on his cheek, licking his nose with its tiny tongue.

Beside him, Erin's panicked voice rang out: "Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng, are you awake? Holy crap, you nearly scared me to death! I thought you were a goner for sure; falling from such a height, you'd be impossible to dig out..."

"Couldn't you say something nice?" Yu Sheng finally came fully to, rolling his eyes to see the small doll standing beside his head, and the Hu Li squatting by his side—the fox girl was staring intently at the squirrel's actions and instinctively licked her lips. This motion made Yu Sheng's mouth twitch instantly, bringing up some unpleasant memories. "... Are you planning to lick me too?"

Hu Li quickly wiped away the nonexistent drool from her lips and grinned foolishly at Yu Sheng: "Hehe... seeing that my benefactor is safe puts my mind at ease..."

"I... I was scared too," the squirrel jumped down from Yu Sheng's face, rubbing its paws while muttering, "I jumped down with you, then Hu Li caught me with her tail—she's amazing, she can fly! The three of us just flew down like that. Then we saw you lying here, looking like you were asleep. Erin was even guessing whether you had just died or just come back to life..."

Yu Sheng propped himself up, turned over, and sat up. Ignoring the squirrel's final muttered words, he began to observe the surroundings.

"Where is this place?" he asked, frowning slightly as he stood up and looked around, "How long have you been down here?"

"Just a few minutes, we haven't had time to investigate the surroundings yet," Erin answered quickly, then pointed upward with her finger, "But when we came down, we noticed a thick 'shell' covering this place. This was originally a large structure that was 'sealed' up, but there are several big holes in that shell. You fell through the biggest one."

Yu Sheng hummed in acknowledgment and said nothing more.

The surroundings were dim, but not completely dark. A faint light, like emergency lighting, emanated from the dome and many light sources around the perimeter, allowing him to basically see the situation here. He noticed this was a very large space, yet unlike the other structures inside Ankaela, it was not filled with cold metallic luster—quite the opposite, the ground here was even dirt.

And further away, he could see many withered remains buried in the dirt, along with suspicious substances that seemed to grow and spread out from the soil like decay.

He looked up again and, in the dim light, vaguely saw the "shell" Erin had mentioned—a thick dome that had been damaged many years ago.

Gradually, he finally understood where this place was.

"... This is the 'Eco-Sphere' carried by Ankaela."

Erin clearly didn't understand, looking up with wide, crimson eyes: "What?"

Yu Sheng bent down, picked up the squirrel, and walked forward while casually explaining: "A scaled-down replica of the home planet's ecosystem, serving as both the 'blueprint' and 'seeds' for the Ark to rebuild an ecological system in a new home. If I'm not mistaken, there should also be a gene bank established here using similar cryo-stasis or even more advanced 'stasis' technology... but it definitely, just like this Eco-Sphere, has been 'dead' for many years."

Erin listened in a daze, not knowing how much she actually understood, but Hu Li beside her looked thoughtful, nodding gently while keeping perfectly in sync with Yu Sheng's words: "Back in my hometown, people build similar things to develop ecological planets. They are all big developers."

Erin was shocked: "Your hometown has everything!?"

Hu Li said nothing, simply narrowing her eyes with a proud expression and wagging her tail.

Yu Sheng continued walking through this lifeless "ecological ruin," his gaze sweeping over the withered remains, the long-dried rivers, and the pipeline structures exposed in the dirt, trying to imagine what this place once looked like.

He knew very well that this was Ankaela's "child," the "angel" that fell here from some distant apocalyptic world, nurturing its shadow in the last ruins of its home planet... Yu Sheng didn't know what would happen if this shadow truly "born" successfully in the Borderlands, but surely... it would be a disaster for everyone.

Even for Ankaela itself, it would be the same—that shadow was certainly not the homeland of its memories, nor could it bring back its creator. It could only see another nightmare crawling out from its own corpse, and by that time... the "Dark Angel" would likely truly lose control.

A slight tremor came from beneath their feet, followed immediately by a low rumble.

Yu Sheng stopped in his tracks instantly, while Hu Li perked up her ears immediately.

"Did you hear that?" Erin said nervously, "It sounds like something is moving... deeper down."

Just then, Yu Sheng's expression changed slightly, and his eyes immediately grew heavy, as if he were straining to listen to something.

A calm and gentle whisper vibrated in a dimension imperceptible to ordinary people.

A few seconds later, Yu Sheng gasped sharply, his eyes widening instantly.

"Erin! Wake everyone on the Shelter Wasteland! Retreat to the Real World for now!"

"Ah... hey! Okay!" Erin looked completely bewildered, but seeing the expression on Yu Sheng's face, she reacted immediately and began executing the order, while asking quickly, "What's going on? What happened? Why suddenly..."

Yu Sheng turned his head sharply, his face looking extremely grim: "Ankaela is shutting down."

Erin froze, and the next second she jumped up: "Holy crap!?"

"We need to retreat immediately, this place is done for!" Yu Sheng reached out, grabbed the small doll, and tossed it onto his shoulder while preparing to open a door back to the Real World. But immediately after, he remembered something else and stopped quickly. "No, wait, what about the Hunters... get back quickly! It's still in time!" "No! Ankaela has 'shut down', what about the Black Forest? What about the Fairy Tale? What about the Squirrel?" Erin, carried on Yu Sheng's shoulder, had her mind liberated now that she didn't have to walk, and suddenly became sharp. "Is the entire 'Fairy Tale' going to collapse?! Then the 'Hunters' will have nowhere to go!"

Yu Sheng stood frozen in place for a moment.

The low rumble gradually turned into clear, grating static, and the slight trembling beneath their feet became an increasingly violent shaking. This massive, ancient, and mutated Ark was collapsing from the inside out. Just then, Yu Sheng suddenly thought of something.

"... Connect it to the Valley."

Erin looked up, her face filled with shock.

"They are all Otherworlds, all 'parasitized' by the Dark Angel, all places where I have shed blood and sweat many times. If it succeeded once, there's no reason it can't succeed a second time," Yu Sheng said, taking a light breath and speaking word by word, "I will merge the Fairy Tale and the Valley into one."

"What do we need to do?" Erin asked immediately.

"... I must complete this step myself, but it may take some time," Yu Sheng said, opening a virtual large door with his hand, "You and Hu Li go out first. Go explain the situation to the people 'outside'. Ankaela has been 'sinking' in the Borderlands for years; after it shuts down, it will detach from here and disintegrate. You must tell these details to the Special Operations Bureau."

"As for me, I will first send the Squirrel and the Hunters back to the Black Forest, then begin the 'fusion'. Erin, split off a body to remind the children in the Valley. There might be some 'big commotion' coming up. Tell them to stay safely in the camp, and especially not to approach the areas showing 'changes'—understood?"

"Got it, got it, it's me splitting into two paths again, right?" Erin nodded repeatedly, then climbed onto Hu Li while waving her hand, "You just go ahead and do your thing!"

No mistake, one sentence, one content, all inside, read it all in one go!

Hu Li, clearly carrying some worry, stood before the large door and looked back at Yu Sheng: "Benefactor, are you going to..."

Yu Sheng gave a thumbs up and grinned: "Don't worry, guaranteed to die."

Hu Li helplessly slapped Yu Sheng's arm with her large tail, then, before the next violent tremor, hugged Erin and jumped into the large door returning to the Real World.

The moment all monitoring devices went crazy with error reports and alarms suddenly blared, Li Lin clearly heard the sound of some kind of "barrier" shattering, as if a mirror used to block reality and nightmares inside that dark, heavy wall had, under impact exceeding the critical limit, crisply turned into fragments.

And then, everyone present heard the rumble coming from underground.

The rumbling grew from weak to strong. An astonishing, completely unmeasurable energy reaction appeared in the signals returned by the remote sensors. In the blink of an eye, Li Lin saw the wall of the orphanage shatter silently. Immediately after, half of the sixteen temporarily set up protective barriers vanished, and the remaining half teetered on the brink of collapse. Then, he saw a beam of light rise into the night sky—

That beam of light burst forth from the center of the orphanage. Within the light, the two "umbilical cords" that were intertwined and growing, "floating" upward toward the sky, were silently dissipating.

A glowing body slowly rose within the wall.

Bai Liqing watched this scene with a cold expression, then picked up her phone: "Prepare to execute 'Dome Shattering'. Our signal may disappear shortly. Before that..."

However, she only managed to get halfway through her sentence.

A door suddenly appeared less than three meters away from her. A moment later, Hu Li and Erin jumped out of that door.

The moment the small doll passed through the door, she shouted loudly: "Don't panic first! Whatever that 'shattering' thing you mentioned is, stop it immediately!"

Bai Liqing looked somewhat dazed at the two people who suddenly popped out of the door.

A moment later, Li Lin received new orders with bewilderment.

He turned his head, his gaze crossing the ruins of the orphanage wall to look at the glowing orb slowly rising in the night sky.

He slowly raised the walkie-talkie and took a soft breath.

"All units, attention. Maintain alert and continuous observation. Check all recording equipment. We may be witnessing the first… angel fall in history."

(End of chapter)