Chapter 303: Catching Up

After seeing the unfamiliar starfield outside the porthole, everyone in the control room fell into an eerie and uneasy silence.

A member of the Hidden Cultivation Society, in slightly better condition, climbed up from his seat and staggered toward the tall, thin old man in white robes; his steps were difficult, not only due to the shock caused by the "Pillar of Order" exiting the jump, but also because the gravity system of the entire "Tower" had malfunctioned, and the direction of gravity in the hall was now chaotic.

"Sage, where are we now?"

The old man in white robes, called the "Sage," had a gloomy and fierce expression; one hand gripped the armrest of his chair tightly, and only after a long while did he speak in a deep voice: "... The jump process was disrupted. Navigator, report the situation."

"Y-yes... yes!" another member of the Hidden Cultivation Society answered hurriedly, "Our preset jump point should have been at the gravitational collapse point near the 'Bright River Nebula,' a very easily identifiable bright dust cloud, but now it cannot be seen within the visible range of all external monitors; star chart comparison... the entire navigation system is offline, and manual comparison will take a very long time."

"First confirm the damage to the Pillar of Order, confirm whether there is any leakage in the inner shell layer, then find a way to repair the various subsystems," the Sage spoke, "Prioritize repairing the navigation and engines, figure out exactly where we are—and then this damn gravity system!"

"Yes, yes!"

The Sage slowly took a breath, letting his voice calm down again: "How are the Space Calibrator and the situation in the 'Holy Coffin' chamber?"

"We just established contact with the core compartment; the Space Calibrator is undamaged, the Holy Coffin chamber has sustained some damage, but the 'Holy Maiden' is unaffected and is still recovering."

The Sage lowered his eyelids, preventing those around him from seeing his eyes; he tapped the armrest of his chair irritably with his fingers and muttered in a voice too low for others to hear: "... That good-for-nothing..."

After a moment of unbearable suppression, he raised his head, his voice cold and hard: "Speed up the repair, get the 'Artificial Holy Maiden' out of that iron coffin as soon as possible."

"But, but the Holy Maiden's damage this time is very severe, especially the mental barrier; forcing her to catalyze might cause problems in the future..."

"As long as she doesn't melt down today, we'll deal with future problems later," the Sage immediately interrupted his subordinate, "I need her back in a combat position right now... I have a very bad feeling; our troubles aren't over yet."

"Yes!"

The Sage nodded, his expression finally no longer so tense.

A member of the Hidden Cultivation Society beside him, seeing this, finally gathered the courage to speak: "Sage, what do you think attacked us? Could it be some kind of jump interference technology from the Special Operations Bureau?"

The Sage slowly shook his head: "The Pillar of Order is equipped with the most powerful phase engines and core protection systems; to interfere with it, you would need a large fixed disruption device installed near a star gate or a fortress facility. The Special Operations Bureau only recently became aware of the existence of the 'Deep Realm City'; they didn't have time, nor any reason, to build such a thing there."

Then he fell silent for a few seconds before speaking slowly: "In the combat data returned by the Artificial Holy Maiden, those suspicious figures who broke into the thick fog... all situations began to gradually lose control after they appeared; the collapse of the concealment shield was also due to them, but the key is, who exactly are those guys, and how did they do it..."

He suddenly stopped, raised his head, and stared blankly at the porthole.

An unprecedented expression of shock, even terror, appeared on the face of this old man in white robes; he widened his eyes and stared fixedly in that direction, as if witnessing the most absurd and terrifying sight in the world.

Immediately, one after another gaze turned toward the same direction as the Sage.

A person, one of the "them" the Sage had just mentioned, was lying on the porthole, observing the members of the Hidden Cultivation Society in the hall.

He wore a very ordinary casual jacket, looking even like something from a street stall; in one arm, he held a furry object that looked like a tail; he was exposed to the vacuum of space without any protection, staring at everyone in the hall like a curious observer.

Then, realizing he had been seen, noticing the terrified faces in the control hall, a smile appeared on the face of this "humanoid creature"—it was a pleasant and sunny smile; he smiled like that and even raised his hand to give the Hidden Cultivation Society members a "yeah."

Screams of terror filled the control hall, followed immediately by the angry shouts of the "Sage" and several minor leaders trying to maintain order.

"Quiet! Calm down! Dispatch the Knights, eliminate that monster!" the old man in white robes shouted loudly.

The figure outside the porthole began to climb sideways, gripping protrusions on the outer shell of Gao Ta.

"He's moving!" someone in the hall shouted in alarm again, "He's heading toward the radar array!"

"External monitors, switch the feed from the external monitors... damn it, more than half of the external monitors were destroyed in the previous impact! That area is a monitoring blind spot!"

"Dispatch the drones for cleaning the outer shell; they have cameras too!"

"'Knights' have entered the corridor, three minutes until departure!"

The hall was in chaotic uproar; having just experienced a life-threatening crisis, with the entire "Pillar of Order" plunged into the dangerous state of being lost, a "person" lying outside the porthole staring at everyone seemed to be the last straw that broke the reason of many; yet others, amidst the terror, were desperately trying to maintain order, wanting to eliminate that guy who looked like a human but couldn't possibly be one no matter how you thought about it.

The "Sage" sat in the middle of the crowd, saying nothing, just looking with a pale face toward the now empty direction of the porthole.

That "person" had already moved completely to a place invisible from this side—in the visual blind spot of the "Pillar of Order" shell, what was he doing? What was he preparing to do? How did he "catch up" in the case of Gao Ta's failed jump? Who exactly was he? What exactly was he...?

Yu Sheng climbed carefully along the outer shell of this strange tower, one arm still holding Hu Li's big tail.

This reminded him of Erin, who often crawled in the dark corners of the house—under the table, under the coffee table, under the sofa; the little doll was always drilling in and out of those places.

But he felt he was still different from Erin; the little doll was crawling in the dark, whereas this was sunny, healthy, and moderate crawling.

Even the purpose of the crawling was very positive—he wanted to find an entrance to drill in and deliver a surprise and happiness to the cultists hiding inside this "Flying Tower."

It didn't matter if they weren't happy; anyway, he was very happy right now.

He stopped on a relatively flat section of the outer shell, resting briefly, then tilted his head back, looking at the dark, boundless space and the beautiful stars quietly dotting the depths of the darkness.

"So beautiful..."

Yu Sheng muttered to himself.

He couldn't say this sentence out loud because he couldn't breathe here.

At first, this made him very unaccustomed; he even prepared himself mentally to go back in half an hour and stare eye-to-eye with Erin and the others—after all, after seeing darkness and then opening his eyes again, he was in outer space; he figured he wouldn't survive this time.

But after a while, Yu Sheng discovered that breathing was not necessary for him.

It was just a clinical feature accompanying the state of "survival."

At least, that was how he understood it.

Looking at the vast, abyss-like deep space before him, Yu Sheng felt his thoughts seemed to be magnified by this boundless space.

It is said that cultivators a bit more powerful over at Qianfeng Spirit Mountain can also survive in space; I wonder how they do it... Did they also "optimize" breathing away?

I wonder if Erin can also operate in the space environment like this, after all, she seems to have no heart or lungs or anything like that.

What about Hu Li? She is very powerful... probably she can too?

Yu Sheng was just thinking random thoughts like this when his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a voice that came into his mind: "Hey hey, Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng, are you still alive? Dead? Want to come back if you're dying?"

Such an annoying way of speaking was obviously Erin.

"I'm alive, floating in space right now," Yu Sheng replied grumpily, "Let me tell you, this tower these cultists made... is actually a spaceship, you know? But I gave it a 'flick' when they activated the teleportation, and now it seems I broke it, drifting around wildly... I'm hanging on its outer shell, looking for a place to drill in, haven't found a suitable spot yet."

There was no sound from Erin's side for several seconds, as if she was shocked.

Then she finally let out an exclamation: "Holy crap! You can do that too?"

"I'm pretty surprised myself," Yu Sheng replied in his mind, "By the way, tell the fox for me; her tail hasn't made a sound since it got here; I don't know if I broke it."

After a while, Erin sent a reply: "I told her; she said it just disconnected because the distance was too far; a disconnected tail is useless, find a place to throw it away, or open a door and throw it home; she'll change it into a scarf for you later..."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then casually pulled open a door to 66 Wutong Road beside him and threw the tail inside.

"I threw it home—how is the situation over there?"

"The Special Agents are here; Xuan Che is explaining the situation to them. Just now, the commander of that Deep Dive Unit came looking for you, asking where you went. I told him Hu Li used his tail to launch you out, and he immediately injected himself..."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"Hey, when are you coming back?" the little doll asked again.

"I'll try to see if I can drill into this 'Tower'—without blowing it up, since this thing seems pretty fragile," Yu Sheng said. "If possible, I'll try to bring back some local specialties. After all, they've chased us this far; it would be awkward to return with nothing."

"Alright then, just don't die too quickly."

"Got it, got it."

(End of this chapter)