Chapter 234

Chapter 234: Shutdown

Yu Sheng’s vision shook for a long moment before he finally made out Squirrel’s shadow: the little one was crouched on his cheek, licking his nose with her tiny tongue.

Nearby, Irene’s anxious voice tumbled out fast: “Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng, are you awake yet? Wow, you almost scared me to death. I thought you were done for. From that height, they wouldn’t even be able to scrape you up…”

Yu Sheng rolled his eyes and said: “Can’t you say something nicer?” He glanced past his head and saw the little Doll standing by him, and Foxy the Fox Maiden squatting at his side, staring at Squirrel’s licking. Foxy absentmindedly licked her lips, and Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched as a few bad memories surged up, then he muttered: “So you planning to lick me too or what?” [A bad memory flashed.]

Foxy hurried to wipe away the drool that wasn’t actually there and grinned foolishly at Yu Sheng: “Hehe… seeing the benefactor fine makes me feel better.”

Squirrel hopped down from Yu Sheng’s face and rubbed her paws while mumbling: “I got scared too. I jumped right after you, then Foxy caught me with her tail. She’s amazing, she can even fly, so the three of us flew down together. Then we saw you lying here like you were asleep, and Irene was guessing whether you’d just died or just started living again…”

Propping himself up, Yu Sheng sat up and, without minding that last line, began checking their surroundings.

He stood and looked around with a frown, then asked as he turned in place: “Where are we? How long have you been down here?”

Irene answered fast and pointed up: “Only a few minutes, we haven’t had time to look around. But when we came down, we noticed a thick outer shell overhead. This should have been a sealed, large structure. That shell has several big holes, and you fell through the biggest one.”

Yu Sheng grunted and said nothing more.

It was very dim but not pitch black. A faint glow like emergency lighting spilled from the dome and many points along the walls, enough to see the place. He noticed this was a huge space, yet unlike the other structures inside Anka Aila that gleamed with cold metal. Here, the ground was actually soil.

Farther out, he could see many withered remains half buried in the earth, and suspicious growths spreading from the soil like corruption.

He looked up again. In the dim light he could make out the “outer shell” Irene had mentioned, a heavy dome that had already broken years ago.

Little by little, he understood where they were. [So this is it.]

He exhaled and murmured: “This is the Biosphere carried by Anka Aila.”

Irene blinked her crimson eyes and said: “Huh?”

Yu Sheng scooped Squirrel into his hands and started walking as he explained: “A scaled-down Homeworld ecosystem, and also the blueprint and seed the ark would use to rebuild life on a new world. If I’m right, there should be a gene bank here too, kept in something like cryosleep or a higher ‘stasis’ tech. But it’s probably dead as well, just like this Biosphere.”

Irene listened with her mouth slightly open, unsure how much she understood. Foxy, though, looked thoughtful as she nodded, fully following Yu Sheng’s words: “Back home, some people build things like this to develop life on new planets. Those are the big developers.”

Irene stared: “Your hometown has everything!?”

Foxy said nothing, only squinted with pride and wagged her tail.

Yu Sheng kept walking through this lifeless “ecological ruin.” His gaze slid over withered remains, riverbeds long dry, and the pipes that lay exposed in the dirt. He tried to picture what once stood here.

He knew this was Anka Aila’s “child,” that Angel which had fallen from some far, apocalyptic world. In the Homeworld’s last wreckage, it had nurtured a shadow of itself. Yu Sheng didn’t know what would happen if that shadow truly managed to be “born” in the Borderland, but it would likely be a disaster for everyone.

Even for Anka Aila itself. That shadow was not the homeland it remembered and could not bring back its creators. It would only watch another nightmare crawl from its own corpse. When that happened, the Dark Angels would truly spiral out of control.

A faint tremor rolled underfoot, followed by a deep rumble.

Yu Sheng froze where he stood, and Foxy’s ears snapped upright.

Irene said, voice tight: “Did you hear that? It sounds like something is moving, deeper in.”

Yu Sheng’s expression shifted, growing solemn as if he were listening hard.

A calm, gentle whisper shivered across a dimension no ordinary person could feel.

Several seconds later, Yu Sheng drew in a sharp breath and his eyes flew wide.

He snapped to Irene: “Wake everyone in the Sanctuary Wasteland! Pull back to the real world for now!”

Irene stared, then jolted into action and blurted: “What’s going on, what happened so suddenly-”

Yu Sheng spun toward her, face dark: “Anka Aila is shutting down.”

Irene went blank, then jumped: “What!?”

“We have to move, this place is done!” Yu Sheng grabbed the little Doll, swung her onto his shoulder, and got ready to open a Door back to reality. He suddenly remembered something, stopped, and said fast: “No, the Hunter… hurry back! We still have time!”

Irene, slung over Yu Sheng’s shoulder and no longer needing to walk, suddenly had her brain freed up. She rattled off: “Wait! If Anka Aila is shutting down, what about the Black Forest? What about the Fairy Tale? What about Squirrel? Is the whole Fairy Tale about to collapse? Then the Hunter will have nowhere to go!”

Yu Sheng stalled in place.

The deep rumble sharpened into a harsh, buzzing roar, and the light quiver became a hard shake. This massive, ancient, mutated ark started to break apart from the inside out. Right then, Yu Sheng thought of something. [There’s one way left.]

He said, each word firm: “Link it to the Valley.”

Irene looked up, shocked.

“They’re both Otherworlds. Both were parasitized by Dark Angels. They’re both places I’ve bled in more than once. If it worked once, there’s no reason it can’t work again,” Yu Sheng said, drawing a steady breath. “I’m going to merge the Fairy Tale with the Valley.”

Irene asked at once: “What do you need us to do?”

“This part I have to do myself. It may take a bit,” Yu Sheng said, opening a Phantom Door with a sweep of his hand. “You and Foxy go out first and brief the people outside. Anka Aila has been sunk in the Borderland for years. Once it shuts down, it’ll detach from here and break apart. Tell all of this to the Special Affairs Bureau.

“As for me, I’ll send Squirrel and the Hunter back into the Black Forest first, then start the ‘fusion.’ Irene, split a body off and warn the Cursed Children in the Valley. There may be some big commotion. Have them stay in camp, and especially keep away from areas that start ‘changing.’ Got it?”

Irene bobbed her head: “Got it, got it, and once again it’s me doing two jobs, huh.” She scrambled onto Foxy’s back and waved. “You just go do your thing!”

Foxy, clearly worried, stood before the Door and looked back at Yu Sheng: “Benefactor, are you going to…”

Yu Sheng gave a thumbs up and grinned: “Relax, guaranteed to die.”

Foxy sighed and tapped his arm with her big tail, then hugged Irene and leaped through the Door back to the real world just before the next hard jolt hit.

…

At the instant every monitoring device screamed error and alarms erupted, Li Lin clearly heard a barrier shatter, as if a mirror that blocked reality from nightmare had hung inside that black wall and suddenly cracked into pieces under a blow past its limit.

Then everyone on site heard the rumble rising from underground.

The sound grew from faint to thunderous. An astonishing, unmeasurable energy reaction hit the far-end sensors. In a blink, Li Lin saw the Orphanage wall crumble without a sound. Sixteen temporary shields lost half their number in an instant, and the rest shook on the edge of failure. Then a beam of light rose into the night sky.

The beam burst from the Orphanage’s center. In its glow, two “umbilical cords,” tangled together as they “floated” upward, thinned and faded to nothing.

A luminous body drifted up inside the ruined walls.

Bai Li Qing watched with an icy face, then raised her phone: “Prepare to execute ‘Dome Shatter.’ Our signal may go dark soon. Before that-”

She got only halfway through.

A Door sprang open less than three meters away. A heartbeat later, Foxy and Irene jumped out of it.

The little Doll shot through the Door and shouted: “Hold it! Whatever that ‘shatter’ thing is, stop it first!”

Bai Li Qing stared at the two who had just popped out of thin air.

…

Moments later, Li Lin, still stunned, received new orders.

He turned and looked past the wreck of the Orphanage wall, watching the glowing mass rise into the night.

He lifted his radio and drew a slow breath. [Steady.]

He said: “All units, stay on guard and keep observing. Check every recorder. We may be witnessing the first ever… Angel Fall.”