Chapter 330

Chapter 331: Interrogation

To be honest, a cultist full of twisted ideas suddenly showing that kind of firm, almost self sacrificing faith and saying something that sounded extra grand did leave a strong impression. But more than that feeling of “belief” coming off the man, Yu Sheng cared about something else.

He frowned in confusion and asked: “How is this world already terminally ill? Sure, there are some evil things, but every place has disasters and trouble. When there is a disaster, you rescue. When there is trouble, you block it. How did that become ‘the world is terminally ill, so we must take a cure from the Dark Angels’?”

Bai Li Qing passed Yu Sheng’s words to the Interrogation Chamber.

The speaker carried the talk inside:

“What standard do you use to judge that the world is ‘terminally ill’?”

The cultist tried to move, and the Restraint Device pulled him right back into place.

“You cannot hear it. Most people cannot,” the pale man said with a slight curl of his lip and, strangely, a touch of pity. “Listen closely. Listen to the crying among the stars. The astrologers of Alglade claim they can hear the voice of the stars, but they never dare face the truth hidden in the real darkness.

“The whole world is covered by the shadow of falling apart. In the far starlight, surging thoughts are hidden. Every moment, countless possibilities that point to the end burst from the edge of the observable universe and are briefly blocked by the stars. Has the Astrologers’ Consortium warned you? No. Because they themselves are full of flaws. They can only observe the shallow part of the starlight.

“And those who call themselves Prophets, those Bamosians who say they are disciples of the great Prophet, playing tricks of foretelling together with the Forest Folk, has any of them spoken of the whispers at the Border of the observable universe? Has anyone spoken of the curtain of the starlight’s The End Web, the limit of the material universe, and the crashes and breaks beyond the order of The End Web? No.
“They know nothing about the true future. Whether Bamosian or Forest Folk, their so called prophecies and calculations are just parlor tricks, catching illusions in the brief ripples on the stream of time. Their ways of observing and reading the stars are crude. Only the Supreme Saint, in the play of light and shadow at the starlight’s The End Web, caught a glimpse of the truth that the world is about to fall apart. A voice, a voice whispered to him…”

The interrogator tapped the table lightly. The taps were not loud, yet the whole room seemed to tremble.

A Psionic Tremor stabbed straight into the soul. The cultist, who had worked himself up, suddenly bulged his eyes. He stretched his neck as if a hand had gripped his throat and wheezed in pain.

After six seconds, the tapping echo faded. The man in the chair was soaked with sweat and breathing hard.

“I am asking you to answer questions, not to preach. I have heard many versions of this theory,” the interrogator said.

“I… I understand.”

“Good. I now understand your view that the world is ‘terminally ill.’ Next question. How do you plan to use the ‘Angel Catalyst’ to pierce those ‘lesions’? Or, more plainly, how will you use these ‘materials’ to destroy what you call the ‘pathology zones’ of the universe, including the ‘Otherworld’ and the ‘Borderland’?”

“The specific technology is still being studied… I am telling the truth. Our research on the Angel Catalyst is still in an early stage,” the cultist answered in a rush. “Much of it is still in theory, even only in the knowledge fragments the Supreme Saint saw during meditation. Turning those things into usable technology is a long process.”

“How long has this ‘early stage’ lasted?”

The cultist hesitated, then clenched his teeth and said: “About seventeen years, in standard Terra time.”

Both rooms went quiet at once.

“So, seventeen years ago you had already started research into the ‘Angel Catalyst.’ And the Angel Catalyst is the residue left after a Dark Angel’s Angel Fall,” the interrogator said after nearly ten seconds. “But Anka Aila fell only recently, and we have strong proof it was the first recorded ‘fall’ of any Angel in history. How could your research on Angel Remnants have started more than ten years ago? Did this study appear out of thin air? Did you just rely on the Supreme Saint’s meditation ‘visions’ to guess the properties of Angel Remnants?”

The cultist tried to shift his posture again. His lips trembled. After a while, he forced out a thin smile and said: “Yes, Anka Aila is indeed the first Angel to ‘fall.’ But have you thought that it might not be the first Angel to die?”

Yu Sheng’s brows knit at once, and Bai Li Qing pressed the intercom: “What do you mean by that?”

The cultist flinched, looked up toward a corner of the ceiling, and heard the interrogator’s firm order: “Answer.”

He shivered and went on: “The Dark Angels all have their own special traits besides the common trait of ‘invading.’ So any kind of Dark Angel is possible. Some Dark Angels enter the real universe already in a ‘dead’ state. That makes sense, right?”

Even the interrogator could not hide surprise now: “You found a Dark Angel that died naturally?”

“We call it the ‘Shadowless Skeleton,’ or simply ‘the Skeleton,’” the cultist said in a low voice. “It is buried in a giant pit called the ‘Adar Crater.’ The crater is clearly visible from space. At the bottom wander many strange, nameless shadows. The ‘Skeleton’ lies at the center of those shadows. That area is called the ‘Shadowless Zone.’

“The body of the ‘Skeleton’ is a gigantic humanoid bone frame with broken wing bones. It is curled with both hands around its knees, set in a bed of shattered crystal. If it stood up, the skeleton would likely be taller than six hundred meters. It is clearly not a creature that could be born under normal conditions. Around the skeleton are scattered bone pieces and Crystal Shards. Whether the main bones or the fragments, they have very high physical strength and constantly send out a vague whisper.

“It took us a long time to confirm what the ‘Shadowless Skeleton’ was, until the Supreme Saint, in meditation, received enlightenment and told us it was a Dark Angel that was already dead when it entered the real universe, and that ‘remains’ were its trait.”

Bai Li Qing pressed the intercom again: “How did you confirm that Dark Angel was dead?”

The question sounded odd at first, since a heap of bones at the bottom of a crater did not seem alive. But anyone who knew the Dark Angels would not question it. These invaders were bizarre. A tree, a statue, even a planet could be an “Angel” entering reality. You could not judge life or death by looks alone.

“It is in a ‘dead silent’ state,” the cultist answered honestly after a pause. “No sign of activation. No movement. No energy release that shows ‘activity’ except for the steady whisper. More important… with proper protection, mortals can touch it, even collect its samples, and later are not affected.”

This last reason was simple but very convincing.

People agreed on one thing: mortals could not go near a Dark Angel and still jump around afterward. You did not even need to go near. In some cases, if you just looked at it on a battlefield from more than ten kilometers away, you still had a thirty percent chance of dying.

But the Hermitage Order could scrape bone powder off the “Shadowless Skeleton” in the Adar Crater to do research.

Classic logic: you touched a Dark Angel and did not die, so the Dark Angel must be dead.

“So you found a Dark Angel in a dead state more than ten years ago, and that started your ‘Angel Catalyst’ research?” the interrogator asked. “What happened after that?”

“We found the ‘Angel Catalyst’ collected around the ‘Shadowless Skeleton’ was not active enough,” the cultist said, now more and more cooperative. “Those small bone fragments and Crystal Shards scattered around the great skeleton did show a certain ‘erosion’ trait, just like the Supreme Saint said. But the power was far from enough to create a ‘piercing’ effect on the Otherworld. It felt like… something was missing. We suspected it was because the ‘Shadowless Skeleton’ had been dead for too long and its power had faded.”

“So you set your sights on the Dark Angels that were still alive,” the interrogator said in a low voice. “Based on analysis of samples collected on the ground around your ship, you had already been hiding in Mistbound City at least ten years ago. That means you already knew about Anka Aila back then?”

“…Yes.”