Chapter 333

Chapter 334: Angel Gloom

Although not getting Holy Revere Hermitage’s secret jump coordinates right away was a bit disappointing, the intel Yu Sheng gained far exceeded his expectations, especially the part about the Angel Catalyst, which shocked everyone.

Holy Revere Hermitage’s motive for this research was soaked in their fanatical “world-defect theory,” but the academic part of the work still had real value. Knowledge itself stays pure, no matter how extreme the people studying it may be.

So Yu Sheng and Bai Li Qing quickly focused their talk on the “Angel Catalyst.”

Yu Sheng asked: “What’s the current status of those Anka Aila crystals?”

Bai Li Qing nodded and said: “They’re still in the Containment Zone. The Special Affairs Bureau has kept studying the Anka Aila crystals, but there’s been no progress, and it’s the same for the Secondary Crystal samples.”

Yu Sheng rubbed his chin and said: “I want to take a look. What that cultist mentioned keeps bugging me.”

Bai Li Qing agreed right away and said: “Of course. I already told the Containment Zone to prepare. We can go anytime.”

Yu Sheng nodded, waved for Foxy and Luna to come along, then crossed the room to scoop up the little Doll who was still focused on her cat’s cradle: “Stop playing. We’re going to check out the Anti-Irene Crystal.”

The little Doll wriggled in his grip and snapped: “Hey, are you ever going to drop that joke?”

Yu Sheng ignored her protests, carried her to the Door that led into the Containment Zone’s interior, and was about to step through when he sensed a look from the side. He turned and found Bai Li Qing staring at him.

He asked: “What is it?”

Bai Li Qing’s expression was starting to crack as she said: “Could you please show at least a little respect for the security system of our highest-level Containment Facility?”

Yu Sheng froze, then felt a little embarrassed and said: “Should I close the Door and open it again slowly? You know, make it look like it’s hard to open… show some effort?”

Bai Li Qing took a very quiet breath, almost spiking her blood pressure, then dropped the whole “respect” topic. She kept a straight face and stepped through the Door.

The group arrived once more at the Containment Facility wrapped inside a gray-white concrete megastructure with extremely tight security.

Because they had been notified ahead of time, one Anka Aila crystal and several Secondary Crystal samples had already been moved out of their safes and placed in the lab before Yu Sheng arrived.

Under the lamps, the crystals gave off a hazy glow. They looked as calm and harmless as before, with no sign of the “Piercing” power that the cultist had nervously described in the Interrogation Chamber.

Yu Sheng frowned at the gleaming substance on the platform and said: “Angel Catalyst… and we used to think its only use was to counter Irene. I didn’t expect a bunch of cultists to get this far studying Angel Remnants.”

Bai Li Qing’s face stayed cool as she said: “It makes sense. They’ve been researching in secret for more than ten years. The only thing we have that they don’t is a batch of high-activity ‘catalysts’ in our hands. From now on, interrogations must prioritize intel about the Angel Catalyst. We need to learn how they ‘use’ these catalysts.”

Yu Sheng said, thinking aloud: “I keep feeling that their sneaking into that Mistbound City was tied to this tech. The low-activity catalysts they got from the Shadowless Skeleton can’t be totally useless, and their ‘Piercing’ effect on the Otherworld sounds perfect for an incursion. That cultist must have held back key details.” He glanced at the lab director standing nearby and asked: “You still haven’t found a way to trigger any reaction from the crystals, right?”

The lab director looked a bit unwilling to admit it and said: “I’m ashamed to say it, but we’ve tried everything. The crystals are stable beyond belief.”

“Stable… huh?” Yu Sheng muttered. [But that story about the little ‘shuttle’ stuck in my head.] He remembered the cultist, trembling with fear, talking about the small ship that was supposed to carry the Anka Aila crystal away, only to meet a horrifying accident the moment it tried to jump.

Bai Li Qing had clearly thought of the same thing.

She said thoughtfully: “That shuttle sent back audio suggesting total crew loss three minutes before the jump, even though the ship was still normal at that moment. Then it ignored the mothership’s abort order and jumped anyway. That kind of weirdness isn’t a normal ‘flight accident.’ Given the mission, it’s almost certainly tied to the Anka Aila crystal onboard.”

Yu Sheng frowned in silence, then suddenly turned to Luna, who had been standing quietly behind him the whole time: “You were on their mothership back then. Do you know anything?”

Luna stayed quiet for a few seconds, then slowly shook her head and said: “At the time, in the Holy Coffin, I didn’t know.”

Yu Sheng said: “Right. They were afraid you’d ‘wake up,’ so they kept you in the Holy Coffin and wouldn’t let you near that stuff.”

Luna nodded. Two or three seconds later, she broke the silence and said: “But I heard a ‘scream,’ during prayers, in the Holy Coffin.”

Bai Li Qing blinked, thought for a moment, then looked to Yu Sheng and asked: “What does she mean?”

Yu Sheng hadn’t fully understood either. He was used to Luna’s limited speech, though, so he patiently went back and forth with her several times and finally pieced it together.

He said: “You mean that even though you were idle in the Holy Coffin, you heard weird noise through the System linked to it? You think the noise was the signal from the shuttle’s accident, and the mothership’s receiving that signal ‘leaked’ it into your side?”

Luna nodded slowly and added a few stiff words: “The Holy Coffin records.”

Yu Sheng stared. “The Holy Coffin has recording functions?!”

Before he could say more, Bai Li Qing nodded and said: “I’ll inform the expert team currently on that ship to try to extract the System logs from the Holy Coffin.”

Yu Sheng grunted in reply. After a pause, he still couldn’t hold back his confusion and said: “So what exactly happened on that ship? If you told me they carried dangerous goods and then exploded, got lost, or even slammed the Door and ended up in a 2D anime world as heroes, I could accept it. But getting audio of the accident three minutes before the Jump Drive even started…”

He rubbed his chin, thought for a few seconds, then voiced a guess he wasn’t sure about and said: “Did the ship not only jump into an abnormal space, but also Piercing the flow of time? The Anka Aila crystal shredded everyone on board, and their ‘voices’ got thrown into the time stream and delivered back to three minutes before launch?”

He had just tossed out a wild theory after thinking hard, but to his surprise, Bai Li Qing’s face turned serious at once. She quickly started discussing with the lab director whether a Phase Engine might have any chance of crossing time if disturbed by Angel power.

Yu Sheng raised both hands and said: “I was just spitballing. I write a lot of fiction, so my brain likes to run wild.”

Bai Li Qing turned and gave him a long, serious look and said: “Do you usually write nonfiction?”

Yu Sheng said: “…?”

Bai Li Qing explained: “Small time-jump anomalies are extremely rare across the universe, but they do exist and are recorded. The problem is, that goes against how a Phase Engine works. In theory, if a time jump happens, the ‘time’ parameter in the Phase Engine’s coordinates becomes invalid, and the ship can’t enter the jump. The reverse is also true: if the ship enters the jump, then the ‘time’ parameter in the Phase Engine’s coordinates must be correct.”

She paused, waited for Yu Sheng to process it, then added: “So I ruled out a time-jump anomaly at first. But if the Angel Catalyst truly has that kind of power and can make a Phase Engine violate the objective rules of our universe…”

Yu Sheng stared and said: “Break the universe’s rules? Is that even possible?”

Bai Li Qing answered very seriously and said: “Dark Angels are visitors from outside the universe.”

Yu Sheng scratched his hair. [This is already past what I learned in school.] He felt the talk had drifted beyond his education level. This sounded like a job for Little Red Riding Hood.

Even if she wouldn’t get it either, she was a senior in high school. Senior brains are built to take hits.

Yu Sheng shook his head to scatter the silly thought. Then something else popped up in his mind.

He said: “Wait, there’s one more thing. Xuan Che told me that the Grand Void Spiritual Axis once caught a group of Hermitage Order believers near the Border region of Featherwing-13b. They were secretly building a base. They even found a half-built Pillar of Order ship on site.”

Bai Li Qing’s eyes grew sharp.

She said: “Given what we know, the Pillar of Order looks like a high-end model with special missions and symbolic meaning, the kind used by the Hermitage Order when they want to do big things. If they hid one in the Borderland to study something on the level of the Angel Catalyst, then on Featherwing-13b…”

Yu Sheng lifted his gaze and met hers.

He said: “Is there a sleeping Dark Angel hidden there too?!”