Chapter 344

Chapter 345: Running Through Space

Foxy ran, galloping through the open sky.

Blazing fox fire trailed like a meteor, leaving a bright blue flame path. The silver white nine tailed fox shattered the cloud layers and kept accelerating in the planet’s thick atmosphere. Her leaping steps were graceful like a startled swan, yet carried a wildness that felt beyond heaven and earth. Each step took her farther until her whole body was wrapped in a thick protective spiritual aura. Outside the aura, friction with the air turned into spears of plasma that pierced from the atmosphere into space.

Beside the sky splitting demon fox, the Celestial Ship was also racing out of the atmosphere. The feather light flying vessel shed streamers of light as it crossed the edge of the sky and began to speed up, sending out threads of spiritual power to transmit a call to Foxy and Yu Sheng: “Immortal maiden ahead, please slow down a little. There is an Immortal Alliance Outpost at the top of the atmosphere. Immortal maiden, you are speeding.”

Foxy looked back slightly while “running” in space and answered with the giddy joy of someone finally allowed to play after months indoors: “Benefactor, at my home, you need to be five times faster than this to count as speeding.”

“Slow down when they tell you to slow down,” Yu Sheng shouted from her back. Even though the protective spiritual aura wrapped them and Foxy’s big tails shielded him, he still grabbed the silver white fur on instinct. “Is orbital speed not enough for you?”

“Okay,” Foxy answered. She reined herself in a bit, but then mischievously spiraled around the Celestial Ship several times, up, down, left, and right, until they protested through the link. Only then did she return to her lane and grin at Yu Sheng: “Benefactor, I am happy.”

“I can tell,” Yu Sheng said, half laughing as he looked at the space running fox. Then his gaze drifted to the distance.

They had crossed the top of the atmosphere and passed beyond a faint veil of light that felt like a celestial barrier above the planet. The sky’s glow faded, and deep, dark space rushed in.

It was not the same as the lonely void he felt when he merged with the Pillar of Order, now the Otherworldly Hotel. Not only because a warm and noisy big fox was beside him, but also because this space was not empty. A breathtaking sight centered on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis unfolded with the endless starlight before his eyes.

The planet’s glowing horizon shrank into the background and soon into a gemlike sphere. As they sped beyond low orbit, Yu Sheng saw many vast shapes lit like misty halos. The Celestial Ship led the way, taking Foxy past some of these glowing clusters. He realized they were pavilions and towers floating in space, with radiant bridges linking palaces, and even whole stretches of artificial land. Under heavy ecological domes lay lakes and groves, green and shining.

These palaces and floating isles hung unsupported around the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, while Celestial Ships and bright lanes of light wove among them like a space logistics web and a steady flow of merchants and travelers.

Xuan Che’s voice carried from the Celestial Ship straight to Yu Sheng’s ear: “Those temples and towers we just passed are spaceport hubs built by the Reclining Cloud Ten Halls. Reclining Cloud Ten Halls is the top school of artifact forging and city building here, masters of intricate mechanisms. The name refers both to their sect and to ten floating Grand Halls in the clouds. Those were the earliest permanent skyborne buildings above this world.

“Two thirds of the orbital ports and mechanical megastructures around the Grand Void Spiritual Axis were built by Reclining Cloud Ten Halls.

“The floating isles with ecological domes mostly belong to Remote Mist Sect or Nethergloom Valley. They split mineral rich mountains from the stars Hanguang and Cold Spike and tow them near the sun to refine with solar fire. When a vein is exhausted, they melt the remaining slag into an island, haul it back to this orbit, seal it under a dome, and grow forests and lakes for settlements. In your Borderland terms, they are the system’s biggest mining and real estate developers.

“As for the Celestial Ships gliding between halls and isles, many come from Hengxu, or from our Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain. Our mountain is famed for elixirs and talismanic runes across the Grand Void, yet we also do well in forging. We favor lightness and agility, not the heavy industry style of Reclining Cloud Ten Halls, who build kilometer long star shuttles and fortress class star keeps.”

Yu Sheng listened and looked through Foxy’s protective spiritual aura at the palaces, isles, and ships sliding astern. He could not even find words.

“This is a vast foundation,” he finally breathed. “Honestly, the first time I saw those special ‘floors’ inside the Special Affairs Bureau building, I thought that was already grand enough.”

“You flatter us,” Xuan Che replied. “These wonders did not rise in a day, but from generations of cultivators’ toil. As for grandeur, you probably have not seen what your Special Affairs Bureau truly hides. The Borderland does not sit at the Hub of the Cosmos for nothing.”

Yu Sheng fell silent, trying to picture the “big things” the Bureau kept hidden and the domains under the Council outside the Borderland that Bai Li Qing had mentioned. While he let his thoughts wander, the Celestial Ship and Foxy began to accelerate again.

Wrapped in Foxy’s protective spiritual aura and her otherworldly arts, Yu Sheng felt almost no discomfort from the repeated bursts of speed. He only sensed a faint vibration beneath him, and soon all the orbital structures near the Grand Void Spiritual Axis turned into clusters of distant lights and sank into the starry background.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flash in the far off dark.

Even with senses far beyond a human’s, he only caught a vague shape, a massive gray white structure that looked like a giant stele standing in space. Lights winked around it, with later built rings and stations close by.

With no reference, Yu Sheng could not judge its size, but from the shape of the buildings near it, that “stele” had to be unbelievably large. “What was that just now?” he asked.

“You mean the great stele we passed?” Xuan Che answered quickly. “That is the Qianyuan Monolith.”

“What is the Qianyuan Monolith for?” Yu Sheng asked, full of curiosity.

“We do not know.”

“Huh? You do not know?”

“We truly do not,” Xuan Che said. “The Qianyuan Monolith is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, even the whole Featherwing sector. No one knows where it came from, who built it, or how long it has stood in the void. Since the remaking of heaven and earth, since cultivators first left the ground, that monolith has been in high orbit here.

“Some guess it was built by the Divine Ones in ancient times to record the primal truths of the world. Others say it was part of an ancient god’s tomb. When the calamity of annihilation came, the tomb collapsed and only the stele drifted in orbit. There are many stories, but none are proven.

“The monolith is extremely tough. Its surface is forged of a nearly impenetrable alloy. Inside are powerful bans. Even the divine sense of top experts cannot pry into it. Over the centuries, many have tried to unravel its secrets. None succeeded. The lucky ones returned empty handed. The unlucky ones died or vanished after rash attempts. In time, no one dared try.

“Gradually, it became a holy land near the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. People say it is an ancient legacy left from the old world. The Divine Ones used their lives to make a shield against the annihilating disaster. Though that shield did not survive the cataclysm that toppled the realms, the Ancient Holy Spirit restored the monolith when it remade the world, as a tribute. There are many versions, but everyone accepts one thing. The Qianyuan Monolith is a treasure of the Grand Void.

“The result is what you saw. We built many outposts around this ‘lonely stele in space’ far from the planet and turned it into a lighthouse beside the homeworld. To this day it is the most important beacon for Celestial Ships and star shuttles returning to the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”

“I see,” Yu Sheng murmured, letting the stories and legends fill his mind with images. He turned to look again, but the monolith was already gone from sight.

A soft vibration came from beneath him once more.

Foxy was still running through space, but now she was clearly slowing. Several tails shifted, adjusting the angle of the fox fire, as if preparing for a change of course.

A band of silver light appeared at the edge of sight.

One of the three moons above the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, the largest natural satellite, Nethermoon, was right ahead.