Chapter 388

Chapter 388: Hyperspace Illusion Arts

Yu Sheng suspected the two handsome guys on board had a deep misunderstanding and prejudice about his driving skills, and he had proof.

But he couldn’t really argue.

Because he truly didn’t have much hands-on experience. Then again, what veteran driver in this world didn’t start as a rookie?

Sure, starting out by piloting a mainline capital ship was pretty rare. Still, with his special—and surprisingly effective—technique, the Otherworld Hotel moved under his control and kept accelerating.

The giant tower, like a flying church stuck on top, gradually left near-planet space around the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. As power increased, many energy-release grilles along the midsection and tail grew brighter. Some of the side towers orbiting the main tower lit up as well. Shields activated and shifted into jump-prep mode. On the external monitors, the last Immortal Palace in high orbit behind the planet rapidly fell away, shrinking into a dim point of light near the Grand Void.

Yu Sheng sat in the captain’s chair and narrowed his eyes.

His senses merged with the ship. The reactor’s roar felt like it beat in sync with his own heart. He could feel every energy line, every engine, every compartment, and the faint starlight washing over the armor.

Bathed in that distant light—heavy with hidden secrets—he suddenly felt as if he could hear mysterious whispers and low rumbles between the stars.

Yu Sheng’s eyes snapped open like he’d jolted awake from a false dream. Uneasy, he stared into the vast, deep space beyond the observation window.

A fluffy tail draped over his arm as Foxy leaned in. “Benefactor, what’s wrong?”

Yu Sheng shook his head. “…I almost fell asleep just now. I felt like I heard something, but it might’ve been a hallucination.”

He remembered that strange feeling—like listening to the stars whisper while he watched deep space. Then he frowned and turned slightly. “I’ve heard the Alglade people know how to listen to the sound of stars. They believe every star in the universe is whispering, and those whispers contain truth and guidance?”

Zheng Zhi, seated toward the rear, nodded. It was his first time on a ship too, and he was still excited, but he turned serious at Yu Sheng’s question. “There is that saying. They seem able to accurately sense subtle changes in stars’ spectra and magnetic fields and use that to guide their lives. It’s said that because of this, the proportion of Star Readers among them is far higher than other races—the kind of experts who don’t need a navigation computer, who can calculate a star chart in their head and navigate a ship.”

He paused, thinking back to what he’d read, then continued. “Of course, what ‘the whispers of the stars’ really means is something only they can understand. It’s a kind of cognitive talent that depends heavily on racial traits. Like how some people are born with an extra type of color-sensing cell—no matter how much an ordinary person studies the theory, they can’t imagine what that world looks like. The universe in Alglade eyes will always have more colors and sounds than it does for other races. In the end, we can only take their word for it. They really can predict many things just by reading the night sky.”

Yu Sheng listened, thoughtful, and didn’t speak for a moment.

Even without proof, he felt what he’d “heard” just now wasn’t the same as the Alglade whispers Zheng Zhi described.

He let out a soft breath and looked toward the boundless starfield beyond the observation window.

Either way, what he’d felt in that brief haze didn’t seem dangerous or malicious.

New data and graphs popped up on a nearby holographic display. The assisted navigation system reported the ship’s position and status and announced jump preparation was complete.

Yu Sheng said, “We’re about to jump. There may be some impact when entering and leaving hyperspace. Sit tight in your seats.”

Irene, who had been darting around the hall, shot back instantly. She hopped into the seat beside Yu Sheng and copied him, activating the safety lock.

But the safety locks on both sides of her seat only extended partway, and a line of red text appeared on the display by the armrest: “Warning: No occupant detected. Safety lock cannot close—please be seated immediately.”

Irene froze, staring blankly at the message.

Two seconds later, she exploded. “What the #$% is this #%$—”

In that instant, the person who designed the chair lost every ancestor and every friend they’d ever had. Even the neighbor’s dog couldn’t protect its parents.

Yu Sheng grabbed Irene off the chair and tossed her to Foxy. “Hold her.”

Foxy answered with an “Oh,” then pinned the still-cursing doll in her arms. Irene struggled, furious and mortified, but Yu Sheng knew how strong a nine-tailed demon fox could be. Those slender arms closed like a vise. After flailing twice, Irene stopped and sank into gloomy despair.

The shipwide broadcast began issuing jump warnings. Moments later, the phase engine started.

This was Yu Sheng’s first time starting it.

He felt massive energy surge into the power array. Like a black hole, the phase engine swallowed nearly a third of the ship’s output at once. A phantom boom rang in his ears. The ship seemed to jolt in real space, and in the next moment it lost mass and solidity, “falling” into a space bubble sealed by warp space.

The starlight beyond the observation window warped, blurred, and stretched without end. The stars became an infinite tunnel too fast for the naked eye to follow. Then even the tunnel vanished, and outside the Otherworld Hotel there was only a spectrum fading from red to blue—the entire observable universe compressed into a thin curtain of light surrounding the ship.

Artificial gravity in the hall failed briefly, then returned.

Held in Foxy’s arms, Irene seemed to have forgotten her gloom. She stared wide-eyed at the strange red-and-blue light curtain, as if endless stars had been crushed into it, and slowly opened her mouth. “…Whoa.”

Luna sat behind Yu Sheng. She tilted her head slightly, hyperspace light reflecting across the alloy shell of the artificial saintess. After a long while, she murmured, “Very… pretty.”

Xuan Che whispered to Immortal Yuan Hao, “Elder Senior Uncle, it seems pretty smooth. And the big ship is really stable—much steadier than the small shuttle I rode last time.”

Immortal Yuan Hao considered it. “One time, my celestial ship malfunctioned right when we entered the jump—”

Irene snapped her head around. “Shut up!”

Immortal Yuan Hao looked genuinely regretful. “I still have a long story after that.”

Yu Sheng heard them, but didn’t respond.

Most of his mind and senses were on the Otherworld Hotel—synchronized tightly with it, breathing with it, moving with it, and drowning in the hyperspace beyond the material universe, past the threshold of light speed.

In a daze, he felt as if his perception had surpassed his body—surpassed even the ship’s steel hull. In an instant, he seemed to cross the stars, wandering through a deeper, more fundamental layer of the world.

He didn’t know if this was normal, or how different it was from what the Alglade saw—because there probably wasn’t a second person in the world who could, from an FTL viewpoint, synchronize with a ship in jump-state and observe the universe this way.

Starlight streamed beneath his feet. Yu Sheng looked around among the stars and saw two faint glimmers in an unimaginably distant place. They seemed like the oldest celestial bodies in the universe, shining deep within the star-sea.

He saw a strange star and its planetary system tucked into a far corner of a distant galaxy, hidden in the shadow of a dust cloud. At regular intervals, the star turned an unusual pink.

He saw a quasar erupt at the edge of a gravitational rift. Brilliant flashes and violent energy filled space for several light-seconds. A piece of strange information poured straight into his mind, and he learned the name of the spectacular sight: cosmic sparkler.

[What a weird name.]

Fleeting thoughts streamed through him. From time to time, he “heard” the stars send messages and understood bits of bizarre knowledge—not quite corruption, but not very useful either.

Then he stopped in a wash of starlight.

Deep within it, he saw tiny, scattered flashes—like footnotes on the world’s foundation, glittering inside the cosmic background radiation.

Yu Sheng hesitated, then tried to reach out a “hand” and touch the drifting clusters of information.

New information flooded into his mind. He “saw” phantom flames filled with starlight. The starlight whispered secrets from somewhere in the universe—

“This section of rules runs because of this bug. Don’t touch it.”

Yu Sheng yanked his “hand” back immediately.

“…?”