Chapter 427

Chapter 427: Garrison Silence

After returning to the surface, Yu Sheng immediately sent Engineer Sun and the sample recovery team dispatched by the Special Operations Bureau back to Boundary City. Then, before the crater area fully collapsed, he withdrew with Foxy and the others to a safe distance.

Not long after, the ground failed in front of them.

The entire area collapsed into a horrifying sinkhole.

The crater’s underground structure had long since been hollowed out by the dark angel’s parasite. Once the crystal heart in that cavern died, the unsupported strata began collapsing downward in waves, dragging a huge area around the crater into a chain collapse that lasted for dozens of minutes. By the time it ended, the landscape was unrecognizable.

Heat still shimmered at the bottom. Lifeless gray crystal mixed with rock and soil. Hollowed stone “pipes” and crushed, deformed layers lay toppled over one another like bones left behind after some primal behemoth died a thousand years ago.

This giant pit would be visible even from space, and for the foreseeable future it would remain a permanent scar on Garrison-3—one time couldn’t erase.

Xu Jiali and her spiritual attendant didn’t withdraw with the others. They stayed behind with Yu Sheng to witness the earthshaking collapse.

“Boss, it’s spectacular, meow,” Lingdang said, eyes wide as she stared at the churning dust. She pressed a button on her suit, and a thin tube slid up inside her helmet. A focusing vapor extracted from catnip flowed through it. She took a deep breath and squinted. “Strong stuff…”

“Does this count as witnessing another ‘angel fall’?” Xu Jiali asked casually, glancing at Yu Sheng.

Yu Sheng shook his head. “No. This is only an empty shell left behind by the dark angels. I don’t even know if it can count as its corpse.”

“Tsk.” Xu Jiali clicked her tongue. “The footage is collected. I should go back to the Bureau and report. Captain Song and the director are waiting for news.”

Yu Sheng nodded. He casually pulled open a door that led to the Special Operations Bureau employee passage.

Two agents happened to be walking past on the other side. They jumped, stared in shock, then recovered quickly, bowed to Yu Sheng, and hurried off.

Lingdang looked up at Xu Jiali, surprised. “Boss, you’re not staying to help Friend fight?”

“Help with what?” Xu Jiali raised an eyebrow at once. “I help Yu Sheng? Fight dark angels?” She tapped Lingdang’s helmet lightly. “You’ve had too much catnip. Come back with me. You haven’t reported to the Special Operations Bureau in ages. You should show your face once in a while.”

“Oh. Okay, meow…”

Muttering under their breath, the two of them stepped through the door. Yu Sheng released the handle. On this desolate alien world, only he, Irene, Foxy, and Luna remained.

It was time to return to Shu Ji.

Yu Sheng breathed out, pulled out his phone to check the time, and prepared to open another door to Immortal Conclave Isle.

Then his phone rang.

It was still in his hand. The caller ID read: Nie Tu Si Qian.

A groundless unease flared in Yu Sheng’s chest. He answered immediately, but Yuan Ling Immortal’s voice rushed through before he could speak.

“Where are you? Are you still on Garrison-3? Please hurry to Shu Ji and confirm what’s happening. We’ve lost contact with Xuan Che and the others!”

“What?” Yu Sheng’s heart lurched. At the same time, he reached into the air. A phantom door began to form under his fingers. “I was just about to go. Xuan Che is out of contact? He messaged me a few minutes ago—didn’t he?”

“We lost contact just now, and my senior brother is missing too,” Yuan Ling Immortal said urgently. “We don’t know what happened, but a disciple sent an emergency report. I’m afraid all communications between the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and Shu Ji have been cut off. Even the secure lines aren’t answering!”

All communications—cut off completely.

Yu Sheng sucked in a sharp breath and forced his voice steady. “All right. I’m going now. If I find anything, I’ll contact you immediately.”

Before he even finished speaking, he yanked open a door to their guest room on Immortal Conclave Isle and stepped through with Irene, Foxy, and Luna.

The next second, they were back in their lodging on Shu Ji.

The hotel suite looked exactly as it had when they left—neat, orderly, untouched. Outside the window, rain still fell in sheets. Distant neon flickered. Faint music drifted from somewhere unknown.

Through the glass, the rain made the room feel unnaturally quiet.

The living room was empty.

Irene hopped down from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, darted into the next room, then scampered back. “No one’s here!”

“Not in the kitchen or the bathroom either.” Foxy had checked as well. She came back, sniffed once, and frowned. “But there’s still a scent in the living room. Zheng Zhi and Yuan Hao were probably here just a moment ago. And there’s moisture near the windowsill.”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. He only checked his phone.

“No signal?” His brows lifted in surprise.

Then the phone vibrated. The screen dimmed at the edges, and a red warning box popped up with flashing text:

Environmental monitoring abnormal. Possible critical depth.

Foxy saw it, and her fox ears shot straight up. “Benefactor, this is…”

“…Otherworld,” Yu Sheng said grimly. “And it’s a special alert. It only triggers when a depth shift just happened.”

Irene had been scurrying around the living room “investigating” who knew what. Now she froze, then slowly lifted her head. “What the hell?”

A thunderclap boomed in the distance. The sound rolled over the city like a behemoth’s roar—yet there was no lightning, only wind and rain turning denser than before.

No signal. He couldn’t reach Yuan Hao, Xuan Che, or Zheng Zhi. And there was no trace of them left in the room.

The last message he’d received from Xuan Che had warned of widespread cognitive abnormalities among the planet’s population, including Ink City’s City Lord, Mo Ran.

Yu Sheng’s brow tightened as he forced his mind to connect that warning to the scene in front of him. Beside him, Foxy’s voice rose, strained. “Benefactor, what do we do now?”

“Search again,” Yu Sheng said after a beat, a sudden thought striking him. “Immortal Yuan Hao is experienced, and he’s strong. If something happened, he’d find a way to leave information to warn us. The anomaly might be hiding it… so search again.”

It sounded desperate even to his own ears, but Irene, Foxy, and Luna moved at once. They combed through the not-so-large suite for anything out of place—any hint, any thread, any mark.

As they searched, a jade screen ornament on the low table began to glow with hazy light.

Yu Sheng leaned in.

A clear projection formed within the haze: a lavishly decorated celestial ship gliding slowly between the city’s buildings. Floating lanterns and festival banners drifted nearby. On the foredeck platform stood a purple-robed man with a sword at his waist, tall and upright at the prow. His face was veiled in mist, blurred and indistinct.

A voice-over played from the jade screen: “…The new star warden, Elder Dao Heng, arrived in Ink City today. The celebration will continue until…”

Irene leaned in from the side. “What is this? The local evening news?”

“Then this has to be ‘news’ from more than a hundred years ago,” Yu Sheng said, frowning. “Elder Dao Heng took office on Shu Ji over a hundred years ago.”

No sooner had he spoken than the projection flickered violently. The festival scene snapped to a construction site under a gloomy sky. A massive unfinished building stood in the wilderness while strange machinery swarmed around a giant tower. Someone in the corner of the frame introduced it: “…Refining Tower No. 12 is being built by the Remote Mist Sect… Once completed, Ink City will become Shu Ji’s largest spirit-ore refining center…”

The images kept changing—news reports, entertainment shows, scenery documentaries. Without exception, everything it showed belonged to the past.

The time span ranged from centuries ago, when Shu Ji’s mining industry was still thriving, all the way to the most recent few decades.

After cycling through who knew how much chaotic content, the projection suddenly darkened. Static burst in colored noise. Then the image steadied again—

But now there was no “program.”

Only a dim, blurry curtain of rain.

Neon glowed faintly in the distance, the streets smeared by weather.

Yu Sheng stared for two seconds, then snapped his head toward the window.

The jade screen was showing the view outside their window at this very moment.

The next second, he saw trails of rainwater on the glass bend. The winding streams twisted into strokes—then, when he focused, the strokes sharpened into legible writing:

“Cognitive barrier.”

Before he could fully process it, the rain washed the words away. New writing formed in its place:

“We are inside a vast dream.”