Chapter 563 Black Star Illusion
Yu Sheng went to great lengths to explain to Eileen that he hadn't "eaten" the massive control mechanism, but rather transformed it—because the Boundary Bridge itself was an "extraterrestrial object" that transcended the concept of reality; it could even be transferred and contained like a spirit...
But after explaining for a long time, he finally came to the truth and could only admit to Eileen that he had indeed eaten the control mechanism of the Boundary Bridge, thus finally putting an end to the little doll's endless questions.
Then he began to explain to Hu Li that the control mechanism of the boundary bridge had no taste, was not tasty, and was even inedible...
Luna stood to the side without saying a word, just clicking away while recording videos and taking photos.
Baili Qing watched all this silently from the side, her calm face revealing little emotion, but there seemed to be a hint of relaxation in her eyes—the fine scales on both sides of her cheeks had begun to gradually fade, the crystalline dragon horns on her head showed no signs of receding yet, and her eyes, which had been in a vertical pupil state, had completely returned to their human form.
Just then, a strange feeling suddenly appeared in everyone's heart, and a certain... alien feeling instantly interrupted Yu Sheng and Hu Li's conversation.
Bai Liqing was the first to react, and she suddenly looked up at the sky.
Above the temple ruins, the chaotic sky seemed to be disturbed by something. A large number of indistinct dark clumps had gathered together at some point and were stirred by an invisible force, forming a huge vortex cloud. The vortex expanded rapidly, and at its center, it seemed to have torn open a huge hole connecting to a distant dimension—at the center of that hole, there was a cold starlight that seemed to come from the edge of the universe.
A colossal, dark celestial body emerged from among the starlight, silent, cold, and majestic, overlooking all things.
It was a pure black planet, with no light on its surface, but unlike a black hole, it did not distort the starlight around it. It was like an empty phantom that did not exist in the real world, floating at the end of this broken spacetime, visible to the naked eye, but obviously untouchable.
"It's Black Star!" Eileen exclaimed softly, then suddenly remembered something and frantically tugged at Yu Sheng's hair. "Hey, Yu Sheng, we've seen Black Star here! So this really isn't inside Black Star!? But I remember Yuan Hao clearly said..."
"I also remember that Yuanhao said he fell into the Black Star, and after passing through many bizarre and fantastical illusions, he 'fell' into a large void leading to the interior of the star. It was in this void that he saw the ruins of a temple and the ominous corpse of a god within the ruins..." Yu Sheng frowned, recalling the information he had heard from Yuanhao Zhenren while looking around—
This was clearly the ruins that Master Yuanhao had seen. According to his description, these ruins were located inside the Black Star. However, at this very moment, that dark star hung high above everyone's heads, as if it were located in another distant time and space...
This clearly contradicts the intelligence provided by Yuan Hao!
Yu Sheng frowned and began to ponder various possibilities: "Was the information provided by Yuan Hao wrong? Or did the Black Star undergo some kind of change, causing this 'space-time fragment' beneath our feet to be exposed? Or is it an effect of the collapse of the boundary bridge..."
“Maybe the old man is just bragging,” Eileen also began to ponder. “After all, he’s the kind of guy who can be captured by his confidante and become her partner for ten years just by going down the mountain to a club. Who knows how many of his stories might be true.”
“It shouldn’t be that bad,” Yu Sheng shook his head seriously, his gaze falling again on the dark celestial body in the sky. At the same time, he calmed his mind and used the connection of blood to sense the spacetime fragments beneath his feet, sensing the remaining “blueprint” of the boundary bridge, trying to see if these things could establish some kind of connection with that “black star.” “Yuan Hao may be unreliable in other areas, but he wouldn’t speak carelessly about something like this, especially since he really does have a fragment of the Ominous Banner… Wait!”
Yu Sheng suddenly stopped speaking, then turned around sharply to look at the embers of the ominous signs that had already dissipated.
The adventure that Master Yuanhao had once recounted to him then came to mind—
Yuan Hao piloted his immortal ship into the Black Star. After traversing numerous illusions within the star, he encountered the ruins of an ancient temple and the corpse of the ominous god... The immortal ship lost control and plummeted towards the corpse, but instead passed directly through an illusion and fell into an unnamed space... Wandering in the unnamed space, just as his primordial spirit was about to dissipate, he encountered a figure who called himself "the messenger," and obtained a fragment of the Ominous Banner from the messenger...
Of all the adventures recounted by Yuan Hao, Yu Sheng remembers most clearly the part where Yuan Hao describes his feelings when he crashed his immortal ship into the ruins of a temple:
"The shadow and the ruins beneath it seemed like nothing but an illusion; there was no resistance when you bumped into them."
Yu Sheng gently stepped on the ground.
The ground beneath my feet felt solid.
This is real; the dissipating ominous embers and the recently recovered remains of the blonde doll are all real.
He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky.
The dark celestial body still hangs high among the starlight at the edge of the universe, like an unreachable phantom.
“What Yuan Hao said should all be true, but what he saw at that time was not the temple we are standing on now. The temple ruins and the ominous god corpses in the ruins that he saw... were all some kind of projections,” Yu Sheng said slowly in deep thought with a serious expression. “If my speculation is correct, the interior of Black Star is probably all a ‘shadow spacetime’ with layers of illusions piled up. Even Black Star itself may be a ‘projection’ cast on our universe by some kind of existence beyond our understanding.”
The raccoon beside him blinked: "My benefactor means... Black Star is also a dark angel?"
Yu Sheng looked grave: "It's hard to say, but it does seem very eerie."
“That doesn’t make sense either…” Eileen, unusually thoughtful, realized a blind spot: “The ominous banner Yuan Hao brought back is real! He was even possessed by someone who called himself 'Kondaman'…”
The little doll stopped talking, as if the moment she mentioned the name "Kondaman," a piece of her jumbled memories suddenly loosened, and a look of bewilderment and confusion appeared on her face.
"What did you remember?" Yu Sheng asked quickly upon seeing this. "Is the name 'Kondaman' in your newly discovered memories?"
“I…” Eileen frowned, shaking her head hesitantly as she hugged the frying pan that was far too big for her. “I don’t remember, but the name sounds familiar, very familiar.”
"My benefactor!" Hu Li suddenly pointed to the sky, "Look! The black star is disappearing!"
At the center of the enormous vortex in the sky, the dark celestial body was rapidly dissipating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
It seemed to be becoming transparent, or as if it was "exiting" from a spacetime that had been squeezed out. The surrounding starlight gradually became brighter, and in just a few seconds, the huge dark celestial body disappeared into the sky as if it had evaporated out of thin air.
Immediately afterwards, the large void at the center of the vortex closed, and the chaotic mass in the sky returned to its previous disordered state—everything returned to normal, as if the anomaly had never happened.
Throughout the entire process, Yu Sheng was unable to establish any connection with that "dark star" using any methods.
It appears to be an “independent system” with no direct connection to the Boundary Bridge or the Temple of Omens.
The group looked at each other, and after a long while, Eileen broke the silence: "Ah, I still can't remember."
Then the little doll pointed to the sky: "Black Star is gone, what do we do?"
“What else can we do? I don’t control this thing,” Yu Sheng’s face twitched, and he couldn’t help but sigh, “Seriously… how come there are more and more strange things happening?”
As he spoke, his gaze fell on Baili Qing beside him.
“The Special Operations Bureau will continue to keep an eye on this intelligence,” Baili Qing said proactively, “Since Yuanhao Zhenren has personally ‘entered’ the interior of Black Star, and it just appeared directly in front of us, there is a high probability that there are also eyewitness accounts of Black Star in other civilizations. However, given its possible ‘phantom’ characteristics, as well as the unpredictability of its appearance and timing, other eyewitness accounts are very likely to be due to hallucination interference. I will expand the scope of intelligence collection.”
"Then I'll have to trouble you." Yu Sheng nodded, then took a deep breath and looked back at the completely silent temple ruins.
The matter of Black Star cannot be understood overnight, and the incidents involving the Goddess of Omens and the Boundary Bridge are over... It's time to leave.
He nudged the doll on his shoulder: "We should go back too."
A gate leading to the border quietly opened, and opposite the gate was the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road—the warm and familiar home scene was abruptly reflected in this collapsed and dilapidated ancient ruin, making one's weariness seem to immediately subside.
However, Eileen suddenly grabbed Yu Sheng's hair, turned her head to look at the surrounding ruins, and her eyes showed some... conflict.
Yu Sheng looked up at the little doll who was holding a pot handle and looking sad: "You can't bear to part with it?"
“Well…no, after all, I don’t remember much,” Eileen hesitated for a moment and shook her head. “It’s just that I feel a little regretful to leave like this…this spatial fragment must have been preserved by the power of the Boundary Bridge, right? Now that the Boundary Bridge is gone, if we leave again, will this place disappear completely?”
Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "It will lose its anchor point with the real world. As an 'external object' that does not belong to this universe, this place will probably be decomposed and erased from the information level soon, just like Ankaela and the star body back then. At most, a little bit of residue similar to 'angel catalyst' will remain."
"Yes, yes..."
The little doll lowered its head, looking genuinely a bit disappointed.
Seeing the little thing's dejected look, Yu Sheng suddenly laughed and reached out to rub her head.
"But this is, after all, a fragment of space, not the true form of the Dark Angel. In a sense, it is similar to the 'fairy tale subsets' that Ankaela created back then, so there is still some possibility of its operation."
Eileen suddenly looked up, her eyes brighter than before, and then seemed to discover something: "Hey, Yu Sheng, you're suddenly in for another bloody disaster..."
“Nonsense,” Yu Sheng said with a wry smile, tossing the little doll into the living room across the door. Then he called Hu Li Luna and Baili Qing to hurry over as well. “Alright, you guys go home first. I’ll go back later—I’ll 'weld' this place into the valley first.”
Baili Qing was still a little confused, but before she could react, the incredibly strong Hu Li grabbed her and pulled her through the door. Then Luna bowed three times to Yu Sheng at the door, turned around and went back to No. 66 Wutong Road. Yu Sheng waved to the person on the other side of the door, then closed the door and looked back at the desolate ancient temple.
"Alright, let's just consider it taking some local specialties back with us."
Yu Sheng muttered something.
Then he died with a snap.
The entire space surrounding the Temple of Omens began to collapse and reassemble—death guided new life, and the last remnants of the old world, like a small boat being guided on the River Styx, began to slowly "sail" towards the valley on the other side of new life.
(End of this chapter)
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