Chapter 530: Crossing over
In the deep space far away from the legal shipping lanes, above a barren rocky planet, an orbiting laboratory that looks like a giant disk is running in a high orbit.
Inside the Blackstone space station, the disturbing alarm sounds finally died down, and the flashing red lights in the corridors returned to calm. As the order to lift the state of emergency was issued, the technicians who had been on standby in the evacuation section began to return to their jobs one after another.
While the entire large space station was gradually returning to order, a small team was cautiously and quickly passing through a connecting corridor somewhere in the lower level of the space station, rushing towards the medical area.
A suspended stretcher floated to the side of the team, and the dark blue body bag on the stretcher vaguely revealed the outline of a human figure.
Strands of bloody scent seeped out of the body bag, which was supposed to be thick and sealed, and continued to dissipate in the air.
The black spot soldiers who were responsible for escorting the invaders' bodies seemed to be completely unaware of the blood vapor spreading in the air. Instead, they remained cautious and serious, moving forward in silence.
The connecting corridors in the lower area were very quiet. The chaos in the upper laboratory seemed to be from another world. A kind of stagnant atmosphere lingered in the surroundings. Only the low humming sound of certain machines and equipment penetrated the alloy walls on both sides, dispelling the weird and depressing atmosphere here like a tomb.
A Black Spot soldier, feeling somewhat uneasy, finally broke the silence, "Is the atmosphere strange? Is this area really that quiet?"
"Don't scare yourself," the captain's voice sounded muffled through the heavy power armor helmet. "That's because the upper area was too chaotic just now."
The team fell silent again, but the silence lasted less than two minutes before another member muttered, "I've heard strange things have been happening at Blackrock Station lately... quite a few times already. Strange foreign objects have suddenly appeared in some cabins, rooms have mysteriously disappeared, and there's also talk of a new room appearing in the logistics corridor. Someone also saw a bunch of strange black figures in the cafeteria."
"It might be the rift generator," another Black Spot soldier whispered. "I heard they switched to a higher-frequency excitation crystal, but that thing isn't very stable."
"Perhaps some of the modules are possessed by evil spirits," the black-spot soldier who spoke first shook his head. "What did I say... the machine spirit is unhappy. The entire space station is just one giant machine, and the things in the lab are somewhat tainted with dark psychic energy..."
"It's best if the people in the Scientific Assessment Department don't hear you," the team leader interrupted the soldiers' conversation somewhat unhappily. "The research projects above are matters for the 'boss' to consider. Whether the space station is possessed by evil spirits is a headache for the scientists—less talk and more action."
The soldiers suddenly fell silent, with only one still muttering, "Yeah, my great-grandmother said, don't discuss sirens when you're at sea, don't mention fire demons when you're in the mines, and don't think about the warp in the space station..."
The squad leader couldn't stand it anymore and elbowed the mumbling soldier, who finally shut up.
Then they carried the suspended stretcher and the shrunken body bag to the infirmary.
Behind the team, the lights in the connecting corridor were flickering at a frequency barely visible to the naked eye.
…
A silver-gray fast shuttle silently entered the gate of the "Blackstone" space station. After undergoing strict security checks and identity authentication, the shuttle drove directly into a docking station near the core experimental cabin.
The shuttle door opened, and a tall figure walked out from inside - it was a female Algrad elf, with blonde hair draped over her shoulders, wearing an elegant silver-white robe, and her galaxy-shaped pupils were deep and calm.
She stepped down from the connecting pedal, her legs beneath her skirt giving off an alloy-like texture. With a slight click, her legs rapidly deformed and reorganized into a set of silvery-white wheel-like limbs. She glided lightly across the connecting section of the docking station, not even stopping in front of the technical department heads who came to greet her.
"Skip all this red tape and go straight to the lab," the blond elf said, his voice calm yet cold. "Compile a report on the lab attack within twelve hours and send it to my terminal. What's the current situation at the Zolda Blackstone?"
"Understood, Boss," a lab manager quickly replied, quickly keeping pace with the blond elf. "The 'Black Rock' itself was unaffected. The core area's shield blocked the attackers' firepower. The most damage was to the rift generator—in order to close the channel, we had to blow it up. In addition, four of the 'communication devices' between the rift generator and the Black Rock were burned."
"What about the casualties?"
"Three soldiers were killed and six were injured—all clones. The dead are already undergoing the regeneration process."
"Um."
The blond elf nodded, responded briefly, and then entered the core part of the entire space station - the circular laboratory where the "Zolda Black Stone" was stored.
In fact, this entire space station was built for that unassuming-looking "stone". Everything here - from equipment to personnel - is for that "Zolda Black Stone".
It was not until she saw the black fragment still floating in the confinement field that the low, oppressive aura that had always lingered around the blonde elf finally dissipated a little. She visibly relaxed a little (which also made the entourage around her breathe a sigh of relief), and then glided lightly to the side of the platform.
She raised her head, a gentle, even intoxicated smile appearing on her face. Her golden pupils, as if captured by gravity, stared at the complex and mysterious patterns on the surface of the Zolda Black Stone that exuded an ancient atmosphere for a long time.
"Ah...you're still here..."
She muttered softly, her tension relaxing further.
The black stone trembled in her vision, emitting an inaudible whisper.
The blonde elf slightly closed his eyes and nodded gently, with a calm and gentle smile on his face, as if he was receiving some kind of enlightenment - Algrade astrologers often looked so intoxicated when listening to the whispers among the stars. This was the natural reaction when truth and knowledge nourished the mind and enriched the soul.
The busy technicians nearby noticed this scene and all slowed down their movements and tried to avoid making any noise, as if they were afraid of interrupting the communication between the "boss" and Blackstone.
But suddenly, the blond elf who was listening carefully to Black Stone's whispers frowned slightly.
She still had her eyes closed, but her brows were furrowed in confusion, and she whispered to herself, "I... I don't understand... what you're teaching me this time...
"What does 'recruiting parents online, I'll need them later' mean?
"Yes, yes, the mapping law of time and space in the subspace channel is... What does it mean that this soldier is like having a cerebral thrombosis after ten years?
"...Why would the immediate family need to spin at six thousand revolutions per second during launch... Exploded? What exploded?
"...Who is the one that is irritating the Sweeping Princess?"
There was an endless roar descending in the illusory revelation of the starry sky. The illusions of stars that inspired wisdom collapsed in cognition. The chaotic torrent of information deviated from its previous track, ruthlessly expelling the fragile minds of mortals from the state of connection. The blonde elf suddenly opened her eyes, and for a moment she felt the earth shaking. The wheel-like limbs rushed back and forth uncontrollably, and her whole body fell backwards.
But at this moment, the bionic covering on her back opened instantly, and the nanomachines hidden in her body generated several mechanical limbs in the blink of an eye, supporting her body that was about to fall.
The entourage nearby rushed forward immediately to protect the blond elf, and two guards stepped forward and stretched out their hands, ready to support their boss.
The blond elf waved his hand, refusing to accept the help of his followers. Instead, he looked up at the Zolda Black Stone in the confinement field with a confused look. After a moment's hesitation, he muttered softly, "...It's too profound."
A nearby attendant didn't hear clearly and asked in confusion, "Boss?"
"Where is the 'lurker' who reported back earlier? Where is he now?" The blond elf did not explain what had just happened, but asked in a serious tone.
"Ah, he's still in the life support container. His body is severely deformed and the contamination is difficult to remove. We are considering transferring his consciousness into a clone..."
"Take me to see him. I really need the knowledge he brings back now."
The blonde elf spoke quickly, the noise and illusion caused by the torrent of knowledge washing over her cognition still roaring and swirling in her mind, making it difficult for her to concentrate. In fact, she could hardly remember what she had just heard and seen. She only vaguely remembered... The enlightenment brought by the black stone this time was stronger and more enthusiastic than any previous time, and the amount of information and the form of composition were completely different from before.
These "completely different" residual feelings made her heart pound.
The stars are supreme, it’s too profound.
It feels like I'm hanging on a tree while taking an advanced math class.
…
The drowsiness after death lasted for a long time, even longer than normal. After an unknown amount of time, Yu Sheng finally rebuilt his consciousness in this confusion and made his thinking smooth.
"Is it because he died too far away this time? Or is it because he talked too much nonsense before dying and held his breath?"
He muttered in the dark chaos, then breathed a sigh of relief and began to let his mind float up in the darkness.
The familiar feeling of passing through some kind of void boundary came from all directions, and the symptoms of death subsided from him. He roughly judged his current location, and then confirmed that there seemed to be no other life reactions around the area where he was about to be resurrected.
It's safe, you can open your eyes.
So he opened his eyes and stepped back into the world of the living.
A long corridor came into view.
The lights were dim and there was dead silence. There was no human figure in sight, only crisscrossing black spider webs interwoven in the field of vision.
(End of this chapter)
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