Chapter 236 — Deep Space

The mountain ruins, in the great hall of the "ring-shaped magic gate" on the facility's lowest level.

Ever since the discovery of this mysterious ancient magic gate, Gao Yang had stationed six soldiers here to stand watch in rotating shifts. As Sir Byron's exploration of this ancient facility delved ever deeper, the ruins had gradually been put to use by the Cecil territory; its middle levels were now being converted into armories and storage facilities, with magic nets laid throughout many sections, magic crystal lamps and living amenities installed, and numerous permanent barracks added, so that the soldiers on long-term duty within the facility were by no means few.

Gao Yang brought Heddy and Piyun, plus a siren whose "Forbidden Knowledge" skill points (edible orientation) were fully maxed, and selected a group of elite soldiers besides; then he swept briskly to the place where the magic gate stood.

A small crowd of garrison soldiers had already assembled in the broad circular hall, and Sir Byron was leading his men in a vigilant watch over the magic gate's movements. When Gao Yang entered, this middle-aged knight was pulling over a soldier named Yan Qi to question him. Such a grave expression was rare on that old hand's face, which at once made Gao Yang realize the situation was likely more complicated than he had anticipated.

He walked straight to Byron: "What's the situation?"

Byron gave a knight's salute upon seeing Gao Yang. He had lately been leading the exploration team south through the mountain ruins in search of an exit, but upon hearing word of the magic gate's disturbance he had immediately brought his men to the site, arriving well before Gao Yang, so he had a fair grasp of the situation: "My lord, we still haven't figured out how the magic gate suddenly activated. The soldiers on watch here seem to have suffered a mental shock; their memories of what happened at the time are very blurred."

Gao Yang looked up toward the ring-shaped magic gate. The thing had indeed activated.

The ring device, made of some unknown composite material, was now giving off a faint, luminous deep-blue magical halo; the runes and magic lines engraved upon the gate were all plainly in a charged state, a low humming sound came from the ring's base, and at the center of the ring could be seen a mass of quivering, hazy shadow that seemed to exist in a state of two overlapping spaces.

The soldiers stationed here were all experienced elites who obeyed orders. They would not touch anything without command, nor deliberately conceal anything when reporting, so the only explanation was that the magic gate really had activated on its own, and that its activation inflicted a degree of mental shock on those nearby—not fatal, but enough to cause dazed confusion.

What had activated the magic gate?

Gao Yang's first thought was of those automatically opening isolation doors in the ruins' entrance hall. Similar incidents had occurred in the early days of the pioneer territory, though at that time the doors had opened because of a surge of magical power: the abruptly shifting magical environment had stimulated the residual magic mechanisms in the ruins and, by some mischance, opened the gates. But no similar magical turbulence seemed to have occurred recently, and no reports had come from the monitoring satellites...

No—there did seem to have been one rather special event...

The stars had returned to their stations.

Gao Yang's expression turned grave. The only event of late that could plausibly cause all manner of anomalies was "the stars returning to their stations." Though ordinary people could not perceive its influence upon the world, that influence was very real, and it seemed to be connected with the gods.

The very purpose for which this ancient facility had been built seemed to be the study of "the secrets of the gods."

Could it be that this gate had not shut down due to damage or exhaustion of energy, but had simply been waiting all along for the moment to open?

"Ancestor?" Seeing that Gao Yang had been silent for a long while, his expression only growing graver, Heddy could not hold back from asking, "What are you thinking of?"

"This gate may have activated automatically according to commands preset by the mages of the Spark Era," Gao Yang said slowly, and looked toward Sir Byron. "Has anyone gone in?"

"Not yet," Sir Byron shook his head. "The situation is too uncanny. You instructed us at the time that in cases as bizarre as this, or possibly connected with the gods, we were absolutely not to act rashly, but to preserve the scene until your arrival."

"Good," Gao Yang nodded in approval, then looked at the magic gate, quietly operating on its own, with a touch of regret. "If only Amber were here..."

He had sent Amber to scour for "vigorous folk among the common people," and she had not yet returned. Though it was unclear how she was faring, Gao Yang had full confidence in that wild half-elf with her escape skills maxed out; still, her absence was bound to cause some inconvenience—now, for instance, he would very much like to toss a recyclable Amber detector through the magic gate to see the situation on the other side. But there wasn't one.

Yet the magic gate had already activated; he could not simply leave it be.

"Piyun..." Gao Yang thought briefly, then turned to the old druid beside him. "You..."

"My lord, I am advanced in years!" Tears were at once all but welling in Piyun's eyes. "I have an eighty-year-old self to support, and below me..."

A vein throbbed at Gao Yang's temple: "Shut up. I'm telling you to summon a treant and send it in!"

"Oh."

Piyun drew from his bosom a seed that had been enchanted, muttered a brief incantation under his breath, then tossed the seed to the ground. Amid a surge of magical power, the seed instantly began to grow at an astonishing rate; magical force built its temporary body, and an elemental treant barely a meter tall soon appeared before everyone.

Under all their watching eyes, this unremarkable treant toddled off with comically clumsy steps toward the great ring device at the center of the hall, and amid a distortion of light and shadow vanished into that hazy shadow within the ring.

The instant the treant disappeared, Piyun gave a startled "Hm?"

"What is it?" Heddy asked at once, tense.

"The mental link between me and my summon has been severed," Piyun said with a strange expression. "In an instant."

"The other side of the magic gate may be some kind of phase space, or the Shadow Realm," Gao Yang said, not much surprised. "The mages of the ancient Gondor Empire often did this sort of thing. They would use similar spatial techniques to store vital secrets—phase spaces and the Shadow Realm are the most reliable safes."

"No... it doesn't feel like a severance of that degree," Piyun said, his expression slightly grave. "Even the Shadow Realm cannot fully cut off the link between a druid and his summon. Even if direct control were severed, I ought still to sense the summon's existence—but now I have completely lost all perception of the treant, as though it had vanished straight out of this world..."

The atmosphere in the hall turned grave, but Piyun went on at once: "Still, we can wait a bit longer. I set commands on the treant: if the mental link is completely broken, then three minutes after losing my instructions it will return the way it came—provided it hasn't been destroyed."

Gao Yang nodded at this and turned to fix his gaze on the magic gate.

Time crept by, and there was no movement at all within the magic gate. But just when Gao Yang thought the treant would not return, he suddenly saw the hazy light and shadow at the center of the gate quiver.

The unremarkable treant came running out of the gate with that same tottering, comical gait.