Chapter 1035 — A New Beginning

The cold starlight had crossed an endless distance, arriving here from the depths of the universe, its pale radiance falling upon the battered hull of the Talonde, as if gilding that ancient vessel in a layer of silver.

At the stern of the colossal ship, the severely damaged reactor compartment had split open in a vast breach; the damage-control system had already engaged and cut off the corresponding energy conduits, and part of the extinguished core now lay exposed to space. Certain fluids that had escaped were boiling away into vapor in the vacuum, refracting the light of the giant sun rising from beyond the horizon, and shimmering in colors like a rainbow.

The faint glow in the engines flickered a few times, then died out for good—this vessel, built one million eight hundred and seventy thousand years ago, employed technologies utterly different from those of the present age. It possessed not only anti-gravity mechanisms but also relied on a reaction-mass engine to supply extra thrust during ascent, a technique learned from the Pathfinders, and now the products forged by those technologies were dying, one by one.

"Our main engine is out. The attitude-control thruster array still has a little power left; I will try to slow the ship and hold it in a high orbit—though we will drift away before long regardless. But before that, we can take a good look at the scenery here," Bayang'er said, slapping the control console hard. "Ah, this thing is completely broken too... I cannot read the number-three reactor from here, but I doubt it is in much better shape."

"You also said the main engine would hold out for thirty minutes under your hands," Hragor said, glancing at the chief machinist. "It has not even been twenty."

"That was rhetoric, a bit of encouragement for morale," Bayang'er said carelessly. "Getting the engine to finish the final climb under those conditions was no small feat—never mind that this big fellow had been soaking in the sea for over a million years."

"We all know it did not age a bit during those million years," Hragor said offhandedly. Then he noticed that Anqian beside him had not spoken at all, as if pondering something in earnest, and could not help his curiosity. "Anqian, what are you thinking about?"

"Counting my heartbeats," Anqian said, low and slow. "I have not noticed my own heartbeat for many years... all this time it has been the blood pump and the circulation machine together keeping this body running. I had almost forgotten that there is still an original heart inside me... and that it is still beating to this day."

"I thought that heart of yours had been removed long ago," Hragor said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "As a short-lived black dragon, your original heart has not necrotized even now?"

"I find it incredible too—truly incredible," Anqian said slowly after a moment of silence. Then he suddenly frowned. "Do you smell something?"

"You only just noticed? It is coming from the gas storage bay," Bayang'er said, rising from his seat and drifting slowly through the weightless hall. "Our filtration system is down, and some waste gas has gotten into the life-support conduits. Do not worry, these gases will not kill us for the time being—dragons are remarkably hardy."

"Ah, truly 'good news,'" Anqian said, shaking his head. "So how much longer can we survive?"

"Hard to say. It depends on how many more leaks the hull has, and whether our reactor blows up ahead of schedule," Bayang'er shrugged. "The console is broken; I have no way at all to grasp the ship's condition—but from a more optimistic angle, did we not just survive a few more minutes? This is the first time the dragon race has stepped into the starry sky by its own strength. Every second we linger here ought to be recorded in history."

The hall fell quiet for a time. Hragor drifted slowly over to the polymer dome and gazed at the scene outside the ship; the vast, boundless starfield drew his eyes—and suddenly he felt a pang of regret. Those stars looked so very distant. Though he had already left the ground, had already come so far from his homeland, the distance between him and those stars seemed not to have shrunk at all... The Talonde was like a paper boat folded by children, laden with a child's ambitious dreams and a grand plan of distant voyage, when in truth it had merely been set adrift in the little ditch at the doorstep; it had floated only a few meters before it was waterlogged and ready to sink at any moment.

And yet even so, this was the first step taken by mortals—like a baby's first attempt to walk, perhaps only a single tottering shift, perhaps a fall the very next second, but in any case, here he was now, steeped in starlight.

There seemed to be no regrets left.

A radiance suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision. Hragor raised his head in surprise and looked toward the corner of the dome, where he saw the edge of the planet slowly moving—the ship had lost power and was rolling slowly under inertia, and in the course of that roll it met a magnificent sunrise.

The giant sun rose. Behind the planet, a corona of astonishing scale was slowly lifting, and that star, bearing gorgeous wood-grain patterns, squeezed bit by bit into Hragor's field of view, more spectacular, more breathtaking than anything seen from the surface.

The entire control hall was steeped in resplendent sunlight; even with the light-shielding coating still functioning, that glorious radiance still stung the eyes of the three dragon-humanoids somewhat. Anqian and Bayang'er drifted over to Hragor's side without a word, and the three gathered before the polymer dome, gazing at this sunrise such as none had seen before, and for a long while none of them spoke again.

This place was not cramped at all.

……

On the Loren Continent, inside the command post of Winterwolf Keep.

"The Mithril Ring is unresponsive? We cannot reach the Mithril Vault?" Amber looked at Gaoyang in surprise, and after confirming the situation could not help muttering, "That does not make sense... the Mithril Ring has failed twice in such a short time... those dragons have such superb technology, surely they can fix even a communications system..."

"In a thousand years, the Mithril Vault has never had such a thing happen," Gaosong said, his expression somewhat graver. "'Never fails' is the label of those dragons..."

"Perhaps the fault simply has not been repaired yet," Amber said after a moment's thought, a little uncertainly. As one of those who had once accompanied Gaocen Tong on a visit to the Talonde, she knew the true state of that dragon realm better than others; the Mithril Vault, so shrouded in mystery in the eyes of the world, held little mystery for her. "After all, everything of theirs has a long history and has grown enormously complex. Who is to say that thing called 'Omega' has not developed a little fault..."

Listening to Amber's optimistic judgment, Gaoyang's expression did not relax in the slightest. He looked down at the silent Mithril Ring in his hand, and his thoughts could not help turning to his last meeting with the dragon god Enya.

Unable to reach the Mithril Vault, unable to reach Mezen Pernia... At any other time, this might only have puzzled him for a moment, hardly a matter of consequence. But after the last journey to the Talonde, and after the divine calamity of the God of War that had just erupted, he could not keep himself from thinking more. A faint unease had already begun to stir in his heart, and though it had no foundation... once it appeared, it would not be dispelled.