Chapter 1262 — In the Crevice of Light and Shadow

Once Gao Yang realized that the architectural structures near the base of the Tower of the Countercurrent Tide belonged to the same style as the scene presented in that "dust illusion" from years ago—the place where Mojin had once met the "Twin Elves"—he understood that this expedition into the Tower of the Countercurrent Tide would very likely yield far more than expected.

Those fragmented ancient clues were surfacing and reassembling in his mind. The obscure connections between them remained shrouded in fog, yet at this moment he felt almost as if he could sense their mutual attraction—their overall shape was still ambiguous, but on the whole, a vast jigsaw puzzle was gradually emerging from the mist.

And this towering spire before him, standing since the ancient age until now... would undoubtedly be the greatest anchor of that puzzle.

Gao Yun drew a light breath, steadying his somewhat turbulent emotions while heightening his guard. Pioneer's Longsword in hand, he kept his external senses at their maximum and took the lead toward the alloy gate beneath the tower's base, faintly ajar. Behind him came Mojin and Amber, equally on full alert.

They reached the end of that "highway," and there an astonishing doorway stood.

It was larger and more imposing than even the tallest city gate of Saint Sunil. Cast whole from some unknown metal, the door felt solemn and massive, its entire surface a silvery gray of remarkable texture, smooth as a mirror—and beneath that lustrous face, faint straight lines could be seen running from top to bottom. The gate was set into a wall like a sheer cliff, with a "gap" opened in the middle wide enough for several people to pass abreast; judging by its structure, it should be able to slide into the walls on either side under the action of some mechanical device.

Amber stood dumbly before the gate, craning her head back with all her might to stare at its lofty top, the entire goose utterly stunned. A long while passed before she gave a start and came back to herself, looking at Gao Yang with a gaze still tinged with fright and curiosity: "I meant to ask earlier—why do the gates of ancient ruins like this always stand open a crack? Did the Pathfinders forget to close it when they left?"

Gao Cen could not help but cast a sidelong glance at this disgrace of the Alliance, thinking to himself that she truly lived up to her reputation—her professional instincts honed to perfection and her dedication to the craft ingrained in her very bones. Scared stiff as she was, the first thing on her mind was still that the door was not locked... Thank goodness the Tower of the Countercurrent Tide had no windows; otherwise she would probably have climbed in through one by now.

"The dragons opened it," Gao Yang said, shaking his head as he explained what he had learned, for all his inward snark. "After the Pathfinders left, the dragons found a way to open the entrance to this tower. They obtained a small portion of the Pathfinders' knowledge from here... and that planted the seeds of the later 'Countercurrent Rebellion.'"

As he spoke he had already stepped forward. Just before passing through that "gap" into the tower, his gaze was drawn once more to the towering doorway—this bulwark, weathered through a million years, was still immensely solid to this day, and on its lustrous alloy surface faintly gleamed the radiance of distant stars, and the far deep space from which the Pathfinders had gone and never returned.

Gao Yang reached out unconsciously and laid his hand gently on the gate. Through that cold contact he seemed to feel the distant, vanished years, and the stories that had once unfolded here around this tower.

A faint stream of light suddenly flowed out from where his palm touched the gate, racing swiftly up along its edge. A humming sound, from somewhere unknown, abruptly reached the ears of everyone present, as if it had set some long-dormant system in motion. The next second, the once quiet, still surface of the gate suddenly bloomed with light; streams of radiance darted swiftly along the lines buried within the door, and a multitude of flickering points of light appeared abruptly before Gao Yang and the others. These points flashed and combined rapidly across the gate's surface, and to their astonishment gradually resolved into clear patterns and text!

Amber was instantly frightened out of her wits by the sudden turn; her whole body flickered back and forth between shadow form and material form several times, like a faulty connection, before stabilizing—and all the while she was shouting at the top of her voice: "Hey... hey hey, this thing lit up! How come it lit up the moment you touched it?!"

Gao Yang had not expected this sudden change either, but he quickly suppressed his surprise. Keeping calm, he pressed a hand on top of Amber's head: "Don't be so jumpy when exploring ruins—didn't you just see those streetlamps suddenly light up?"

As he spoke, his gaze fell on the images now surfacing on the gate's surface. The characters and pictures had gradually steadied and begun refreshing upward line by line—and just like the characters on the signpost earlier, when Gao Song fixed his eyes on this "display screen," the meanings of these ancient Pathfinder words surfaced in his mind as well—

"Facility offline. Access privileges frozen.

"Sky Station authorization port detected. Reauthorizing access... Access privileges enabled.

"Critical system warning. Factory zone halted; cause of halt unknown... Core database missing or locked... Cumulative error log overflowed. Production management hub offline.

"Subsidiary systems available. Gate authorized. Reuploading facility structure..."

The text on the embedded gate display refreshed rapidly, lines of characters sliding past before Gao Yang's eyes. He stared wide-eyed at the scene, taking in every change. The next instant, he suddenly sensed a deeper "connection"—one that pointed to the orbital space station far out in space, and was then relayed through the authorization protocols between the satellites and the station into his memory. The whole process lasted no more than three to five seconds. Gao Xi slowly shifted his gaze away and blinked toward the interior of the tower.

The next second, the architectural structure behind the gate surfaced in his mind like some translucent hologram, with all the gates and passages already authorized marked upon it.

He heard a series of sounds from within the tower—the clashing and grinding of heavy, ancient machinery in motion. Amber heard it too. At first her face showed pure alarm, as though she feared something might come rushing out of the tower and casually obliterate her; but soon she noticed the calm, placid expression on Gao Yang's face and settled down as well. Off to the side, the old mage Mojin took a moment to react, then stared wide-eyed at Gao Yang: "This... this is your—"

"Yes," Gao Yang said, looking at the old mage with a smile and a nod. "A few insignificant little tricks."

With that, he strode toward the interior of the tower.

Gao Yang was not the least bit worried about what Amber or Mojin might think, still less about "exposing his peculiarities." First, of course, because he trusted them; second, because he was perfectly clear about his own position and what he was doing—some matters are urgent and some are not, and some people bear great responsibilities while others bear small ones. In this world he was no cautious "newly transmigrated tenderfoot," but a figure who had hung in the sky for over a million years and then lain in a coffin for more than seven hundred (as others saw it), who now ruled an empire and led a league of nations. Among all the things he faced and all the people he dealt with day to day, "the satellite spirit's little secret" was almost the most meaningless of trifles.

Besides, he had already used the identity of "Vagrant from Beyond the Domain" quite a few times.