Chapter 1281: The Singularity
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
An Illusion? Of course, Hao Ren did not think that what he just saw was an illusion.
He was pretty damn sure that what he saw was Rollie, and it was not just in his imagination due to him missing his family. If he were to miss his family, he would miss anyone but Rollie, the dumb cat.
He associated what he saw to the Optical Eclipse that was happening near the Sunscorch Tower.
So after some perfunctory conversation with Veronica, Hao Ren made up an excuse and leave alone to look for a place that had the most concentrated Optical Eclipse phenomenon in the palace. Such places were not uncommon today. The energy blast of the Sunscorch Tower had dragged one-third of White City into a phase anomaly. He would see walls or platforms, or even houses that disappeared into thin air. Grape ivy and curtains that hung at the Optical Eclipsed places looked strange and particularly conspicuous.
He did not see the dumb cat again but two nervous maids in front of a pavilion.
The two maids’ back was facing Hao Ren, and they did not notice that someone was coming up from behind. Hao Ren heard their conversation.
“Did you see that? It just flashed across my eyes. It almost scared the hell out of me.”
“Ya, I saw it too! I thought it was an illusion. That thing that looks like an octopus floating in the air. It even flew toward me!”
“Eww – Stop mentioning it. I have goosebumps all over my skin already. There was still a man standing behind that thing. Gosh, he is the ugliest person I have ever seen in my life. He must be a demon from the abyss of Chaos!”
From the conversation between the two maids, Hao Ren immediately thought of the autonomous robots and Y’zaks onboard his spacecraft, the Petrachelys. He could not help himself but ask, “What are you talking about?”
The two maids were stunned. They bowed as a sign of respect when they saw it was Hao Ren. “Your Venerable Guardian, we are not slacking off, just—”
“Don’t worry; I am not checking on you guys.” Hao Ren said. “Did you just say you saw an octopus and a particularly ugly man?”
The two maids looked at each other and still visibly panic. But after finding that Hao Ren was friendly, they calmed down and described to Hao Ren what they had seen.
According to the maids’ description, they suddenly saw those things appeared when they were cleaning the corridors, just like how Hao Ren saw Rollie earlier when his spacecraft, Petrachelys, appeared in his vision. But things quickly disappeared afterward.
Judging from the time it happened, it coincided with the time when Hao Ren was seeing Rollie.
“Does that octopus look like this?” Hao Ren frowned and released an autonomous robot from his dimensional pocket.
The autonomous robot gabbled and circled the two maids.
“Wow!” The two maids were shocked before they nodded. “This is the one! Is this your pet, Your Venerable Guardian?”
The two maids seemed to be in fear and admiration at the same time. The story about Hao Ren had been exaggerated as to become a legend among the servants, so much so that the octopus seemed not that terrifying in the eyes of the two maids. One of them nodded. “It looks pretty cute. We thought we had seen a ghost in the daytime.”
Hao Ren was amused.
After sending away the two maids, Hao Ren tried to make sense of the pattern of the appearance of these illusions. While he was at it, a voice suddenly sounded in his head. “Buddy! Pattianne is calling buddy! Pattianne is calling buddy! Please reply if you hear this!”
Hao Ren was startled, and then happy. “I hear you. Have you configured the radio already?”
“It is clear! I know this thing is going to work!” The voice of the MDT was loud and clear, and particularly excited. “Buddy, your suggestion worked well. We found the relic of the goddess in the CARS, built a divine power-oscillation antenna here, and solved the shield problem! We can communicate as usual from now on!”
It was almost the best news Hao Ren had in a while. He could not help but get excited as well. “What do you use as a medium? Is it the lifeblood or the Gilded Disc?”
Before the MDT could say anything, Hao Ren heard Muru noted, “It’s me.”
Hao Ren was struck dumb.
At this moment, in the outside world, the ‘material vacuum zone’ of the universe, the Petrachelys was cruising in and around a group of artillery production bases. On the top the spacecraft, the poker-faced Muru was sitting there in a giant chair, holding a wand-like antenna in his hand, and a string of crystal oscillating amplifiers on his head. Nolan’s holographic image was in front of the guardian giant, smiling. “Please endure it for a little longer; I am making you a more portable antenna in my stomach. The one you are using now is only the beta version.”
Muru nodded. “No problem, I feel pretty okay now.”
Hao Ren could not see the outside scene, but the could guess it. He was listening to the MDT. “When I went back and pondered about the closest things to the power of the goddess of creation, the lifeblood was a second-tier product Zorm produced. Same goes with the Gilded Disc, which was powerful but was a more distant bloodline of the goddess. So the closest thing to the goddess was still her son, I figured.”
“Okay, you win.”
“Buddy, I have something to tell you. Y’zaks has seen something in the corridor.”
“Did he saw two girls in maid costumes?” Hao Ren knew what it was. “I saw Rollie too.”
“Rollie?” The MDT was stunned but quickly came to its senses. “No wonder she cried like crazy that the soul of Big Boss Cat was demanding canned fish from her while she ran out of the lounge.
“Let Vivian handle Rollie; we have something more important to discuss. It turns out that we have just broken through a deeper divine blockade. What we saw just now were not illusions but the overlapping of two dimensions.”
“Nolan is allocating 50 % of its computing power to retrace the dimensional readings. Buddy, what happened to you?”
“I blew up a seemingly important tower. But it’s not a real explosion. I will tell you slowly.”
Hao Ren told of what happened before, and when he finished, he said, “Many strange phenomena are happening here. These phenomena are harmless, but they affect people’s daily lives. Recently, even the King’s family is mooting to move out temporarily.”
The MDT was silent for a moment before it said, “I have thought of something.”
“I am all ears.”
“Buddy, the magic explosion that you have caused has weakened the blockade of the goddess of creation in the Collow dimension. But because of the limited energy of the lifeblood, it did not completely bring down the barrier but only opened up a vulnerable spot. The connection between Collow and the real universe became closer on this vulnerable spot, which creates the phenomena you have seen. Since the divine barrier is still working, there will be only a limited number of materials that could break through the barrier and interact with the real universe on this point of singularity. The forms of interaction are also limited, which mostly confined to bizarre illusions. As for the Optical Eclipse phenomenon you have mentioned, it is likely a by-product of this singularity.”
“So this haunted phantom-like phenomenon will continue for a while? It may cause chaos.”
The MDT was silent as if it was checking the data. It then gave a negative answer. “It won’t, buddy. Nolan thinks that the overlapping of the two dimensions occurred because Petrachelys happened to fly past your location. It means the Palace of the Golden Roses and the Petrachelys was on the same coordinates just now.”
Now it dawned on Hao Ren that the Collow dimension and the real universe were like two parallel worlds: they were invisible to each other, but they shared common dimensional coordinates. When the Petrachelys was sailing in the material vacuum zone, it might have crossed path with the Collow dimension many times. Just like when Hao Ren caused a mysterious explosion in the Kingdom of Taros and created a singularity, the Petrachelys also happened to pass by at the same spot.
When the two dimensions overlapped, people on both sides would see the scenes in the other dimension.
“Buddy, if we follow this logic, perhaps we can directly smash the barrier of Collow,” said the MDT. “We can get tens of thousands of tons of lifeblood to let it run wild. Even if the impact could not completely bring down the barrier, it might be able to open crack on the barrier.”
“No, don’t do this.” Hao Ren said quickly as a thought suddenly crossed his mind. He was not going to let the MDT carry out the seemingly feasible idea.
“Why?”
“Why did the goddess of creation want to seal this place in the first place?” Hao Ren asked. “Collow, in the divine language of the goddess of creation, means ‘prison.’ The goddess purposely built this prison. Rockmarton may be dead according to local legend, but considering the situation of the tide of Chaos, I think that guy is still alive and kicking. It is just that he was incarceration. Before we could solve the problem, we should not open the gate of the prison.”
The MDT thought for a moment and said, “Well, what you said makes sense. Let’s put this plan on hold for a while. But I have designed a way to send stuff to you based on this idea. If we keep this transmission a one-way street, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Approval granted.”
After they determined the plan, Hao Ren hung up the call.
He continued to mooch around the royal garden while thinking about how to educate the dumb cat. At this moment, a royal guard came hurriedly up to him.
“Venerable Guardian!” The guard stood in front of him and saluted him. “The King asks for you.”