Chapter 880 — Touching the Boundary

"Ah... two talented young dragons," Speaker Anqian's aged, gentle voice rang through the hall, seeming to carry a smile. "You've come."

Noretta stepped forward and bowed slightly in greeting: "Speaker, we have completed our respective field assignments. There are special circumstances we need to report to you directly."

"Speak. I'm listening."

Noretta and Metzen exchanged a glance. Then the latter nodded, signaling the former to speak first.

Noretta raised her head and looked at the ancient dragon upon the psychic throne: "The Cecil Empire of the human world has built a vast communications system based on magic. Their highest-power antenna recently captured a set of mysterious signals. I believe these signals are worth attention."

"Mysterious signals?" One of Speaker Anqian's mechanical eyes turned toward Noretta. "Were they produced by those elemental beings in the far eastern seas? They've been trying to repair that ship all along, and they often make strange... 'noises.'"

"I don't think so," Noretta said, shaking her head. "I've recorded a copy of the signal. I hope that, with your authorization, Omega's higher cognition layer can analyze it directly."

Anqian considered briefly, then gave a slight nod: "You may."

As his word fell, a section of the floor before the psychic throne shifted in response. Metal covering retracted with a faint grinding sound, and a pale golden alloy pillar, its surface glinting with tiny lights, rose from the opening in the floor. At the pillar's top stood a series of ports, wafers, and flickering runes.

Noretta stepped forward and felt around the back of her neck. Then, with a soft click, she opened the hidden bionic skin panel at her nape and drew out a slender cable—its tip glimmering faintly. The next second it was connected to the alloy pillar before the psychic throne, fitting seamlessly.

Within a thousandth of a second, Noretta uploaded to Omega the signal sample she had previously stored in her auxiliary electronic brain.

Watching from the side, Metzen could not help frowning: "Modifying even your human form like that... I could never accept it..."

"It helps with rear-support assignments," Noretta said, turning to glance at her. "You're a young dragon, yet your thinking is so ancient—even your implant modifications are more conservative than most dragons'."

Metzen was about to say something when she heard Speaker Anqian clear his throat softly upon the psychic throne, and she shut her mouth at once.

"Now, let us hear the primal rhythm of this signal—"

As Speaker Anqian's words fell, a low, soft hum began to rise in the vast circular hall, and then the crystal veils surrounding the Throne of the Mind flickered at once with trembling rings and leaping curves, and one voice within the humming grew clearer and clearer—

It sounded like a humming with rhythm, threaded through with low pulses like heartbeats, as though an unseen singer were crooning some ballad beyond the reach of mortal minds; after playing for a dozen seconds or so it began to repeat, cycling on and on without end.

The sound echoing through the hall ceased abruptly, and Speaker Anqian's voice came again: "Converted to audio, there's nothing discernible for now—it could be some kind of psychic song, but it could equally be a human antenna resonating with the magic in the atmosphere. We need to transform and interpret it further. Omega, begin."

Omega's voice sounded through the hall: "Beginning translation of the raw signal into numerical sequences, into geometric figures, into standard spectra, into multibase encodings... beginning tests of all possible combinations..."

As Omega began its work, Speaker Anqian's gentle voice came to Metzen and Noretta at the same time: "No matter what law this signal is encoded or encrypted by, mathematics must be its common language. The pattern lies hidden in the numbers—unless what sent this signal is a creature of utter chaos, or a mind beyond mortal comprehension..."

Metzen and Noretta nodded as they listened, taking in this wisdom-laden instruction, when all at once an indescribable awe and sense of being watched, rising from the very soul, seized the heart of every dragon present. Noretta and Metzen's expressions changed at the same instant, and the implanted lights on Anqian's body flickered erratically—

"Omega, stop the analysis," the Speaker called out at once.

"Omega understands. Stopping analysis. Task suspended."

"Just now..." Metzen raised his head with difficulty, cold sweat on his face, and muttered under his breath.

"A god is watching us. A warning..." Speaker Anqian's face was dreadfully grim. "We cannot continue."

Then he slowly gasped for breath several times before he could finish what he had to say:

"This is not something we were meant to hear."