Chapter 964 — The Echo of the Counter-Tide

At this point, the Dragon God suddenly glanced at Gaoyang. "What—do you have an interest in going to take a look at that tower? Perhaps you would not be affected by it—"

"No, thank you," Gaoyang said without hesitation. "At least for now, I have little interest in it."

Are you joking? That was a genuine Pathfinders' relic mutated by divine pollution—divinity, mutation, Pathfinders: it had basically claimed every one of this world's greatest danger factors. To rashly go in under such circumstances would be to ask for a coffin, wouldn't it? Gaoyang considered himself to have a certain resistance to divine pollution, but he knew his resistance came from the Pathfinders, and that tower was a Pathfinders' relic after divine pollution. Whether his resistance would still work before that tower was entirely an unknown.

More importantly—he could use the "Abandoned Protocol" to deter a rational Dragon God, but he had no way to deter a "Counter-Tide God" that didn't even seem to have grown a brain. That kind of thing couldn't be fought and couldn't be reasoned with, and to Gaoyang it held little research value... Why risk his life to probe it?

In the end, his curiosity about the Counter-Tide Empire was still only a diversion for Gaoyang, not a necessity—in his view, it didn't even rank as high as the cola in his cup.

He picked up the oak cup brimming with "Reflection" and took a deep draught to settle himself.

At a certain moment just now, another thought had actually occurred to him—if the "fall coordinates" of certain satellites and space stations in the sky were set on that tower, could it be destroyed once and for all?

But the thought had surfaced only for an instant before Gaoyang rejected it himself.

Because he was not confident—he was not confident he could make those space facilities crash precisely onto the tower, nor could he guarantee how effective it would be to smash a Pathfinders' relic with a Pathfinders' relic.

As for the former, even before setting out, when he had used the Firmament Station's systems to simulate the reentry process of orbital facilities, Gaoyang had discovered that the fall error of those old antiques was actually frighteningly large—the outdated systems and the power deviations caused by energy shortages all affected their reentry precision. Although the base of that tower might be as large as an island, the reentry error of those orbital facilities could send them veering straight over to nearby Talund...

That was also why Gaoyang would use abandoned satellites and space stations to deter the Dragon God, but had never thought of applying them to the situation on the Loren continent—too many uncontrollable factors. To smash Talund, of course, he didn't need to consider so much; the dragon realm was so vast that wherever it fell, the effect would surely be the same. But on the Loren continent, with its many nations and complex powers, if a satellite came down and a booster engine deviated, it might just smash into his own head—to say nothing of the fact that such a thing was terrifyingly powerful and utterly impossible to use in conventional warfare...

And as for the latter... that was even more cause for worry.

Using a Pathfinders' satellite to smash a Pathfinders' tower—if it were smashed to ashes, fine, but what if it had no effect, or what if it just happened to crack the tower open and release the "thing" inside? Whose responsibility would that be?

After some deliberation and weighing, Gaoyang finally suppressed the urge in his heart to "yank a satellite down and hear the bang," and, forcing his face into seriousness and settling his mind, he continued to sip his cola with an expression of grave profundity.

The Dragon God watched Gaoyang quietly for a moment. Perhaps He had sensed the other's deliberation, perhaps He too was weighing the possibility of having this "extra-domain wanderer" help get rid of that tower—but in the end, He said nothing either.

And so the topic of the Counter-Tide Empire and that tower seemed to pass just like that.

The somewhat awkward silence lasted a full two minutes before Gaoyang suddenly spoke, breaking it: "The Pathfinders... what exactly are they?"

"I thought you knew that quite well," the Dragon God raised her eyes. "After all, your connection to those legacies runs so deep..."

"I only established a connection with those legacies by sheer accident when I arrived in this world," Gaoyang said frankly—in all his years here, he had rarely encountered an occasion where he could speak so openly, and yet the first being with whom he could converse without reservation turned out to be a "god." "I have coexisted with them for many years, but from those fragmentary databases I never found any description of the Pathfinders themselves."

The Dragon God's gaze rested on Gaoyang's face for several seconds, as though weighing the truth of his words, before she smiled faintly. "The Pathfinders... were mortals too."

"Mortals?" Gaoyang's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Yes, mortals. Even though they were unimaginably powerful, even though they could destroy gods..." the Dragon God Pingxi said. "They still called themselves mortals—and insisted upon it."

"Well then... a race that insists on calling itself mortal no matter how powerful it becomes..." Gaoyang nodded. "And then? How did they come to be?"

"That was in a far more ancient age, so ancient that the dragon race was but one of several mortal races on this planet, so ancient that this planet still held several civilizations, each with its own pantheon..." The Dragon God's voice rose slowly, as though drifting across from the far shore of history's long river, laden with vicissitude and memory. "The Pathfinders came from the depths of the cosmos and established observation stations and outposts on this planet..."

"They came from the depths of the cosmos?" Gaoyang was astonished again. "They didn't develop here on this planet?"

"Of course not," the Dragon God shook her head. "Their homeland lies far more distant—an ancient star system they called the 'Place of Exile.'"

"The Place of Exile?" Gaoyang could not help but frown. "That is a strange name... So why did they build observation stations and outposts on this planet? For resupply? For research? At that time this planet already held several civilizations, the dragons among them—did all those civilizations have contact with the Pathfinders? Where are they now?"

"They all departed with the Pathfinders—only the dragon race remained behind."

"Why? I... don't understand."

"Because by then the dragon race had already developed too far along the wrong path, and no longer possessed the conditions to leave. And the Pathfinders... had to keep voyaging onward. They had their own mission and could not stay to wait for the dragon race."

Noting the ever more bewildered expression on Gaoyang's face, the god smiled faintly, and the cups upon the table were filled once more.

"We still have some time—and it has been a long while since I last discussed the Pathfinders with anyone," she said softly. "Let me tell you about them from the beginning—they were a most extraordinary band of 'mortals.'"