Chapter 1293 — How to Destroy It

"See that? This empty shell still keeps up the appearance of operation—an operational state of total system collapse, yet in reality it shouldn't be emitting even a glimmer of light," Gao Yang said grimly. "Earlier Daniel called this ship a 'living corpse' that keeps on living after its head has been cut off, but the truth is probably far stranger and more terrible than that... Some kind of force is sustaining everything here. This ship's components are not merely 'still running after detaching from the system'—the mechanism behind them is beyond our understanding, and doesn't even conform to our conception of the material world... I don't know how much of this ship is in this state. I even suspect the entire ship's very essence has been 'hollowed out.'"

Amber stared slack-jawed at the eerie, horrifying sight, then suddenly hunched her neck and shuddered: "So... there's no way at all for us to 'take over' this ship, is there? Not with any of that 'privilege' or whatever you called it..."

"Correct. We cannot take over its 'control privileges,' because this ship has completely mutated into some kind of... indescribable thing. It merely looks as though it still keeps its former appearance, but its interior is more unsettling than that Tower of the Countercurrent. Frankly, even if someone offered me the chance to take control of this ship right now, I wouldn't want to touch it... because it's absolutely a trap that would lure us to our ruin," Gao Yang said, his expression so stern it was almost gloomy. "Likewise, we had best not try to learn any technology from this ship... Even if some knowledge still lingers aboard that we could comprehend, that knowledge is surely 'poisoned.'"

Amber listened with a look of horror and swallowed hard: "So when you were trying to find this ship's weak point just now, you were actually thinking..."

"I was thinking about what means we have to destroy it," Gao Yang said earnestly. Before Amber, he concealed neither his thoughts nor his worries. "We can't deal with that 'Home Port,' but the Home Port itself doesn't seem capable of taking the offensive. This ship before us, though... it makes me feel threatened."

"Threatened... This thing really is a bit eerie," Amber muttered under her breath. "But then again, hasn't the 'Sentinel' already run off? No matter how eerie the Home Port and the ship it left behind are, they're just dead things running on programs..."

"Has the Sentinel truly severed all connection with the Home Port and this ship?" Gao Yang cut Amber off. "Does it really just want to break free of the commands and missions binding it, and that's why it fled from the deep sea? Perhaps... its 'abandoning of its post' is only a temporary measure, meant to accomplish something else. Or perhaps this ship and that Home Port still hold some 'arrangements' it left behind, and one day in the future, these things will all become weapons aimed at us."

Amber shrank her neck. Looking again at the ancient devices around her glowing red, she felt a tension like needles pricking at her, as though behind those flickering red lights were countless cold, malevolent eyes fixed on her—a piece of "fat" that had already fallen into a predator's jaws. And that feeling reminded her, dragging up against her will the chill she had felt earlier in the ship's corridors, of being watched by cold gazes and stalked by malevolent minds.

"So do you have a plan?" She couldn't help rubbing her arms, where goosebumps were about to rise, and looked at Gao Yang with an expectant face. "You always have a plan..."

"I'm still thinking, and I can't be sure my ideas will do any good," Gao Yang said grimly. "The technology this ship uses is extremely advanced. Its armor and shields might withstand any weapon mortal civilization can produce today, and as for destroying it from within... I wouldn't know where to begin. Look around you—these control terminals were ruined more than a thousand years ago. They're meaningless now. And there's something even more important..."

"Something more important?" Amber asked instinctively.

"This ship might fight back," Gao Yang said, shaking his head. "It has weapon systems, defenses inside and out, and these things are very likely running automatically as well. Until we've thoroughly figured out this ship, I'm afraid we can't afford the price of provoking this ancient weapon."

At that, he exhaled softly and said in a low voice, a trace of thought in his expression: "So I'm considering another path..."

The information gained at the Sentinel's Home Port and the experiences along the way had left everyone's nerves somewhat frayed, and that tension persisted through the entire remainder of the journey.

But in the end, the voyage home concluded without mishap.

A hazy radiance appeared deep in the chaotic darkness beyond the ship's shields, and within that radiance one could dimly make out the clouds of sand and dust cascading down from endlessly distant heights. At the sight of that familiar view, Gao Yang, who had returned to the deck, finally let out a slight breath of relief.

Meitzen rose from where she had been resting, working her enormous wings and her scale-covered tail, and the others, who had rested for a good half-day, stood up one after another, gazing at the border of the God Kingdom of War as its outlines gradually grew distinct. Even Daniel, who always kept a stern face, wore a gloomy air, and rarely spoke with the others, couldn't help but exhale and mutter under his breath: "Finally back..."

"Yeah, finally back," Mary echoed softly when she heard her mentor speak. "I was so nervous the whole way..."

Daniel tilted his head slightly to glance at his female apprentice and snorted through his nose: "Sloppy already? This journey was an adventure an ordinary mage wouldn't dare dream of in a lifetime. You can't come back with nothing to show for it—write me a three-thousand-word summary and hand it in next Monday."

Mary's expression froze at once: "...Ah, yes, Mentor..."

Gao Yang overheard the exchange between Mary and Daniel, and it couldn't help but remind him of certain scenes buried deep in the memories of his previous life. A faint, barely perceptible smile surfaced on his face, dissolving much of the stern, oppressive air he had carried throughout the journey.

And at that same moment, after a brief deceleration and course correction, the ship finally returned to the place where they had all first set out.

At the edge of the God of War's divine realm, encircled by seas of murky yellow dust clouds, the Alliance banner already hung over the shattered outskirts of the city. Lady Windsor Maple, Typhon's highest technical official, stood with the White Knight commander, the high-ranking combat monk Sir Solide, each at the head of their own contingent, in a "stabilized zone" near the border, where they had been waiting a long while.

Among them was also Noreta, the white dragon, who had two dragon whelps in tow.

When the airship returned, it was not only the explorers aboard who breathed a sigh of relief.

As the ship reached its closest point to the divine realm within the sea of clouds, the blue dragon's figure sprang up from the edge of the deck. Carrying the expedition that had set out two days before, along with the great quantity of "samples" they had brought back, she at last returned to the soil of the God of War's divine realm—soil that, though still crumbling without cease, now seemed steadier than ever.

This time, Amber was the first to leap down from Meitzen's back.

"Phew... finally, a chance to breathe," she said, shaking her head and sighing with feeling. "It feels so good to have solid ground under my feet... Not long ago I thought the God of War's divine realm was a deadly, dangerous place, and now coming back here almost feels like coming home..."