Chapter 698: Her Eyes

The planetary scanning system of the Mass Effect was undergoing mode adjustment. The massive antenna array pointed distantly toward that planet, which had already been surrounded by the Unified Fleet yet was still putting up fierce resistance, guarding countless secrets—the "Holy Domain."

Bai Liqing sat on the "Psychic Amplifier" crafted specially for her, struggling to set aside the somewhat subtle mood for the time being.

A low hum came from beneath the "throne." Some of the crystallized circuits connected to the platform began to emit a faint glow. Inside the massive ring structure suspended above the entire hall, a pleasant chime echoed, and then it slowly descended, floating above the throne like a solemn halo.

A pair of illusory eyes slowly landed in front of the throne. Bai Lixue's voice drifted into Bai Liqing's ears: "I'll be waiting for you in the real dimension…"

"Alright."

Bai Liqing said softly, and before her words had even faded, she closed her eyes.

The darkness lasted only a brief instant. In the next moment, all radars and antennas of the Mass Effect became extensions of her own eyes—a pure white dragon floated in space with its consciousness, bathed in the distant starlight and the flashes of countless close-range artillery fire.

Bai Liqing's gaze focused on that lush blue-green planet.

Vision distorted. Light faded. The world silently disintegrated in her perception. That planet seemed to transform into a massive void, the twisted spacetime structure inside rushing toward her like an abyss.

Before she could react, Bai Liqing felt as if she had already fallen into that endless, twisted abyss.

Her mind was torn by a powerful force, dragged by roaring "knowledge" into an endless vortex of memory and perception. She exhausted every ounce of strength to stabilize her consciousness, trying to see clearly what exactly lay behind that chaotic spacetime structure. For a moment, she even felt her mind had disintegrated, even felt as if she saw that soul wilderness standing with the cathedral and crystal giant tree—but in the next instant, those "voices" roaring inside her mind dissolved into nothingness.

"Sis…"

Someone was calling out to her from the darkness.

Bai Liqing turned her head instinctively.

She found herself trapped in a "crystal" that was continuously growing.

The crystal stretched endlessly, with no known origin, no direction to spread—as if all time and space had frozen in the apocalypse, turning into this layer of transparent and colorless ice.

She heard distant rumbles, dying roars. Something was collapsing. Someone was dying far away.

A feeling of panic and fear surged up, but it wasn't her current emotion—it was an emotion buried deep in memory, etched as deeply as the soul, yet as distant as a "life" from another world.

Bai Liqing struggled to turn her head, trying to look toward the direction of the rumbles and roars, but saw only boundless, transparent crystal, growing limitlessly in space as if to drown the world.

"Sis… Sis…"

Bai Liqing's vision blurred for a moment. When her gaze refocused, she felt a few icy fingers trying to touch her palm.

She saw another figure, buried deep in the growing crystal cluster.

It was a young girl, with facial features somewhat resembling her own. They were separated by less than a meter, yet firmly blocked by the growing crystal.

In the crystal cluster, a long, blurry golden-red trail extended from behind the girl all the way into the depths of the crystal.

She seemed to have crawled from very far away, and now she could crawl no more.

"Sis…"

That faint voice repeated in her ear. Bai Liqing felt the fingers touching the edge of her palm grow even colder than before. Her body couldn't move; those hard crystals imprisoned her entire body as immovably as death itself. She could only turn her eyes within a limited range, trying hard to look at that small silhouette—she saw a strand of gray-white hair, the same as her own, hanging down the girl's cheek.

"I'm sorry…" the small figure apologized to her. "They said the capacity isn't enough, the 'cocoon' can only take one person… But I miss you. I won't go forward, won't take your spot, but can I… stay next to you…"

Intense emotions grew and surged. Bai Liqing struggled with all her might to open her mouth, wanting to say something, wanting to call out the other's name, but her consciousness felt locked solid in this endless crystal. She couldn't shake this cage even a bit, no matter how hard she tried.

She saw the crystal still growing—it gradually took on a faded gray-white, then continued to multiply and thicken.

The crystal cluster crawled onto the girl's face, then spread and piled up along her cheeks.

"Sis… I'm going to sleep. You sleep too…"

That face was submerged by crystal, submerged until only the eyes remained, and the crystal seemed to submerge not just the other's "face"—almost instantly, Bai Liqing forgot the face's appearance, and in the next instant, she forgot the other's voice.

A drowsiness and exhaustion as heavy as death surged madly. Vision rapidly darkened as the crystal grew. Eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. Even just keeping her eyes open felt like fighting against the collapse of the entire world—until finally, Bai Liqing could barely see anything. In the rapidly descending darkness, the only thing she still remembered was those light gray eyes, so similar to her own, like fading color, in the middle of the layered crystal.

Only those eyes remained.

Only remembered those eyes.

"Sis…"

"Sis… Sis…"

"Sis!!"

Bai Liqing abruptly opened her eyes wide.

She saw a pair of illusory eyes frantically shaking right in front of her.

Those eyes darted around before the "throne" as if out of control, seemingly anxious to help—but without a body, and without hands.

As a "hallucination" born from imagination, she couldn't even have any "real contact" with her "sister" beyond mere optical phenomena.

But Bai Liqing had sobered up—she had shaken off that binding force that seemed to spread from the depths of time and space, and felt her consciousness and control over herself gradually returning to her body.

"I'm fine," she said softly, her voice carrying a trace of hoarse fatigue that even she hadn't noticed. "How much time has passed?"

"A little while… three minutes, or maybe two," Bai Lixue said quickly, her voice panicked for the first time. "But I couldn't see you just now. You were sitting here, but I couldn't see you. It suddenly got very dark around, and you, you seemed…"

"I might have 'seen' too far." Bai Liqing cut her off. She subconsciously stared at Bai Lixue's gray-white eyes for an extra two or three seconds, as if instinctively trying to retrieve something she had just lost in that "dream" from those eyes, but reason and calmness, uninvited, bubbled up again, restraining the emotion and wavering in her heart.

Bai Liqing unconsciously reminded herself—this was just a monster born from her childhood ability spiraling out of control, an entity generated from a hallucination, a nightmare that would replace her as soon as she let her guard down.

This danger had nothing to do with this pair of "eyes" themselves, but was a "trait" they possessed from the moment of their birth.

"Wh-what's wrong?" Those eyes swayed in midair, making an uneasy sound.

"No, nothing." Bai Liqing waved her hand, forcing herself to stay alert.

She heard distant, low rumbles—the roar of the mass accelerator charging, reverberating inside the ship. Part of her senses were still connected to the ship's antenna array, those iron and fire streaking through space and falling to the planet's surface reflected deep in her consciousness.

The battle wasn't over yet. Others were still waiting for her "observation results."

"This planet…"

Bai Liqing turned around. Her "gaze" passed through the thick walls of the "Observation Room" and the layers upon layers of corridors and armor outside, focusing on the homeworld of the Hermetic Order.

"This planet is hollow."

…

"What the hell?! Hollow?!" Eileen stood on Yu Sheng's shoulder, the entire doll completely stunned—though she couldn't understand the technical concepts, the phrase "the planet is hollow" alone was enough to stir up a storm in her not-so-bright little head. "You mean those heretics dug out the entire planet, and the 'Second Eden Gate' is this planet itself?!"

"What the hell kind of tech level is that…" Even Yu Sheng couldn't hold it together for a moment. Then he immediately felt something was off. "Wait, that doesn't add up. Lo's research on Zolda Blackstone has only been a few years. Even if the Hermetic Order started building the Eden Gate from the beginning of Lo's research, how could they hollow out an entire planet in a few years…? And if this massive project was completed recently, how come the planet's surface shows no signs…"

"So the more likely possibility is that this planet was gradually hollowed out over the past few hundred years," Bai Liqing said with a stern expression. "It has a lush 'crust,' but that's the only 'natural' layer. Inside the crust is a structurally complex and extremely strong support layer—and further inside is the Eden Gate. I think those heretics first hollowed out this planet, then, after the Eden Gate project began, conveniently hid the second gate in the planet's original core position…"

Bai Liqing herself was still in the "Observation Room" at this moment, communicating with the bridge through the ship's internal communication system. Her figure floated in the holographic projection above the communication console, but for some reason, the background behind her seemed deliberately blurred, with only her upper body visible—Yu Sheng figured it might be because some facilities on this ship counted as "technical secrets," so he didn't think much of it.

"Anyway, regardless of the process, the conclusion is the same," Hong said, frowning slightly as she mused. "'The Second Eden Gate is this planet itself'… This isn't looking good."

(End of Chapter)