Chapter 32: The Secret That Cannot Be Told
Year 841 of the Falling Stars Era, June 26th, at the edge of the Lost Star River, the Vanguard Fortress Cluster.
"An anomalous space-time rift, huh..."
It wasn't what Unit 3 had expected. After learning this news, Joshua, sitting in the center of the hall, surprisingly showed little reaction. He repeated the sentence expressionlessly, then slightly tilted his head back and began staring blankly at the ceiling of the central control hall.
"Joshua? Your mental deviation value has risen again?"
Unit 3 quickly checked the warrior's data. Mental deviation value: 65. Although it was high, compared to the deviation value of nearly 100 not long ago, this result wasn't abnormal. In fact, it had decreased quite a bit due to the open beta of the Continent of Strife. Subsequently, the artificial intelligence girl asked with some confusion: "Joshua, according to the speculations of those mage researchers from the Imperial Foreign Exploration Department, these anomalous space-time rifts, which almost only appear around lone adventurers, cannot be a natural phenomenon. Behind this, there is definitely a very large force spying on us."
"It could be other hidden void civilizations in the star river... it could be the Star Shepherds or some dissenters from the Abyss side planning something... it could even be another kind of omen..."
"I know."
To this, Joshua nodded, interrupting Unit 3's words, and then continued in a calm tone: "This is certain. Appearing only behind lone adventurers, extremely secretive, a space-time rift that couldn't be discovered without luck—this kind of thing absolutely cannot be a coincidence of natural generation."
"Not only that, even the purpose is easy to deduce. It can open a space-time rift, but it doesn't open it too wide. This half implies two possibilities: one is that it can't be opened wider, and the other is that it's deliberately made smaller for concealment. Personally, I think both reasons apply. The inability to open the rift wider conveniently serves the purpose of covert reconnaissance."
Saying this, Joshua was still staring at the ceiling. He squinted his eyes and said softly: "Crossing space-time, deploying small detection instruments or arrays, or using various more covert secret arts to obtain information from behind the space-time rift. Judging by the fact that the entity behind it can target individual adventurers, their array precision is very high, even reaching the level of accurately deploying across worlds, or even across star rivers. Of course, it might be a special effect of some secret art, and the actual technology isn't as advanced as I think."
"Across star rivers?" Rarely hearing Joshua speculate so much, Unit 3 didn't have time to be surprised before she was shocked by the warrior's words. She paced in mid-air, frowning in thought: "Do you mean this space-time rift might be deployed by a civilization from another star river?"
"Shouldn't... it be that strong?"
Hearing Unit 3's doubt, Joshua couldn't help but sigh. In the past, thinking about these problems only took him an instant to reach a conclusion, and then he would start acting. But now, due to mental deviation, he needed to think and speak it out simultaneously to ensure his thoughts didn't become chaotic.
As for Unit 3's doubt, there was no need to dwell on it. Facing an alien star river that had developed for tens of thousands of years longer than them, one couldn't afford any arrogance. The Mycroft Civilization had already suffered the consequences of arrogance, so now, they should use the worst and most extreme possibilities to infer the future.
"Why can't it be that strong? Unit 3, that is also a world star river. According to the Star Shepherds, the place they are in is a super star river cluster formed by countless world star rivers—at least hundreds or thousands of them mixed together. The Lost Star River we are in is now empty and silent because of the invasion of evil gods. Over there, hundreds of powerful or weak civilizations are clashing and fighting at all times."
Speaking softly, Joshua shook his head. Although those alien civilizations weren't necessarily enemies, they were by no means weak. The Star Shepherds, after all, were an interstellar nomadic race with over twenty legendary-rank void behemoths and a Great Khan at the legendary high-rank Soul's Ultimate Essence. Yet, just to escape the flames of war, they were willing to spend hundreds of years preparing and come to the Lost Star River to gamble on a slim chance of survival.
What did this mean? It meant that the intensity of the battles on their side had become so dire that even a race considered relatively powerful had to risk 'total annihilation' to flee.
"Even we have ways to interfere with alien star rivers—given enough time and resources for Nostradamus to prepare, he can also perform cross-star river teleportation like the Myriad Realms Sacrificial Ground, provided he knows the direction and confirms the coordinates. Whether it succeeds is another matter, as that's a question of proficiency."
Saying this, Joshua slowly stood up. He turned off the monitoring light screen in the Vanguard Fortress Cluster and created a large silver screen himself. The warrior looked at the screen and said in a low voice: "As long as you don't transmit matter, whether the space-time channel is one kilometer wide or ten thousand kilometers wide, it's just '1000 on the coordinates' versus '10000000 on the coordinates.' I have every reason to believe that there are civilizations in the alien star river with this kind of power, crossing space-time to observe us."
As he spoke, he manifested a series of world coordinates on the light screen. These were the coordinates of the 12 worlds where space-time rifts had appeared, which Unit 3 had transmitted to the warrior earlier. Joshua said nothing, silently staring at these world coordinates.
The warrior wasn't stupid. He still remembered the feeling of being spied on that he and the old Pope had sensed back in the Fairyland. Now, by integrating the information, it was easy to reach a conclusion.
The moment the Lost Star River completely lifted the space-time distortion blockade connecting it to other world star rivers and formally linked together, those powerful civilizations or individuals from the alien star river all noticed this. Just as the Mycroft Civilization had sensed that brilliant, endless star river and wanted to venture out, there must also be people or civilizations in those brilliant star rivers who had noticed this distant, mysterious Lost Star River. They, too, wanted to come over.
So, while the Mycroft World was preparing the joint void fleet for the official long-range expedition toward the distant end of the star sea, it wasn't strange for others to use various secret arts to spy on them.
"Unit 3."
Suddenly, the silent Joshua spoke: "Help me notify the old Pope... notify His Holiness Eagle. I have something to discuss with him later."
"Okay—notification complete!" Unit 3 responded crisply and instantly transmitted the information through the magic net. But then, she asked with some curiosity: "Is it about this matter? Then why not call Master Nostradamus, or Baniel, Master Barbarossa? Although His Holiness the Pope is powerful, he isn't specialized in space-time sorcery, nor is he very knowledgeable about rune arrays, right?"
Even the Psionic Emperor, who specialized in psionics, and the Ocean Sage would be more professional than His Holiness the Pope... The Holy Light system at most has a light-based teleportation, which was a technique developed not long ago during the Dragon Calamity...
"Those people you mentioned, I will find them all later."
Confirming that Eagle had received the message, Joshua didn't linger and immediately turned toward the exit of the central control hall: "But right now, what I need to discuss with His Holiness the Pope isn't this matter—or rather, not just this matter."
As Unit 3 habitually prepared to follow Joshua out, the warrior turned around, placed his hand on the girl's shoulder, and gently stopped her from advancing. Joshua shook his head, his expression serious as he said in a low voice: "You don't need to follow me this time."
"...Okay."
Hearing this, Unit 3 naturally understood that Joshua must have some extremely secret matter to discuss with the Pope. She was smart and naturally wouldn't insist on following. But just as Unit 3 was about to leave her main mana projection in the Vanguard Fortress Cluster to wait for Joshua's return, she suddenly received a series of Steel Force information streams.
Subconsciously parsing and understanding the content, the artificial intelligence girl instinctively wanted to widen her eyes—but because the content was too shocking, she immediately realized she couldn't show any abnormality.
But why tell me this now?!
No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't understand, but she couldn't voice her confusion either.
So, she could only do this. Unit 3, as if she had received nothing, obediently nodded and stopped in the central hall, watching the warrior leave.