Chapter 1721: The Core and the Connection

What lay deep in the World Scar? It was something that the people of L’Haronne wondered about, but no one ever dared to really try and find out.

In other words, those who dared to seek the truth would often be buried forever in the scorching abyss, and among the survivors, there was never a reckless man who did not cherish his life.

Looking down from the mouth of the World Scar, one could see the endless deep abyss of darkness. Although the people of L’Haronne had long realized that the earth they lived on was spherical and that the World Scar had split the planet in two, their current observation techniques were insufficient to directly see from one side of the World Scar to the other. They did not even cover half of the distance.

Their eyes were blocked by the neverending gas cloud deep in the mantle. All they could see was a faint glow of red light moving in the darkness, and scholars had varied definitions of that little bit of red light. It was known as the heart of the world, the tomb of the fallen gods, the resting place of the planet’s consciousness, or the place where the souls of all living creatures reincarnated. Some even thought that the red light was the eye of a great serpent, which would one day rise from the abyss and devour the whole world.

Plus, the red light grew fainter and fainter over time, leading scholars who were fascinated by various hypotheses to propose all kinds of doomsday or disaster theories, such as the fading of the heart of the world.

However, all of their claims were absurd. The red light was not so mysterious. It was just a cooling core.

Where the people of L’Haronne could not see, construction machines were busy day and night. A cluster of construction sites had been built, and they were floating above the core of the planet. Swarms of autonomous robots and engineering drones flew around the scorching metal sphere, pinning more probes and conveyor channels to its semi-solidified shell.

The Petrachelys was floating on the surface of the sphere, only a few meters away from its shell. The remaining heat from the planet’s core scorched the spaceship, but the heat was nothing to Nolan.

The projection of Nolan stood on the bridge, watching the images being transmitted from various probes. At the center of the holographic projection was a scanned image of the planet’s core.

Some blurry images could be seen within the thick shell, and they formed the rough outline of what the probes were trying to figure out after removing the interference. It looked like an irregular mass, with something that vaguely appeared like pipes or pillars extending out, connecting the outer shell of the planet’s core.

It was impossible to figure out what it was from such blurry images, and Nolan would not dare blow it up without safely cracking the protective barrier that surrounded the core.

She then turned on the audio monitor, and a muffled powerful sound came from it.

*Thud, thud, thud…*

It was like a heartbeat but much slower than a human heartbeat.

“The scholars of L’Haronne who think it’s the heart of the planet have a point. It sounds like a heartbeat,” Nolan said to herself as she opened a map of the entire planet.

On the holographic projection, the entire planet appeared translucent white, while the core of the planet was highlighted in bold red. But the core did not float independently inside the planet: a faint red line extended from the core to a coordinate on the surface of the planet.

“The third set of probes has confirmed that there is a link… But how did this weird mapping of information come about? I feel like something is missing…” Nolan frowned and said to herself. “Well, let’s report this to the boss first.”

The Petrachelys floated upward a little, interrupting the beam connection with several detection nodes on the surface of the planet’s core, and a new message was uploaded to Hao Ren’s data link.

“New information fluctuations have been found in the planet’s core, and it is confirmed that unknown information flows from the core to the surface. The connection point is located in the capital of the Dragon Empire.”

Hao Ren’s expression froze slightly for a moment. Vivian noticed that and asked, “What happened?”

“A message from Nolan,” Hao Ren whispered. “Isn’t there a structure in the planet’s core that’s surrounded by a mysterious barrier? Nolan found signs of an exchange of information between that thing and the surface of the planet, in the capital of the Dragon Empire.”

“…That thing, which is buried at the core and looks like the product of a super-civilization from all angles, is connected to this relatively backward civilization?”

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“Yes, this is not unexpected.” Hao Ren gently nodded. “Now the main thing is, we have one more reason to go to the capital.”

While Hao Ren and Vivian were whispering to each other, Graeme and Charlemagne were still in deep shock.

“What on earth…” Graeme looked back at the black pines that stood proudly in the snow. “The Black Pine Forest is actually connected to the north… Across two-thirds of the empire?!”

In the distant horizon, the red Dimension Tunnel stretched across the sky as if the sky had been torn apart. There were ominous crimson flashes and thunder in the World Scar. Below the World Scar was a hazy silvery glow, a phenomenon of illusion triggered by the energy flow near the World Scar. The two wonders superimposed each other—it was a spectacle rarely seen in the ordinary world, but not rare in the eyes of the people of L’Haronne.

The soldiers stationed at the northern border all year round were no stranger to such scenery. It was the rift in Gorgon’s Abyss. Near the rift, the demons of Gorgon, who appeared out of thin air from time to time, had always been the heaviest burden on the shoulders of every fortress.

Rheia looked around and climbed onto a nearby boulder. She looked in the direction of the Black Pine Forest, then at Gorgon’s Abyss.

There was a trace of surprise on her face. After pondering for a while, she suddenly saw the light.

“I see.” The little goddess jumped down from the stone and looked at them earnestly. “Graeme is right about part of it—the Black Pine Forest does connect from here, but not to the north. It is to the spatial fault around Gorgon’s Abyss.”

“You mean the Black Pine Forest is connected to Gorgon’s Abyss?” Hao Ren asked.

“How could this happen?” Awenna exclaimed.

“Because the Black Pine Forest and Gorgon’s Abyss are essentially the same things. They may have originally been connected,” Rheia explained. “Although you think of them as two separate and distinct mysteries, in my eyes, they all belong to the ‘remnants’ of the world line that collapsed and solidified. In the Surface World, they may not be connected, but in the collapsed world line, everything is connected and mixed together…”

She spoke while she softly waved her hand in the air. Charlemagne thought that it was an unconscious habit when she pondered, but Hao Ren could see that she was flipping through a book…

“Ah, yes.” Rheia went on to explain, “If we think of the world as a multi-layered structure, then the solid reality is its most superficial layer, and those world lines that fail to become reality are buried deep down with all kinds of redundant information. Those fragmentary histories appear to be intertwined in the deep layer because, in the deep layer, the concepts of time and space become extremely vague. Usually, only a few of these fragmentary objects emerge, but if the barriers of the world grow weak, they will keep rising…”

“The interconnected nature of those broken world lines will emerge,” Hao Ren added. “So the Black Pine Forest is connected to Gorgon’s Abyss.”

Rheia nodded softly. “And if I’m right… there might be more than one such ‘virtual reality’ in the world, but some people know it while others don’t. But right now, whether anyone knows about it or not, they…”

She paused deliberately to emphasize her next few words. “I’m afraid they’re all coming up.”

By the time Rheia was done with her almost subversive theory, the others, including Graeme, were standing there dumbfounded.

The theory was far too advanced, too hard to imagine.

“It is unheard of…” Awenna broke the silence, muttering to herself. She had been the best caster in the Izzo Royal Family for hundreds of years. She had studied under some of the most erudite masters and knew most obscure theories, but she still found it difficult to follow Rheia’s train of thought. “It seems to explain what is going on, but it is so abstruse…”

“That is what the book says!” said Rheia.

“…It’s mentioned in our ancient book. Believe it or not, we have done a lot of research in the field of the world’s origin,” Hao Ren added.

“It is the scholars’ job to study and test these theories,” Graeme said solemnly. “We just need to make sure that the Black Pine Forest is actually connected to Gorgon’s Abyss. We must let Her Highness know about this as soon as possible.”

“Currently, the best news is that we have crossed the heartland of the Dragon Empire and are not far from the princess,” Hao Ren smiled and said.