433: Gilded stone statue, the word "suppressing" is just what I want (4k two-in-one)

Darkness, coldness, loneliness.

This was the main theme of the Unknown Space.

Eternal darkness enveloped this unknown and mysterious region.

There was not a single trace of light, nor a single sound.

Absolute darkness, absolute silence.

It was like a black hole, even more like nothingness.

Suddenly—

In this eternal darkness, a wisp of light appeared.

A dark space was torn apart, and a warship appeared out of thin air, spanning beneath the boundless black light.

It was Lin Yang and his team's Level 9 warship—the Vermilion Bird.

This was the name Lin Yang had given the Level 9 warship before their departure.

Previously, this Level 9 warship only had a serial number within the Alien Management Department.

However, given the need to explore the boundless Unknown Space, Lin Yang requested authorization and renamed the warship "Vermilion Bird."

The Vermilion Bird is a creature from Blue Star mythology, possessing the power of rebirth through fire.

In this Unknown Space, a good name brings good fortune.

"Is this… the Unknown Space? It looks very unsettling."

Inside the warship, Lin Yang and the others looked out through the portholes.

All they saw was darkness.

A chilling darkness.

Although space was also dark, some stars emitted light, so looking into the distance, one could still see some twinkling lights.

But here, no light could be seen, only boundless darkness.

Even the warship's lights couldn't illuminate very far.

This place seemed to devour light; even with the warship's powerful lights at maximum, they could only barely see a small surrounding area, and not very clearly at that.

One could imagine the oppressive and despairing atmosphere if the warship's searchlights were turned off, leaving them in this boundless darkness, unable to see even a single starlight.

"Although the universe is also boundless and as black as night, at least there's the light of some planets that can inspire hope. But if we get lost here, there really won't be any hope of escape," Cai Fei sighed.

Lin Yang and the others all nodded.

Being in a completely dark space, let alone encountering danger, just this absolute dark atmosphere alone could make people extremely depressed, even drive them mad.

"No wonder even with multiple explorations by the Alliance, they still can't create a complete star map within the explored areas. There are no reference points here; we can only rely on luck and experience to avoid some dangers," Que Tian also sighed.

Exploration in the Unknown Space was completely random; no star maps were available.

Only when entering certain explored areas and seeing some recorded items could they know which dangerous area they were currently in.

With the current strength of the Human Alliance, they could only have a rough, general geographical concept of the explored areas, allowing their teams to try and avoid being in the same large area and explore separately.

"According to the latest intelligence from the Alliance, we are roughly within the third major region. All the dangers recorded by the Alliance within this region exist, so we still need to be careful," Lin Yang also reminded them.

During the three hours and six minutes of the previous jump, the Alliance's mission system had distributed a lot of new intelligence about the Unknown Space, and Song Qingfeng had also sent him some more secret data.

The Alliance had roughly divided the explored areas of the Unknown Space into ten major regions this time.

The ten teams were then separately deployed into these ten different major regions for separate investigation.

Dangers existed in every major region; the only difference was that the level of danger in some major regions might be lower.

And in some major regions, all the dangers encountered by the Alliance during its exploration process could appear.

This was the case for the third major region where Lin Yang's team was currently located.

Of course, this was only a temporary division made by the Human Alliance based on known dangers within the explored scope.

Because some dangers were fluid, one could not let down their guard when exploring in any major region.

Not only were dangers fluid, but even the Unknown Space itself seemed to be constantly changing and flowing.

For example, Lin Yang and his team were now in the temporarily designated third major region.

During the exploration process, the warship could mark the explored spatial locations to avoid repetitive exploration or going in circles.

But this marking was only applicable for the current instance.

After a certain amount of time, these markings would become useless, and their accuracy would greatly decrease.

It was precisely because of this that the Human Alliance speculated that the entire Unknown Space might be fluid.

This was also a crucial reason why star maps could not be created.

If things within the Unknown Space region could be fluid, then a star map would simply be unable to provide accurate guidance.

And a star map that couldn't provide accurate guidance was better not used at all.

Sometimes inaccurate things were not only useless but could also have a detrimental effect.

"I heard that although the fluidity and changes of the Unknown Space are slow, some places have various spatial vortices or special magnetic fields that are not yet controllable, causing a complete loss of direction. Sometimes something might appear close, but in reality, it's a vast distance away. In short, this place is full of various strange and mysterious things, as well as some indescribable elements. We just need to remain cautious," Cai Fei said again.

Lin Yang nodded: "Alright, now activate the warship's cruise mode and maintain a steady speed. Our goal is just to investigate. If we encounter any danger, we'll go around it if possible. If we can't, we'll deal with it as the situation dictates. If it's really impossible, we'll return directly. Does everyone agree?"

"No."

"No objection."

Everyone shook their heads.

The purpose of their mission was simply to investigate whether the Mingye Clan was conducting other activities in the Unknown Space region.

Before the mission, the Alliance had specifically reminded them that they could avoid combat, so they naturally had no other opinions now.

As cruise mode was activated, the interior of the warship became quiet.

Investigation, in fact, was very boring.

Especially in this kind of place, where it was completely dark outside and nothing could be seen, after discussing some topics about the Unknown Space a couple of times, there was nothing left to talk about.

"Leader, I have a question."

Cai Fei was clearly a chatterbox, and after not enduring for long, he spoke again:

"You said, with this kind of investigation, unless we're right next to the Mingye Clan's base, it would be very difficult to discover anything if we're even a little bit further away, right?"

"Don't worry, all the warships and spacecraft of this investigation team have been additionally equipped with specialized detection tools for the Mingye Clan and Lingyou Clan. Although light can't travel very far here, the range of the detection tools can still reach quite far," Lin Yang explained.

"Oh… well then, can I just go to sleep? Can you call me if something happens? This is really too boring," Cai Fei said again.

"Suit yourself, just don't sleep too soundly," Lin Yang said, shaking his head with a wry smile.

"Haha, thank you, Leader, I definitely won't sleep too soundly," Cai Fei chuckled and went to the lounge.

Lin Yang turned to look at the main screen.

Whether Cai Fei slept or not had no impact on the investigation mission.

Their investigation this time was conducted by the team's warship as a unit, and did not require individual tasks.

It could be said that only one person needed to monitor the data and images feedback from the detectors, and everyone else could go into complete hibernation.

When the monitor got tired, they could find someone to take over.

Seeing Cai Fei go to sleep, Lin Yang thought for a moment, then turned to Que Tian and the others, saying, "If you feel bored, you can also go into hibernation first. I'll call you if anything happens."

As the leader of this team, Lin Yang naturally took the first shift without hesitation.

"Not yet, this is our first time entering the Unknown Space, and we also want to see its many mysteries," Que Tian shook his head, staring at the constantly transmitted images on the monitor.

Yuan Hao naturally followed Que Tian's lead.

Whatever Que Tian did, he did.

As for Ding Hui, although he didn't talk much, at this moment he was also silently watching the monitor screen.

He was clearly also quite curious about everything in the Unknown Space.

Only guy Cai Fei didn't care and went to sleep soundly.

Time, slowly flowed.

In reality, in the Unknown Space, one could not feel the passage of time.

One could even say that time had no meaning here.

However, for Lin Yang and his team, they still needed to use time to judge how long they had stayed in the Unknown Space.

Half a month passed, and the detector didn't detect any particularly special images.

It was almost all a vast expanse of black.

It made people drowsy just looking at it.

"This is too uninteresting."

Yuan Hao began to find it unbearable and simply went into hibernation as well.

Although Que Tian and Ding Hui were still holding on, it was evident from their expressions that their initial curiosity about the Unknown Space had completely vanished after more than half a month of investigation.

Lin Yang was the same.

Even though, for everyone, a peaceful state was actually the best.

After all, once things stopped being peaceful, it meant trouble was brewing.

A few more days passed.

Lin Yang planned to go into hibernation himself after his shift reached one month.

There was no time limit for this investigation mission, unless the spacecraft's energy ran out or they were forced to return. So, if nothing unexpected happened, they would stay in the Unknown Space for a very, very long time.

One month per person on shift was considered a relatively reasonable time arrangement.

They were all extraordinary individuals, so continuous shifts for a month wouldn't pose too much of a problem.

However, just a few days before Lin Yang's shift reached one month, the warship's detection system suddenly issued some alarms, and immediately after, the monitor transmitted some images different from before.

In the image, a gigantic stone statue appeared.

The statue was so large that it exceeded the detector's monitoring range, only capturing one of the statue's toes.

But this immediately invigorated Lin Yang and the others!

Lin Yang directly woke up Cai Fei and Yuan Hao, telling them to come over and watch.

"It's the mysterious statue recorded in the Alliance's intelligence!"

Cai Fei became excited again.

"It is said that some of these statues are so large they rival a small universe. Although this one doesn't look that big, it's probably larger than a large galaxy, otherwise, we wouldn't only be able to see a small area the size of a toe each time."

How powerful was the warship's monitoring system?

Even a super-large planet could be captured completely.

But now, the images transmitted back each time were only as big as a toe.

This was enough to show that this statue was also immeasurably huge.

Lin Yang also stared at the screen.

When Song Qingfeng had shown him the intelligence before, he had seen some related images, but honestly, it wasn't as shocking as what he was seeing now.

This was an indescribable shock.

A single toe was larger than several large stars!

This was something unimaginable before seeing it with one's own eyes!

"Vermilion Bird, get a little closer and take pictures, try to transmit back as complete images as possible."

Lin Yang spoke, instructing the warship's intelligent system to temporarily stop cruising. He wanted to see the statue as completely as possible.

Que Tian and the others naturally had no objection, as they also wanted to see it.

According to the Human Alliance's records, although these statues were strangely large, they were actually not dangerous, so it was fine to pause and look at them.

The cruise mode ended, and after prioritizing photography, the images Lin Yang and his team could see became slightly clearer.

Now, through the images, everyone could see that the surface of the sculpture seemed to have been molded with gold.

Although it was already mottled, it was still discernible.

This directly made Lin Yang and the others exchange glances.

"This sculpture, could it be man-made?"

A terrifying thought involuntarily arose in everyone's minds.

This immeasurably large and bizarre statue looked as if it had been carved by humans, and even had a layer of gold plating.

This was simply too inconceivable.

"Wait a minute, the statues recorded in the Alliance's intelligence didn't seem to indicate that any statues were gold-plated!"

Suddenly, Que Tian spoke with a solemn expression.

These words made Lin Yang's heart skip a beat, and he couldn't help but say, "Que Tian, do you mean that this statue might be discovered for the first time?"

"Very likely!"

Que Tian nodded, his eyes narrowed, and he began to observe carefully again, while saying:

"Although it was previously thought that the statues might be man-made, there was no further evidence. After all, the uncanny workmanship of nature is sometimes unimaginable, and perhaps such stone carvings could appear under the operation of certain natural laws. But now, this statue actually has obvious traces of gold plating, which further indicates that these statues indeed have a very high possibility of being man-made. We might have discovered a new statue and new evidence!"

"This… then aren't we going to earn a huge amount of contribution points?"

Cai Fei was even more excited.

Discovering a statue that had never been recorded, and also finding more sufficient evidence, would absolutely count as a major achievement.

"We need to record and compare it further," Lin Yang was also quite pleasantly surprised, and then had the Vermilion Bird approach even closer.

Although the primary goal was to investigate the Mingye Clan, discovering new things naturally couldn't be overlooked.

As the warship continuously approached and photographed, more and more of the current statue's full appearance was revealed.

And as more and more of the statue's full appearance was revealed, Lin Yang's expression became increasingly solemn.

Because the mottled gold-plated traces became more and more obvious.

In fact, when the statue's chest area was photographed, there was also a giant character " town" (zhen, meaning 'suppress' or 'guard') right in the center of its heart.

It was an ancient seal script.

But Lin Yang recognized it at a glance.

"Zhen (Suppress)?"

Que Tian and the others immediately saw the character and all frowned.

If the mottled gold-plated traces were not enough to fully prove that this statue was man-made, then when this character " town" appeared, it could be 100% confirmed that this carving was indeed man-made.

This made everyone's hearts tremble, and they couldn't help but look at each other, all having the same thought.

That was—

"What kind of terrifying existence could carve a statue larger than a large galaxy?"

Cai Fei murmured.

Ding Hui, who had rarely spoken, also exclaimed at this moment:

"Not only that, if it can be proven that all these statues are man-made, then the existence that carved those statues larger than a small universe must be even more terrifying, right?"

As the two spoke, a brief silence fell over the warship.

A moment later, Que Tian, staring at the character " town," suddenly broke the silence:

"I think what we need to prioritize now is not how terrifying the existence that carved the stone statues is, but what this character ' town' means. Is it suppressing something, or was it just written casually?"

"Que Tian, do you mean…?" Cai Fei and the others' expressions changed.

"Leader, I think we need to share some things with each other. What do you think?"

Que Tian didn't answer but looked at Lin Yang.

Lin Yang's eyes flickered, and he also looked at Que Tian. A moment later, he smiled slightly:

"Exactly my thoughts."

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