292: Chapter 292 Deciphering the Remains

In the distance, the translucent "barrier" that isolated the inside from the outside, slightly rippling like a huge, inverted bowl, separated this small space from the crazily chaotic Chaos Void outside.

The air was filled with a faint but not unpleasant odor—a mixture of old metal rust and some kind of aged Advanced insulating material—as well as an indescribable, hollow silence that occurred after space had been "solidified."

Ling Ye stood in the center of "The Shelter," his gaze slowly sweeping over the scattered debris around him.

His body was still weak, with every muscle retaining the soreness of being pushed to the limit, and his Meridians were aching faintly, but at least his consciousness was clear, and he had recovered a sliver of strength.

He first walked toward a relatively large, intact dark silver metal plate that was slanted into the "floor."

This metal plate was about two meters long and one meter wide, with traces of having been violently torn at the edges, and its surface was covered with extremely fine, complex, orderly, and deeply etched dark golden patterns that did not seem purely decorative.

The style of these patterns was different from the energy patterns of the "Court of World Purification" he had seen before; they were more ancient, more abstract, and the lines were harder and simpler, faintly revealing a vast aura where the wilderness and the star sea intertwined, and they seemed to have a very distant, elusive resonance with a certain rhythm of the "Ancient Ring" mark in the depths of his Soul.

He reached out, his fingertips brushing lightly over the cold patterns.

The touch was smooth, yet it carried a strange "inertia" that seemed capable of absorbing all fluctuations.

There was no energy reaction, as if it were just ordinary metal etching.

But he did not think so.

He closed his eyes and carefully condensed the faint sliver of Mental Energy he had just recovered onto his fingertips, then, extremely slowly and gently, injected it along one of the patterns that looked like a "starting point" or "node."

There was no reaction.

The patterns remained cold and dead silent.

Ling Ye was not discouraged.

He tried to change the "frequency" or "texture" of his Mental Energy, no longer just probing, but simulating the faint, pure "Order" fluctuation of "the key" mark, and injected it again.

This time, the patterns seemed to light up extremely faintly, almost imperceptibly, like a light bulb with a loose connection flickering for a billionth of a second.

At the same time, an extremely subtle, yet unusually clear, cold, ancient, non-human stream of fragmented information, seemingly from the eternal starry sky and filled with the will of "recording" and "Guardian," rushed up against his Mental Energy and surged into his mind!

The information was fragmented, blurry, and full of incomprehensible symbols and broken chapters, but Ling Ye "read" the most critical small part of it:

"...Seventh Observation Outpost... 'Desolate' character sequence... Star map calibration point... Monitoring 'door' stable state... Recorder: Monument Guardian - San..."

Seventh Observation Outpost?

Star map calibration point?

Monitoring "door" stable state?

Monument Guardian?

These terms were vastly different in style from the titles of the "Court of World Purification" such as "Order Temple," "Sky Patrol Ship," and "Maintainer"; they were more... neutral, objective, and even carried a hint of detached, pure "observation" and "recording" meaning.

And the title "Monument Guardian" made his heart skip a beat.

He let go, and the light of the patterns vanished instantly.

But this brief contact had already given him a vague guess about the origin of this metal plate—it might not be a creation of the "Court of World Purification," but a remnant of a facility left by a more ancient, more transcendent force or existence named "Monument Guardian," whose duty was to "observe" and "record" the starry sky and the "door" (which was very likely the "Star Gate").

And the "Desolate" character sequence might represent its construction sequence or importance Rank.

This metal plate was very likely an external identifier or information recording board for this "Seventh Observation Outpost."

Ling Ye shifted his gaze to the several scattered translucent crystal fragments nearby, inside which liquid or light mist seemed to be flowing slowly.

He picked up one of the palm-sized, relatively most complete fragments.

The fragment felt cold to the touch and hard in texture, but it was not a pure mineral crystal; it was more like a product of highly condensed and solidified energy.

He hesitated for a moment and did not rush to inject energy.

Instead, he concentrated his mind, pushed his "perception" to the limit, and tried to "read" the light mist flowing slowly inside the crystal.

This time, no information stream rushed directly into his mind.

But under his focused "gaze," the light mist inside the crystal, following the fluctuations of his Mental Energy, began to slowly, spontaneously reorganize and change, and finally, formed an extremely blurry, fragmented, noisy, but vaguely discernible, dynamic, three-dimensional star map image!

In the star map, most areas were dark, with only a few points emitting extremely faint, differently colored lights.

Among them, one pale golden, relatively bright, but extremely unstable and constantly flickering light point, which seemed to be about to go out at any time, was specially marked, and next to it was a symbol he could not understand but could "intuitively grasp"—"Door - Qi (Abnormal/Damaged/Polluted)."

The Seventh Star Gate!

And the status was marked as "Abnormal/Damaged/Polluted"!

It was completely consistent with the sensing of "the key" and the situation he "saw" in the buffer zone!

And near the light point representing the "Seventh Star Gate," the star map also marked several smaller light points with different colors, which seemed to represent different functional facilities or nodes.

Among them, there was a light point emitting an extremely faint, stable dark blue light, and its position was relatively remote; its marking symbol resonated with the information fragment of the "Seventh Observation Outpost" on the metal plate just now!

It was this "The Shelter" they were in now!

This "Seventh Observation Outpost" was indeed one of the facilities used by the "Monument Guardian" to observe and record the status of the Seventh Star Gate!

And that it was now damaged and drifting in the Chaos Void was obviously because it had been affected, destroyed, and ended up here during the disaster when the Star Gate pollution erupted and even collapsed completely.

What made Ling Ye's heart skip a beat even more was that at the edge of the star map image, between the light point representing the "Seventh Star Gate" and the light point of the "Seventh Observation Outpost," the star map vaguely showed several extremely thin, intermittent, dim-colored dashed lines, as if they were energy channels or space routes.

The direction of one of these dashed lines seemed to faintly match the direction they had approached from the buffer zone and finally forcibly blasted open the rift to enter the Void Realm.

This star map fragment might not only be able to confirm their location, but might also... contain potential, unstable "path" information for leaving this Void Realm and approaching the "Star Gate" again!

Ling Ye suppressed the excitement in his heart and continued to "read."

The star map image flickered, maintained for about ten seconds, and finally, due to insufficient energy or structural damage, completely dissipated and turned back into a mass of slowly flowing light mist.

He put down this crystal fragment and checked the other few.

Some had completely chaotic light mist inside, which could not be interpreted; some seemed to record curves of certain energy readings or spatial parameter changes, which were also broken; and another smaller fragment, when he tried to perceive it, suddenly exploded a small burst of blinding white light inside, then completely dimmed and shattered, turning into tiny crystal dust that slipped from his fingertips—it seemed to have triggered some kind of self-destruction or energy dissipation mechanism.

Although he did not get more direct information about the specific purpose of the "Monument Guardian" or the root cause of the Star Gate pollution, just confirming the origin of this place and that fragmented star map was a huge harvest for Ling Ye.

Finally, he cast his gaze toward the central area of "The Shelter," where the dark blue halo flowing on the ground seemed to be richer and more concentrated than elsewhere.

He walked over and observed carefully.

The halo was not evenly distributed, but faintly formed a cycle that converged toward a certain point in the center and then slowly radiated outward.

And below that "convergence point," the ground seemed slightly different—the color was deeper, and the texture seemed more "dense."

Ling Ye squatted down and tapped the area with his fingertips.

The sound was dull, unlike other places which were slightly elastic.

He tried to use the tip of the tool pliers (which were still hanging at his waist) to carefully scrape off a thin layer of dark blue "ground skin" similar to energy condensate on the surface.

Underneath, a small piece of metal plate about the size of a washbasin was revealed, with a material clearly different from the surrounding ground, presenting a deeper dark blue, almost black, and the surface was also etched with an ancient energy array that was more complex, precise, but whose style was in the same line as the patterns on the metal plate!

This small metal plate seemed to be the core control node or energy interface of the entire "The Shelter" energy circulation System!

He tried to inject a sliver of weak Mental Energy.

This time, the small metal plate did not give any "information" feedback, but the energy array patterns on its surface lit up extremely faintly and continuously, emitting a purer and more stable dark blue light than the halo on the ground.

At the same time, he felt that the "sense of stability" of the entire "The Shelter" space seemed to have increased by a little bit.

The hollow silence in the air also seemed to be replaced by a certain extremely low, almost inaudible, rhythmic "hum" of energy flow.

Ling Ye could feel that although the energy of this small metal plate was relatively stable, the total amount was also extremely limited, and it seemed to be in a state of "minimum maintenance."

Forcibly injecting energy or performing deep operations might break this fragile balance and cause the stable structure of the entire "The Shelter" to collapse.

He stood up and looked around at this small, damaged "Seventh Observation Outpost" floating in the Chaos Void.

The origin was roughly clear.

It was a facility used by the ancient "Monument Guardian" to observe the Star Gate, which was damaged and drifted here during the disaster.

Its residual energy field and structure provided them with temporary shelter.

And those debris and fragments also provided some key information—the star map fragments pointed to a possible "path," and the core energy node might be utilized.

Ling Ye's gaze finally fell back on the small metal plate of the core energy node he had just discovered.