34: A disaster that even the Falems had never seen before.

Following the unquestionable orders of Commander Talon, the thousands of The Arbitrators combat robots gathered at the edge of the Great Rift began their new mission—to delve into the abyss.

They used no cables, nor did they activate their flight packs.

At the tips of their limbs, sharp grappling hooks made of ultra-hard alloy extended like mountaineering picks, piercing deep into the glass-like rock face, which was as steep as if carved by a blade, at the edge of the rift.

Then, in absolute silence, this massive robot army, like swarms of metal spiders, began to slowly crawl vertically toward the bottom of the abyss, where a mist of deep blue energy rolled, moving with a coordinated rhythm of mechanical aesthetics.

Thousands of ten-meter-tall steel giants hung over a bottomless scar that seemed to lead straight to the planet's core.

Above them was the eternally dim sky of Laika-3, covered by thick clouds.

And below them was that mysterious, deep blue mist sea emitting unknown energy.

During the gradual descent, the "archaeological" work of The Arbitrators did not stop for a moment.

They transformed themselves into mobile scientific research stations.

One of The Arbitrators stopped, its mechanical arm deforming into a high-frequency vibrating drill, easily extracting a cylindrical core sample from the hard, glass-like rock face.

The sample was quickly sent into the built-in analyzer within its chest.

"Analyzing rock face sample..."

"Composition: Primarily silicate, containing high concentrations of quartz and feldspar. Abnormal crystal structure reorganization detected; the rock was heated to over three thousand degrees Celsius in a short period and then rapidly cooled at an extremely low temperature, leading to this vitrification phenomenon."

Another of The Arbitrators extended a long probe into the surrounding air.

"Analyzing atmospheric composition..."

"Main components: Nitrogen 89%, methane 9%, trace inert gases 2%. No free oxygen detected. High concentrations of unknown high-energy particles detected, with the particle source pointing to the bottom of the rift."

Yet another of The Arbitrators adjusted its single-eye detector to high-dimensional spectrum mode, scanning the mysterious deep blue mist sea below.

"Analyzing unknown mist spectrum..."

"Warning: Strong spatial distortion effect detected. The mist is not composed of conventional matter, but is a visible light phenomenon generated when high-dimensional energy leaks into three-dimensional space. Entering it directly may cause unpredictable effects on conventional material structures."

All data was transmitted in real-time through a chain signal relay network formed by The Arbitrators army itself to the Far Star Fleet located outside the atmosphere, and then sent back to the research center on the Falem Homeworld without delay by the fleet's powerful communication system, traversing a distance of several light-years.

There, thousands of top scientists of the Faleim Civilization and their god-like AI auxiliary systems stood ready.

They sat in a command room with a god's-eye view, piecing together the final truth of this dead world bit by bit through the "eyes" and "tentacles" of The Arbitrators army.

...

The descent lasted for two full weeks.

When The Arbitrators army descended to a depth of about fifty kilometers, the surrounding environment changed eerily.

The rock walls were no longer smooth and glass-like.

Instead, they were replaced by a peculiar geological structure full of huge cracks and holes, resembling a honeycomb.

From those bottomless holes, gusts of wind mixed with high-energy particles constantly blew out, emitting terrifying sounds like the wailing of ghosts.

And the deep blue energy mist sea below became increasingly dense, even beginning to cause slight interference with the sensors of The Arbitrators.

"Zeral, any findings?" On the bridge of the rathia, Talon asked the Chief Scientist's holographic projection while looking at the hellish scene on the screen.

"Yes, and it is very disturbing." Zeral's expression was exceptionally grave.

He brought up a geological structure simulation map.

"According to the rock wall data sent back by The Arbitrators, we found that these holes and cracks are not naturally formed; they look more like voids left behind after something was instantly sucked out from inside the rock."

"Sucked out?"

"Yes, Talon." Zeral explained, "Imagine a large piece of mud mixed with ice cubes; when you suddenly use some method to make all the ice cubes evaporate instantly, countless holes will be left inside the mud. The geological structure here is just like that. It seems that some substance once spread throughout the deep crust like blood vessels, and then at some moment, they collectively disappeared."

This deduction made Talon knit his brows even deeper.

What kind of thing could be instantly "sucked out" from a planet's crust?

Just then, The Arbitrators army in the process of descending encountered its first accident.

One of The Arbitrators responsible for scouting suddenly pierced its grappling hook made of ultra-hard alloy into an extremely fragile rock layer while climbing over a huge hole.

Accompanied by a silent collapse, that rock wall, along with that Arbitrator, detached from the main rock mass and fell toward the deep blue mist sea below.

"Lost signal from Probe 547!"

"It is falling... speed is increasing..."

"Entering the energy mist sea... signal is decaying rapidly... its material structure is being decomposed... signal lost!"

At the very last moment before its signal was cut off, it transmitted the final image captured by its single-eye detector.

It was a blurry picture full of static noise and eerie light and shadows.

At the very center of the image, deep within that deep blue energy mist sea, it seemed... there were countless huge, pure blue light-emitting crystals flickering like stars.

"That is the morse crystal!" Zeral exclaimed, looking at the frozen frame, "Such huge natural crystals! I have never seen them in my life!"

That fleeting sight shocked everyone.

It also confirmed that their biggest goal for this trip was at the bottom of this abyss.

"Order all units to activate individual energy shields." Talon immediately issued a new order, "Continue the descent, target—the bottom of the rift!"

...

After another day of difficult descent, The Arbitrators army finally penetrated that thick layer of energy mist and arrived at the very bottom of this planetary trauma.

When their heavy metal feet stepped on the solid ground, they "saw" a scene that would make any civilization go crazy.

This was a world made of pure crystal.

Beneath their feet was a ground paved with perfect giant hexagonal blue crystals.

All around them was a forest composed of countless blue crystal pillars as huge as skyscrapers.

These crystals had an incredibly high purity; they emitted a soft and pure deep blue light from within, illuminating the bottom of this abyss like a dreamlike divine realm.

The air was filled with high-dimensional energy so dense it was almost about to solidify into substance.

This was the morse crystal vein.

A massive treasure with reserves so staggering that it would be enough for the entire Faleim Civilization to launch an interstellar war over.

"My ancestors..." In the research center on the Falem Homeworld, an elderly material scientist looked at this scene and shouted excitedly: "With these... with these... we can build a stargate network covering the entire galaxy within five thousand years!"

However, in this scene that was almost a miracle, The Arbitrators soon discovered discordant factors.

In the center of this crystal forest, there was a huge circular void as if something had been dug out of thin air.

At the edge of the void, the crystal fractures were as smooth as a mirror.

And directly above the void, which was the core area of the energy mist sea that The Arbitrators army had just passed through, the space presented an extremely unstable, eerie state that was constantly churning like boiling water.

Suddenly.

"We found it."

Zeral, located on the mother planet, suddenly said to Talon's projection in a voice almost like sleep-talking.

"Found what?" Talon asked.

"Found the source of the disaster, found the truth of this planet's death, and also found... the true origin of that planetary trauma."

He brought up a disaster simulation animation that a super AI had built based on all the data over the past few hours.

"Archon, everyone," he said to Archon Price and all the high-level officials on the Falem Homeworld, "We have been wrong all along."

"This huge rift was not caused by some planet-level weapon."

"It is not even the product of an earthquake."

"The truth is far grander, and also far more... natural than we imagined."

The simulation animation began.

In the picture, a vibrant Laika-3 planet from thousands of years ago appeared.

Deep in the crust, a super morse crystal vein that spanned the entire planet and was a hundred times larger than what is seen now lay quietly sleeping.

"The morse crystal, we have always thought it was a perfect medium that is stable and can store and conduct high-dimensional space energy." Zeral explained, "But we overlooked one point—every storage has a limit."

In the animation, the crust of the Laika-3 planet began to undergo slow and normal plate movements.

Huge geological stress, like two invisible giant hands, began to squeeze the super crystal vein buried deep underground.

"Over hundreds of millions of years, this vein has been slowly absorbing background energy from higher-dimensional space, and its interior had long accumulated terrifying energy comparable to a star."

"And when the pressure of crustal movement squeezed a certain fragile node of this vein to an irreversible critical point..."

In the simulation animation, the huge crystal vein suddenly erupted with a silent, unobservable "light."

"It... detonated." Zeral exclaimed.

"It underwent a chain reaction we call a high-dimensional phase transition implosion. In less than one picosecond, the entire vein released all the high-dimensional energy stored within it into a higher dimension in a way we cannot fully understand."

"The release of this energy produced a destructive spatial oscillation that could not be observed by any means, but was real in four-dimensional spacetime."

The perspective of the simulation animation switched to the surface of Laika-3.

The moment that "implosion" occurred, all living creatures on this planet—whether running beasts or intelligent residents in the cities—froze at the same moment.

Their bodies suffered no harm, but their "souls," or rather their "minds," their consciousness as three-dimensional creatures, were instantly erased by that spatial oscillation from a higher dimension.

"At the same time," Zeral continued to explain, "this implosion required a reaction source, a catalyst, and this reaction source was all the free oxygen in the planet's atmosphere and the... brainwaves of all living creatures."

"In that instant, the oxygen of the entire planet and the minds of all living creatures were used as fuel and instantly sucked dry to ignite that high-dimensional fire."

"This is why all living creatures died at the same moment and without any struggle."

"Because before they realized death, their consciousness had already evaporated a step earlier."

This conclusion made everyone who heard it shiver.

This was not a slaughter on a physical level.

This was an erasure on a conceptual level.

The simulation animation continued.

When that super morse crystal vein released all its energy, it itself disappeared from three-dimensional space due to the complete change in material structure.

Thus, deep in the crust, a huge void spanning the entire planet was instantly created.

The crust, having lost support, began to undergo a catastrophic inward collapse under the planet's own gravity.

"So, this so-called Great Rift," Zeral pointed to the huge planetary scar on the screen and made the final summary.

"It was not split open by anything."

"It collapsed on its own."

"This is a super natural disaster caused by excessive morse crystal under geological movement, a cosmic miracle we have never seen before."

"Fortunately, the high-dimensional energy contained in the morse crystal mostly affects the spacetime of other dimensions and has limited impact on four-dimensional spacetime."

"Otherwise, this big explosion would not just be a scar on the planet; at worst, it could have destroyed all matter in this galaxy."

The truth was finally revealed to the world.

The entire command center and research center fell into a shocked silence.

They marveled at the unimaginable power and craftsmanship of the universe.

They also sighed at the tragic fate of the Laika-3 civilization.

They lived on a super volcano that could erupt at any time, yet they knew nothing about it until the moment of destruction arrived.

"Then... then this vein we see now..." Talon finally came back to his senses from the shock, pointing to the scene sent back by The Arbitrators, which was still as vast as a crystal divine realm, "Is this just the residue left... after that big explosion?"

"Yes, Commander." Zeral nodded, a look of regret appearing on his face.

"And this is precisely the most regrettable part of the whole thing."

"According to our model's reverse deduction, the scale of this vein we see now, which is already enough to make us overjoyed, is probably less than... one-tenth of that original super vein that triggered the disaster."