Chapter 96

The final note sank into the trembling air, immediately swallowed by a vast haze.

Everything before their eyes vanished, like burning paper, disappearing bit by bit from the edges.

His body fell heavily, crashing to the ground with a “bang,” his organs nearly churned to pieces. Horne groaned involuntarily from the pain.

Immediately after came another thud of landing. Horne abruptly opened his eyes and endured the pain to climb up from the ground.

Hels lay beside him, coughing twice before slowly half-kneeling and standing up.

Horne rushed over to him at once: “Hels!” His voice filled with anxiety and tension.

Hels shook his head, his voice somewhat hoarse: “I’m fine.”

‘How could you be fine? You’re still running a fever.’ Horne didn’t voice it. He only looked at Hels urgently, confirming the other had no additional injuries.

He rarely wore his anxiety and concern on his face. Hels smiled faintly, his voice low: “Colonel, so concerned about me?”

Horne’s expression instantly reverted.

“You can just say you’re concerned about me. I’d be happy to hear it.” Hels added with a beaming smile, as if utterly unconcerned about their current predicament.

Horne pressed his lips together and directly turned his head away, unwilling to look at him. But with that turn, he withdrew his thoughts and froze in place.

This wasn’t the Plaza District. After that piercing beam of white light just now, he had seen nothing, felt nothing. Upon opening his eyes again, they were here.

What… was this place?

Horne held his breath, not uttering a word.

A sea of white mist above, white mist below. Behind the mist lay a pure gold expanse, somewhat like… mid-air? Looking more closely, it wasn’t mist at all, but clouds.

They seemed to be above the clouds. In the distance, a beam of orange-golden light pierced through layer upon layer of clouds. Toward the sun’s direction, a spiraling wind rose upward, and the clouds there slowly flowed upward as well.

Only upon moving did he realize the ground beneath his feet wasn’t solid earth either, but soft clouds.

Where had they just fallen from? Horne looked up, narrowing his eyes slightly.

Above stretched an endless white and gold, like the moment the rising sun pierced the horizon.

Cloud Palace Star…

The three words suddenly surfaced in Horne’s mind. He was just about to speak when a crying sound reached his ears—Ains’s.

Horne turned his head to scan the surroundings, but in this sky, aside from himself and Hels, he saw no You Wenjie, no Wen Yu, and certainly no Ains.

Horne called out Ains’s name, and the crying stopped, turning to sobs.

“Brother?” Ains responded.

Horne’s muscles tensed instantly. He walked a few steps toward the source of the voice: “Where are you?”

“Brother!” Ains’s voice thickened with sobs.

Something wasn’t right. Horne frowned. His ability to locate by sound was flawless. He followed the voice a few more steps, confirming Ains was right there, but he couldn’t see her.

Hels walked over too, standing beside Horne. After a moment of silence, he said: “What do you call the place you’re in?”

Ains fell quiet.

Then another voice rang out: “Pure Seal Star.”

Wen Yu’s tone was quite calm, but like Ains, Horne couldn’t see her—only hear her voice. She should have been to the left, no more than a meter away.

Only after a moment did Ains cautiously speak: “Manlian Star, Manlian Star.”

Horne glanced at Hels, who shrugged, indicating he didn’t know.

They seemed to have fallen into some kind of illusion. This kind of illusion that devoured all senses—Loch City had only one: the holographic game in the Red Light District. But Hels didn’t recognize this scene, so it shouldn’t be related to the holographic game.

“What kind of place is yours?” Horne turned toward the direction where Wen Yu had just spoken. As he did, he took another step left, trying to touch her position, but grasped at empty air.

Wen Yu paused for two seconds before slowly saying: “Hard to describe.”

Horne surveyed their surroundings; their current location was hard to describe too.

“It’s all liquid.” Wen Yu put it simply. Her position kept shifting, her footsteps rippling the water surface as she explored what she could see. “A shallow sea.”

An ocean, but not deep—barely covering the soles of her shoes. Reef rocks dotted the ocean; she walked over and gently touched one, and it softened like water. Her fingers slowly sank in. Five hundred meters ahead, a rainbow… no, multicolored water flowing upstream.

She looked up at the inverted cascade of colored waterfalls rushing into the clouds. The land was a white ocean, the sky shimmering with colorful waves. She couldn’t tell if she was walking upside down in the sky or if the world was simply like this.

Horne also glanced five hundred meters ahead of them, where the wind swept upward from below like a tornado, but not as fierce.

“The place the waterfall rushes into is called the Thunder Pool.” Wen Yu looked upward. “Pure Seal Star, birthplace of life. A species with translucent, white-blue skin—many places here are white-blue.”

Their minds held rough information about their locations, like text forcibly imprinted. They knew it, yet couldn’t comprehend it.

Ains’s anxious voice came from ahead: “Brother, I can’t see. I can’t see you all.”

“It’s fine, we’re here.” Horne replied reassuringly.

In truth, he had no idea where they were now. Before falling here, Ains had lost consciousness and run toward the Obelisk, then her hand had touched that alien creation.

Which meant they might be inside the Obelisk?

The Obelisk had erupted in strong light—Horne had seen this kind before. A hundred years ago, a burst of strong light one night had led Loch City to build a new base. Han Ya and Wen Yu had gone there, but from the looks of it now, even Wen Yu wasn’t entirely clear on the details.

“What just happened? Why did you suddenly run over?” Horne asked.

Hitting the root of the problem, Ains’s voice noticeably weakened. She paused a long while before saying: “Sorry, I don’t know. I… I suddenly felt like something was calling me. I had to go over, and then… then…”

Felt something calling her? Horne quickly latched onto her wording.

Felt, not heard. Immediately, Horne recalled the red dot on Ains’s forehead before the white light.

The aliens must have done something to her. As long as she approached the Obelisk, it would trigger the mechanism, inevitably drawing them in too. Which meant…

“Oh, so this is where you’ve been waiting.” Hels laughed.

The fire hadn’t disrupted Ais’s plan. Even after they killed the guards, it had kindly sent another guard to open the cell holding Ains for them.

They were bound to rescue Ains, because the Tower’s goal was probably to trap them here.

So their escape route was under the Tower’s control too—people on both sides, people behind, only the vast plaza empty. They had to head straight through the center, inevitably passing the Obelisk, creating the condition for Ains’s touch.

He had felt their escape had been too smooth all along.

Ains’s whimpers continued. Horne softened his voice to comfort her: “It’s not your fault.”

Since they were trapped here, blame was useless. No one said another word about it; they all pondered ways to escape. Trapped inside the Obelisk, their immediate goal was to get out—but—

Horne gazed at the endless golden sky ahead, utterly clueless.

Suddenly, Hels asked: “What about You Wenjie?”

“Here.” You Wenjie answered directly. He’d been here a while, just silent. He quickly described his location: “Hidden Star. I’m in a desert, yellow sands. About five hundred meters ahead, a gigantic hourglass.”

He paused there before continuing: “One end in the sand, the other in the clouds.”

Sand grains flowed; each turn of the hourglass shifted his space between day and night, hot and cold. Just since he’d fallen and listened to their conversation, the massive hourglass had turned twice. The third turn hadn’t come yet—it didn’t seem to move at uniform speed.

Utterly bizarre. Horne glanced back at Hels, who returned a smile.

What they knew so far: Their situation stemmed from the Obelisk. They were in the same place, could hear but not see each other—like different dimensions of the same space, seeing different worlds. Perhaps entirely different planets.

The one common scene: five hundred meters ahead, something connecting heaven and earth—a wind, a waterfall, an hourglass.

A completely alien world scene, a massive illusory trap.

“Any of this in your Tower investigations?” Horne asked You Wenjie.

You Wenjie thought silently for a moment, shook his head, then realized no one could see and spoke: “No. What we got was mostly regional info. Not much on the Obelisk. All we know for sure is it’s not from Earth—some kind of wormhole and frequency emitter.”

That was the limit of their knowledge. At this point, Wen Yu asked: “Can we contact Jia Lan?”

The aliens might know more.

But upon checking, they realized the terminals wouldn’t open at all—system access was garbled code.

“There’s some interfering frequency here.” Hels said lightly. He’d checked his terminal upon landing and standing.

Humans had achieved chip-terminal communication via Earth’s pulses over a century ago. As long as Earth kept rotating, ELF standing waves’ low attenuation wouldn’t vanish—unless artificially blocked.

Clearly, this place not only blocked Earth’s natural pulses but had conjured this massive illusion for them.

“If there were a computer…” Ains said softly, then stopped. She could try simulating pulses to restore signal, but no computer.

Her mood seemed somewhat steadier. Horne asked her: “Ains, what’s your place like?”

Ains stared at the jungle before her, her voice bewildered.

Before her eyes stretched fields and forests. Stars danced low in the sky, glowing plants everywhere. The starry sky was pure and profound, with auroras. Five hundred meters ahead loomed a massive lotus-like plant, roots in the sky, dangling into the ground—blue, purple, pink.

She stood on lotus leaves, a path of leaves laid out for her to advance.

No clues, no exit. The surroundings resembled an infinitely repeating mirror, but each saw something different.

If Ais’s goal was to trap them here, it was indeed a fine scheme.

“Are you scared?” Horne asked.

Ains wandered casually on the lotus leaves, gazing at rainbow flowers growing nearby. She touched one lightly with her finger, and its color changed.

“Not particularly.” With that, she plucked the pretty little flower. No one saw as she crushed it and tossed it away.

“Do you think the scene each person got thrown into matches their personality?” Hels said. Though meant for all, from his mouth, “you all” became “you.”

Horne looked at him, his gaze as if saying: You think the two of us are alike?

Hels shrugged.

“I’d rather know how they created this illusion.” You Wenjie said. Endless yellow sands before him grew irritating after staring too long. No goal in sight, he focused on the heaven-spanning hourglass. “Otherwise, head forward?”

Every scene shared that one point, five hundred meters ahead.

With no other ideas, Hels agreed: “Yeah, let’s check it out.”

Though unable to touch, they could hear voices. They would advance toward the same place from different spaces.

“Where’s Hels?” Wen Yu asked.

“With me.” Horne answered directly.

Hels chuckled.

Of the five, only Horne and Hels shared a space dimension; the others were scattered. The reason unclear, but it eased Horne’s mind somewhat. He stepped beside Hels and asked softly: “You sure you’re okay?”

“Still good.” Uncharacteristically, Hels didn’t tease, answering seriously. “Low fever, a bit dizzy, that’s all.”

Horne nodded lightly and took a step forward when Hels’s voice sounded extremely close: “If you’re worried, you can hold my hand.”

Before Horne could speak, he added in a low voice: “Like in the cell.”