Under the personal guidance of several directors, Yu Sheng arrived at the edge of this fractured land. In the depths of that endless chaotic darkness, he saw the winding, glowing rift like solidified lightning.The twisting light floated a few kilometers below the surface, and shadows seemed to drift around it. In the deeper darkness, the view was hard to penetrate, but Yu Sheng felt there was something larger and stranger beneath it, though he wasn't sure if it was an illusion.
He felt as if a vast presence was lurking below, something watching from underneath, something extending an invitation to him.
Yu Sheng's brows furrowed slightly, and his change in expression did not escape Baili Qing's notice.
"What's wrong? Did you notice something?" Baili Qing turned her head, her tone serious.
"I didn't see anything, but I keep feeling there's something deeper," Yu Sheng raised his hand to point below the rift, "What's at the bottom of this? I mean... if this darkness has a bottom."
Baili Qing hesitated, and the shriveled old man standing next to her spoke for her: "It's 'the past.'
Yu Sheng was stunned: "The past? What do you mean?"
"The past of the Boundary Land, those fractured, discarded histories, the polluted old-era information, and the things that have been constantly peeled away from the 'baseplate' during the operation of the Boundary Land for various reasons, and fell into the depths of time," the chairman said unhurriedly, and after he finished speaking, the "malfunction" beside him emitted a peculiar noise from its body and continued in a slightly off-key voice:
"In a sense, the dark abyss below has a bottom, but no one can truly reach it."
After listening to the chairman, Yu Sheng was already bewildered. He stared at the scrawny old man in front of him and finally found the right metaphor: "...building a house on top of a cesspool?!"
Beside him, Kant couldn't help but comment: "Though the words are crude, the logic isn't, but isn't this a bit too crude..."
Before he finished speaking, Baili Xue's voice came from a corner: "It's good that that Puppet isn't here, if she were, she'd say something even cruder."
Yu Sheng looked in the direction of the voice and found Baili Xue hiding at his shoe edge, looking as weird as could be.
"...Indeed, the Boundary Land is built upon a fractured wasteland, and this wasteland may have collapsed more than once," the thin old man's voice remained calm, truly worthy of being the chairman, with at least a bit of mental resilience, "The Colorless Dragon should have told you about the 'era transition' of the Boundary Land—this below, is the collapsing history of the Boundary Land, or to put it another way, you can consider this below as the Boundary Land's own 'Old World.'"
Old World...
Yu Sheng frowned again and couldn't help but peer into the darkness below, mumbling, "Well, you all indeed have personality, while the 'Old World' of the outside world is hidden in the bottom-layer information of the Universe, your historical version is buried at the bottom of an independent... pit. This Boundary Land is truly out of sync with the outside world."
Yu Sheng wanted to say "cesspool" again but hesitated, feeling it was too crude again...
Red beside him unhurriedly spoke: "Most of the time, the fault beneath is calm, occasionally some things crawl out from below—like zombies still active after death, those 'deformed data' seeped from the collapsing history will instinctively erode towards the real world, but under normal circumstances, they can hardly overcome the defenses set by several of us."
"But recently, there's been a change," Baili Qing continued, "besides the appearance of the rift, the number of pollution entities crawling up from the dark abyss has increased. And even the rift isn't the only one you just saw—there's another bigger new rift seen from the other end of this fractured land, which appeared just yesterday."
Yu Sheng listened and kept silent, just pinched his chin, pondering. He recalled what the Knight had described, and after a while, broke the silence: "So, it's really possible that knight climbed up from below... he mentioned seeing a solidified lightning striking the ground while wandering in the wilderness, and now it seems indeed identical to the rift below."
He paused out of curiosity: "Isn't that knight and the Lodaxim High Wall he mentioned really parts of the old Boundary Land? Perhaps that's also one of the histories collapsed in some old version of the Boundary Land... After all, even you aren't sure about the Specific appearance of the Boundary Land before the era transition."
"We're very familiar with those historical shadows crawling up from below," Kant shook his head, "Just say... it doesn't seem like it."
Yu Sheng nodded thoughtfully, and then his gaze suddenly fell on the "malfunction."
"You just said the dark abyss below has a bottom but no one can reach it? Why so?"
"Because no one can cross the zero point of history," a ticking sound of a clock movement came from the chest of the strange-looking robot, "Descending from the fault is not to cross space, but time, and even if the special environment of the fault allows us to perform this kind of 'time deep dive,' the deep diving limit can only reach near the zero point of the new world's birth, but never truly reach that zero point, because at that moment... the time flow used by the entire Universe had not yet begun to run."
It paused, and the large light bulb slowly dimmed: "You can't go to a place that doesn't yet exist in history, just like a fish can't swim into a stone."
Yu Sheng thought about it carefully and felt he understood.
But he quickly had another idea.
Just before he could voice it, Baili Qing seemed to sense something, and this "Colorless Dragon" shot a subtle look: "You want to go down and see?"
"Not going to the very bottom," Yu Sheng scratched his head, perhaps realizing that voicing his thought might be provocative, "I just want to go take a look near that rift... I'll just have a glance and come back."
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard Baili Xue's scream coming from his shoe: "I'm not going down!!"
Then came a rapid-fire rant: "What's wrong with all of you? Everyone wants to go down and see that thing, is it really so interesting just to go down? One after another..."
Yu Sheng was utterly bewildered, finally finding a chance to chime in: "There are others who also want to go down? Who's as reckless as me..."
Before he could finish, he noticed that the onlookers' gazes were focused on someone he never expected.
Baili Qing stood in the center of attention, maintaining a face that seemed carved from stone.
...but Yu Sheng was too familiar with the subtle expressions of this deadpan-faced Dragon Lady.
She was just a toe scrunch away from embarrassment.
"...Given the current situation, I believe it's necessary to conduct a close observation of that rift," Baili Qing suddenly turned her head, expressionlessly looking at the chairman, "even though it carries some risks, the current situation does not allow us to remain conservative."
As long as a reckless act becomes an exploration plan recognized by the chairman, it can't be considered reckless anymore.
The chairman said nothing, but his expression turned very serious. He looked at Baili Qing for a long time, finally nodding gently after a few minutes.
"The drones we sent before lost control shortly after approaching the rift. The current measured safe limit is 20 meters, do not go beyond this position."
Baili Qing solemnly nodded: "Yes, I understand."
After saying that, she turned and walked towards an open area beside them. At this moment, fine white scales began to cover her cheeks and arms. Accompanied by immense pressure and a shimmering light, her body rapidly expanded and transformed in the light—dragon wings unfurling, dragon head lifting, Baili Qing transformed into a pure white giant dragon, then turned her head to look at Yu Sheng.
"I'm ready."
Yu Sheng was still a bit puzzled, suddenly blurting out: "...Why don't you roar?"
Baili Qing's dragon face was rigid (her normal face was also rigid) so no expression could be seen, but her gaze seemed a bit bewildered: "Why should I roar?"
Yu Sheng: "I saw on TV that whether it's a dragon or monster, they always roar after transforming."
Baili Qing: "…Are you coming up or not?"
Yu Sheng: "Oh oh, I'm coming, I'm coming..."
Saying that, he quickly made his way towards the pure white giant dragon before him, which then lowered one of its massive wings, resting it on the ground to act as a ladder for Yu Sheng.
Baili Xue kept chattering along the way: "No, really, we're going there, that thing looks very dangerous..."
Baili Qing glanced at her 'sister': "Then stay here yourself."
"...Even worse, I don't want to be with the old man and them."
"Then stay quiet, don't affect my flight later."
"Okay."
The four directors, including the chairman, stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the scene before them. After a while, Kant suddenly spoke: "...Were the Colorless Dragon and her sister like this before?"
"Of course not, the two of them have been reclusive for years, cautiously tormenting each other for at least a century, you guys know," Red said, eyes closed and a smile on her face, "This is much better now, awkward kids and awkward sisters seem much cuter."
"...Are they alright?" Fault turned, looking at the pure white giant dragon on the edge of the land, stretching its wings and twisting its tail, doing warm-up exercises for takeoff, the light-bulb-headed person flickering, "A bit worried."
"You mean Ah Qing or Yu Sheng?" Red tilted her head, "If you're worried about Ah Qing, her flying skills aren't bad, except for always slipping when landing, there shouldn't be any issues. As for Yu Sheng... although I only interacted with him in the Dark Meteor Domain for a while, my feeling is... he's far more steady and reliable than he appears on the surface, although sometimes his thinking is a bit unusual, he always manages to solve problems in unbelievably creative ways."
Kant chimed in: "Like going to the Earth Core to blow up the cultist's home planet?"
Red: "...Well, the problem on that planet was indeed solved."