The brief chaos ended with the Captain successfully reattaching the head onto the neck of the Puppet Lady.Once everything settled down, only Erin remained crouching by the counter, lowering her head in self-closure, clearly still upset over the kick she delivered earlier.
This was a rare situation for her, given that, in Yu Sheng's memory, the number of times this little creature reflected on herself could be counted on one hand. Every time she got into trouble and was hung on the clothesline by Luna, she was always unapologetically brazen…
However, the main focus for everyone now was on the "trajectory" that the Captain had observed years ago.
"There shouldn't be any mistake," the Captain said with a slight frown and a deep voice, "I've been trying to track the clues left by that trajectory for so many years, and I never would have imagined it was right under my nose… where is that ship now? What is its current state?"
Yu Sheng exchanged a glance with Hu Li beside him, gently ruffling her hair, which earned him a warm, sunny smile.
"The wreckage of that ship is still in my backyard, although the main framework is fairly intact, the impact from crashing across worlds burned out all its subsystems, functionally rendering it completely defunct," Yu Sheng said slowly, "Moreover, because it came from another world, the ship's technology and materials are completely different from anything in this world. The Special Service Bureau sent technical experts to study it several times, but in the end, they couldn't make much sense of it, so they just had to leave it there for the moment."
He paused for a moment, then pointed to the fox girl beside him.
"Hu Li was the sole survivor of that accident back then… after the crash, they encountered a Dark Angel known as the Supervisor…"
The Captain listened intently to Yu Sheng's account, and after a while, he nodded slightly.
"I see… what an unfortunate event," he sighed softly, "If only I could have tracked the second half of that trajectory back then…"
After pausing silently for two or three seconds, he continued, "It seems likely that the crash incident back then temporarily tore open a rift on the World Barrier, thereby attracting a Dark Angel wandering near the observable universe. It's truly incredible that this child survived under such conditions and remained untainted…"
"We also find it incredible. After all, by definition, Hu Li qualifies as a standard Dark Angel: an alien visitor operating unprotected in this universe. Yet, she seems unaffected by the environment of this world or other Dark Angels…"
The Captain looked serious: "Perhaps when crossing the World Barrier, some technology from the spaceship played a role, or it might be some individual-based adaptive modification technology… Child, do you know what principle your spaceship operated on?"
As he spoke, he looked expectantly into Hu Li's eyes, only to see her ears sag visibly, while Yu Sheng sighed, "Don't bother asking, she's only got an elementary school diploma, and when she fell down, she hadn't graduated yet. The only thing on the whole ship she can clearly explain to us is how to buckle the seatbelt."
Captain: "…"
"Do you want to study that wreckage? Should I try to get that ship to you?" Yu Sheng saw the Captain's expression and guessed his thoughts, he cautiously asked, "But honestly, that's quite difficult. The thing is huge, it can't go through the Teleportation Gate, nor can it fit into Hu Li's storage space, and under the premise of not understanding the ship's structure and principles, I also dare not rashly cut it…"
"Don't cut! Definitely don't cut," the Captain quickly waved his hand, "Let's not mess with it for now, let me think it over, I'll come up with a plan… It's probably difficult to transport it here. The environment around the engine array is special, and it doesn't allow significant mass entry and information fluctuation. The best solution is probably for me to go over there and have a look in some form."
Yu Sheng nodded with understanding, quickly refocusing on the initial topic, "Let's get back to the second path you mentioned earlier: leaving this desolate seabed—how do we leave? Build an ark to take everyone away? How do you plan to traverse this despair-inducing Sea of Annihilation?"
"Engine, the key is the engine, I've named it the Void Engine," the Captain picked up a teacup in front of him, chewed on a tea leaf, gradually revealing a faint excitement on his face, as if finally encountering someone he could discuss things with, becoming eager, "Do you know what the void is?"
"Void?" Yu Sheng frowned, "That's a term I hear a lot, but I'm guessing the concept you're about to talk about isn't like the ones I've typically come across…"
"It's the thing that contains everything I just showed you," the Captain opened his hands, gesturing in front of Yu Sheng, "Our universe, the worlds of ruins outside the universe, those countless Dark Angels and the scattered remains left after their demise—all these things, the 'place' where they exist.
"There must be such a place, but from a mathematical standpoint, this 'place' should neither exist nor be describable—because the concepts of time and space only function within the observable universe's scope; any conceptual description requires the 'concept' to exist in itself. However, beyond the World Barrier, all concepts are nonexistent…
"This is the void, where nothing exists, order has yet to be born, time and space cease to operate, yet everything is within it, all orderly things are beneath it, within the extreme 'nothingness' of the void lies infinite potentiality, even encompassing all impossibilities. It's the fountainhead of data and information, a zero that contains everything… we are here.
"Have you noticed the Quiet Sea Barrier that envelops this entire area outside? That is a curtain I constructed based on the principle of the World Barrier, passing through that light curtain leads to the void…
"Never be too curious about the outside, don't go out. Without the protection of a mathematically coherent field, any individual directly contacting the void will quickly disintegrate into basic information units, similar to the disintegration process most Dark Angels are undergoing… Of course, under normal circumstances, you also can't get out, I've set up many protective measures.
"And the 'engine' I just mentioned is for navigating this void."
The Captain spoke with excitement, while Yu Sheng's mind was racing to the point of smoking—next to him, Erin and Luna showed no change at all, the two were oblivious, with the former still hanging her head in silence and the latter busy taking photos and videos as mementos.
Freyia didn't react either, she was floating around the ceiling at this moment, most likely her mind wandered off as soon as the Captain began speaking.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me sort this out," Yu Sheng rubbed his forehead, raised his hand, and waved it, "This concept is a bit abstract, but I think I might understand... However, according to you, the void is a domain that contains everything yet cannot be described or defined... um, let's just consider it 'space', though you explicitly said it's not space—how do you navigate in such a place? There's no medium for navigation, not even the concept of distance or position, and even the 'time' needed for departure and arrival doesn't exist, so how do you move?"
"Didn't the ship this kid took 'fly' here back in the day?" the Captain laughed, pointing at Hu Li, and then continued to explain patiently, "Mathematics, a complex, mathematical level way of propulsion. We navigate the void not by any form of 'displacement' but by constantly redefining our own 'void coordinate' through adjustments in our mathematical expression and informational characteristics...
"I pondered this method for a long time, to be honest, those remnants of the Dark Angels drifting among the ruins worlds in the Sea of Annihilation gave me the initial inspiration. Some of them drifted a long way in the void during their disintegration, so they ended up colliding with the world's barrier and even intruding into our Universe.
"I observed an enormous amount of samples... truly an enormous amount of samples."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, at this moment he seemed to finally grasp a tiny concept of this 'creator' leaving the mundane world for a thousand years to work beyond the Cosmic Border.
"So," he cautiously ventured, "the key now is to create the void engine you mentioned?"
The Captain shook his head: "No, no, no, the void engine itself is not an issue—
"I've already created it."
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, then suddenly reacted: "Ah, so you mentioned the engine array just now..."
The Captain stood up with a smile and stamped his foot hard on the ground.
"Yes, you are on top of it—I said from the beginning that this star-shaped structure is the main drive sequence, underneath this land are other enormous structures, combined, they form my engine assembly.
"It's not some experimental model, not a prototype, it's a finished product that passed all verifications half a century ago—in terms of engines, I've already succeeded."
The Little Puppet finally ended her silence. She looked up dazedly, not understanding much throughout, but still appropriately uttered a surprised exclamation: "Wow..."
To be honest, Yu Sheng also wanted to exclaim, but his mind was working fast, and he immediately thought farther than Erin: "Wait, since the engine is already made, does that mean you can now launch the Ark?"
"Yes, I can launch it now, and I don't even need to create some Ark; the main drive sequence itself is a complete small world, the entire Lost Home Fleet can embark with it, we can even take all the Alice Puppets and a large number of additional people," the Captain returned to the counter and sat down again, "but the key issue is, how many engines need to be constructed, how many large ships need to be built to take away all the people in the entire Universe?"
The room fell silent for a moment.
After a brief pause, the Captain continued, "And not just all the people, but all the brilliant creations brought forth by all civilizations, everyone's homeland, everyone's memories...
"They've already lost it once, we picked up and pieced together everyone's home back from the ruins, barely putting it back together like a home. If we only build a bunch of Arks, all the untransportable things still have to be left in this Sea of Annihilation.
"The second problem is even more practical—the Ark's disaster resistance is limited, and I still haven't determined the specific range of this Sea of Annihilation and the conditions of its border areas. If some part of the journey is harsher than here...the situation could be very dangerous."
When a lot of technical terms were not involved, Yu Sheng's mind quickly caught up with the pace. He almost immediately came up with a bold guess: "You're not planning to take the entire Universe..."
"I gave it a name, the World Ark Plan," the Captain crossed his hands under his chin, looking seriously at Yu Sheng, "The power of ships is limited, the Dark Angels and large debris along the route itself pose a significant threat to regular Arks, so my plan is...
"To push the entire Universe through."