[My teacher, the venerable Baron Carlisle, is a famous astral scientist, astronomer and master of alchemical engineering. She is the champion of the 52nd 'Mobile World Urban Design Competition' once in a century, and this is the highest achievement in super architectural engineering in the entire 'Three Realms and Nine Heavens' - for this reason, the Queen of the Sky Sword of the Shining Area personally gave her title, and a new mobile world city was named after her.
In addition, she is also an extremely legendary and great "continental explorer" famous in the three worlds. On the vast and endless continent of steel, she discovered eight "stable star realms" and determined the stars. The law of circulation - now, those eight stable star realms have become the new frontier of the Shining Area Alliance of Nations, with hundreds of billions of new immigrants driving a brand new 'mobile world city', where they are chasing the sun. Brilliance.
And all this is the credit of the teacher.]
[As a disciple of Teacher Carlisle, I feel very honored and humble, because even if I spend my whole life, I will never be able to surpass my teacher even a little bit in any field.
But at this time, Teacher Carlisle's best friend and my immediate boss, Royal Archbishop Ms. Mycroft, would comfort me - 'Among a group of people, there is always someone to serve as a foil, so why can't it be you? This is your mission. '-To be honest, I'm not quite sure what Ms. Mycroft meant, but her tone was very sincere, so I just took it as an encouragement to my boss.]
[Teacher Kallis has many disciples, most of whom are involved in the field of 'urban design for the mobile world'. After all, the more advanced the technology of moving world cities is, the faster it will be. This means that after the stars in the area submerge into the Steel Continent, they can travel to the next stable star realm in the shortest time. Naturally, the more likely they are to hit it. Fighting back the attacks of those chaotic monsters wandering in the dark areas between the numerous star realms. It is one of the most important disciplines in the entire shining area and means the future of civilization.
But I am not the teacher's student in this field. I am ashamed to say that I was just an assistant she hired when she was exploring the Continent of Steel. The teacher is willing to accept me as a student and teach me about exploration. I am really lucky, and I have benefited a lot from it. Now I am a well-known bachelor of astronomy and exploration, and I have established a family of my own in the shining area.]
[—But recently, my teacher has encountered a little trouble.
Her best friend, my boss, Royal Archmaester Mycroft Zeloya, mysteriously disappeared during an exploration of the 'Twilight Zone'. Before disappearing, Ms. Mycroft sent the map and diary of her exploration to my elegant, wise, and noble teacher through private psychic communication. Since then, the teacher has always looked worried, and even occasionally covered his head and whispered to himself in a low voice.
"Really? It's so... time flies, it's been so long..."
Once, when I carefully served the teacher coffee with twice the sugar, I heard the teacher talking to himself. Is she talking about the time when she and Ms. Mycroft met? It seems that Ms. Mycroft's disappearance was indeed a very big blow to her.]
[But even so, I never imagined that the teacher who had already become famous would actually embark on a journey of adventure again for this purpose. After she completely dealt with her assets in the Shining Area Alliance of All Nations, this famous academic master Then she purchased an Ark-class continental exploration ship. She threw away the gems on her head and chest, tied up her hair in a ponytail, took off her gorgeous and bloated dress, and put on smart shorts and trousers again. Soon, several Hundreds of professional explorers came here to join her team, preparing to embark on another journey to the 'Twilight Zone' under the leadership of this legendary explorer!]
A middle-aged man's hand stretched out and stroked the words on an old diary under the light.
The man could be heard sighing softly. He stared at the words above, seeming to be lost in memories.
"Teacher..." He whispered to himself, and then showed a bitter smile.
[Three Realms and Nine Heavens]. This is the name of this world. As the name suggests, the so-called three realms are the [Steel Continent·Central Realm] where all living beings live, the [Sword Realm of Heaven] and the Ax Realm of Earth that intersect with the central realm, and the Nine Heavens are nine pieces suspended in steel. On the continent of Steel, there is a super floating continent that is huge enough to cover the sky. Unfortunately, because of the terrifying gravity of the Continent of Steel, no one has ever climbed to the top of the Nine Heavens. Even the gods can only go far away. Wang sighed.
Countless suns rise and fall on the infinitely broad continent. They penetrate the nine layers of heaven and earth. Their dazzling sunshine gives vitality to the billions of ecosystems on this endless continent.
The Continent of Steel is vast. So far, no explorer has ever explored to its end, whether it was the 'Age of Gods' one hundred thousand years ago or the 'Age of Chaos' fifty thousand years ago. And its central area is an extremely vast, bright 'annular belt' shrouded by a huge star group - and this is the so-called 'shining area'.
The shining area is the center of the civilizations of all nations. In this bright ring, there is no need to worry about stars hitting the continent of steel. After the stars break and dissipate, the world will fall into darkness. All civilizations can be destroyed and reborn alternately in the cycle of stars, falling and rising. In it, you can bathe in eternal light, and you don’t have to worry about being attacked by those chaotic monsters living in the darkness.
The 'twilight area' refers to the scattered distribution of stars outside the 'shining area', but there is no guarantee that every place will be illuminated all the time. There, a small number of stars will also fall to the earth due to the extremely huge gravitational force of the Steel Continent and disintegrate into gas. However, even if the Steel Continent will automatically condense the gas again and create stars, it will still be at least a few hundred. It will happen thousands of years later. Unlike the shining area, there are no dozens or hundreds of other stars in the twilight area that can continue to illuminate that area after a star falls to the earth.
Therefore, the colonies built by all nations in this place, extremely huge 'mobile world cities', must bring tens of billions of people with them to fly across the continent. They are escaping the destruction caused by the falling stars one after another. Eternity chases the rising and falling stars one after another, just to bask in their light.
It is precisely because of this that all life forms living on the Continent of Steel, no matter how bizarre their forms are, call themselves "Light Chasers".
Although fully prepared, due to various circumstances, the 'Mobile World City' often fails to travel to other solar areas in time before its energy reserves are exhausted, causing everyone in the entire world city to die from the cold. Or be swallowed up by the chaos in the darkness - after all, a 'stable star realm' with a stable star circulation system is very rare and precious. Each one means a living environment similar to the shining area, which can supply thousands of Billion people live in more than a dozen mobile world cities.
Therefore, the twilight zone is very dangerous. When exploring, explorers will often discover the ruins of cities that were destroyed tens of thousands of years ago, and the chaotic monsters living outside the twilight zone in the "Aphotic Zone", Occasionally, they will lurk in the dusk area, and when the sun sets and the light dissipates, they will attack those mobile cities that want to move.
Legend has it that one hundred thousand years ago, the gods in the Age of Gods could create stars in the twilight area, and build huge floating city clusters around them, or even huge energy arrays that enveloped the entire star. They created A stable and glorious location creates a brilliant civilization. But 50,000 years ago, all the gods lost their divine power inexplicably, and countless floating cities fell. Even the energy cage that was enough to imprison the star was unable to resist the too huge gravity because of the loss of divine power. It collapsed as the star fell. Solution, perished in the land of steel.
This is a dark age that lasted for nearly 20,000 years - the death of countless lives, the destruction of countless civilizations, and the dissipation of infinite light, which made Infinity, living outside the 'twilight zone', the 'lightless' without any brilliance of stars. Chaos monsters swarmed out of the area. These were the biggest natural enemies of civilization and life. They devoured everything without restraint during that period of time. The living beings who had lost the protection of the gods were unable to resist this sudden destruction and could only continue to fight. We retreated from the Twilight Zone to the Shining Zone. Even now, we can still see the horrific remnants of that war in some remote corners of the Twilight Zone. In the ruins, the shrill wind is still howling.
However, at this desperate moment, endless light descended from the [Sword Realm of Heaven] and the Ax Realm of Earth.
It was a holy sword, a divine axe, and thousands of 'weapons' with different shapes. They fell from the two unknown worlds intersecting with the Steel Continent since ancient times, and killed endless chaos. At that time, the light chasers who were unable to fight against the chaos picked up the things that fell from the end of the world. The 'God's Weapon' - the brave sacrifices of countless heroes ended the 'Era of Chaos' and drove all the chaos monsters back to the aphotic zone again.
They believe that these 'god weapons' are transformed from the corpses of gods that have long passed away, and the existence that can barely control the 'Opening Heaven Sword' and 'Demon Slaying God Axe' is the supreme leader of the Shining Area Alliance of All Nations. The two are the 'Queen of the Heavenly Sword' and the 'Devil-Slaying Lord'. Until now, no matter who they are, even the sons of criminals or exiles, as long as they can master a divine weapon, their sins will be automatically erased, and they will directly become a noble of the Alliance of Nations, shouldering the responsibility of guarding the border.
[The Queen of Heavenly Sword personally bid farewell to the teacher. Her Majesty the Queen blessed the teacher's car, the "Reignition", and wished her a smooth return from exploration. At that time, due to the birth of my eldest daughter, I could not follow the teacher to the twilight zone. This has to be said to be a huge regret. The generous teacher Carliss did not blame me as an assistant and student for my dereliction of duty. Instead, he congratulated me on the birth of my daughter and was willing to name her. This is an honor for my wife and I, and a blessing for my daughter.]
["Let's call it 'Sibiya'. I remember, she should be called this name. I have to say, this is really nostalgic. You guys are really destined."]
[Although the teacher's words are a bit strange, the sincere tone and extremely sincere blessing are not false. And my eldest daughter, Siberia Falster, also got her name because of this. The smile she showed while biting her fingers is the greatest happiness in my life.]
[More than ten years have passed, and Teacher Kallis has gained a lot from her exploration. Among the ups and downs of the stars, she has found the ruins of several ancient floating cities from chaotic eras, and also discovered a brand new stable star realm - the teacher is in She is particularly talented in this area. She has a unique sense of smell that can find places suitable for life. To be honest, I'm a little disrespectful. I always think that this has nothing to do with the teacher's academic level. This is a God-given talent!
During this period, my second child was about to be born, a boy. But just when I was thinking about what name to give him, the bad news came.]
[It was a gloomy afternoon. The artificial sky of the City of Knowledge was slowly closing and began to absorb the brilliance of the sun at full power. Many of the bachelors living there also finished their work and returned home to rest. I was reviewing the papers of several graduate students at the time, but unexpectedly received a message from a senior fellow student. It was only then that I was shocked to know that my teacher, who was full of exploratory spirit, had returned to the light deep in the distant dusk area. Embrace - A sudden falling star smashed into the steel earth, and the torrent of blazing flames swallowed up everything within three light months, and my teacher, hundreds of professional explorers, and 2,500 crew members, just like this Dissolved in too bright a light.]
[The teacher died in a glorious exploration, which is sad news for all nations and peoples in the entire shining area. The Queen of Skyward Sword and the Demon-Slaying Lord jointly stated that the passing of Baron Kallis was a loss for all Light Chasers. All colonial people living in the stable star realm discovered by the teacher mourned her death for three minutes. . As a bachelor, this is already the highest honor, but I still can't believe that the elegant and wise scholar, the most famous astral astronomer, could die in such a simple astronomical phenomenon, but the fact is the fact, It is true that the teacher can't come back. I was so sad and crazy at that time that I even regretted not dying with the teacher in that great exploration.
But soon, even more shocking news emerged. Just six months after the teacher left, after all the turmoil was over, I suddenly received an extremely secret psychic communication, and what followed was the teacher's secret will!
It was an advanced small exploration ship, a large amount of wealth, several crammed information crystals, and most importantly, star maps of all the areas that the teacher had explored over the years! There are several specially marked mark points on this star map - and it just so happens that the location of the teacher's death is located in the area marked by one of the mark points! There are even several marker points and path maps located deep in the Aphotic Zone, beyond what is now the twilight zone!
Teacher Carliss gave all these properties to me free of charge, and also left a meaningful 'prophecy'.]
['The day when the fuel is exhausted and the fire is extinguished, the flames are rekindled. ']
—My student, Alpha Falster, the son of the Silver Fairy, is no ordinary ordinary person. You don’t know the meaning of your existence yet, but I do.
Go, go to the end of the Steel Continent, the frontier of the world. You have to open that door, then go to the center of the continent, the core of the Three Realms, and extinguish the existing flames - that is something only you can do.
[A month later, I set sail. I said goodbye to my wife and children, and after leaving them a large fortune, I decided to explore the unknown according to the star map left by my teacher. Although I don’t understand what the teacher is talking about at all, I know that this is indeed something that only I can do—I want to be the greatest explorer in the entire Steel Continent. This is my dream. It was only sealed because of love and responsibility, and now, because of the teacher's will and the reawakened curiosity, selfishly, I decided to set sail again and embark on a journey that only belongs to me.]
[There is no one else, just myself and twenty-five artificial omnic crew members. I could vaguely feel the turbulent undercurrent lurking behind the teacher. I didn’t even dare to tell other close friends about the news—it was nothing strange to declare to the public that I just went crazy suddenly and wanted to go out alone. , explorers are basically such people, they will go out on a whim and then not return for more than ten years.]
[The exploration ship that the teacher left for me was really advanced. It absorbed the light of the sun. I quickly jumped out of the shining area and came to the dusk area. After decades of exploration, I was a little unfamiliar at first. I even misidentified the direction and took tens of thousands of light-years of detours. But soon, I picked up my professional knowledge again and became that great person again. The explorer's right-hand man—but this time, I'm the captain.
However, what is strange is that even though decades have passed, the number of colonies in the twilight area has not increased but decreased. I wandered 700,000 light-years in a familiar area and passed hundreds of colonies, only to find stars. The number is about one-third less than before. This is very abnormal. A few decades is very short compared to the thousands of years of life of stars on the Steel Continent. Even if their final fate is to fall to the earth, they will not survive in such a short period of time. One third of the time is lost.
I continued wandering, and more and more discoveries confirmed my suspicion—the number of stars is rapidly decreasing, both those that can breed life and those that cannot. Originally, the endless stars suspended on the Steel Continent can be used by us as a source of life, only about one in a hundred billion, especially in the dusk area. Even within a range of hundreds of thousands of light-years, only a few Hundreds of stars with just the right height and size that can be used by us. In the age of the gods, the gods can move the floating continent, freely control the distance, and then use the many suns as much as possible. But for the light chasers who are bound by gravity to the surface of the earth, we can only pray.
Maybe it's because I used to live in a shining area with endless stars, so I was very insensitive to the number of stars, but now, in the twilight area where every star is precious, I can see it very clearly. But even these hundreds of stars have been reduced by one-third, and many mobile world cities that I was familiar with are no longer visible, and the people in them have also disappeared without a trace. Exist again. I believe that this is no accident. It must be the same if we leave this colonial area and go to another colonial area millions of light years away.]
[The disappearance of many stars, and the teacher’s death—no, disappearance, there must be something hidden behind it! In order to explore this truth, I began to go deep into the twilight area to look for possible clues - around the colony, all traces have been erased, and the changing trajectories of the stars no longer exist, but I believe that no matter who it is, It is impossible to erase all the traces of these billions of stars. There must be clues deep in the dusk area that they cannot erase.
Soon, following the star map left by the teacher, I followed a safe route deep into the twilight area. There are almost no colonies from all nations here, and even if there are, they are just scattered border cities - and right here, I did find a clue! I saw the movement trajectories of tens of thousands of stars sliding under the nine heavens. The long space-time dents left by their movements were so obvious that I could see the direction in which they were returning in an instant.
And the direction they are returning to is exactly my hometown - the ring of shining area.]
[I have to say, I’m starting to get confused—why? There are endless stars in the shining area, and there is no shortage of light at all. In the past few decades, I have never felt any sign of dimming... In fact, many academics have recently proposed to move the stars in the shining world. Enter the twilight area and open up more colonies. Otherwise, even the habitable area in the shining area will be almost filled with the life that has been multiplying for tens of thousands of years.
Could it be that they are planning to gather the stars in the dusk area and expand the boundaries of the shining area? But this is too laborious and thankless - pulling stars is not a simple matter. Except for the Queen of Heavenly Sword and the Demon-Slaying Lord, there are no more than twenty people in the entire Shining Area who can do this. Even if they join forces, It is also impossible to migrate billions of stars within a few decades! There must be a bigger mystery behind this!]
[With this doubt, I ended this exploration and returned home exhausted - but what greeted me was not the smiling faces of my wife and daughter, or the disgust that blamed me for not returning for a long time... I would rather be disgusted, because What I saw was an empty home and a letter left by the Order of Ashes.
The Order of Ashes is a mysterious order that emerged after the fall of the gods. They control a large number of divine weapons, and claim that they are the remaining embers after the fall of the gods. They serve the Queen of the Sky Sword and the Demon-Slaying Lord as their nominal The leader is actually controlled by the elders of the sect, who are responsible for managing the granting and recycling of all divine weapons.
They and I are basically people from two different worlds. One is a violent political group with real power, and the other is a bachelor in the city of knowledge. But today, I have been ruthlessly threatened by them. In that letter, I was informed in a cold tone. , my wife and daughter are now being held in a secret place. They warned me not to try to explore the changes of stars in the dusk area and to leave the shining area, otherwise their lives will be in danger, and I will definitely die.]
[At the same time, in order to prove their determination, they also sent a small hand bone—that is my son’s hand bone. Presumably, if I don't listen to them, the next delivery may be his head.
In addition to anger, my heart was also full of fear - I woke up from the too grand fantasy and found that I was just an ordinary person. Without the aura shrouded by Teacher Carliss, I was just a relatively unknown explorer, an ordinary person. I am just a bachelor of astral science, let alone compete with the Ashes Order. As long as the other party gives a slight hint to the leader of the City of Knowledge, I will lose all glory and become an inconspicuous dust on the roadside.]
[Thinking about it, the disappearance of Mr. Carlisle is also related to them, right? If there is no connection between the existence of being able to pull stars and the accidental star fall, I will never believe it.
But if you don’t believe it and are unwilling to give in, what can you do? I am a lost dog, and I can only escape in despair. I sit on the exploration ship given by my teacher, walking aimlessly through the dusk area... But can I really let go of the truth? Whether it's the disappearance of the teacher, the shift of the stars, or the whereabouts of my missing wife and daughter... They threaten me with their life and death, but they don't give any information that they are still alive. How can I trust them? Let them go and simply imprison them?]
[But I can only go away, go away, and no longer pay attention to the changes in the stars. I can only go away, to the frontier of the world, to the deepest part of the dusk.]
[With hatred, pain, self-blame, helplessness, and the deepest 'doubt', I came to the lightless zone. I came to a light spot marked on the teacher's star chart.]
A middle-aged man's hand stroked the words on the diary. The ink marks on the last paragraph were very clear, as if it had been written not long ago. Then, the hands closed the log and put it into the backpack on one side.
"Teacher, I have followed your guidance and come here."
On a seemingly 'short' hill, next to an exploration ship with a smooth and solid shell that looked very advanced, a middle-aged man was raising his head and looking at the distant light.
Standing on the Continent of Steel, there is only a "hill" of 17.29 million meters, standing on the top of the undulating land that is the size of two "Mobile World Cities", with silver hair and red eyes, known as The man who was the 'Silver Fairy's Son' looked into the bright distance with tired and deeply sad eyes.
He could see that billions of suns were rising and falling on the vast continent of steel, bringing bright light to everything that was dark - but at the same time, there were clusters of dark chaos moving with them, and they were hidden in everything. The dark areas of the sun lurk, waiting, waiting for the day when the sun falls and all the cities chasing the sun lose their shelter.
Similarly, he can see that in the center of all this, in the nine heavens and earth, the three worlds - in the very center of the nine heavens in the three realms, there is a giant star that can never be seen in the shining area or the dusk area!
It was an extremely huge, extremely heavy, mere existence, like a giant star that swallowed up all existence in this world, was dark and annihilated all light!
The entire continent of steel is just an accretion disk surrounding this black giant star, and the infinite stars are just dots of light mist surrounding this black giant star - and the shining area that all civilizations and all living things rely on for survival, It is a thin, irregular and narrow annular area surrounding it.
—Is it really a star? But how can the stars be so huge! The black giant star attracts everything and rotates everything. It rotates as if it is the axis of the three realms and nine heavens, the infinite world!
The middle-aged man could see that at its edge, the boundary where the Steel Continent came into contact with it, was emitting extremely strong light, and the countless stars in the shining area were rising and falling in this light, releasing endless vitality... But, no matter what Intelligent life, no matter who it is, knows instinctively that the star that illuminates the 'shining area', the 'brilliance' that gave birth to countless sentient beings, has actually died long ago.
It went out long ago.
Everything now, the seemingly magnificent billions of stars, the endless brilliance, are just the remaining embers of the world's most glorious moment.
"The day when all the firepower is exhausted, the time when the flames are rekindled."
Karlis's student, Mycroft's subordinate, Siberia's father, this ordinary man named Alpha Falster, was whispering in confusion.
"Could it be that this black star..."
"That's it, do you want to rekindle it?"
Although it is not stated clearly, I think it should be obvious where this place is...
Please give me a monthly ticket!
(End of chapter)