Xyrin Empire-Chapter 689: Visitor from the Otherworld

In the spacious and bright special care ward of the medical center, Yakumo Lan, whose body had already mostly recovered, was undergoing rehabilitation training. Her body had suffered serious impact and compression, and she had also sustained severe spirit damage from traveling through space. While the former had been completely healed by the medical cabin, the latter had improved a great deal after several days of coma. Now she only had some minor issues with sluggish movement and balance disorder—well, a significant part of the reason for that was the cursed twisted braid tail that was causing trouble.

Because she stubbornly refused to use the steam styling cone kindly offered by Qianqian, Yakumo Lan’s tail remained spiral-shaped.

Due to the pitiful leader’s special daily work schedule, I had just attended an official event organized by the Civilization Community this morning. After returning with Sandora, we went straight to the medical center to check on Lan’s condition. Coincidentally, Yukari Yakumo was there too. After briefly discussing the operational status of the Shadow City Dimension Hub with the three of us, we started to watch a certain nine-tailed fox unsteadily pacing around the room.

It’s quite rare today, seeing Lan properly dressed in her own clothes—I had always thought that Yakumo Lan’s inclination to streak was just a rumor, but it turned out to be true.

"If you had a bunch of tails, you could definitely understand Lan’s feelings,"

Yukari Yakumo leisurely brewed her tea, offering such an explanation to my confusion.

There was a stir in the pocket on my chest, and Dingdang poked its little head out: "Yes, yes, Dingdang also thinks it’s too troublesome to have to make holes in clothes for wearing them!"

Don’t tell me you, little guy, also have a tendency to streak! At least maintain some modicum of a goddess’s dignity in this area!

Both the winged Dingdang and the tailed Yakumo Lan faced the same trouble; they needed to make a hole in their clothes in order to properly fit their unique appendages through. This process was certainly not easy. Big Sister had once made a new dress for Little Thing, and she forgot to make a hole. Little Thing wore it all day before realizing the issue—her Venetian-blind shaped wings made us laugh for a good part of the night.

Now we knew, facing this kind of physiological trouble, Yakumo Lan, whose body was that of a demon beast, had a rather bold solution... If it weren’t for people keeping an eye on her, she would probably prefer to streak all day long.

Really makes one wonder if this fox with the appearance of a girl has any sense of normal shame.

"Speaking of which, her tail is still a big spiral."

"Uh-huh, but the fluffy fur has pretty much grown back."

"It looks like the fur color is nice, huh?"

"Of course, Lan’s tail is one of my favorite parts about her. Lan always crawls into it to sleep during winter."

"Speaking of which, does she shed in winter?"

"Demon beasts don’t shed, but they do lose fur occasionally if they eat something bad. The last time she randomly picked things up to eat outside, and the house ended up covered in fluffy fur."

"Do you guys in Fantasy Country have telephones or something? The Tengu seem to have such technology, right?"

"Ah, they’ve built something similar, but demons don’t use it often."

"Can Lan still press the phone against her ear when she’s making a call?"

"Eh, that’s interesting, I’ll try it next time..."

The Nine-tailed Girl dashed over, almost crashing into the table due to a failed attempt at balance, and then, with a flushed face, she stuttered in protest, "You guys... you guys are bothering me! Lord Zi is too..."

Then, a shameless owner and two shameless leaders just chuckled away.

In real life, how do you describe Lan’s personality? She’s probably the mature, steady, gentle, reliable, and hardworking type. Maybe that’s related to her experience of being constantly "enslaved" by Yukari Yakumo. Facing such an adorable fox, it’s really hard to resist wanting to tease her: although Lan is not a masochist, unfortunately, most sadists don’t care whether there’s a masochist to accompany them.

Speaking of, considering the insider info usually gleaned from Ling Meng and what is heard from Yukari Yakumo, this "Lan" demon fox girl seems to lead a rather burdensome daily life. She has an oppressive master overhead who cares about nothing, sleeps for days without delivering a salary, and, below, Loli Shishens waiting to be raised. She’s constantly rushing about, dealing with various troublesome tasks assigned by her master. It’s a wonder Fantasy Country lacks any labor unions.

Thinking of the other party’s miserable life of hard labor and looking again at the cluster of tails behind her, twisted like the flames from Flame Mountain, I feel this unlucky fox has already fallen into enough misfortune being in our hands. It doesn’t seem right to continue teasing her. Besides, she’s from the proud and lofty Nine-tailed Demon Fox race. She’s only being polite to us now because she’s at the mercy of her master, but if we keep on teasing her, it’s inevitable that she’ll get angry... Really angry.

Somehow, the image of Lan with her tail fur standing straight up like bristles of a broom flashed through my mind.

"Yesterday we analyzed your situation, and it’s highly likely that the landmass you came from belongs to another world," I said, gesturing for the somewhat annoyed Lan to sit down beside the table. I explained to her in simple terms, "Sometimes, a substantial invasion of matter from other worlds can lead to rejection by the host world. This rejection is what you see, the circle of light spreading around the floating island, trying to push it out of this world. You were transported here because you accidentally fell into the light circle after passing out. We’ve pinpointed the location of Fantasy Country by reversing the dimension hub records when you first arrived. We are now conducting a more precise scan. Due to Fantasy Country being isolated from the Outer World by a barrier, ’a world within a world,’ this kind of scanning will require some time to decode."

Lan listened carefully, and even though most of the content might as well have been in an alien language to this fox who never received nine years of compulsory education and knew nothing of relativity, she understood that what I was saying was meant to reassure her. She smiled amiably.

But just then, two urgent electronic beeps interrupted everyone’s conversation, and a holographic image suddenly appeared above the table, featuring Gaia in a pale blue translucent state.

Due to her unique existence, Gaia, who can be omnipresent, has recently started assisting Sivis with matters inside Shadow City. Now, she was like a news anchor, with a giant screen floating behind her, displaying the letters XLTV...

Various facts showed that Sister Gaia, dutiful and full of responsibility, was indeed a commendable and obedient young lady. The former was evidenced in her eagerness to join the work immediately after finally being able to meet with the people of Shadow City, in sharp contrast to the Imperial Leaders who indulged in leisure right from the start. The latter was reflected in how she had been cajoled by the unscrupulous and madcap military group led by Qianqian as Commander, Lin Xue as military, and Lilina as Grand General into becoming the broadcaster for XLTV in just a few days...

Sister Gaia, although I know that obeying the Mistress’ orders is the honorable thing for an Imperial Soldier, didn’t I remind you to think thrice about any suggestion from that fanciful girl, Qianqian? She didn’t launch this ridiculous XLTV to champion the eternal glory of the Empire, but merely to find a place to display the logo she designed!

Of course, Gaia didn’t know what I was grumbling about, but sensing a flash of resentment on her employer’s face, she still made her report a priority: "Your Majesty, the Time-Space Administration’s Intelligence Center reports that their sensors at the border outpost of the Macro World detected an irregular spatial flash in this universe, lasting one second, with high energy readings."

"A spatial flash?" I was a little puzzled, "Maybe it’s a black hole collapse or something. That doesn’t seem like a big deal."

"The second report shows that the outpost detected traces of Ghost Energy radiation frequency following the flash, within the affected star system. The Time-Space Administration has dispatched sentries to investigate, but they’ve reported that there’s a dense cloud mist at the scene causing strong interference, so it might take some time to conclude anything."

That’s when I finally felt a real sense of alarm: A spatial flash? Accompanied by Ghost Energy?

Perhaps I should first explain what a spatial flash is.

The term "Spatial Flash" is a specialized term within the Xyrin Technology System to describe the momentary instability of space, which can be picturesquely explained as follows: A small fragment of space (possibly only a few tens of meters in radius) "disappears" due to certain reasons into an unobservable dimension after an extremely short period and then, due to the corrective action of the world itself, jumps back from that dimension. To the Main Material Plane, it appears as if the target space vanished for a brief moment. Because of this phenomenon and its extremely short duration, Empire scientists vividly refer to this event as a "Spatial Flash."

The causes of a Spatial Flash are varied, including phenomena within the world and external to it. Internal causes are basically cosmic spectacles, such as the instant collapse of supermassive bodies, black hole collisions, and catastrophic changes in celestial bodies. External causes might involve a slight "brushing" of the World Barriers from two universes, resulting in an exchange of a small portion of information between the worlds: meaning that the second kind of flash could lead to transdimensional travel.

The Xyrin Apostle is no stranger to the principles of Spatial Flash, the most common example being the Dimension Hub Platform, where a large number of World Gates employ similar principles. Through the use of wondrous physical laws and devices, they alter the parameters of the World Barriers at certain points, making them form an extremely tiny hole, similar to the merging of cell membranes during cellular fusion. When the World Barriers overlap at certain points, the "information" from the two worlds can freely exchange through this hole. This is the essence of the World Gate—of course, the resulting transmission channel isn’t a "Flash," but rather a prolonged exposure.

But back when the World Gate was first researched, the Imperial Technicians could only maintain the door for a moment. Traveling through the flash of the World Gate at that time was a technical feat to boast about, leaving you no more than one to two seconds to react—when the green light flashed, you had to slam the accelerator within a second.

That era saw the birth of the first Imperial street racing gang...ahem, I digress.

"Damn it, this is like a carnival..." After organizing in my mind the origins of Spatial Flash and the potential implications of a Spatial Flash phenomenon with a Ghost Energy Reaction, I looked skywards, speechless, "Doesn’t anyone want to let us live in peace?"

Just the second day and already so many troublesome matters! While so many people indulge in food, drinks, and fun for twelve days, do I really have to begrudgingly start dealing with official business?

"Well, Ah Jun, think on the bright side," said Sandora, who understood all too well her lover’s languorous attitude. A smile played on her lips: "Trouble has never been in short supply, at least we’ve discovered Ghost Energy and not the Abyss, and a one-time irregular outburst essentially rules out the possibility of the Imperial Ship conducting inter-world transport. Maybe we’ve just discovered a space outpost from the Old Empire Era."

Alright, alright, I can’t escape from what is destined to come. Considering the nearly one-month preparation time before the festival, this holiday isn’t short after all...

"After all, we have responsibilities."

Sandora stuffed her small hand into my pocket. Although she didn’t need to do this to warm up, she was skilled at using such human-girl habits to act charming. "King Ying shall always be vigilant and diligent; sloth is the privilege of servants, which is a widely known saying among the Xyrin Apostles."

"Oh? Interesting, who said it?"

"I did, the year I ascended to the throne."

Me: "..."

Alright, I knew long ago that Sandora had a habit of quoting her own sayings that had become famous to boost her presence.

"Gaia, I hope to receive more information by this afternoon," Sandora turned to the holographic projection on the table, "If necessary, we could employ even higher-level regular forces. We may have encountered a relic from the Old Empire Era."

Gaia nodded, disappearing within the holographic projection, and then the sound of Windows shutting down echoed around us...Qianqian, oh Qianqian, you really dare to install anything in this XLTV!

"I’ve always felt something was off," Sandora held her teacup close, gently blowing on it, "It seems like ever since the last transdimensional wave, incidents of transdimensional travel, spatial imbalance, information breaches, information interference, and so on have been increasing across various worlds. Lilina’s misadventures, the crossings of Yukari Yakumo and Ling Meng, the potential Otherworldly invasion of Fantasy Country, and now this Spatial Flash at the border: if Ghost Energy is involved, it must be related to the Void to some extent, all these events should be connected somehow."

"The Time-Space Administration has already started investigating these occurrences, but since every world is operating normally, if there were to be a problem, it could only be within the Void—and that’s beyond our control."

Sandora had mentioned these oddities before, it wasn’t the first time. Since the onset of the inter-world travel surge, the frequency of accidental connections between worlds had significantly increased. Although it hadn’t reached the point of triggering alarms, this inexplicable rise was still jarring. The only plausible explanation now was that the aftershocks of the travel surge were yet to subside and that undetectable turbulent currents still existed within the Void. These currents stirred up the otherwise peaceful worlds and led to their collision. Of course, the mechanism behind the formation of these currents was a mystery to everyone.

"I’m completely lost."

Yukari Yakumo smiled awkwardly. Sandora and I had suddenly begun discussing these profound issues with serious expressions, which put quite a bit of pressure on Yukari—someone not involved in our discussion. "Since you’ve started talking about serious matters, I’ll take my leave now—Lan, come here."

A rift opened out of nowhere, and Yukari Yakumo was the first to leap in, casually grabbing Yukari Lan, who was grooming her tail, and pulling her in as well.

After the rift disappeared, Sandora and I looked at each other in silence for a long time.

"Girl, when do you think they will remember that this is actually their room?"

"Cough cough, let’s continue drinking tea."

********** Long-awaited Divider **********

That afternoon at Shadow Base Command Center.

After half a day’s wait, the agents who had gone to investigate an outpost on the Border of the Macro World finally sent back their intelligence, pulling Sandora and me away from the festival.

A group of Imperial Agents had discovered not only a mess of spatial signals behind that strong interference source but also something else. That "object," which might have crossed the World Barrier, was brought back by a reconnaissance ship and placed in the Gnaku on Level -1 of the Command Center.

Myself, Sandora, the Pandora Sisters, Taville, and Qianqian—who had excitedly run over upon hearing there was something interesting to see—were now all gathered in the Gnaku, observing the otherworldly guest floating on the anti-gravity platform.

It was an irregular, hard object with a radius of roughly four to five meters, looking as if it were a fragment blasted out of a large boulder. The object was gray-white in color, with a gloss that hovered between metal and plastic, reflecting a chilly glint as it slowly rotated on the anti-gravity platform. Several probes were lying on its surface, analyzing the structure of this thing.

"It appears to be some kind of crystal, but its structure is strange," Taville said, studying her cherished information screen with frenziedly refreshing data that did not interfere with her methodical analysis and report. "Natural crystals generally have a simple structure with very high repetition, but this object’s structure possesses the complexity of an organic matter and irregularly distributed dense material bands, looking as if some kind of synthetic polymer material underwent a change in properties after being exposed to energy irradiation, at least theoretically. Madam! Please refrain from using the disassembly tools in your hands; we have more precise equipment."

Qianqian sheepishly put away the crowbar and hammer she was holding: "Heh heh, I just wanted to knock off a piece to carve a seal."

What on earth are you daydreaming about!

Gently tapping on her information screen, Taville refreshed the results from the probe scan once more: "Hmm, the analysis of the surface composition is complete, though this object has severe property mutations, and reverse engineering will take a short while. For now, we can only confirm it has undergone world traversal. Deep scanning is about to... ah, Your Majesty, look!"

Taville, usually so mature and composed, actually exclaimed in surprise, which made me startle and quickly draw closer.

"Here, slightly off-center... Is this a human?!" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it at Qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation.)

The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel