Dimensional Hotel
Chapter 333 The Missing "Catalyst

Chapter 333: Chapter 333 The Missing "Catalyst

For the Special Service Bureau, it was certainly surprising that a group of cultists could successfully infiltrate the Boundary Land and cause such a commotion. However, for those cultists who had infiltrated, everything that happened from the moment the Dark Angel Anka Aela ascended into the sky was actually beyond their expectations.

Their highest aim had been merely to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Angel Sect and the battle between the Special Service Bureau and the Dark Angel, hoping to collect a sample of the Angel Catalyst amid the confusion.

Yet, no one foresaw the immensely powerful Dark Angel falling right after taking flight; no one imagined that the Angel Catalyst dropped within the Special Service Bureau’s Controlled Zone would trigger a "puncture" effect, directly crashing into the thick fog of the "Deep Layer" in the Boundary Land — they especially didn’t expect the Mist City, hidden for ten years, to be exposed to the Bureau’s eyes because of this. The powerful Artificial Saintess was dispatched to eliminate the threat, only to be heavily injured twice consecutively and, in the end, even encountered Yu Sheng, with the main battleship being forfeited...

"We initially thought it was truly a gift, really," said the cultist seated in the interrogation room, his head lowered as a shadow of grief appeared on his pale face. "When the sensors detected the Angel Catalyst puncturing through the exotic barrier, everyone was ecstatic, feeling as if the arduous Path of Venerate Saint had finally smiled upon us — we had endured within that oppressive mist for so long, waiting for the day the Dark Angel Anka Aela would awaken. Many had already reached their limits. But what happened afterward, what happened afterward..."

The cultist’s lips moved, ultimately unable to utter a word.

He was one of the operators who had witnessed with his own eyes the "Ghost" controlling the ship battling the Sage on the "bridge" of the Order Pillar. He personally experienced the horrifying process of being engulfed alive by the ship and trapped, witnessed the disgraceful act of the Sage betraying his faith and comrades, nearly losing his life to the vacuum exposure in the Control Hall, and afterward, he was given "special attention" by the powerful spiritual-energy-wielding interrogators of the Bureau. Now, when recalling the day the Angel Catalyst was sent into the ship, all he could think of was regret and despair.

But in this place, no one would sympathize with a cultist — the interrogation continued.

"Where is that Ankaela Crystal, also known as the ’Angel Catalyst,’ now?"

The cultist on the chair shivered slightly, seemingly hesitant.

But the interrogator gave him no time to hesitate; when the figure sitting in the shadows spoke again, the voice carried a powerful and painful spiritual energy: "We have already sent people to search the entire ship and found no traces left by the crystal; you had better consider carefully how to answer this question."

"I, I will tell!" The man, ashen-faced, immediately hunched over, and the nearly boiling pain in his brain caused him to break into a cold sweat, with the veins on his neck appearing as if they were about to burst, swelling and twitching violently. In panic, he pleaded and quickly spoke, "We... we realized something was wrong after the first attack on the Artificial Saintess. To prevent any variables, the Sage ordered a small craft to jump at the edge of the ’fog’ and take the Angel Catalyst away..."

"You sent it away?!" Baili Qing asked over the intercom, with a hint of coldness in her voice, "Where did you send it? To your Dark Nest?"

"The destination was a hidden jump point near the Great Triangle Nebula, but only the Sage has the authority to open the exact coordinates, I don’t have the key. But... but..."

Baili Qing frowned: "But what?"

"But something happened to that small craft... the Angel Catalyst was never delivered to the pick-up personnel."

Baili Qing didn’t speak, and the interrogator in the room immediately asked, "What happened?"

The cultist instinctively moved his neck, a flash of fear passing through his eyes, as if even now recalling the situation made him apprehensive. But after a moment’s hesitation, he spoke frankly.

"The small craft suddenly transmitted a bizarre audio transmission three minutes before jumping. In the audio, all personnel on the craft were screaming and wailing as if being tortured by something dreadful. However, at that time, the ship was still flying well at the exotic boundary. The command group on the Order Pillar was even in normal communication with the people on the craft— the command group asked them about the sudden audio transmission, and the people on the craft seemed very confused..."

Interrogator: "In such an obvious anomaly, did you still let that ship continue the jump mission?"

"No, the Sage urgently called it off, but... it was no use. It’s like the people on the small craft couldn’t hear our sent orders. They continued, laughing and chatting, to initiate the jump engine, and then only a flash appeared on the monitor — they jumped, but no signal of them ’emerging’ was tracked in the reality universe, the ship disappeared, along with the Angel Catalyst on board."

The pale-faced man spoke and couldn’t help but lower his head again, hunching, muttering: "Just like I said, this world is full of flaws, they must have fallen into the ’fault abyss’ of the reality universe, swallowed by the disease of this world..."

Following this was a rambling about "world defects," "impending doom," and "Path of Venerate Saint," etc., the man seemingly deeply entrenched in terror. Additionally, the prolonged interrogation and spiritual energy stimulation amplified this fear, making it impossible for the interrogator to wake him with "technical concerns" several times.

Moments later, the interrogator’s voice came over the speaker in the observation room: "Director, the interrogation subject has temporarily lost the ability to communicate."

Baili Qing showed no expression: "Send him back to the Containment Zone, don’t let him die, continue the interrogation when he wakes up next time."

"Understood."

A layer of pale blue light floated over the wide observation window’s surface, and the transparent window instantly reverted to a solid, silver-white metal wall.

The room fell silent for a while, no one spoke, and everyone was silently digesting the massive amount of information they had just heard, piecing together the scattered clues in their minds.

...Of course, not everyone might be doing so. For example, Erin was sitting at a nearby table, focused on playing cat’s cradle with her black threads—she had completely failed to understand anything from the latter half of the interrogation.

Finally, it was Yu Sheng who broke the silence first. He turned to Baili Qing: "Do you think what this cultist said is all true?"

"The credibility is over eighty percent," Baili Qing said flatly, "I trust the capability of my personally trained interrogation experts. Prisoners might remain silent before them, but once they speak, the likelihood of lying is very small. Moreover, even if there is some deception, it doesn’t matter; we have plenty of ’interrogation subjects’ waiting their turn, nearly a hundred Angel Sect believers, surely a few will be willing to talk, and we can compare their confessions against each other to easily determine authenticity."

Yu Sheng nodded lightly: "Hmm...I also find the credibility quite high. Although many situations he described sounded somewhat absurd, it’s precisely because they are absurd that they seem more genuine—you shouldn’t be able to invent lies with this effect. But on the other hand, what this guy confessed might all be true, yet he certainly left out things deliberately, like...about ’Adar Giant Pit’ and ’Shadowless Skeleton’."

"Exactly, many details are vague, he’s definitely concealing many dangerous characteristics of that ’Shadowless Skeleton’...his intentions are obvious."

At this point, Yu Sheng suddenly grew curious: "Do you know what that ’Adar Giant Pit’ he mentioned is?"

Baili Qing slowly shook her head.

Yu Sheng was a bit surprised: "Is the all-powerful Special Service Bureau unable to find it?"

"The Universe is very large," Baili Qing said with some helplessness, "not to mention such places, which you can guess are deep within the Hidden Star Region controlled by the Angel Sect and might not even be in the real universe."

"Alright, I thought you knew everything," Yu Sheng scratched his head, "Then this part of the clue is essentially broken...unless some cultist can provide the entire star map of the Hidden Star Region where the Angel Sect hides."

"Impossible, the coordinates of any physical celestial body in the universe are a set of real-time changing functions with numerous variables for the Phase Engine, and aside from the rare ’Star Readers’ with unique talent, ordinary people’s brains cannot directly memorize and comprehend the vast data in the ’star map.’ This has to be parsed with the help of specialized navigation computers—and among the Angel Sect believers you’ve captured, there is no such ’Star Reader,’ so even if they were willing to cooperate, they couldn’t tell which ’location’ those jump points leading to their nest are currently."

At this point, she paused and further explained: "For the vast and empty universe, without ’jump coordinates’ that the Phase Engine can directly parse, there remains nothing but boundless void measured in billions of light-years for conventional engines."

The many technical terms Baili Qing suddenly threw out left Yu Sheng a bit puzzled, but he managed to understand her meaning, thanks to his powerful imagination from writing novels (and a good mindset). He then asked, "What about the navigation computer on that spaceship?"

"It’s been cleaned very thoroughly," Baili Qing’s tone inevitably carried a trace of regret as she spoke here, "I had previously sent technical personnel to try and restore your ship’s navigation system, but the chances of success are slim."

"...Alright."

Yu Sheng sighed helplessly.

He wanted to say that his "door" didn’t need those complex navigation, jump, or other technologies, but just as he was about to speak, he remembered that his door also needed "coordinates." Without coordinates, hoping to randomly open doors across the universe to find those Angel Sect believers’ nests had a lower success rate than Erin suddenly having a flash of inspiration one day and helping him digest the two "Captain’s Manuals" at home...