170 - Truth Beyond the Gate
Added 2025-03-07 22:31:25 +0000 UTCStanding over the metallic sphere, Qin Yun could feel the remaining heat radiating upwards, almost scalding his face. Beads of blood falling from his chin burst into steam without ever making contact, yet strangely, Qin Yun could stand much closer than he anticipated.
Even now, the ground was beginning to melt, becoming a viscous metallic soup, but the heat didn’t so much as repel Qin Yun away from the reactor, for what he felt wasn’t too much to bear. He even felt an irresistible urge to grasp this orb snugly into his hand.
It was a perfect size, small enough that he could wrap his fingers around it, yet large enough to contain untold amounts of energy, enough to power this marvel of engineering that was this Alteran war machine for many years—
—yet this place is much older than that, Qin Yun thought as he glanced around the room, then fixed his gaze upon the large gate prominently displayed at his back. No matter how wonderful of an energy receptacle this core was, there's no way it could last that long. As expected, it's siphoning power from somewhere else, and I know just the place.
With a slight glint in his eyes, Qin Yun noticed an indent upon the metallic gate. When pitted against it, the indent was small, almost inconsequential against its majesty, carefully hidden among the many ornaments prominently displayed upon the gate’s sturdy surface.
While Qin Yun recognized some of the designs, there were many more he couldn’t. Yet, there was one thing he knew for sure. None of those cryptic designs were indigenous to this world, much less this single leaf. They were much too exotic.
Upon closer look, many different languages were carefully hidden within, yet none of what was said made much sense. It almost felt to him as if the one who created that door only wanted to convey that these languages existed instead of a particular message.
Still, this made him wonder: who else but him could be familiar with all these dialects, even more so when there were many even he was unfamiliar with? He couldn't help but wonder if travelling between worlds was something much more common than he first assumed.
Well... just because something is improbable doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. After all, I am proof that it happened once. What’s to stop it from happening again?
The mere thought that someone may be in the same predicament that Qin Yun now found himself in couldn't help but bring a smile to his lips. More than once, he had hoped to find someone in the same situation who could alleviate his doubts, and although he had seen many with their own peculiar circumstances, none were truly as strange as his.
Despite the many different things intertwined upon the gigantic door, the small indent jumped at him. He could not avert his gaze, for he recognized, only too soon, what he was required to do. The indent was the same size and shape as the Alteran reactor at his feet. A semi-spherical indent begging for Qin Yun to ram the reactor straight in.
Without much hesitation, Qin Yun bent down, feeling the searing heat even more. Strangely, his instincts didn't feel repulsed by the heat. If anything, he felt a strange attraction, as if picking up this glowing sphere, peacefully resting in a pool of molten metal, was what he was meant to do.
And so he did, but not before offering one last glance towards the fallen automaton peacefully resting, eyes closed. It was slumped against one of the chamber's walls. The battle marks remained on its body, showing no signs of healing. Its boundless vitality had long left it along with its reactor, making it just another pile of worthless metal to those who knew its true worth. The husk of a weapon, for the true treasure was its reactor, which it had given willingly.
Qin Yun still couldn't wrap his mind around it. It was a machine, a slave to its programming, yet Qin Yun felt it behaved strangely human. Its facial expressions, although wolf-like, had given it away, prompting Qin Yun to review in detail what had occurred during his fight, every single detail. Yet, no matter how much he racked his brain, the only conclusion he could come up with was that he had earned the beast's recognition. A most preposterous concept.
A test, was it? But to what end? He turned back toward the door. A lock and a key... Why have the guardian in possession of the key? While not many—even among cultivators—can beat an Alteran Warhound, that just makes it too obvious... Unless it was meant to be!
Qin Yun's expression became firmer, his doubts evaporating. He turned to face the orb and, without hesitation, scooped up the sphere into his hand. Doing so, his fingers brushed against the molten metal, even digging straight into it, yet the heat completely disappeared once he did so. In fact, he didn't even feel the molten liquid on his skin.
A thin film was wrapped around his finger, driving back the heat and the molten metal, the same force field the hound once wielded. This protection wasn’t a conscious effort on Qin Yun’s part; it was most likely something engraved deep within the reactor, exactly for this express purpose.
With the orb firmly in hand and the hound showing no signs of returning to life, Qin Yun carefully approached the heavy door. He remained cautious, his senses on high alert despite everything being as it should be.
He placed the orb into the slot meant for it and waited.
The wait was long, much longer than he anticipated. He even began to believe something was wrong when a full minute passed. He briefly considered retrieving the reactor, for even if there was no secret behind that door, this trip to the depths of the manor's library would still have been worth it.
This reactor was easily worth as much as a small city. Many cultivation clans would be more than happy to even sell their sons and daughters to get their hands on one. That was, if the Heavenly Dao even permitted its existence. Qin Yun already had once such thing safely tucked away within his storage and hadn't been foolish enough to ever retrieve it. He was too afraid of the consequences. He could be so brazen only on this barren land, free of the Heavenly Dao's authority.
Even so, Heavenly Lightning still struck at World’s End. I better not take it for granted...
This was one of the few reasons why Qin Yun hadn't retrieved his many weapons. He couldn't be sure when the Heavenly Dao would bypass the restriction of this barren world, antagonizing Corruption in doing so, only to strike him down.
He may be currently favoured by the world, but he held no doubts that the Heavenly Dao would rid itself of him if he threatened its authority. The Heavens were ruthless, after all. This was a very well-known fact among cultivators. None were brazen enough to challenge it openly. Not even those old fossils at the core of this world.
After what felt like an eternity, wavering multiple times as Qin Yun simply considered walking away, even examining the rest of the large door, but to no avail, something finally changed.
The orb glowed brighter, but instead of the heat radiating from its surface becoming stronger, it became cold. Frozen. What little humidity remained within this barren atmosphere began to condense upon Qin Yun's skin, freezing almost instantly despite his body heat.
The change was so drastic that it created a maelstrom of colliding pressure waves, otherwise known as a storm within the underground chamber, with Qin Yun stuck in the middle. Metal shards were picked up by the wind, sharp and deadly. He could only use his sleeve to protect his eyes while relying on his sturdy body for the rest. Thankfully, it was strong enough to stand against them with minimal injury.
While the world was frigid around him, the massive gate glowed red hot, so much so that Qin Yun even dared to wonder if it would melt. Yet, he knew better. It glowed a blinding white, hot enough that he couldn't even look at it directly, but that was far from enough to affect the foreign material from which this gate was made.
The only thing harder than this within Qin Yun’s possession was his indestructible black crystal sword, and he knew not which of the two would come out victorious were they to clash. Qin Yun’s intuition told him neither, for he believed not even his full-powered strike laced with sword intent could truly break it. Such was the gate preventing him from delving further.
It's not the material itself... Some unknown force is keeping it fixed in time and space, most likely some sort of domain or something related to it. This door is more like... the concept of a gate. It is just there, preventing anyone from getting through. Its existence seems to be more like a fact recognized by the world. To breach it without the key would require a force strong enough to break the world itself or a way to deal with concepts. Such a strange thing. I wonder who made it... and how.
There were many things within this manor that Qin Yun could hardly understand. Sometimes, images would flash in his mind, repressed memories most likely. However, they were fragmented, barely making a single modicum of sense, yet Qin Yun was glad for it. Despite the twists and turns of his current situation, he was happy he had chosen to come here.
Suddenly, the gate began to open. Slow at first, just a single crack at the top as the gate lowered into the floor, just as the previous one did. However, that crack alone created a catastrophe Qin Yun wasn't ready for.
The turbulent winds rushing past him in chaotic motions straightened themselves and were now all headed toward that crack, rushing at breakneck speed as if the other side of the door was the vacuum of space.
These winds almost lifted Qin Yun off the ground. He only had to barely lift his arms, and he could become an airplane, flying freely, until he rammed straight into the crack, widening it substantially. As such, Qin Yun anchored both of his feet into the ground and merely waited—waited for the gate to be fully open.
The sight left him speechless. It wasn't because he was faced with the unexpected. Quite the contrary. The scene before him, as the gate completely disappeared into the ground, was precisely as he believed it to be.
Every hint he had seen within this manor pointed to this, and he would have been a fool not to reach this conclusion. But even now, faced with the truth, he wanted nothing more than to turn away, erase the memory from his very mind and return to his wife, feeling none the wiser, and await the day the world ended in blissful ignorance. Yet, the truth was hard to ignore.
Beyond was a smaller chamber. Its walls were bare. Unlike the larger one, made of metal, they seemed to be purely made of stone—black stone. There was almost nothing within except for a single altar. It wasn't an altar per se—at least, not one used in religious ceremony—but one used to display an object—one that Qin Yun was intimately familiar with.
At the top of the altar, held within what seemed to be a cylindrical force field—whether as protection or as a jail, Qin Yun didn’t know—was Qin Yun’s black storage, revolving on its axis as it always did.
His eyes widened, and his neck snapped to his left, only to see the same black box still at his side, showing no signs of wishing to merge with the one bound within the force field. He briefly considered whether the black box before him was an imitation, a fake. Yet, something deep within his core told him otherwise. This one was the genuine article; both were.
