Chapter 594: Bubbles (1/2)

Zac frowned when he saw that Leviala's condition seemed to have worsened even further, instead simply nodding in thanks. He went down the corridor that Leviala indicated, maintaining a pace just slow enough so that his Danger Sense would be able to pick up any hints of spatial tears in time.

He would have preferred to transform [Love’s Bond] to its defensive form as well, but it turned out that was impossible because of Leviala. She could barely stand at the moment, let alone keep up with him. He instead had to fashion some sort of chair out of two of his chains, allowing him to carry her to his side. Carrying her on his back would have been a lot more convenient, but he definitely wasn’t about to let a complete stranger have her arms around his neck. That was a good way to get yourself killed or captured.

The path they followed looked much very much the same as the area where they entered, with a state of decay that far exceeded anything Ogras described in his report. Occasional flickering in the scripts on the wall indicated that the area wasn’t completely disconnected from the base, but it apparently wasn’t in any state to repair this place. Or perhaps the Base AI had simply deemed it too costly what with the spatial turbulence.

They continued down the corridor for a few minutes before they reached a huge crack in the wall. It was wide enough for five people to enter together, and it seemed to be heading in the direction of the wastelands. Zac tried to peer inside, but it was completely pitch black apart from some light at the end of the tunnel, making it a possible shortcut.

“Do you think they entered here?”

“I can’t activate my eyes again, I will end up in a coma,” she said as she peered into the darkness. “But it’s doubtful. I don’t think the Lunar Tribe would use these kinds of paths unless absolutely necessary. The corridors are still connected to the base and they follow most of the rules, but anything can happen in a crack like this. I think we should continue down the road.”

Zac nodded and kept walking without hesitation. He felt a vague sense of threat from that dark ingress anyway, and he probably wouldn’t have entered even if he traveled alone. Something dangerous waited inside.

A minute later they reached a crossing, with a proper path heading the same way as the eerie crack from before. Zac looked at his reluctant guide again, but she still shook her head.

“No, not that way either,” Leviala said. “That corridor is the start of a looping spiral, a dead end. Cracks might have created a new path in there, but perhaps not. We would waste almost an hour going this way.”

“A looping spiral?” Zac asked.

“These endless corridors follow certain patterns and we have learned to somewhat intuit some of them after living in them all our lives. I’m almost certain that this will corridor is a dead end, but I can’t actually explain how I know it. It’s a vague sense based on the direction we’re walking, proximity to the forest, previous corridors, and so on.”

“Is it your ocular bloodline?” Zac asked.

“No, everyone born in this place can somewhat do this,” Leviala explained.

Zac guessed that it was a naturally nurtured equivalent to his recently gained sense from [Forester's Constitution] unless she was hiding something. Perhaps she could tell based on the inscriptions on the wall or some other small sign that Zac couldn’t notice. Either way, he felt it was better to go with her instincts unless his own Danger Sense started to rail against them.

The state of the base gradually worsened even further as they proceeded until Zac suddenly froze before he activated [Loamwalker], moving himself and Leviala back where they came from. Not even a half a second passed before an extremely dense storm of spatial tears passed right through the corridor, seemingly both exiting and entering through the Memorysteel walls.

“You see?” Leviala sighed, her face ghastly white. “We were lucky this time, but things will only get worse from here on out. You can’t sense these sudden storms either, so it’s imposs- “

She didn’t get any further before Zac moved again, once more narrowly avoiding a weird fluctuation that appeared from one of the cracks in the roof. It almost felt like the spatial tears from before had summoned something.

“-ible to completely avoid. Wait, how are you doing that?” Leviala asked as she looked down at Zac with confusion.

Zac didn’t immediately answer, but rather kept his eye peeled at the situation ahead. The thing that had appeared clearly was of a spatial nature, but it was something else than a tear. It almost looked like a soap bubble, but it actually reflected a blue sun rather than the surroundings. The bubble was almost two meters across, and much smaller spheres surrounded it like satellites.

It only remained a few seconds before it destabilized with a pop, causing an extremely powerful implosion that made Zac’s hair stand on end. There was no way that he would have survived it if he hadn’t moved away in time.

“What was that?”

“We call them Void Bubbles,” Leviala said with a sigh. “It’s actually a pretty rare sight. We don’t really know what they are. Some believe that they are the result of the dimensional layers temporarily weakening, giving a glimpse of the outside. More than one desperate cultivator has jumped into those bubbles in hopes of escaping this place, but I doubt anyone actually survived.”

Zac nodded in agreement. He could somewhat the power brewing in the center of that bubble, and it was definitely not something any random E-Grade cultivator could survive. However, he suddenly froze with realization. Triv seemed certain that quite a few people had escaped from this base because there were so many high-quality corpses on Earth. Was this the method they used?

“Is it always that blue sun?” Zac asked to make sure.

“No, the scene is always different. Most of them picture outer space though,” Leviala said. “Seeing one depicting land is very rare.”

Zac nodded, feeling that his theory wasn't completely without merit, but something she said piqued his curiosity.

“You guys know what space is?” Zac asked curiously.