The Petrachelys immediately left the collapsing edge of the world and set forth at full speed towards Zom. The little light orbs around the ship had all snuffed out and the radiant galaxy turned into the dark void as it slowly spread across the space. The scene reminded Hao Ren of when the lights were turned off one by one inside a planetarium. He made his way back to the bridge and tried to get the ship to go faster. However, this Petrachelys was ultimately a reproduction, and this was the fastest it could go.
The entire bridge shuddered as the shock from the collapsing space came from all directions. Hao Ren could feel that the outer plates of the ship were being stripped away one by one. He was now really worried that this entire simulated world would just collapse.
Thankfully, as they approached Zom, the signs of collapse reduced and the dark void of space was now a distant black screen. Seems like the ‘world’s collapse was limited to its outer areas and the core of the simulated universe is still stable.
“How many nav-sig did you manage to deploy?” Hao Ren heaved a sigh of relief as he turned towards the MDT. “Are you still in contact with the droids?”
“I still have contact, but it has reverted to that transmission mode again, only simple logs exchange, no nav-sigs.” the MDT shook her head. She was reverting to her ‘human’ form again and the functions that she regained at the edge of the world were now gone. “But I have managed to send out a few of the nav-sigs out earlier, so the exploration droids should have a rough idea of our current position… a few light years out I suppose.”
“Looking for a planet within a few light years huh…” Hao Ren sighed again. “Well, better than trying to scour the universe blindly. Order the droids to fire their scout drones and locate Zom’s exact location.”
The MDT gave a curt ‘Oh’ before looking at the images coming in from the external sensors. “Seems like the universe is resetting again.”
Hao Ren frowned as he looked upon the holographic display and the darkened stars behind the Petrachelys were shining again, as if someone had flipped a switch. The universe was once again awashed by the stars’ radiance and the hull of the Petrachelys glistened in the glow. Beautiful it was, but real it was not.
“What does that even mean? Don’t tell me just because we left the edge the system had regained its stability?” Hao Ren was slightly unnerved. “Seems like the situation at the edge of the world was bug resulting in a rendering error?”
“I’m not good at guessing, but I have a bad feeling about this.” the MDT leapt off the control dais as she pointed towards another holographic display. “Look there, something is weird with Zom.”
Zom was just before them, like a clear crystal orb that appeared just in front of the Petrachelys’ fore. It was a verdant blue and green that was pleasing ot the eyes, and it looked full of life. And that was when Hao Ren realised the ‘weirdness’ that the MDT was talking about.
The planet was similarly covered in ocean when he left Zom earlier, but the earlier version had a sickly shade of grey with the land had a yellowish barren hue to it. It was the degenerated plants caused by the constant warfare and within the last ten or so cycles, the planet was never teeming with life, it was always in a flux of warfare or natural disasters, and such a lively hue to the planet was impossible.
This was a whole different planet now.
“There is a good landing spot on the northern hemisphere. A large unhabited area.” the MDT pointed towards the planet surface as she spoke. She was basing it off the sensors of the ship. “We won’t get detected as long as we are careful.”
Hao Ren started frowing. “The whole geography have changed… where’s Nolan now?”
“Looking for her would be quite the task.” the MDT shook her head. “The entire map have changed. We can’t be sure if she is still at her original position. And we did not put a tracker on her.”
“A tracker?” Hao Ren was reminded of something as the MDT mentioned that. “Oh right, I did give her that staff, that’s an object not from this world and should not be reset. Trace that signal.”
Based on Imperial safety regulations, every inspector’s equipment, weapons especially needs to be engraved with a identification chip. This is not only limited to high powered weapons from the Imperial inventory, and includes the personal arms collected by the inspectors. Hao Ren could so boldly give out the technologically advanced sentry staff to Nolan was because of that. He could track the weapon’s location at any time, and could remotely shut it off in emergencies. So he did not need to worry about the weapon falling into the wrong hands. Abd now this identification chip could help him locate Nolan, and if he was right, the world had reset and Nolan might not be at her original place.
Even if Hao Ren’s various equipments were messed up by this world’s ‘simulation’, even if the Petrachelys was simply a pirated version, thankfully the programme behind his world sticked to ‘realism’ to the word under any circumstances. And navigation technology was clearly within the programme’s understanding, and Nolan’s signal was swiftly located.
Hao Ren piloted the Petrachelys towards the empty plain and successfully landed the ship. After stowing the ship away he realised that this was the outskirts of a small city, and as it was before daybreak, there should not be anyone within the vicinity.
He and the MDT stood on a mound as they looked at the small city. It was all peace and quiet. There were no gunpowder smoke, no refugees, no ruined streets and crumbled houses. The city was in a peaceful slumber.
“… The world really got reset, and the architecture and this atmosphere… it’s really different.” Hao Ren murmured as he looked on. Even if what he saw was nothing but peace, uneasiness started creeping upon him. “Seems like this is a peaceful world this time around?”
“My word, it is really not in a state of world war…” the MDT was surprised. “Didn’t Nolan said that the last ten or so cycles were all bad ends?”
“No idea what happened, but the world seemed to have chosen a good end script I guess.” Hao Ren shook his head. Just as he was to jump off the mound he remembered something. “Have the droids been deployed?”
The MDT nodded. “Yes. And they should be arriving in the designation location soon. They’ll probably take sometime to find our exact location. The nav-sig launched earlier was incomplete afterall.”
Hao Ren thought for a bit before patting the MDT on the shoulder. “Can you access my Dimensional Pocket? Like pulling the Petrachelys out or something?”
“If you give me permission I can operate it for you.. but why?”
“Then I have a mission for you. Return to the real world. Get Vivian and the rest to go the Planes of Dreams from Tannagost, and deploy the Petrachelys to pick me up. I want you to bring my sleeping pod along. Meaning, I want you to bring my real body along.”
“You mean to bring your real body into the Plane of Dreams?” the MDT’s eyes widen. “But your spiritual form is already here. We have never tried this before, wouldn’t it cause any problems?”
“No, because this is a simulated space within the Plane of Dreams. And strictly speaking I’m only connected to this place, and this is not a real spiritual transference.” Hao Ren pointed to his feet. “I have a feeling, something will happen here… no.. something already happened here. So we need to get all the firepower we can get to face it. And if the situation requires, I want to be able to return my body and control the ship. So you need to use the Petrachelys to find where the real Zom is before that.”
The MDT silently looked at Hao Ren for a while before nodding. “Understood. Leave it to me.”
“I’ll leave the real world task to you then.” Hao Ren waved at the MDT. “I’ll handle whatever there’s in this virtual world.”
The next second, the MDT disappeared into thin air.
It had now returned to a sleeping pod in the Southern Suburb and it will bring with it companions, and a spaceship. With the guidance of the exploration droids, it shall find Zom’s real location, but before that…
Hao Ren walked towards the city that was basking in dawn’s light. His tracker shows that Nolan was just in front.
As the sun broke out from the horizon, the skies was painted with a crimson blow. Before stepping into the city, Hao Ren had one last look at the horizon. The radiant dawnbreak signals the start of new day in this world.
And may it be for the best.