Alien Hotel.

Chapter 698 Her Eyes
The Mass Effect's planetary scanning system was undergoing mode adjustment, its massive antenna array pointing towards the "Holy Land" that was surrounded by the Unified Fleet but was still putting up fierce resistance and guarding countless secrets.

Bai Liqing sat on the "psychic amplifier" specially made for her, trying to put aside her somewhat complicated feelings for the time being.

A deep hum came from beneath the throne, and a portion of the crystallized circuitry connected to the platform began to emit a faint glow. A melodious sound echoed from inside the huge circular structure that was suspended above the entire hall, and then it slowly descended, floating above the throne like a solemn halo.

A pair of illusory eyes slowly landed in front of the throne, and Baili Xue's voice drifted into Baili Qing's ears: "I'll be waiting for you in the real dimension..."

"it is good."

Baili Qing said softly, and before she finished speaking, she had already closed her eyes.

The darkness lasted only a brief moment. The next instant, all the radars and antennas of the Mass Effect became extensions of her eyes—a pure white dragon floated in space with consciousness, bathed in the distant starlight and the flashes of thousands of cannon fire at close range.

Bai Liqing's gaze was focused on that lush, blue-green planet.

Vision was distorted, light was fading, and the entire world was silently collapsing in perception. The planet seemed to have turned into a huge void, and its distorted spacetime structure rushed towards us like an abyss.

Before she could even react, Baili Qing felt herself falling into that endless, grotesque abyss.

Her mind was being torn apart by a powerful force, dragged into an endless vortex of memory and perception by the roaring "knowledge." She tried her best to stabilize her consciousness, wanting to see clearly what was behind the chaotic spacetime structure. For a moment, she even felt that her mind had disintegrated, and that she seemed to see the wilderness of souls with the cathedral and the crystal tree standing there—but the next moment, the roaring "voices" in her mind vanished into nothingness.

"sister……"

Someone is calling to me in the darkness.

Baili Qing subconsciously turned her head.

She found herself trapped inside a constantly growing "crystal".

The crystals stretched endlessly, their origin and destination unknown, as if all time and space had been frozen in the apocalypse, transforming into this layer of translucent and colorless ice.

She heard a distant rumble, a dying scream, something collapsing, and someone dying in the distance.

A sense of panic and fear welled up within her, but it wasn't how she felt at that moment—it was an emotion dormant deep in her memory, etched as deeply as her soul, yet as distant as a "life" from another world.

Baili Qing tried to turn her head, wanting to look in the direction from which the roars and howls came, but all she saw were endless, translucent crystals growing infinitely in space as if they were about to engulf the world.

"elder sister……"

Bai Liqing's vision blurred for a moment, then her gaze refocused. Immediately afterwards, she felt several cold fingers trying to touch her palm.

She saw another figure, buried deep within the ever-growing crystal cluster.

It was a young girl, whose features resembled hers. They were less than a meter apart, but were firmly separated by the ever-growing crystal.

Within the crystal cluster, there was a long, indistinct, golden-red streak that stretched from behind the girl deep into the crystal.

It was as if she had crawled all the way from a very far place, and now she couldn't crawl any further.

"elder sister……"

The faint voice repeated in her ear. Baili Qing felt that the fingers on the edge of her palm were getting colder than before. Her body was unable to move. The hard crystals, like death itself, immovably imprisoned her entire body. She could only turn her eyes within a limited range, trying to see the small figure. She saw a strand of gray hair, just like her own, falling on the girl's cheek.

"I'm sorry..." the small figure apologized to her. "They said there wasn't enough capacity, the 'Cocoon' could only carry one person... but I miss you. I won't move forward, I won't take your place, but could I... stay next to you..."

Intense emotions were growing and surging within her. Baili Qing tried her best to open her mouth, to say something, to call out the other person's name, but she felt as if her consciousness was locked in this endless crystal, and she could not shake this cage even with all her strength.

She saw the crystals continue to grow—they gradually took on a faded grayish-white hue, and then continued to multiply and thicken.

The crystal clusters climbed onto the girl's face and continued to spread and accumulate along her cheeks.

"Sister... I'm going to sleep, you go to sleep too..."

The face was submerged by crystal, leaving only the eyes visible. And it seemed the crystal was submerging more than just the face itself—almost instantly, Baili Qing forgot what the face looked like, and in the next instant, she forgot the voice. A heavy, death-like weariness and exhaustion surged over her. Her vision darkened rapidly as the crystals grew, her eyelids felt incredibly heavy, and even keeping her eyes open felt like fighting against the collapse of the entire world. In the end, Baili Qing could see almost nothing. In the rapidly descending darkness, the only thing she remembered was a pair of pale gray, faded eyes, so similar to her own, nestled among the layers of crystal.

All that's left are those eyes.

All I remember are those eyes.

"sister……"

"elder sister……"

"elder sister!!"

Bai Liqing suddenly opened her eyes.

She saw a pair of illusory eyes swaying wildly in front of her.

Those eyes darted back and forth in front of the "throne" as if they were out of control, seemingly anxious to come and help—but she had no body, let alone hands.

As an imagined "hallucination," she is unable to have any "real contact" with her "sister" other than optical phenomena.

However, Baili Qing had already regained consciousness—she had broken free from the binding force that seemed to have spread from the depths of time and space, and felt her mind and control over herself gradually returning to her body.

"I'm fine," she said softly, her voice hoarse and tired without her even realizing it. "How much time has passed?"

“Just a little while… three minutes, maybe two minutes,” Baili Xue said quickly, her voice unusually panicked, “but, but I couldn’t see you just now. You were sitting right here, but I couldn’t see you. Suddenly it got very dark around me, and you, you seemed to be…”

“I may have been looking too far ahead.” Baili Qing interrupted her. She subconsciously looked at Baili Xue’s gray-white eyes for two or three seconds longer, as if she was trying to find something she had just lost in the “dream” from those eyes. But reason and calmness emerged irrationally, suppressing the emotions and wavering in her heart.

Bai Liqing subconsciously reminded herself—this was just a monster born from her childhood loss of control over her abilities, an entity generated from illusions, a nightmare that would take her place if she relaxed even slightly.

This danger has nothing to do with the will of these "eyes" themselves, but rather with the "characteristics" she was born with from the moment she was born.

"W-what's wrong?" The eyes swayed in mid-air, and the voice sounded somewhat uneasy.

"No, it's nothing." Baili Qing waved her hand, forcing herself to stay alert.

She heard a distant, low rumble, the growl echoing inside the ship as the mass projector charged. Part of her senses remained connected to the ship's antenna array, and the iron and fire that streaked through space and crashed onto the planet's surface were reflected deep within her consciousness.

The battle is not over yet; some people are still waiting for her "observation results."

"This planet..."

Baili Qing turned around, her "gaze" passing over the thick walls of the "observation room" and the layers of corridors and armor outside, focusing on the home planet of the Hermit Order.

"This planet is empty."

……

"What?! Empty?!" Eileen stood on Yu Sheng's shoulders, completely stunned—although she didn't understand the technical concepts, the phrase "the planet is empty" was enough to send a storm through her not-so-bright little brain. "You mean, those cultists hollowed out the entire planet, and the 'Second Gate to Eden' is this planet itself?!"

"What kind of technological prowess is this..." Even Yu Sheng couldn't hold back for a moment, then he immediately realized something was wrong. "Wait, something's not right. Luo's research on the Zolda Black Stone has only been going on for a few years. Even if the Hermitage started building the Gate of Eden simultaneously with Luo's research, could they have hollowed out an entire planet in just a few years...? And if such a massive project was completed recently, how come the surface of this planet isn't showing any signs of wear and tear..."

“So it’s more likely that this planet was gradually hollowed out over the past few hundred years,” Baili Qing said solemnly. “It has a lush ‘outer shell,’ but only this outer shell is ‘natural.’ Inside the shell is a complex and extremely strong supporting layer—and further inside is the Gate of Eden. I think those cultists hollowed out the planet first, and then, after the Gate of Eden project began, they conveniently hid the second gate in the original location at the planet’s core…”

Bai Liqing herself was still in the "observation room" at this time, communicating with the bridge through the spaceship's communication system. Her figure was floating in the holographic projection above the communication station, but for some reason, the background around her seemed to be deliberately blurred, and only her upper body could be seen clearly. Yu Sheng thought this might be because some facilities on the spaceship were "technical secrets", so he didn't think much of it.

“Anyway, no matter how the process unfolds, the conclusion is the same,” Hong said thoughtfully, her brows slightly furrowed. “'The second Gate of Eden is this planet itself'... Things aren’t looking good.”

(End of this chapter)