Abnormal crossing

Chapter 266 Dangerous Areas in the Sea of ​​Stars
"May the flame endure forever, Your Excellency."

The mechanical cat's emotionless synthesized voice once again defied the laws of physics, creating subtle ripples in the vacuum.

Hayel's illusory figure, which was already preparing to leave, froze for a moment upon hearing this voice.

After a few seconds.

Hayel's figure seemed to become clearer again as he looked at the mechanical cat head: "It's been a very, very long time since anyone has called me that, Ring."

"You should know that I have long since lost my authority as an edicter. Now I am nothing more than a lonely soul clinging to life."

"It's nothing but empty authority," the synthesized voice of the mechanical cat-headed creature called Linger remained cold, yet carried a certainty of stating a fact: "Authority may be lost, titles may be tarnished, and even history may be altered and whitewashed, but there are some things that even 'them' cannot erase."

"At least in my logic library, your information encoding will always be bound to the Grand Edict. Even if I am gone one day, it will still exist in the universe in another way."

Hayel's phantom remained silent, the receding black mass churning silently, as if an outward manifestation of his inner turmoil.

He might have wanted to refute it, or he might have felt a long-lost emotion, more complex than the 'pain' he had felt not long ago.

But in the end.

He simply made a waving gesture with the black barrier, and his figure began to fade slowly again until it disappeared without a trace.

The mechanical cat head hovered quietly in place, the light in its single eye flashing rhythmically.

After a long time.

A sigh finally broke through the deepest part of this silent zone.

At this moment.

It is separated from the Silent Zone by countless light-years.

The culprit who caused the two mysterious ancient beings to want to 'move' is completely unaware of what is happening on the other side of the starry sea.

At this moment.

Having just exited the teaching space, Gu Wei was drinking the potion Jin had prepared for him when he strolled over to the spaceship's main control panel: "Captain, where are we now?"

“We’ve only been in the Aria Nebula for a short while,” Milo, who was in the captain’s seat controlling the course, looked up and gestured toward the main control screen: “There is a gravity anomaly 7.9 light-years to the right. The mass distribution in the area will become a mess, which will have a great impact on the ship’s equipment. So I plan to drift in a cool elliptical shape along the tangent and head to Scepter Port from point 8622 for a transfer.”

Upon hearing this, Gu Wei also looked at the screen.

On the main control screen...

A triangular cursor representing the Fluttering Horn is blinking slightly, and the surrounding star field is a soothing pale blue, except for a certain area in the south:

That area was filled with an almost inky black depth, like a drop of thick ink spreading and solidifying on a blue canvas.

A clear white dashed line extends from the triangular cursor, gracefully circling the area in a very flowing elliptical arc, eventually connecting to a stable golden dot in the distance. It's quite obvious.

That deep region is the gravity anomaly zone that Milo was referring to.

"Speaking of which, Captain," Gu Wei suddenly wondered, looking at the screen, "are all those so-called dangerous areas in the Star Sea related to gravity or gravitational pull?"

This is actually a question that Gu Wei has always wanted to figure out.

Since joining the fleet.

Milo and Jin had repeatedly instilled in Gu Wei the concept that "the Star Sea is not safe," and Gu Wei had experienced scenarios such as the Aurora Maze and the Magnetic Reconnection Zone.

In addition, there's the gravity anomaly zone right in front of us.
These so-called danger zones mostly seem to be related to gravitational distortion.

If that's the case.

It makes sense, but it also seems a little bit...unreasonable.
Boring and monotonous?
“Well, how should I put it,” Milo replied without looking up as he skillfully controlled the course, “In terms of quantity, gravitational distortion is indeed the biggest factor. After all, there are celestial bodies everywhere in the universe. This thing has a wide range of effects, and it can’t be hidden. It can twist a spaceship into a pretzel at any time, so it’s definitely the most recognizable.”

“But if you think that there are only these ‘simple and unadorned’ dangers in the universe, then you are being far too naive.”

Gu Wei immediately perked up his gossipy little ears, looking like he was listening attentively.

“For example, there is a phenomenon in the starry sea called spacetime oscillation disorder,” perhaps because he had nothing else to do, Milo patiently explained: “Simply put, space itself is ‘knotted’. You may fly in a straight line, but end up back at the starting point, or be thrown tens of thousands of kilometers away in the next second.”

"Although this is indirectly related to gravity, it is essentially a problem with the spatial structure, which is much more advanced than a simple gravity trap."

Milo then paused, pointed in a certain direction, and continued:

"For example, there is a desolate ruin located more than 60,000 star units to the north. Every once in a while, the ruin will generate a super-high level of strong interaction force restraint phenomenon, covering an area close to that of an advanced galaxy."

"Imagine your spaceship is flying perfectly fine, and suddenly the engines shut down—not because of a malfunction, but because the strong interaction force disappears for a fraction of a second, causing the atomic structure of all matter to instantly loosen. You yourself might even dissolve into a cloud of probability due to fluctuations in physical constants."

"And further out at the edge of the Star Sea, there is a place called the Silent District, where some areas are so exaggerated that even the concept of a place is fragmented."

Gu Wei was immediately taken aback: "Concept? What does that mean?"

He could understand or even imagine the fragmentation of space and time to some extent, since the spatial axis and the time axis are at least within the realm of imagination.

But the concept is broken.
What the hell is this thing?

It sounds strangely like the ramblings of someone mixing spaghetti with No. 42 concrete.
“Let me give you another example, something simple,” Milo thought for a moment and gestured, “Suppose your spaceship flies into an area like this, where the concepts of ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ suddenly become invalid.”

"Your engine is propelling you forward like crazy, but in that area, the direction of 'forward' doesn't exist. As a result, the propulsive energy cannot be effectively directed by the rules of the universe to any vector direction—so it may explode randomly inside your engine, blowing you to pieces; or it may dissipate into thin air, causing the spaceship to lose power completely—and this is just the simplest case of conceptual failure."

"If we go a step further, what becomes invalid is the gender of 'male' and 'female,' or perhaps 'existence' and 'non-existence'?"

(End of this chapter)