Chapter 492 - 427: Confronting Fear in Space (2)

Chapter 492: Chapter 427: Confronting Fear in Space (2)

’Just as I thought,’ he mused. The rocket had broken through the atmosphere and entered weightlessness.

He looked out the porthole. The navy-blue sky and the curved horizon had vanished completely, replaced by an expanse of darkness.

It was a pure, bottomless darkness, blacker than any night, because there is no air in space to scatter light.

But the universe was not only darkness; there were also the stars.

They seemed to eternally adorn this boundless black curtain, as if even time itself had frozen in this moment.

This was space.

Guan Tong took a deep breath, for once setting aside his many pressures to simply enjoy this moment of peace and tranquility that was his and his alone.

After completing a series of procedures like booster separation and fairing separation, the Imperial Pioneers had successfully entered the orbit of Celestial Water Star.

Looking out the side porthole, he could see the blue sphere that was Celestial Water Star.

It was veiled by a pale white atmospheric shroud, suspended silently in the curtain of space, shining brilliantly under the light of a star.

Looking at it, Guan Tong felt a surge of emotions. It was hard to describe in words; this combination of visual spectacle and emotional surge perhaps converged into what astronauts often called the "overview effect."

After watching quietly for a moment, Guan Tong knew it was time to "get to work."

North Star and Soloma had spent immense resources to send him into space, and not for him to sightsee and get emotional.

According to the plan, once the rocket entered orbit, he was to head to the temporary cabin specially set up for observing Terra Star and conduct an experiment to explore the unknown.

The reason for the hurry was that there wasn’t much time to begin with.

This particular rule would end in another day. If he wanted to discover anything, this was his last chance.

"Please follow me. I will guide you to the experimental cabin."

The aerospace robot began executing its mission according to its programming as soon as the rocket stabilized in orbit.

Guan Tong took a few steps inside the cabin—no, to be precise, he "floated" a few steps.

This weightless state took time to get used to. While it was quite interesting, time was what he lacked right now.

He opened a storage container and chose to use a special tool prepared for this very situation by the Strategy Research Room.

The next moment, a pair of metal rings appeared on his ankles. Their built-in gravity-canceling effect immediately brought him to the floor.

Guided by the robot, he walked to the experimental cabin.

There was almost nothing inside, only a metal chair welded to the cabin itself. The porthole was firmly covered by an electric curtain. He knew that the moment it opened, he would see Crimson Terra.

Just then, a voice from the ground came through the room’s external communicator.

"Guan Tong, can you hear me?"

It was Zhang Minglu’s voice. A space-based station composed of several relay satellites ensured real-time communication between "heaven and earth," with a delay of only seconds.

"I can hear you," Guan Tong replied.

"Good. We’re in the Soloma Ground Control Center. Your audio and video are being transmitted here in low-latency mode."

Then, another voice spoke up. It was the director of the Soloma Space Agency: "Mr. Guan, the moment the curtain opens, you will see Crimson Terra. We suggest you prepare yourself before you begin."

"I understand."

Guan Tong walked to the metal chair and sat down.

This chair had been specially prepared for his observation, like a meditation cushion for a practitioner.

And observing Crimson Terra with the naked eye directly from space would have a far stronger effect than doing so on Celestial Water Star. This had already been proven in an experiment conducted by Lu Rui Country using a space telescope. The experiment showed that while under attack from a greater force of the Crimson Fear, one could also more quickly locate the Source of Fear hidden within.

Guan Tong stared at the curtain, his mind running through his various preparations.

’In these three days of preparation, the Strategy Research Room infused me with over ten million Psychic Power. After a 5:1 conversion, that became over two million. Adding what I had left over, I now have a reserve of three million Psychic Power.’

Based on Silver Fox’s previous encounter, she had looked at a photo of Crimson Terra for less than five seconds. In those five seconds, Wenren Yizhi’s Black Chess Piece was destroyed, and her Stability Anchor Totem was mostly consumed.

Considering the Crimson Fear takes effect two to three seconds after a human looks at Crimson Terra, this meant the Crimson Fear had truly only been active for two seconds, yet it had consumed a mental shield formed from nearly a thousand points of Psychic Power.

If he roughly calculated a drain of 500 points per second, the three million Psychic Power he currently had in reserve, plus his other tools, could last him a total of about 6000 seconds, which was 100 minutes.

One hour and forty minutes. That was Guan Tong’s absolute maximum exploration time, even if he gave it his all.

Whether or not he could find something crucial, he had to pull out as the time limit approached. This was the consensus Guan Tong had reached with Zhang Minglu and the others.

Guan Tong, however, was only giving himself about an hour.

He couldn’t push the absolute limits; it was too dangerous. He didn’t even know if the corrosion rate of the Crimson Fear would accelerate over time. If it didn’t increase at a constant rate but instead stacked and accelerated, his viable exploration time would be drastically reduced!

After checking his various tools, he felt he was more or less ready. He spoke, "Let’s begin now."

"Don’t forget, if things go wrong, you can decide whether to abort the experiment," Zhang Minglu said. "That’s your right."

Guan Tong said, "I don’t need Dr. Zhang to remind me of that."

"...Alright, let’s begin then. Press the button on the chair’s left armrest, and the electronic curtain will open. During the experiment, unless you actively ask for help, we won’t speak, so as not to disturb you."

Guan Tong pressed the button on the armrest. With a soft BEEP, the electronic curtain covering the porthole slowly rose.

Against the black curtain of space, Crimson Terra, radiating a strange red glow, finally entered Guan Tong’s sight for the first time, just as its rule was about to end.

In an instant, Guan Tong heard numerous shattering sounds.

He knew it was the sound of his various mental protection items—artifacts that were priceless on the market—shattering and being destroyed one after another.

After just over twenty seconds, only one external support item remained.

That was Wenren Yizhi’s Black Chess Piece.

She had destroyed all her other black chess pieces, leaving only this single one, into which she had poured her greatest power. At this moment, it was vibrating frantically in Guan Tong’s pocket, using the power of the "Boundary" to resist the corrosion of the Crimson Fear.

Meanwhile, Guan Tong’s primary consciousness was already immersed in the Crimson Fear.

His eyes were fixed on Crimson Terra, but his consciousness had already entered a strange plane of existence.

This plane was red everywhere, and he himself seemed to be floating like an ethereal form. He tried to "look" down, but he couldn’t see anything but red.

This meant that in this plane, he had no body; he existed purely as a consciousness. The "redness" around him was not something he saw, but something he perceived.

The sensation was indescribably strange. Guan Tong felt deeply uncomfortable and just wanted to find the Source of Fear as quickly as possible.

As he "moved forward," images constantly tried to emerge, but they were all annihilated the instant they appeared.

It was like opening a webpage on a computer; if your hand speed was fast enough, you could close it the instant it opened. The webpage would pop up, but its content wouldn’t have time to load—or perhaps it did load, but you just couldn’t see it.

Guan Tong was facing this exact situation now.

The Crimson Fear was constantly at work, trying to create terrifying scenes. However, they were blocked by Guan Tong’s mental defense items the moment they began to form, unable to fully manifest.

But the sheer number of "webpages" was overwhelming. Red dots constantly appeared only to be annihilated, over and over again. While feeling how bizarre it was, Guan Tong also vaguely noticed that the speed at which these red dots were generating seemed to be increasing.

’Zhang Minglu never mentioned this,’ he thought. ’It seems the few experiments the Human Federation conducted never reached this level. If the experiments ended too quickly, how could they possibly know what would happen after long-term exposure to the Crimson Fear?’

CRACK!

At that moment, Guan Tong felt a violent tremor in his pocket. A chill went down his spine; he knew that Wenren Yizhi’s chess piece must have shattered.

At the same time, his palm began to heat up. This was his own Mental Stability Anchor starting to take effect.

The warmth quickly became a scalding heat, which meant one "anchor point" was about to be consumed almost instantly. Guan Tong immediately used the [Wordless Book] to inject Flowing Psychic Power to keep the anchor point from collapsing.

’I can’t believe my premonition came true. The corrosive power of the Crimson Fear really does get faster and stronger over time...’ Guan Tong thought. ’The original exploration time of 1 hour and 40 minutes will likely shrink dramatically to just a few dozen minutes or even less. I have to speed up!’