Above The Sky

Chapter 1624 - 305: The Secluded Valley Descends from the Heavens

The Shadedale skyship crossed the northern mountain route of the Seven Cities Alliance, emerging from the planet’s shadow into the morning dawn.

Completely crystalline blue, like a dazzling gem, the Shadedale is one of the few high-speed skyships in Terra that can smoothly ascend to outer space orbit. Its prototype comes from a pre-era civilization’s anti-gravity spacecraft, originally built as an air-space carrier, but due to the small shield scale, it couldn’t withstand the attack from a Fourth Energy Level Sublimation Entity, thus transformed into an official diplomatic skyship of The Empire.

Yisen Gard stood on the deck of this imperial gem, feeling the thin air in mid-air, overlooking the spotted mountains and cities below the skyship with complex thoughts.

He knew his friend Ian’s dream, also aware of his desire to reach Above the Sky... He developed territories, built industry, and constructed a full set of Alchemy Industrial Park, all to create such a skyship... perhaps a stronger skyship.

But ultimately, it’s all the same. This technology, this line of thought, has long existed on this land, merely ignored because it holds no significance.

After all, among the stars, what truly is worth risking everything to explore?

When people are busy fighting, hating, and despising each other on the ground, what does it prove to go to the Sky?

If the goal is merely to display one’s strength, becoming a Fifth Energy Level entity would suffice, wouldn’t it?

In truth, he understood far more than anyone imagined.

Ian had once told him that without the sunlit prison of the heavens, the sky above would be full of shining stars, and each of those luminous stars is actually as grand and scorching as their sun, with each star possessing its starfield and star system, containing countless planets, possibly hosting limitless other life forms.

Ian had once recounted that in the vastness of the universe lay scenes beyond human sight: giant red stars slowly expanding, engulfing all their children; dazzling flames erupting from a waning star’s core, still blinding tens of light-years away; and nebulae, so grand and magnificent from afar, housing potentially terrifying stars with endless pulse signals, distorting all nearby transmissions...

Ian had described these things to him, filled with longing, filled with passion.

As Ian’s friend, Yisen Gard desired to understand him, wanted to be moved by his dreams... Yet, after a silence, he expressed his most genuine views.

"But, Ian, according to your description."

At that time, Yisen Gard said, "Isn’t the universe akin to hell? Cold, serene, perilous, requiring the sturdiest ships and the mightiest forces to traverse to the other side — and that destination is completely unknown, not necessarily rewarding or surprising, quite likely dangerous, requiring constant waiting, with most of the time being terribly dull."

"Nowadays, people work tirelessly just to eat, and even question if they’ll be alive tomorrow... Is this truly something to look forward to?"

"Of course, it’s not worth looking forward to, which is why I’m angry."

So Ian responded with a kind of logic he found hard to comprehend: "That’s why I need to solve this problem. Whether it’s in the sky or on the ground, outside the human heart or within it, I will resolve them all."

"Then, we will head to the distance."

"... Does this have meaning?"

Yisen Gard could never understand this, precisely because he was Ian’s true friend, which is why he asked this question: "Compared to all those grand things you speak of, everything I’ve experienced becomes small and nihilistic. Yet, this smallness and nihilism are what most people live through..."

At that time, he and Ian gazed up at the sky with few stars, murmuring softly: "The vastness of the universe and the smallness before my eyes, Ian, I feel emptiness and void.

"It seems as if I died here right now, it would have no meaning. No, even if the entire Terra were destroyed, compared to the vast universe you’re talking about, what meaning would it hold?"

"Indeed, it holds no meaning, compared to the universe, humans and civilization are essentially trash, existing merely by accident, surviving by a stroke of luck."

And Ian calmly said, "But even mosquitoes and cockroaches come out occasionally to disgust people, don’t they? So what if we are trash and accidental, if small things exist long enough by chance, they become so-called miracles."

"One day, even the universe will be amazed by such miracles."

"Yisen... remember. We do not act for a result."

"We merely move in the direction we believe is ’right’ in our hearts."

The right direction.

Yisen Gard is now pondering these five words.

What is right in his heart?

He is the son of nobles, the imperial bloodline; Yisen Gard is an experimental subject surviving from the time of Inega II, with the power of the Black Sun inside him, carrying the bloodline of the Thousand-Star Beast and the Sunbird.

His existence itself is inherently more significant than many others.

Yet, this significance, just as Ian said, compared to the entire universe, compared to the whole of Terra, is just a fortunate existence because other powers didn’t pay it much attention.