novelraw Chapter 442: Void Warship
Chapter 442: Void Warship
Jie Ming arrived at the door of Mentor Clark’s office, which appeared plain and unassuming from the outside but actually contained an interior space that had undergone multiple layers of folding and spatial expansion. He gently knocked.
“Come in.”
A calm voice sounded from within.
Jie Ming pushed the door open and entered.
The scene inside was almost exactly the same as he remembered.
Piles of ancient scrolls coexisted harmoniously with flickering data light screens. The air carried the faint scent of beast-hide parchment mixed with energy ink.
Mentor Clark sat behind the wide desk, still wearing that slightly weary scholar’s appearance, his hairline worryingly receding. The gray robe on his body was so plain it bordered on shabby.
He was intently staring at an extremely complex light screen in front of him, filled with streams of symbols and formulas that Jie Ming could not comprehend at all.
Hearing Jie Ming’s footsteps, he merely raised his eyes slightly and gave a small nod.
“You’re here.” His tone was as casual as if greeting a student he saw every day.
“Mentor, it’s time,” Jie Ming said respectfully, performing a proper wizard salute.
Mentor Clark gave an “mm” in response. His fingers swiftly moved across the light screen several times, apparently completing some verification node, before casually shutting it down.
He stood up, straightened his already wrinkle-free sleeves, and turned his gaze toward Jie Ming.
“Let’s go.”
There was no pre-battle discussion, no visible special preparations, not even the slightest trace of tension.
That calm demeanor made it seem as though they weren’t heading to deal with a living plane that had gone out of control and could threaten multiple high-tier wizards, but merely going to the cafeteria for a meal or heading to the library to look up some materials.
Jie Ming had long since grown accustomed to this. Strangely, the more he saw it, the more settled he felt.
He knew his mentor’s personality well.
Outwardly indifferent and taciturn, yet his actions were always extremely meticulous.
Beneath this seemingly “unprepared” facade, he must have already completed every necessary deduction, prepared all contingency plans, and arranged every trump card.
Mentor Clark would never do anything he wasn’t certain of, much less gamble with the safety of his own student.
“Yes, Mentor.”
Jie Ming asked no further questions. He simply nodded respectfully and followed Mentor Clark’s steps onto the small, permanently installed teleportation array inside the office.
Light flashed. Space shifted.
When their vision cleared again, the two of them were already standing in an unfamiliar environment.
It was a standard metallic chamber. Walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of some kind of matte silver-gray alloy, its surface etched with dense, orderly energy conduction patterns.
The air was slightly cool, carrying the fresh feeling typical of a circulating purification system, along with an extremely faint trace of void radiation that had been isolated.
Out of habit, Jie Ming released a detection spell and instantly perceived the energy flows and structural information around him.
“This pattern of energy circulation… it’s not a fixed base… it’s a mobile vehicle.” A trace of surprise flashed through his eyes as he probed more carefully. “The energy core is located toward the mid-to-rear section, with astonishing power output… the outer hull is a composite of at least seven different defensive materials… extremely high internal spatial folding coefficient… standard shipboard gravity field and ecological maintenance systems…”
He couldn’t help but marvel inwardly.
He had already recognized it—this was a warship capable of long-term navigation through the endless chaotic void!
Moreover, judging from the energy levels and structural complexity he sensed, this was definitely not some standard mass-produced model. It was undoubtedly a high-grade custom job or a specially modified masterpiece.
“Senior Sister Viola… really went all out this time,” Jie Ming thought to himself with quiet amazement.
The value of such a void warship was probably no less than that of a relatively barren small plane.
It seemed her degree of importance toward this operation far exceeded what appeared on the surface.
At that moment, a spherical silver construct silently glided up to the two of them and spoke in a soft, neutral electronic voice:
“Lord Clark, Lord Jie Ming, Lady Viola is waiting for you in the control room. Please follow me.”
The construct led the way forward. The two followed behind it, passing through one metal corridor after another of the same style.
Along the way, they occasionally saw other specialized constructs performing maintenance tasks. The interior of the entire warship was orderly and well-maintained, yet almost no living crew members could be seen. The level of automation was extremely high.
Soon they arrived at the control room located at the forward section of the warship.
The heavy alloy doors slid open to both sides, revealing an even more expansive space.
Directly ahead was a massive curved observation window… or rather, some even more advanced kind of porthole display system.
The sides and rear were filled with tier upon tier of control consoles, light screens, and data stream display panels.
Many of the panels had no one standing in front of them, yet they continued to operate automatically.
Viola stood beside the central main control console.
Compared to five years ago when they met on the Infernal Sulfur plane, the exhaustion on her face was even more pronounced. There were even faint dark circles under her eyes, clearly showing the enormous mental strain she had endured during this period.
Yet her gaze remained sharp, and her posture was still upright.
“Mentor, Junior Brother.” Viola nodded toward the two of them in greeting. Her usual trace of laziness was gone from her tone, replaced with a greater degree of solemnity. “The situation is temporarily stable, but the internal spiritual fluctuation peaks are becoming more and more frequent. Let’s take our positions first.”
But Jie Ming’s attention had already been completely captured by the sight beyond the viewport.
Outside the window was not the starry sky or any familiar sight, but a chaotic swirl impossible to describe with ordinary colors—like every pigment in existence had been poured together and violently stirred.
This was the Chaotic Void.
Here, there was no concept of up, down, left, or right. No stable material existence. Only twisted light and shadow, shattered fragments of matter, and silently surging torrents of void energy.
And not far from this chaos, one spherical region stood out with exceptional clarity.
It displayed a vibrant yet somehow dissonant green, like a piece of jade embedded into a canvas of madness.
This was the external projection of the plane controlled by Wizard Starfall, “Starfall Plane”, and the manifestation of its planar barrier within the Chaotic Void.
But at this moment, that green planar barrier had already been covered by something far more eye-catching, even carrying a touch of ferocity.
Multiple layers of incomprehensibly massive scarlet spell formations, like overlapping chains and nets, tightly enveloped the outside of the green barrier.
These formations were composed of countless extremely intricate runes and energy circuits. They hovered silently in the void, slowly rotating, and emanated an intensely oppressive energy fluctuation.
The scarlet radiance and the green of the planar barrier reflected against each other, creating a bizarre and shocking region within the void.
A planar binding device… and judging from the current state, it had already been activated ahead of time and was now operating in a continuous preparatory suppression mode.
Jie Ming stared at the green plane heavily wrapped in layers of scarlet spell formations beyond the window and slowly drew in a breath.
It seemed that when Senior Sister Viola said “let’s first take a look at the situation,” she had already prepared for the worst possible outcome from the very beginning.