Chapter 234
After actually engaging in the task of closing the wormhole, Ye Bai could clearly sense that it was structurally unstable. Perhaps its "front" was different from the wormholes she had known in the solar system.
After all, the latter could accommodate a large number of ships passing through steadily, akin to a stable tunnel, while the former felt more like a precarious natural fissure, on the verge of collapse at any moment.
Ye Bai felt that the tasks she had completed before were somewhat akin to filling in that fissure.
But what was the purpose of doing so? The Starry Church didn’t seem like a charitable organization, and there were no living beings in this desolate deep space, making the notion of "environmental protection" hard to grasp.
Could it be related to the connection point of the wormhole?
Ye Bai raised her gaze to the empty expanse of space. The wormhole had been filled, but the residual effects on the surrounding space lingered.
She extended her mental energy, searching for a faint ripple in the fabric of space, and then, using the method she had previously employed to manipulate gravitational waves to close the wormhole, she applied her influence to that weak point.
The difference was that while her earlier task was to smooth out the fluctuations, Ye Bai was now going against the grain.
After a while, she halted her actions.
This attempt was extremely inefficient; Ye Bai had expended a third of her mental energy, yet the impact she could achieve was less than one percent of what she had done at the wormhole.
"Forget it."
Shaking her head, Ye Bai set aside her curiosity-driven attempt and prepared to return.
Perhaps due to the Starry Church's wealth or the unique location of this place, she couldn’t use the wormhole in the exchange area. Instead, after completing her task, Ye Bai received a free task transfer back to her original location.
Even though there were no other people around, she cautiously set the destination of the wormhole near the asteroid belt, a considerable distance from the black hole's lair.
Having never personally utilized spatial technology before, she was still unfamiliar with it. However, upon activating the wormhole, Ye Bai gained a more detailed understanding of the experience.
Unlike the overwhelming sensation of a large wormhole, the micro wormhole felt like a bullet that could temporarily pierce through space. Thus, the time it appeared was extremely brief, and the user felt as if they were chasing the trajectory of the bullet, passing through the fleeting cavity it created.
Though she didn’t understand where the force that fired this "bullet" came from, watching this scene sparked an idea in Ye Bai's mind.
As the space folded with the opening of the temporary wormhole, the weak point she had previously been unable to influence became even more pronounced.
Seizing this opportunity, Ye Bai mobilized her mental energy and attempted once more.
"Clang..."
This time, after pouring a large amount of mental energy in reverse, Ye Bai felt she had finally broken through a certain fissure, and her mental entity even experienced a crisp sound, almost like an illusion.
Ye Bai sensed her mental energy breaking through this space, reaching out toward an unknown realm.
"......"
However, on the other side was a profound silence.
Ye Bai had used her insight at lightning speed but received no information. If it weren’t for the unmistakable feedback she had received earlier, she might have thought everything was just a figment of her imagination.
In the next moment, the structure of the wormhole completed itself, materializing before Ye Bai.
The residual force from the bullet's final impact washed over the weak point she had just breached, and she quickly retracted her probing mental energy before that gap was covered.
Perhaps on the other side lay another similarly silent expanse of space, or maybe something from the dark universe...
"Better not be too curious."
Ye Bai murmured, shaking her head, and stepped cautiously into the wormhole.
There was no way to use the exchange area wormhole here; missing this one would make it troublesome to return.
The familiar sensation of traversing enveloped her, and at that moment, Ye Bai had already set aside her previous thoughts, focusing instead on matters related to the creation of the ghost magnet (youmo).
Suddenly, the roots of her hair, hidden beneath an irregular mimicry, stood on end.
"......"
A stream of something—difficult to describe, resembling both mental energy and information—suddenly descended upon her, pouring down from the crown of her head.
"Pouring" wasn’t quite the right word; that was just the initial sensation.
Immediately after, as Ye Bai was traversing, she felt herself lose her physical form, leaving only her conscious mental entity to collide head-on with the surging tide of information.
Whispers, knowledge, dynamic images... countless pieces of information surged toward Ye Bai.
She was swept up in a powerful wave, instinctively trying to remember something, to hold onto something, but everything came too fast and too abundantly. Even attempting to capture this act left her thoughts in a state of numb stagnation.
As the information could not be received, it ultimately penetrated through Ye Bai's mental entity and, just as suddenly as it had appeared, vanished without a trace.
It felt like an eternity had passed, yet upon careful reflection, it seemed to have lasted less than three seconds.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz—"
When Ye Bai regained her self-awareness, she was clutching her head, floating in the empty void of space. Not far ahead, there was a familiar asteroid belt.
What just happened...?
Ye Bai sifted through her memories, and with another buzz in her brain, she vaguely recalled the information she had exerted all her effort to understand and remember.
"Don't be discovered."
"Be wary... of the Starry Church."
Ye Bai murmured these two pieces of information she had grasped from the torrent.
Aside from that, all that remained in her memory was a small flash of light.
Ye Bai couldn’t even articulate what that flash was, but as the only image that had survived, it was evidently significant and inexplicably felt familiar.
Yet no matter how hard she tried to recall, she couldn’t find any clues.
Her body instinctively absorbed cosmic energy to restore her mental energy, and after a while, Ye Bai finally lowered her hands from her head.
Upon seeing her surroundings, her expression changed once more.
This place was several hundred kilometers off from the location she had previously set for the transfer. While a few hundred kilometers might be considered "short" on a cosmic scale, it was impossible for her to have drifted that far while lost in thought.
It was the positioning of the micro wormhole that had deviated.
Could it have been caused by the sudden influx of information? Aside from this explanation, Ye Bai couldn’t find any other reason.
Moreover, it was evident that the information torrent that had appeared during her transit was also a result of the spontaneous attempt she had made just moments before.
But Ye Bai never expected that a mere curiosity-driven attempt would trigger such an incident while traversing the wormhole.
—Even if there was something on the "other side" of the wormhole, why was there a delay in the reaction?
Ye Bai instinctively scoffed in her mind, and a flood of questions followed...
What was this sudden influx of information? Who did it come from? Was it benevolent or malevolent?
At the same time, the message conveyed to Ye Bai about "not being discovered"—who was she not supposed to be discovered by? What was it that she needed to keep hidden from others?
...Was it her identity as Bai Ye? Or was it the knowledge she possessed about the strategies of the myriad worlds?
As this thought crossed her mind, Ye Bai furrowed her brow. This was her greatest secret, and perhaps the Star Alliance had already guessed it, while the chaotic star sea remained unaware.
Yet the overwhelming torrent of information conveyed such seemingly "caring" content, leaving Ye Bai utterly perplexed, feeling that it defied logic.
And what about the warning to be wary of the Starry Church? Did it refer to the Starry Church itself? Or perhaps the "deity" that the church worshipped?
The magnitude of that information torrent was so vast that even an atheist like Ye Bai felt it could only be described in terms of a "deity."
Furthermore, the Starry Church's call for mentalists to seal the wormhole—was that meant to restrict the opening of the passage "over there"? But if that were the case, the church's level of concern seemed far too low.
If someone like Ye Bai could attempt it, wouldn’t they also be able to obtain information? Was the Starry Church not afraid of being discovered?
Taking a deep breath, feeling her strength returning, Ye Bai once again tried to sense the surrounding space.
"Sure enough, it’s not working..."
If the previous state was like "the surface of water," now the space felt like a crystalline ice surface.
And after this upheaval, Ye Bai absolutely dared not attempt what she had just done again. Regardless of whether the information torrent was benevolent or malevolent, it warranted her caution.
After organizing her thoughts, Ye Bai's figure flickered as she quickly made her way back to the Ether Laboratory.
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