Chapter 484 - 310: Thousand Threads of Sword Aura Forge a Divine Technique, the Mystery of Shattered Star Devours Heihu

But...

"Where are the murals?"

Zhao Heihu whipped his head around, his eyes scanning the surrounding rock walls.

In his memory, in the footage sent back by Chen Meng, these walls should have been covered with magnificent murals of the Titan Giant Forging Map, glowing with a faint light.

Those giants, holding massive hammers, forged mecha beneath a starry sky. Every single line was filled with an ancient, desolate beauty.

But now...

The rock walls before him were smooth as a mirror, with a dark, glassy texture formed from being melted by intense heat and then cooled. Forget murals, there wasn’t even a single Ghost Talisman.

"Mr. Zhao, what are you looking for?" the lead expert asked with a frown.

Zhao Heihu ignored him, rushing toward the center of the hall like a madman.

"The pillars! Where are the pillars covered in runes?"

In his memory, thirty-six enormous metal totem pillars should have been standing here. It was the collapse of those pillars that triggered the disaster that followed.

But now, the center of the hall was completely empty, save for a few Martial Artists from other cities sitting in meditative cultivation.

The floor was as smooth as a single slab of black jade. Where were the bases of the pillars? Where was the shattered debris?

"Impossible... This is impossible..."

Zhao Heihu felt like his brain had turned to mush.

He grabbed the lead expert by the collar, his eyes wide as saucers.

"Where is the Titan Battle Armor?

My twenty-plus units of Titan Battle Armor?

They were right here! Right in this spot!"

Startled, the expert shoved him away.

"Are you insane?! Where are you seeing any Battle Armor wreckage?

We scanned this place when we came in. There’s nothing here but rock and water!"

"Bullshit!"

Zhao Heihu roared. His gaze swept the area and suddenly landed on a young man in the uniform of a Second Level Fortress City standing not far away. He was clearly a Celestial Pride from some major family.

He rushed over, not caring about the man’s status, and asked urgently,

"Young man! Have you been here this whole time?

Did you see any murals?

The kind with giants painted on them?

Or the wreckage of large mecha, over five meters tall?"

The young man stared at him as if he were an idiot and took two steps back in disgust.

"Mister, did your cultivation drive you mad?

This cave has been completely bare from the start. What murals?

And giants? Where are there any giants?"

"Impossible... They were here..."

Zhao Heihu let go, staggering back a couple of steps.

He looked all around.

Everyone was staring at him like he was a lunatic.

Those looks were worse than death itself.

’The people outside! The people outside must know!’

As if grasping at the last straw, Zhao Heihu turned and bolted from the cavern, swimming toward a patrol submarine hovering at the entrance.

It belonged to the guards of Kunlun Holy City.

"I am Zhao Heihu of Jiangbei City!"

He slapped his hand against the communication window and shouted hoarsely, "The day before yesterday! It was the day before yesterday!

My fleet encountered something strange here! Over twenty of my mecha sank right here!

When you took control of this area, did you see any wreckage?

Even a single plate of armor?"

A guard’s cold voice came through the communicator: "No comment.

However, while clearing the surrounding waters, we did not discover any heavy equipment wreckage belonging to Jiangbei City.

It’s clean here."

It’s clean here.

Those three words struck Zhao Heihu’s chest like a sledgehammer.

No bodies.

No wreckage.

No murals.

No pillars.

Nothing.

It was as if... as if Chen Meng and his entire team, along with those twenty expensive Titan Battle Armor units, had never existed at all.

’How could this be?’

Zhao Heihu went limp in the water, his body turning ice-cold.

’Am I really going insane?’

’Was everything I saw before, even the battle itself, just a figment of my imagination?’

’No!’

’Absolutely not!’

’That was dozens of lives! That was a real and substantial loss of resources!’

"The recording! Right! I have the recording!"

Zhao Heihu suddenly realized. He frantically called the lead expert on the comms channel.

"Quick! Contact headquarters! Retrieve the data from the Jingluo’s black box from that day!

Chen Meng’s exploration footage was being transmitted back in real-time! That’s irrefutable proof!"

Although the lead expert thought Zhao Heihu was mad, the disappearance of twenty mecha was a major incident.

He immediately contacted the Jiangbei City data center.

「Twenty minutes later.」

The expert swam over with an ugly expression on his face, holding a tablet terminal.

"Zhao Heihu, are you messing with us?"

The expert shoved the tablet in Zhao Heihu’s face, his tone dropping to absolute zero.

"Headquarters checked. All data logs from that time period are blank."

"Blank?!"

Zhao Heihu snatched the tablet.

The screen displayed the data log for that time period: [Signal Lost / Recording Not Activated].

"Bullshit! I gave the order myself! I saw the indicator light was on with my own eyes!"

Refusing to believe it, Zhao Heihu had them contact the communications officer who was responsible for operating the recorder at the time.

The response he received made him feel as if he’d been plunged into an icy abyss.

The communications officer swore up and down that he had definitely pressed the buttons for both recording and synchronous transmission. He had no idea why there was no record.

"Impossible... It’s impossible..."

Zhao Heihu began to tremble violently as immense fear seized his heart.

He clearly remembered seeing the details of the murals on the main screen, seeing the sparks as Chen Meng and his team cut into the walls.

’How could it not have been recorded?’

’How could it all be blank?’

An indescribable terror instantly enveloped his entire being.

It was as if an invisible hand had meticulously erased every trace of that exploration from the world after the fact.

Even the data, even the physical matter.

All of it, erased.

’No... someone else knows!’

A final glint of light suddenly erupted from Zhao Heihu’s one eye.

He snapped his head up, looking in the direction of East Sea Fortress City.

"East Sea City! Their fighter jets rushed over that day!

That pilot! He flew right past Chen Meng just as Chen Meng was rushing out!"

"He must have seen it! He must have seen that damaged Titan Battle Armor!"

As if grasping a lifeline, Zhao Heihu seized the lead expert’s arm, his nails digging into the man’s flesh.

"Contact East Sea City! Quickly, contact East Sea City!"

"Their people were on the scene!

Even though we’re enemies, they’re the only ones who can prove my soldiers were really here!

That my Titan Battle Armor truly existed!"

The expert was startled by his frenzied state, but he quickly calmed down and said with a frown,

"Are you crazy? We just fought a battle with East Sea City. You want to go ask them now? You think they’ll tell you anything?"

"We have to ask! This also concerns the true secret of Broken Star Reef!"

Zhao Heihu roared, "This place isn’t some Cultivation Holy Land at all!

It’s a trap! A demon’s den that swallows people whole!

If we don’t figure out what happened, this group of people cultivating inside will all be dead sooner or later!"

The expert looked at the fear in Zhao Heihu’s one eye. It was too real to be faked.

Besides, the fact that twenty mecha had vanished into thin air was truly unbelievable.

"I will report this to my superiors,"

the expert said grimly. "But we can’t contact East Sea City directly. We’ll have to pass the message through intermediaries from Kunlun Holy City."

Zhao Heihu released his grip. His entire body felt boneless as he floated in the frigid seawater.

He gazed at the brightly lit cavern entrance, which now looked like a gaping maw, silently mocking everyone’s ignorance.

’I’m not crazy.’

’I’m really not crazy.’

But it seemed the world was playing a colossal joke on him.