Chapter 80: You Must Be Mistaken, Right?

The moment Chen opened his eyes again, the world had vanished.

Before him stretched an endless expanse of midnight velvet, punctured by the pinpricks of a billion distant stars. Beneath his feet, a floor that was both transparent and solid reflected the silent, majestic flow of the cosmic river above.

“Where… is this?”

He subconsciously reached for his chest. There was no wound. His clothes were perfectly intact, as if the crystalline ice spear that had punched clean through him just moments ago had been nothing more than a fleeting nightmare.

He pushed himself to his feet, his gaze sweeping across the unnervingly empty vista.

“Is anyone there?” Chen called out, his voice a small, lonely thing that was swallowed by the void without so much as an echo.

No one answered.

With no other choice, he began to walk forward, his footsteps making no sound on the starry floor. He hadn’t gone far when the space before him rippled like disturbed water, coalescing into a shimmering projection.

The image showed Mr. Cocolia, clad in his pristine white Supreme Guardian uniform, conversing with Gepard before the Everwinter Monument. Woven through their conversation, almost too faint to notice, was a seductive, mysterious whisper. It was a sound that seemed to bypass the ears and connect directly in the mind—the bewitching voice of the Stellaron.

The image flickered and dissolved, replaced by a new one: Mr. Cocolia, standing alone against a biting wind, his gaze fixed on the distant, shimmering Scar of Cancer. His brow was deeply furrowed, and the Stellaron’s whispers were clearer now, more insistent.

More fragments followed in rapid succession: Mr. Cocolia, arguing in hushed, desperate tones with the voice in his head in some secluded chamber, his resolve visibly cracking. The flicker of torment in his eyes as he issued a contradictory, self-sabotaging order…

Chen stopped in his tracks, watching the rapidly flashing echoes of memory. His lips began to twitch uncontrollably.

‘Isn’t this the cutscene Sister Qiong saw in the original story when she first awakened the Path of Preservation?!’ he thought, his mind reeling. ‘The one that lays out, step-by-step, how Mr. Cocolia was lured into corruption by the Stellaron!’

But the problem is…

Chen jabbed a thumb at his own nose, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

‘How did I end up here?! Isn’t this Qiong’s exclusive newbie tutorial and Path-awakening zone?!! How in the world did I manage to snatch her starter quest?’

His mind, already a mess, felt like it was short-circuiting. This plot wasn’t just derailed; it was a full-blown, system-crashing bug report waiting to happen.

“Whatever,” he muttered, forcing down the urge to scream into the void. “I’ll just see what’s ahead.”

Suppressing his litany of complaints, Chen quickened his pace. He walked straight through the projections that were trying so desperately to instill in him the tragic history of Cocolia’s fall. He paid no mind to the heart-wrenching images or the insidious whispers that promised power and salvation.

He was far too familiar with this sequence; he could probably guess what the next image would be before it even appeared.

Sure enough, after he passed through several more segments depicting Cocolia’s distress, the Stellaron’s temptations, and the slow erosion of his beliefs, the starlight in the void ahead seemed to converge toward a single point.

As Chen drew closer, he saw a cluster of floating, mirror-like fragments of light. And nestled in the center, he spotted a little something that made his eyelid twitch violently.

It was a charmingly janky little robot, cobbled together from mismatched scrap metal. At this moment, it was curled into a tight ball, hiding behind one of the larger light fragments. A half-gear mounted on its head spun weakly, and its two lightbulb eyes scanned the surroundings with a timid, fearful glow. Its entire body radiated an aura of being weak, pitiful, and utterly helpless.

Geo-Map?!

Chen almost shouted the name aloud. He slapped a hand to his forehead, that nagging feeling of having forgotten something finally clicking into place with thunderous clarity.

“I was wondering why I felt like something was missing…” he said, a sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He walked over to the trembling little bot. “So it was you, you little rascal! How did you end up here?”

Hearing his voice, Geo-Map shuddered violently. Its lightbulb eyes swiveled toward Chen, the light within flickering uncertainly. It was a look of pure confusion, mixed with a healthy dose of fear, as if it were trying to identify the unfamiliar young lady standing before it.

Realization dawned on Chen, and a thought crossed his mind.

Amidst a shimmer of light, the figure of the gray-haired young lady rapidly shifted and reformed. In her place stood the Herta Puppet, clad in its exquisite dress, one hand planted firmly on its hip.

“Recognize me now?” Chen asked, looking down at the robot with a grumpy expression.

Geo-Map’s lightbulb eyes instantly went wide and round. The light within flared to a brilliant intensity, filled with the unmistakable excitement of a lost child finding its parent!

It immediately uncurled and scurried over to Chen’s feet with a series of tiny pitter-patter sounds. It bounced up and down with unrestrained joy, a stream of static-laced electronic sounds chirping from its internal speaker.

“Creator! It’s really the Creator!”

“Positioning successful! Navigation destination reached!”

“Geo-Map mission complete!”

It even did a little spin, the gear on its head whirring cheerfully as if it were proudly presenting its accomplishment.

Chen leaned over, scooping the lightweight little robot into his hands and holding it up in front of his face.

“Mission complete?” he repeated, his voice laced with amusement. He gently poked the robot’s crooked gear-head with a finger and let out a huff of laughter. “You’ve got it backward, you little dummy. I found you, not the other way around. That’s called a mission failure, got it?”

Geo-Map’s lightbulb eyes dimmed instantly. The gear on its head seized up with a soft clack. The cheerful electronic voice immediately devolved into intermittent, stuttering static.

“Mis… mission failure? Nav… navigation destination… not… not reached?”

Its entire scrap-metal body seemed to slump, like a first-grader being publicly scolded by their teacher. The giddy excitement of their reunion evaporated at light speed, replaced by a evident sense of grievance.

“But… but Geo-Map… already gave its all…”

Hearing the pathetic little warble in its voice, Chen’s heart softened. He pulled the robot into a gentle hug.

“Fine, fine. I’ll count it as barely half-complete, considering you didn’t manage to get yourself permanently lost.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Geo-Map came back to life. Its stuttering electronic voice became bright and cheerful in a fraction of a second.

“Yay! The Creator forgave me! Geo-Map… will always be the Creator’s most loyal navigator!”

It spun around excitedly in Chen’s palm, but its base was notoriously unstable. With a soft splat, it fell flat on its back, its gear-head still spinning foolishly in the air.

Chen pressed a palm to his forehead, feeling a familiar throb in his temples. He reached out, flipped the little dummy back onto its feet, and decided to ask the important question.

“Anyway, how did you even get here?”

Geo-Map’s lightbulb eyes blinked with robotic innocence.

“Assistance request sent.”

“Searching for Creator.”

“Assistance unit has responded.”

“Great,” Chen sighed, “so asking you is a complete waste of time. You probably don’t even know how you ended up in this hellhole yourself.”

He looked up, his gaze penetrating deeper into the star-strewn void. In the distance, he could vaguely make out the shape of a colossal spear, its shaft plunged halfway into the transparent ground.

The symbol of Preservation.

Cradling Geo-Map, Chen walked quickly toward the phantom of the giant astral-rock spear. He knew there was supposed to be an instructor—and an examiner—waiting for him here.

Sure enough, just as he came to a stop before the spear, a gentle, ancient voice rang out, seeming to emanate from the void itself.

“Welcome, you who have—”

“Stop, stop, stop! Hold it right there!” Chen unceremoniously cut off the ritualistic opening statement.

He held up Geo-Map, who was still looking around with boundless curiosity, and got straight to the point.

“Hey, whoever you are. The Will of Preservation, right? Let me ask you something first. Did you pull in the wrong person? You were supposed to grab that little gray-haired girl, not me. And while we’re at it, how did this lost navigator of mine get in here too?”

He gave Geo-Map a little shake, and the robot dutifully cooperated with two sharp “beep-beep” sounds.

The voice in the void seemed to stutter, a cosmic entity caught completely off guard. Clearly, this ancient Will had not anticipated that the first person to connect with this place in countless eons wouldn’t react with awe or confusion, but with… an interrogation and an attempt to shift the blame.

After a few seconds of deep silence, the voice chose to respond. Starlight condensed, forming the phantom of a small girl. She tilted her head, her luminous eyes seeming to observe both Chen and Geo-Map with great interest.

“No… mistake.” The little girl’s phantom voice, though still gentle, now carried a hint of its own confusion. “This place is opened by a strong resonance with the Path of Preservation. The source of the resonance… was not singular.”

Her gaze fell upon Chen. “You do indeed possess qualities that vaguely align with ‘Preservation’… though they are not pure, they are strong enough. Especially in that moment of selflessly protecting your companions, you were captured by the echoes of this place.”

Then, she turned her attention to Geo-Map, still held in Chen’s hands. Her tone became somewhat peculiar.

“And it… much like you… has produced a strange resonance with ‘Preservation’. It is the strong echo of the ‘Protect’ command within its core programming. It was the first to touch the boundaries of this place. Your act of protection in the physical world merely served as the final key, opening the passage for you both.”

Chen listened, his mind going completely blank. He slowly looked down at Geo-Map, who met his gaze with a face that screamed, ‘I’m innocent!’

What?

[Elysian’s Note:

Having a good time with the story?

Every single bit helps immensely:

Thanks a ton for making this journey possible!]