Chapter 4392: One Way

Initially, they followed the route they had mapped earlier, just in case they suddenly needed to make a retreat at full speed. Rean’s disguise array was functioning properly for now, but even he had no real understanding of the hidden parameters that governed these ruins. Because of that uncertainty, nothing guaranteed that the airplane’s systems would continue operating normally forever, so sticking close to a known mapped route was still the safest approach they had.

As they moved forward, they occasionally passed guardian cores drifting through the ruins. Unlike when they were in battle mode, none of them were surrounded by those massive spheres of swirling Godly Energy that had previously made them feel like moving natural disasters. Now they looked almost harmless, floating aimlessly as if they were nothing more than maintenance units performing routine patrols with no real awareness of anything around them.

None of the cores showed even the slightest reaction to the group.

Rean even guided the airplane closer to a few of them out of curiosity, trying to see if he could capture additional cores for later use. As expected, they did not resist in any way.

Even so, Rean quickly abandoned the idea. He couldn’t store them inside his Spatial Ring, and even if he could, forcibly collecting them might trigger an unknown reaction from the ruins that none of them could predict. So instead of pushing his luck, he simply let them drift away again.

Eventually, they left the area that had already been fully mapped in 3D and pressed forward into unknown territory, moving at a noticeably slower and more careful pace. The airplane remained close to the ground while its scanning arrays continuously expanded the map, and Rean kept his attention divided between navigation and monitoring any abnormal changes in the surrounding environment.

While they were moving, Kentucky suddenly spoke through their soul connection.

’Roan, is it really okay to keep going like this?’ he asked. ’There’s still quite a lot of time before the Orb System finishes hibernating. What if we end up needing the Sanctuary again? We already confirmed it can break the connection between the cores and the ruins.’

Roan replied without hesitation, his tone calm as always. ’We can’t rely on the Sanctuary forever. Until not long ago, we didn’t even know it, and we managed just fine without it. Besides, how are we supposed to explain to Harksha and the others that we suddenly need to stop everything for more than a hundred hours? We can’t tell them anything about the Orb System.’

He paused briefly before continuing.

’And more importantly, who said Sister Orb and the system will definitely wake up right after the cooldown ends? Nothing guarantees that. For all we know, something entirely different could happen once the time runs out. Are we supposed to just keep waiting indefinitely after that as well?’

’I see...’ Kentucky admitted after a short silence. Roan’s reasoning made sense, even if it wasn’t exactly comforting.

"Hmm?" Kentucky suddenly focused his attention forward. "There’s a pillar of light ahead."

Rean and the others immediately looked in that direction, but at first none of them could see anything at all. Only Kentucky, with his naturally superior long-range eyesight, was able to detect it early. They waited for a while in silence, and only after several minutes did a faint vertical glow begin to form in the distance.

As they approached further, the pillar became clearer until it shot straight up into the sky like a massive beacon. Then, without warning, it expanded outward in all directions as if something had suddenly released its boundaries, before gradually fading away until it became completely invisible again.

"That has to be the source of the barrier," Rico’the said while staring at the phenomenon.

Rean nodded slightly in agreement. "Most likely."

Without wasting any time, he adjusted the airplane’s direction toward the light pillar while still keeping it close to the ground so the scanning arrays could continue mapping the terrain. If the barrier originated there, then the ancient runes they were searching for were also very likely located in that same direction.

However, not long after they changed direction, Cantra suddenly frowned while observing one of the compartments holding a guardian core.

"Rean, stop the airplane."

Rean didn’t ask for clarification and immediately brought the aircraft to a controlled stop. Almost instantly, he also saw what had caught her attention.

The runes inside the guardian cores were changing.

Up until now, the cores had been filled with white light mixed with faint traces of gold due to the constant flow of Godly Energy passing through them. Now, however, those colors were slowly shifting into green mixed with gold, as if the entire internal structure of the cores was being rewritten from the inside out.

Rean immediately reached out and pulled one of the cores from its compartment. Holding it firmly in both hands, he examined the changing runes closely.

Inside, the previously chaotic arrangement of runes was no longer random. Instead, they were beginning to cluster together in structured formations, forming patterns that looked far too deliberate to be natural fluctuation.

"...Words?" Celis muttered after a moment of silence.

Everyone narrowed their eyes at the same time. The patterns did resemble written language, but none of them could recognize what system or civilization it belonged to.

When they checked the other cores, they saw the exact same transformation occurring in all of them... except for one.

The main guardian core—the one that had previously lost the echo-related energy from another Great Void—showed no change at all. Its internal runes continued operating exactly as before, completely unaffected by the phenomenon spreading through the others.

Rean didn’t waste time and immediately accessed the airplane’s internal database.

"Good thing I downloaded as much information about ancient ruins as possible before we left," he said while rapidly searching through the records. "Let’s see if these ’words’ match anything we already know."

Harksha looked at him with mild surprise. "You even prepared that much in advance?"

Rean answered without looking away from the interface. "Of course. Our entire goal was to explore ancient ruins. The more information we had beforehand, the better. It would’ve been completely reckless not to gather everything available before leaving the range of the Besgol Network."

The airplane’s system quickly compared the shifting symbols against all recorded ancient languages stored in its database, running multiple layered recognition systems in parallel.

After a short moment of processing—

It found a match.

"Let’s see..."

Rean focused as the translation began to appear on the display.

-Core ID does not match the assigned area.-

-Updating core...-

The remaining lines appeared to be part of a standard update process being applied to the cores.

Suddenly—

*ZUUUUuuuuuuu...*

The airplane began to lose altitude without warning.

"Shit!" Rean quickly grabbed the controls and switched the energy supply for the Celestial Thrusters away from the guardian cores, redirecting it to ambient Celestial Energy from the surrounding environment. Only then did the aircraft stabilize again, returning to its previous flight level.

"...That was close," he muttered while steadying the system.

He glanced at the core again. The message sequence was still running across its surface, but something important had clearly changed.

It was no longer receiving even a trace of Godly Energy from the ruins.

Everyone noticed it at the same time.

"So the cores were essentially shut down?" Harksha asked.

"Wait!" Senkiyu suddenly turned his attention toward the main guardian core responsible for disguise. "If that’s the case, won’t our disguise core also lose its function once it’s cut off?"

Everyone looked at it immediately.

But nothing had changed.

It was still operating normally, still receiving energy, still maintaining the disguise without interruption.

"...Apparently not," Rean said after a moment.

Harksha frowned slightly. "Why is that? Did you do something different to that one?"

Rean scratched the back of his head.

Of course he had. But explaining it properly wasn’t an option.

"I did," he admitted. "These cores don’t rely only on Godly Energy and Godly Pressure. There’s a third type of energy inside them. I removed it. I think that’s what allows something to control the cores in the first place."

Harksha frowned deeper. "A third type of energy? What is it exactly?"

Rean simply shrugged. "No idea. It’s just something similar to Godly Pressure."

Senkiyu immediately followed up. "Then try removing it from the others as well."

"Too risky," Roan cut in. "If whatever is controlling them reacts the moment it loses control, we don’t know what kind of consequences that could trigger. Losing control over one core can be seen as an accident, more than one..."

His gaze shifted toward the remaining functional core. "And besides..."

Rean naturally continued the thought. "The system behind these ruins has probably already noticed this core. It’s likely attempting to update it as well, but since the control energy is missing, the update can’t complete, so it just continues operating in its current state."

Cantra frowned. "Then what if the ruins simply disconnect the main core from its side instead?"

Rean shrugged casually. "Then we get exposed. Hahaha!"

"Stop laughing!" Everyone immediately reacted.

"Relax," Rean said while waving his hand. "I’m not reckless. I already stored a large amount of Godly Pressure from the main core. Even if the ruins shut everything down right now, we still have enough to maintain the disguise until we reach the barrier."

He then looked once again toward the distant pillar of light.

"The real question is what we do next. These cores weren’t supposed to exist in this area. I can’t predict what will happen if we continue deeper into territory where they clearly don’t belong."

Roan looked ahead calmly. "There’s only one way to find out."

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