Chapter 858: Chapter 858

Watching as Li Cheng, Jie An, and the others entered the rocket in succession, He Ao glanced back at the vast expanse of stars behind him before entering the rocket’s interior.

The entire lander’s cabin was incredibly cramped, its insides mostly wrapped with specialized coverings for the equipment, with only a narrow area near the hatch housing four semi-reclined seats.

He Ao was the last to enter the cabin; his seat was on the far right, next to a circular porthole.

Miss Goya sat beside him, currently being assisted by the staff to strap the safety belts around her body and limbs.

Seated in his chair, He Ao fastened his own safety harness while glancing at the porthole next to him.

Outside the porthole was pitch darkness with the hazy outlines of metal structures visible; that was the protective fairing of the lander, essentially the rocket’s topmost shell in some sense.

This cabin had only two portholes, one next to Li Cheng’s seat on the far left and one by He Ao’s seat.

According to what the Speech Master told them while waiting just now, a normal cabin would typically have portholes corresponding to the number of astronauts, meaning there should be two more in the middle seats upfront.

But their current cabin had been hastily modified, so only the original dual porthole structure was retained.

As the safety belts were secured one by one and the staff left the cabin, He Ao’s gaze fixed on the open hatch.

The Speech Master stood outside, waving at them, and then the staff pulled the hatch down with a ’click’, locking it in place.

He Ao lifted his head, looking at the side of the hatch.

There was a small electronic screen there, which now displayed the ignition countdown, with some simple buttons below.

In theory, astronauts inside the cabin were supposed to coordinate with the ground base for flight monitoring.

Although He Ao and the others had received some ’basic training’ while waiting just a while ago, they were far from proficient enough to understand these operational steps.

However, their lander was originally an unmanned one, retrofitted for this mission, so all equipment could be controlled from the ground according to a set program, relieving them from the need to worry much.

The insulation of the cabin was very good, lit only by faint lights, making it exceptionally silent, even somewhat claustrophobic.

He Ao twisted his head around, looking upwards.

Above his head hung a cute, silver-white astronaut doll.

Next to Miss Goya was a green tree doll, Jie An had a chubby eagle above his head, and Li Cheng an action figure of a captain holding a telescope.

These hanging dolls were personally chosen by them before boarding the plane.

Cute toys could somewhat alleviate the fear of confinement and hanging them overhead also served as a simple zero-gravity indicator.

He Ao looked down to check on his ’teammates’.

Li Cheng was the furthest from him, his actions hardly visible, but he seemed to be turning his head towards the porthole.

Jie An appeared to be dozing off.

Miss Goya beside He Ao, however, lifted her gaze, staring intently at the tree doll above her.

Her white hair, usually scattered over her head, was now pinned up, revealing a fair and delicate profile.

Her features were not as pronounced as those of typical Western Lands people, but still they stood out sharply.

Noticing He Ao’s gaze, she carefully turned to him, blinked, and looked at him.

After a long while, she slowly spoke, "Very cute."

This seemed to be an ’explanation’ for her act of gazing at the doll.

The insulation of the spacesuit was also good, but for a B-level Transcendent like He Ao, even slight vibrations could be easily captured.

He Ao nodded lightly in response.

Perhaps because she received a response, Miss Goya shrank back a little, nodded, then slowly turned her head back towards the doll.

He Ao too withdrew his gaze, looking forward at the display screen.

A slight vibration transmitted through the cabin, presumably from some fixtures being removed.

Soon enough, the countdown on the display reached its final moments.

The voice of a somewhat elderly researcher came from the communication device,

"3... 2... 1... Ignition!"

With a violent tremor, a powerful force acted upon He Ao’s body, pressing him tightly against his seat, which he had not been snugly fastened to before.

The hanging doll above his head swayed slightly because of the vibration.

Jie An, who had been dozing off, also woke up at this point. He looked up at the swaying doll and asked, "Have we taken off?"

He Ao nodded in response.

The acceleration during the rocket’s ascent was designed within the tolerance range of ordinary people, with a maximum of no more than five times the acceleration due to gravity, usually around three times.

This acceleration, which felt like a heavy stone pressing on the body to ordinary people, was not particularly strong for a C-level Transcendent, so He Ao, without activating Super Memory, did not feel much.

However, this strong acceleration did not last long. After a very brief countdown, the voice of a young broadcaster came through the communicator,

The entire rocket shuddered.

"Booster separation."

Accompanying the violent tremor, the pressure on everyone’s bodies lightened slightly.

Jie An asked curiously, "Did something fall off the rocket?"

He Ao explained softly, "Those are the engines attached to the outside of the rocket."

Li Cheng also interjected, "You mean that section at the bottom of the rocket, the part that looks like a small plane attached to the tail?"

"Oh, oh, oh, I get it now."

Jie An seemed to have caught on, nodding his head.

And as everyone spoke, the entire cabin vibrated violently again.

"Fairing detachment."

With a howling sound, a brilliant light poured into the entire cabin through the porthole.

"Is that the outer shell detaching?"

Jie An turned his head to look outside the porthole.

"The shell that was covering our lander, the very top section of the rocket, is gone."

He Ao also turned his head, answering Jie An while looking outside the porthole.

At that moment, there was still a thin atmosphere outside, barely revealing the vast and boundless expanse of the majestic Earth.

The acceleration acting on the four of them was still present, and that vast land was being steadily pulled away.

And next to He Ao, Goya also turned her head, peering slightly out, gazing through the porthole,

"First-stage rocket shutdown, first and second-stage rocket separation."

While everyone was enjoying the scenery, the entire cabin vibrated once more.

The entire separation process was very quick, with the first-stage rocket comprising a large portion of the middle and bottom sections of the entire rocket. The rocket became lighter and smaller, carrying the lander and continuing forward.

By now, the rocket’s altitude was sufficiently high, and leaning against the porthole, one could see the outline of the huge, azure planet shrouded in clouds.

"That is, the Earth."

A faint voice came from behind.

He Ao turned around to look at Goya beside him.

This seemed to be the first time he had heard Goya speak voluntarily.

Seeing He Ao turn around, Goya slowly began to speak, explaining, "Teeming with life."

He Ao’s gaze also returned to the azure expanse of the Great Beyond.

The curve of the earth, mingled with the flowing vapors of clouds, appeared like a magnificent barrier separating the verdant planet from the pitch-black universe.

And at the end of this curve, in the depths of the dark cosmos, a fiercely burning sun was ablaze, providing energy vital for sustaining all life.

"Secondary rocket engine shutoff,"

"Fairing separation,"

As the outline of the entire earth roughly entered everyone’s field of view, accompanied by intense vibration and the chatter of the comm system, the last segment of the rocket also detached from the lander.

Through the broad portholes, the lander’s massive solar panels unfurled towards the sun.

At the same time, the toys hanging overhead began to float, and He Ao could feel his body starting to drift.

And with it, a slight sense of dizziness.

"Hey hey hey, can you hear me, Mr. Hao Yi, Director Li Cheng, Mister Jie An, Miss Goya,"

A crisp female voice sounded on the communicator, "How are you all feeling right now?"

It was the voice of the Speech Master.

Li Cheng responded as well.

The communicator fell silent for a moment, seemingly delayed, before the Speech Master’s voice continued,

"Our launch was a success, and now the lander has entered the expected orbit. You are currently in a state of weightlessness and might feel a bit dizzy. In about twenty-four hours, the lander should safely reach the Transparent Planet, and we’ll begin the landing.

"During this time, we will continuously monitor the state of the equipment. If there are any issues, feel free to call us, though there might be some communication delay."

After a brief exchange of feelings and statuses with the Speech Master, and once everything was settled, Jie An reached up to touch his helmet, "Looks like we’ll have to spend a day up in heaven."

"Wonder how things are on the ground,"

Li Cheng turned his head, looking out the window at the vast and magnificent planet.

"Old man, feeling like your precious project is unprotected?"

Jie An patted his helmet and laughed heartily, "You and Hao Yi are both up in the sky; are you worried about him encountering a B-level he can’t handle?"

"Don’t worry, this is an era of change. Those who bravely move forward against the current face the greatest risks, but also enjoy the greatest rewards."

Then, without waiting for Li Cheng to reply, he stood up and looked out the porthole at the azure planet, "Trust him; that kid’s sharp, he’ll handle it well. What he can achieve might be even more than we can imagine."

He Ao quietly watched the two conversing before turning his head to look out the window.

His gaze swept beyond the giant planet, toward the twinkling stars at the end of the dark universe.

This was his first time looking up at the ’starry sky’ from outside the Main World.

Within that profound starry expanse, it seemed as if an invisible barrier separated the solar system of the Main World from the dazzling stars.

An indescribable vastness and terror undulated among the stars, standing outside this barrier, peeking into everything in the darkness.

Yika Republic·Mote City

"All the disappearances involve ordinary people?"

He Ao, in his original form, flipped through the documents in his hands, watching Komo, who was rapidly organizing files, and asked softly.

"Yes, that seems to be the case up until the Blood Sun began. After the Blood Sun started, there seem to have been disappearances of Transcendents with the highest E-class."

Komo, sorting through the files, quickly replied.

He Ao glanced at the stack of case files beside him, "they can all be traced back to two and a half months ago, haven’t you noticed anything?"

Komo replied somewhat embarrassedly, "but after I submitted the information, there was no follow-up."

Then he paused before continuing, "These disappearance cases are spread too widely, aside from seemingly all occurring at night, they don’t seem to be related to each other. Usually, they are transferred to us after the gendarmerie can’t produce any results, but they just look like ordinary disappearances.

"Some branch managers have sent people to investigate, but they haven’t found any concrete traces.

"After submitting it to headquarters, I reported it, and Mister Sett said he would handle it, but it has been suppressed and not acted upon."

"So what is this Mister Sett of yours doing?"

He Ao rubbed his temples and pulled out the next file, quickly flipping through it.

Komo hesitated for a moment before slowly speaking, "He’s building a wine estate outside the city. He has hired many sculptors, and recently we’ve all been helping him move stones in the suburbs."

He Ao closed the file he had finished reviewing, his tone calm and natural, "He sure has the leisure for such elegance."

Komo cautiously glanced at the ’young manager’ in front of him. The person he referred to as having ’leisure for such elegance’ was currently downstairs being collected by the staff, his upper body shattered into mush.

However, He Ao seemed not to consider these details as his gaze landed on a small stack of files next to him—these were the earliest discovered cases of disappearance he had sorted out.

When Jemis discovered the first disappearance case in Enke City, it was a week ago.

Before that, there were no disappearance cases in Enke City.

That is to say, there’s a strong likelihood that these disappearances had a certain range of dispersion, initially circulating only within a small area or community before gradually spreading.

However, it’s undeniable that the World Tree’s intelligence gathering and resource organization are a complete mess.

In these files, many only contain simple details like the time of disappearance and the names of the missing people, with some files even lacking addresses.

It’s clear that the World Tree Organization in the Yika Republic has never seriously investigated these cases; they don’t even bother to ask the gendarmerie for detailed information.

There are, however, some files that are relatively complete, obviously investigated by someone who took their responsibilities seriously.

Though these files, too, ended up sealed here, never touched again.

Of course, not all these disappearance cases are related to the ’Blood Sun.’ Amidst them, there are a large number of kidnappings or evident human-made cases which He Ao could tell at a glance.

Obviously, judging by the procedures and personnel selection, the entire organizational structure of the World Tree in the Yika Republic is extremely crude.

As one of the Three Major Organizations, the composition here at World Tree resembles a haphazardly assembled troupe.

These cases, whether occurring in Research Institute territory or in Moonlight territory, would at least have been taken seriously in the initial stages and not allowed to escalate to this point.

At that moment, the door was suddenly pushed open as Jemis walked in with a portable hard drive,

"Minister He, the subdivisions and the data they requested from the various city gendarmeries have been sent over."

He Ao took the hard drive, plugged it into the nearby computer, and casually asked, "Did any of the gendarmerie have any leads or results from their investigations?"

Surely not every part of such a large country could be incompetent?

"Following your instructions, I specifically inquired about it. Most of the gendarmerie reported no investigative results,"

Jemis took a breath and continued,

"However, Mote City’s gendarmerie seemed to have discovered some clues at the time. Mote City has a large population and a long span of disappearance cases.

"When investigating a few of the disappearances, friends of the missing persons recounted to the gendarmerie that the missing individuals appeared to have mentioned some kind of urban legend-type ’ghost story.’"

He Ao’s movements paused, and he looked at Jemis, "What’s it related to?"

"It’s related to phone calls,"

Jemis paused briefly, then quickly said,

"According to the gendarmerie, the main content of this ghost story seems to be:

"At one fifteen in the morning, take out your mobile phone and dial your own phone number, if the call connects, you can hear the voice of a deceased relative."