Chapter 68 - 67: Echoes of the Past
The instant Elias activated his Quantum Universal Teleportation, the grand, humming interior of the Nexus Spire vanished. In its place, a chill, musty silence enveloped them. Lumie, usually a vibrant orb of light, shrank slightly, her glow dimming as she pressed herself against Kaelen’s shoulder. They stood within what was undeniably the interior of an ancient, alien vessel. Dust motes, seemingly millennia old, hung suspended in the stale air, catching the faint, ethereal light filtering from Elias’s presence.
The ship’s interior was vast, a testament to craftsmanship far beyond anything known on Xianwu. Alien materials, unlike any metals or alloys Elias had ever encountered, formed sleek, curved walls that seemed to absorb ambient light. Complex consoles, covered in intricate, dormant glyphs and strange, non-Euclidean displays, lined the hull, their power source a central, luminous core that was now utterly dark, a husk of inert energy. It felt less like a vehicle and more like a tomb, a silent, forgotten sarcophagus of cosmic ambition.
Then they saw him. Stretched across what appeared to be a command seat, his form desiccated and mummified, were the skeletal remains of the humanoid alien pilot. These were not ordinary bones. They glowed with a faint, ethereal golden hue, a silent testament to an immensely powerful cultivation base or a unique biological composition that defied conventional decay. Even in death, a subtle, residual Qi radiated from him, hinting at a power that once rivaled the stars.
Elias’s Quantum Divine Sense (QDS) immediately went to work, sifting through the lingering energetic imprints. "A Universe Realm cultivator," he murmured, his voice echoing in the confined space, his Divine Processor instantly mapping the alien’s shattered internal universe and collapsed Qi pathways. "And he suffered catastrophic injuries. A violent, utterly fatal event. Not a peaceful end." He also noted the unique, yet utterly depleted, power signature of the ship – undeniably a multiversal-level vessel.
Kaelen shivered, despite the warmth radiating from her own nascent cultivation. "He’s been here for a very long time, hasn’t he? What happened to him?"
"Indeed," Elias confirmed, his gaze fixed on the skeletal pilot. His cosmic curiosity, long dormant during his mundane period, flared to life. This wasn’t just a crashed ship; it was a cosmic mystery, radiating questions he felt compelled to answer. "We shall see."
He raised a hand, his refined control over the Law of Time focusing on the alien’s remains and the surrounding ship. He wasn’t merely observing; he was actively reversing localized causality, tracing the energetic and temporal ripples backward from the ship’s current state to its point of catastrophic failure. His nascent Law of Causality comprehension (a mere 10% yet still terrifyingly potent) allowed him to reconstruct events with perfect, terrifying clarity.
A vivid, ghostly, yet palpably real projection materialized within the main cabin, shimmering like a perfect 3D hologram. It was a replay of the ship’s last moments, seen primarily from the alien pilot’s own internal perspective, complete with his thoughts, sounds, and faint energetic signatures. Kaelen gasped, Lumie let out a soft "boop," and even Elias felt a spark of awe at the seamless reconstruction of the past.
The projection flickered, and the interior of the ship, once silent and dead, sprang to ghostly life and then the scene changed. The alien pilot, a being of regal bearing even in his frantic movements, was revealed. He was clearly a Universe Realm cultivator, moving with a suppressed power that hinted at his formidable strength. He was not alone; the spectral figures of other cultivators, some at Galaxy Realm or even his own Universe Realm, flitted around him in the projection.
The scene shifted, displaying the interior of an opulent, cosmic locale – the Immortal Cave of a Reality Realm Expert. It hummed with the lingering aura of a being who had mastered 100% Reality Law before ascending. It was a treasure trove, filled with cosmic artifacts, spiritual herbs that glowed with inner universes, and techniques inscribed on impossible materials. A chaotic free-for-all was underway, a frantic scramble among the spectral figures.