Gao Wu: You have science, and I have magic!

The fleet continued its journey, but this time, the number of people in the team increased.

In the snow-white restaurant, amid the wafting aroma of tea, Cecilia's fingers hovered half an inch in front of Ye Qingzhou's chest, with a faint golden glow at her fingertips.

Her pupils shrank to the size of a needle tip, reflecting the faint blue lines under Ye Qingzhou's skin - those were the traces of the fusion of the super-dimensional core and his body.

“Can you see?”

Ye Qingzhou was slightly surprised.

During the battle three days ago, something did enter his body through the hyperdimensional core, but he thought it was just residual energy.

"That is the light that cannot be seen by the eyes..."

Cecilia retracted her hand, with a few golden dots on her fingertips: "But the resonance of the Holy Word allows me to sense super-dimensional fluctuations. The energy in your body... is weaving a certain pattern, just like..."

“Like the ‘Chosen One’ emblem described in the oracle.”

Chu Yao suddenly interrupted, and the data terminal in her hand projected a set of rotating three-dimensional symbols, which were 70% similar to the patterns on Ye Qingzhou's body.

"My father's research notes mentioned that extra-dimensional civilizations would leave marks on certain individuals. That was a sign of acceptance of assessment. In the past, this was called the Chosen One."

While the three were discussing, the wreckage of the Star Glory groaned under the heavy load behind them.

The emergency energy can only sustain the life support system for twelve hours, and although the Shenzhao Second Fleet has temporarily retreated, it may come back at any time.

Cecilia turned to the porthole, her white hair spread out like a spider web in the zero-gravity environment, and her expression was filled with a bit of unconcealed sadness:
"The news of failure brought back by Augustus will anger the Ascetic Group. The next one to come may be the fleet directly under the Inquisition. They may come to attack us with antimatter bombs that are enough to evaporate the entire star field."

"So you really intend to commit treason?"

Ye Qingzhou looked straight into her eyes.

Under the blue light of the medical cabin, the golden bloodshot at the corners of Cecilia's eyes looked like circuit lines. She was so perfect that she seemed a little inhuman.

“The gods are not the state.”

Her voice was very soft, but with a certain firmness that could not be questioned: "We gathered together because of our faith and listened to God's teachings. But now..."

At this point, Cecilia unconsciously rubbed the stigmata on the back of her neck with her fingers, and sighed: "I suspect that the teachings in the Divine Scripture have been secretly tampered with."

Chu Yao was about to speak, but unexpectedly the Star Alliance chip in her palm became extremely hot, and the projected star map was being reorganized.

The originally blurry β-307 coordinate point is now clearly visible, surrounded by twelve small light spots, and the arrangement is exactly the same as the core of the pattern on Ye Qingzhou's body.

Ye Qingzhou thought of the thousand-faced old man he had met at the beginning, and couldn't help asking: "The god you mentioned... is a super-dimensional being?"

As Cecilia nodded, a strand of white hair floated across her cracked lips. "Six thousand years ago, the Church discovered the first holy relic in the Martian Canyon - the remains of a superdimensional being wrapped in metal. When the archbishop touched it, he gained knowledge of the power of source fire."

Then she unbuttoned her collar in front of Ye Qingzhou, revealing the diamond-shaped crystal between her collarbones: "That's why I can fly Seraph. All high-level pilots of the God of Light have resonated with the holy relic."

Ye Qingzhou and Chu Yao exchanged glances, both obviously shocked by this.

The biochemical mecha technology of the Star Alliance and the spiritual skeleton system of the Human Alliance all originated from the remains of super-dimensional civilization. The three major forces have been fighting for hundreds of years, and it turns out that they are fighting for different branches of the same technology tree.

"We need a ship that can make an interstellar jump."

Ye Qingzhou made a decision.

He stood up, walked straight to the communication station, and activated the encrypted channel: "Old Chen, drive the Stargazer to the back of Tianshu Star for support. Bring all the usable hyper-dimensional core fragments."

Cecilia raised her eyebrows slightly: "You have been prepared?"

"The Human Rights Alliance has lifeboats hidden on every front."

Chu Yao looked a little proud, and she quickly used the smart brain she carried with her to adjust the data terminal: "But now we have to call it a research ship - the place we are going to is much more dangerous than the battlefield."

The roar of the Stargazer's engines sounded like the breathing of an ancient beast.

This modified scientific research vessel still has the Covenant's eagle emblem on its belly, but has an Alliance fusion gun array welded on its deck, making it a technological interstellar hybrid.

When Ye Qingzhou embedded the last piece of the hyper-dimensional core fragment into the navigation system, Lao Chen, a scarred veteran, was hitting the outer shell of the jump engine with a wrench.

"This pile of junk can only last three jumps at most."

Lao Chen spat out the energy hose in his mouth: "Cygnus? You might as well let me drive the ship into the black hole!"

Cecilia stood in front of the holographic star map, her finger drawing a zigzag route: "The Divine Light has set up a checkpoint in the Orion Arm. We can make a false jump to the direction of Perseus, and then use the resonance effect of the hyperdimensional core to turn back."

"You are familiar with Shenzhao's deployment."

Ye Qingzhou noticed that her movements in operating the star map were smooth and fluid, as if she had practiced them thousands of times.

“I used to be a navigator for the Knights Templar.”

Cecilia's voice suddenly became dry: "It's a pity that nothing can be turned back now. God's teachings told me that I must stick to the cause of justice, but now the position of God has been usurped by a group of unjust people. They want to drag the entire universe into war."

Then the alarm interrupted her memories. As soon as the Stargazer left the Tianshu gravity well, six high-speed moving red dots appeared on the radar.

"Inquisition's Pursuer!"

Chu Yao rushed to the operating table, her eyes were filled with shock: "How did they find us?"

Cecilia yanked open her collar and dug out a glowing metal particle from the stigmata: "Location beacon... When did Augustus..."

Her fingers suddenly tightened, metal particles burst into sparks in her palms, and she gritted her teeth and ordered: "Everyone, stay in position! We are going to force the jump!"

Before Ye Qingzhou had time to fasten his seat belt, the Stargazer plunged into the jump channel at an almost suicidal angle.

The bulkhead groaned horribly in the twisted space, and a loosely secured toolbox smashed onto the console, setting off a series of alarms.

Through the violently shaking porthole, he saw the antimatter torpedoes fired by the pursuer fleet collide at the jump entrance, and the burst of blue-white light was like the birth of a supernova.

“Perseid Gamma-192 has arrived!”

Lao Chen's roar mixed with the scream of the overloaded engine: "But we are now facing a small problem..."

The warning icon on the navigation screen answered his unfinished question.

They did escape their pursuers, but jumped into a dense asteroid field.

Tens of thousands of space rocks were moving in chaotic orbits, with the latest one barely grazing Stargazer's shields.

"let me."

Cecilia unbuckled her seatbelt and placed her hands directly on the navigation panel.

Her white hair fluttered in the wind and her eyes shone with golden light.

The Stargazer's engines suddenly emitted a different hum than usual, and the particle streams ejected by the thrusters were tinged with a faint golden color.

Chu Yao widened her eyes with a look of disbelief: "She is using the resonance of the Holy Word to control the spacecraft?!" Ye Qingzhou felt the super-dimensional core vibrating in his body, as if it was echoing with Cecilia's power.

The Stargazer moves flexibly among the asteroids as if it had life, with each turn being precise to the millimeter level.

For a few seconds, he was sure he saw the vague shadow of wings of light emerging behind Cecilia.

Three hours later, when they left the asteroid belt, Cecilia fell to her knees, golden blood oozing from her nostrils and ear canals.

When Ye Qingzhou supported her, he found that this seemingly slender body was heavier than the mecha alloy. It was obvious that the operation just now was extremely burdensome.

"β-307 coordinates locked."

Her voice seemed to come from far away: "But be careful... the space structure there is wrong..."

The star field of Cygni Beta-307 is empty.

At least that's what it looks like to the naked eye.

However, the Stargazer's sensors showed huge energy readings ahead, and some kind of force field that distorted light made the central area of ​​the star field visually "disappear."

“Space wrinkles.”

Chu Yao adjusted the scanning parameters: "How much energy does it take to fold such a large area of ​​space?"

Ye Qingzhou embedded three pieces of the super-dimensional core fragments into the wrist controller. Blue light spread through his blood vessels throughout his body, forming patterns on the surface of his skin that echoed the star map.

"Prepare for docking procedures. Cecilia is right, there's something there - I can feel it 'calling' to these fragments."

Everyone held their breath as the Stargazer slowly entered the warp zone.

The starry sky outside the porthole is like a canvas crumpled by invisible hands, and the starlight is stretched into colorful threads.

I saw a huge building complex made of translucent crystals floating in the void, and its structure completely violated conventional architecture.

The towers pierce in different directions from all angles, the bridges cross themselves at impossible angles, and countless suspended fragments slowly rotate around the main body but never collide.

Most disturbingly, certain areas appear to exist in multiple locations in space at once, like a hologram that has been torn apart and haphazardly reassembled.

"The Super Dimensional Temple..."

Cecilia's breath condensed into white frost on her mask: "The 'abode of God' described in the divine scriptures..."

Chu Yao's instrument suddenly sounded a series of alarms: "The readings are confusing! The physical constants there are fluctuating! The direction of gravity changes seventeen times per second!"

Ye Qingzhou felt an eerie sense of familiarity. The extra-dimensional fragment on his wrist emitted a pulsating blue light, resonating with somewhere in the temple.

Without having to check the navigation system, he already "knew" where to go.

"Lao Chen stayed on board to keep the engine warm."

He checked the energy readings of Suanni: "Chu Yao is responsible for establishing the communication relay, Cecilia..."

He paused, "Are you sure you want to come? Your condition..."

Cecilia had already put on the simple space suit that she had urgently repaired. The Inquisitor mecha had been severely damaged in the battle three days ago. Now she only had a particle pistol that she had recovered from the wreckage of Ba Xia.

“I have to know the truth.”

Her golden pupils glowed in the dim cabin, and her gaze was firm: "It's about the holy relics, about the divine light... and about myself."

As they approached the temple in the shuttle, Chu Yao suddenly exclaimed: "Those fragments... are not building materials!"

The image she zoomed in on showed that the "debris" swirling around the temple was actually the remains of countless mechas - some were modern models, but many were unrecognizable ancient designs, the oldest of which looked at least a thousand years old.

“Explorers throughout the ages have searched for the Temple.”

Ye Qingzhou had an ominous premonition in his heart. The scene in front of him was too weird: "Why didn't anyone return successfully?"

Cecilia's lips moved silently, as if she was reciting a passage of scripture. Her fingers were clenched into fists, and a faint golden light seeped through the gaps between her fingers.

As the shuttle landed on the temple's largest platform, the direction of gravity suddenly flipped ninety degrees.

Ye Qingzhou grabbed the fixing ring in time, but Cecilia fell against the bulkhead—and then, at the moment of impact, she strangely suspended in midair, as if an invisible hand was holding her up.

"Space anomaly..."

Chu Yao's voice was intermittent due to static interference: "It is recommended... not to... separate..."

The interior of the temple is even more counterintuitive than the exterior.

The corridor is sometimes as wide as a square, and sometimes so narrow that one needs to walk sideways. Some corners will inexplicably return to the starting point, while places that seem to be dead ends will suddenly extend into a new passage when the third step is taken.

The reliefs on the wall kept changing, showing the birth of a nebula one second and a scene of mecha war the next.

“It’s memory.”

Cecilia touched a wall where a six-winged angel mecha appeared, and her expression was filled with deep shock and emotion: "The whole temple is alive, and it is showing us the glorious past of this place."

Ye Qingzhou's super-dimensional lines suddenly became extremely hot. He received guidance from somewhere and immediately turned to a spiral staircase that suddenly appeared: "Down below."

At the end of the stairs was a spherical space with a twelve-sided crystal structure suspended in the center, each face of which was engraved with flowing super-dimensional text. When Ye Qingzhou approached, the crystal suddenly expanded into a ring, projecting a dizzying holographic image.

In the picture, a race similar to humans but completely different appeared and was building some kind of giant device.

They have translucent skin and long limbs, and their eyes are pure crystal.

The images flashed quickly. First, the device went out of control, then space was torn apart, and finally, the entire civilization collapsed...

The final scene freezes on three separated core components, which are what the three major forces call "holy relics."

After observing, Ye Qingzhou concluded: "This is a fragment of some kind of space stabilization device."

Cecilia suddenly fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands. Her stigmata glowed with dazzling golden light, resonating with the central crystal. More images emerged.

In the picture, the "holy relic" under the Cathedral of Divine Light is actually the remains of a super-dimensional being. The church obtains technology by connecting with its nerves, but the price is daunting.

“It’s absorbing life energy through the connector.”

Ye Qingzhou suddenly realized and turned to look at Cecilia: "Your god is a dying super-dimensional being, relying on the support of believers to survive."

At this moment, all the crystals suddenly turned red.

An alarm-like pulse wave swept across the entire space, and dense mecha signals appeared on the walls - all of them were Shenzhao's latest models.

"The Inquisition fleet has arrived." (End of this chapter)