Pillar of Yita

”Ah, huh—”

A tiny speck of dust floated up and down, lively as if it had life.

But looking further down, there was Nini, with her eyes wide open, puffing her cheeks to blow air upwards, her small chest heaving, and her tail wagging non-stop.

Fang Hong watched his ’little daughter’ clowning around with some boredom, in the vast Captain’s Room, with only the small light ball flying around the ceiling, apart from Nini’s breathing, it was somewhat quiet.

To one side was the door to the Alchemy Workshop, open. On the workbench was a half-finished ’prototype,’ a modified state of Spear Cavalry and Silver Bee, not yet assembled, with parts scattered.

Modifying the Spear Cavalry and Silver Bee was much more difficult than expected; the combination of two types of Constructs was not as straightforward, and the newly added Resonance Crystal required extra weight and space, while the cooling system had to be redesigned.

He had encountered quite a bit of trouble before, continuously revising thirteen designs. The fourteenth design was born five hours after the thirteenth design was scrapped, which was the current one.

However, the unsmooth work began to unsettle Fang Hong, so he had to put his work aside, sit quietly for a while, and try to regain his ’inspiration.’

But in fact, ever since leaving the Traveler’s Rest, he’s had this lingering feeling.

Not just Shayek, actually the Tada Lizardman and the Archbishop of Cloud Harbor had long predicted the world’s changes, the Calamity Star descending, the world changing—

But what does it all mean?

Will Giants and Dragons return?

Unfortunately, there’s no evidence showing what the Xinsas Serpentfolk faced during the first Calamity; murals from various ruins describe a black Flame Throne, but little is known about what happened then.

He inadvertently opened the community, suddenly a huge black title appeared in his vision, like old letterpress printing, so conspicuous: ’World Event Task Line, Calamity Star Descending—’

He was momentarily stunned, his hand seemed uncontrollable as he clicked into the main post, discovering it mentioned someone had inadvertently triggered a series task line. The task content was roughly about sending goods from Coldwater Port to Crow’s Claw Town, but at the end of the task, unexpectedly triggered this major task line.

The author was quite puzzled about this task because after the task line changed, there were no hints for the follow-up, it merely occupied his task info bar like unnecessary info, so he had to seek help from others.

Fang Hong silently scrolled down, the reflection of the floating window mirrored deep in his eyes, this person’s situation differed slightly from his, as he had directly triggered the Dragon Witch task line, thus entering the Third Calamity Star event line.

Scrolling further down, people gradually joined the discussion, indicating in replies they also encountered similar occurrences. Though unsure of the truth, Fang Hong noticed these people mostly triggered tasks in Tarun, Coldwater Port, and Wind-Crystal Glacier, the latter two located east of Scepter Coast.

Some also mentioned they were in Istania, having recently been to Idus.

This information seemed mysteriously connected, either places he’d visited, recently heard of, or planned to go.

The ensuing discussion shifted, after reaching consensus about the task itself’s existence, they stopped doubting the ’task line’s’ reality, turning to discuss associated possibilities.

As widely known, the system seems to have a mysterious prescience of this world’s operation, meaning if this task line exists, it certainly will manifest at some future time.

However, people seemed unaware of any connection between the ’Calamity Star’ and themselves, discussing it like an enthusiastic game version update, similar events Fang Hong experienced before—in virtual games that mimicked Eteliria.

However, game versions often lag a phase behind the actual Eteliria, only updating content after actual events unfold in this post-Stargate world.

In fact, many Invokers liked treating their experiences in Eteliria as activities within a virtual world—after all, inexplicable systems, Starlight, and such inconceivable informatization existed there.

Needless to say for the Natives, for half a century humans also haven’t unraveled the true nature of the Dragon Knight System.

It presents like a real world, yet contains unexplainable phenomena beyond human common sense, while in some ways, people from both worlds can communicate—not just humans entering unilaterally, Su Changfeng and the military confirmed this long ago.

He once inquired Miss Tata about this, and after some thought, Miss Fairy told him: ”Information can be substituted.”

”The material basis of the two worlds might not be the same.”

”But information dictates what form material should exhibit.”

Fang Hong felt muddled, still unable to comprehend what this meant, only acknowledging that both worlds’ understanding of the world itself differed. Starlight, Ether, and Elements, much like the basic structure of the microscopic world, were deeply ingrained here.