Death… And Me

Chapter 4394: Empty

The various guardian cores continued to surround the airplane, but none of them attacked or made any sudden movements. They still seemed stuck on that same system message—unable to update the core inside the airplane—circling around it in slow patterns without showing any intention of interfering further.

Rean carefully adjusted the airplane’s position, making sure not to bump into any of the worker cores floating near the massive light pillar structure. Even though the cores themselves didn’t react aggressively, their presence alone made navigation slightly tricky due to how densely packed they were around the structure.

Eventually, he brought the airplane to a complete stop just five meters away from the surface of the enormous structure, close enough to clearly see the details carved into it. There was a worker core directly in front of them, almost in their path, but Rean simply ignored it after confirming it wasn’t reacting.

Without further hesitation, the airplane’s hatch opened, and Rean jumped out, landing lightly on one of the many wide ledges built into the structure. A soft wind brushed past him, carrying faint traces of energy that seemed to come from the structure itself.

He stood there for a moment, looking down at the vast scale beneath him, before slowly raising his gaze toward the countless runes carved across the surface of the structure, all interconnected in complex patterns.

Since he was still within the airplane’s twenty-meter operational range, the guardian cores outside did not react at all. From their perspective, Rean was still considered part of the airplane itself, just another attached component of a guardian-type construct rather than an independent intruder.

”Hum... these runes are indeed similar to the ones back in the Sacred Relic, but they clearly serve a different function here,” Rean muttered as he leaned slightly closer to examine one section more carefully. ”At best, we could repurpose parts of their internal structure for use in the relic, but the overall system is definitely not the same.”

He took out a few specialized tools from his Spatial Ring and approached one of the inactive runes embedded into the structure. Before starting, though, he paused for a brief moment and glanced back at the floating guardian cores still surrounding the airplane, as if confirming once again that they were truly not reacting.

”They really never give up...”

After that brief comment, Rean finally began carefully removing the rune. The structure itself was far more resistant than it appeared at first glance, and even though the rune looked like it was simply carved into the surface, its internal connections ran deep into the material. Extracting it required slow, precise work, making sure not to damage the surrounding energy lines.

*Click...*

After a moment of careful manipulation, the rune finally loosened and came free. Rean examined it briefly, turning it slightly in his hand while checking its internal structure, and nodded in satisfaction as he confirmed it was intact.

However, he didn’t even get the chance to properly analyze it further. The moment the rune was removed from its position, one of the worker cores immediately reacted.

Thin threads of white and golden energy extended rapidly from its edges, moving with surprising precision as they wrapped around the rune and pulled it directly from Rean’s hand before he could secure it. At the same time, the same threads gently but firmly pushed Rean slightly aside, not aggressively, but clearly enforcing correction.

”Hey! That’s rude!” Rean immediately complained while stepping back half a pace to regain his balance.

The worker core didn’t respond at all. It simply moved into position where the rune had been removed, carefully aligning itself with the empty slot. The threads of energy worked with extreme precision as it reseated the rune, adjusted its orientation, and reconnected it perfectly into the structure before sealing it back into place as if nothing had ever happened.

Rean watched the entire process closely and had to admit that, despite the annoying interruption, the level of precision was impressive. Even most experienced Array Masters would struggle to match that level of speed and accuracy unless they were at least Level Three and highly refined in their craft.

A minute later, the worker core withdrew its energy threads completely and drifted away from the area, returning to its previous patrol-like behavior as if the entire interaction had been nothing more than routine maintenance.

Everyone inside the airplane had clearly witnessed everything. They had tensed up when the worker core suddenly moved toward Rean, but once they saw that no harm was actually done, the tension faded into confusion instead.

”Even those things can’t stand being close to you. I get it. I truly do...” Roan’s voice came from inside the airplane, carrying his usual dry sarcasm when it came to Rean.

Rean’s mouth twitched. ”Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

Harksha and the others exchanged awkward looks, clearly unsure whether they should laugh or pretend they hadn’t heard anything. By now, they were already used to the constant verbal clashes between the two, but it still felt strange that they behaved like this despite clearly being brothers.

Rean eventually exhaled and turned his attention back toward the structure again, choosing to drop the argument for now.

”Forget that. You all saw it—the worker core didn’t care about me removing the rune. It only acted to return it to its original position. I think I understand why now.”

He gestured toward the surrounding cores.

”In its perception, I’m not an individual entity. I’m part of the airplane itself. In other words, I’m being treated as a guardian core, the one we have inside the airplane. When it took the rune back, it likely interpreted that as correcting a missing or misaligned component in the system. So returning it was the expected behavior according to its rules.”

He paused briefly before continuing. ”That also means something important. At the very least, we know the guardian cores won’t immediately attack just because we remove runes. As long as the system can restore the rune afterward, it doesn’t seem to register as hostile behavior. What I can try now is to remove a rune again and place it inside my spatial ring immediately. That way, the worker cores can’t take it back.”

Harksha pondered a bit. ”Since that’s the case, can’t we somehow enter the building and see what we can do there? There has to be more to gain inside.”

Rean shrugged while still standing on the ledge, looking down at the structure as he answered. ”Does the airplane look small to you?”

He paused for a moment, then answered his own question with a more practical explanation. ”Well, compared to most transport artifacts, it’s actually quite compact. It can carry around ten passengers comfortably and still have space for systems and operations. But even so, it’s still far too large and bulky to maneuver properly inside a structure like this.”

After saying that, he suddenly paused as if remembering something important, then quickly turned and jumped back into the airplane. ”By the way, Roan, did you check the 3D map? Was the scanning system able to map the interior of the light pillar structure?”

Roan immediately accessed the system and checked the results, then shook his head. ”No. The pillar is interfering with all scan signals. The internal structure is completely blocked. There’s no way to see inside using normal detection methods—”

He suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

Because at that moment, another option came to mind.

Godly Sense.

As everyone knew, cultivators avoided using Godly Sense unless absolutely necessary, because it consumed massively more energy compared to Celestial Sense for the same result. The Orb System even gave them a quest just because of how expensive it was to use Godly Sense.

Roan turned his attention toward Harksha. ”Try using Godly Sense instead of Celestial Sense. See if you can detect anything inside the structure.”

Harksha blinked in surprise. ”Godly Sense? I can use it, but it drains too much energy for continuous use...”

Still, she complied. She focused her energy and carefully shifted from Celestial Energy to her own Godly Energy reserves before extending her Godly Sense outward. Instantly, her perception range expanded significantly farther than before, confirming the difference in quality between the two energies. However, once her senses reached the light pillar structure, they hit an invisible barrier and failed to penetrate further.

”It doesn’t work,” she said after a moment. ”I can extend it farther than usual, but the structure completely blocks anything inside.”

Roan narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling like there was something important just beyond reach. Without explaining further, he suddenly jumped out of the airplane and landed on the same ledge Rean had stood on earlier.

”Did you find something?” Harksha immediately asked, confused by his sudden action.

Roan ignored her completely. He stood still for a moment, then focused as his Godly Sense slowly extended outward from his body.

At that moment, everyone inside the airplane froze.

As far as they knew, Anchor Gods were fundamentally incapable of external sensory projection because it required expelling energy outside the body. And yet Roan was doing exactly that, despite still being at Peak Anchor God Realm.

”This...” Harksha’s eyes widened. ”How is he doing that?”

Rean casually raised a hand as if explaining something simple. ”It’s not that complicated. You’ve seen how we can use weapon intents even though our cultivation isn’t high enough for it, right? We just channel our Godly Sense through our intents as a kind of extension pathway.”

It was clearly a fabricated explanation, but it was one that couldn’t be easily disproven. Given everything they had already witnessed, it even sounded plausible enough to accept.

”Is there anything you two can’t do?” Harksha muttered under her breath.

”Fly...” Rean sighed in response.

”I can!” Kentucky immediately chimed in from inside the airplane.

Everyone turned to look at him.

Of course he could. He was a Minokawa.

”Oh, come on! That was a good joke!” Kentucky protested when no one reacted.

”Leaving that aside,” Harksha said, deliberately ignoring the demon bird, ”I already confirmed that Godly Sense doesn’t work. So why is he trying it again?”

Rean scratched the back of his head. He already knew the real reason: the fact that their Godly Sense had their Great Void’s Echo mixed within. But obviously, he couldn’t say it. ”Maybe combining it with intent might help... I guess,” he said, improvising on the spot.

And surprisingly, Roan’s intuition turned out to be correct.

His Godly Sense, mixed with the Echo from their Great Void, was indeed capable of piercing through the structure’s external interference. For a brief moment, he saw the interior clearly before retracting his senses and returning to the airplane.

At the moment, after reaching the Peak Stage of the Anchor God Realm and halving the consumption after the quest, he could keep his Godly Sense up for 40 or so seconds. Nonetheless, it was still very expensive for the energy reserves.

”It’s not structured like corridors,” Roan said calmly once he was back. ”It’s mostly open space divided into multiple stacked layers. Each layer works together from bottom to top, channeling energy upward to generate and sustain the barrier around this ruins system.”

Harksha’s eyes widened again. ”You actually saw it?”

”Did you not hear anything I just said?” Roan replied flatly. ”Rean, find an entrance. If we can get inside, there should be enough space for the airplane to maneuver.”

”Got it,” Rean said immediately.

And without wasting any time, he began circling the structure, actively searching for any possible entry point they could use.