Ch.192192. Discovery

One day, contact was lost with the drug dealer organization, Mind Collector, which had entered the ‘Mausoleum of Moby Dick’ claiming they would collect drug materials.

This was an organization based in SodomGomorrah whose influence and scale ranked among the top handful of drug dealers—truly deserving of being called massive.

In a crime city like SodomGomorrah that operates without proper law enforcement, such large organizations are essentially feudal lords. Naturally, this should have become major news with rumors spreading in all directions.

But why?

Despite involving the disappearance of a major organization responsible for a significant portion of SodomGomorrah’s drug trade—a psychic drug dealer with monopolized narcotics—somehow the rumors failed to spread.

There was only one reason why this incident at the recently emerging hotspot, the ‘Mausoleum of Moby Dick’ in the crime city of SodomGomorrah, would be buried.

That reason was the occurrence of an even larger-scale event—one that could be described as cosmic in proportion.

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In our galaxy, there are regions commonly referred to as the Top 10 Danger Zones among the general public and enthusiasts.

While some are merely coincidences packaged by sensationalist media, like the Bermuda Triangle, others are genuinely dangerous areas.

For example, the ‘Stone Ocean,’ a region consisting of countless asteroids serving as the base for Rockist pirates.

For example, the Monster Domain, particularly the unidentified zone estimated to have been their territory for over 10,000 years.

For example, the recently formed ‘Mausoleum of Moby Dick,’ created in the aftermath of the largest psychic storm in history.

This list contains various regions where entering by mistake could make death seem like salvation, alongside areas that are closer to mere tabloid fodder. Among them exists what is essentially an urban legend: the Isolated Area.

Somewhere in our galaxy, there supposedly exists a special realm located between two overlapping worlds—reality and the psychic dimension—whose position changes every second… It’s just an urban legend without credibility or evidence.

Yet this legend has existed for quite some time and is known throughout the galaxy, so naturally, there are broadcasting companies looking to profit from it.

SB (Space Broadcast), one of the corporations in the Human Federation, decided to conduct a special live broadcast exploring this Isolated Area as a New Year’s project.

Since SB was a major broadcasting company that had existed since humans first ventured from Earth into space, this special broadcast was essentially a new technology research presentation in disguise.

Extremely rarely, new technology developed outside of nano-tech research institutes was being presented grandly because the institute’s director had connections with SB.

Of course, following the instructions of SB’s eccentric chairman who believed that any information leaks would ruin the surprise, they implemented confidentiality agreements using soul contracts.

Soul contracts, developed by some psychic-oriented civilization, use souls as collateral for agreements. Though quite expensive, they are undeniably effective.

If violated, psychic enforcement measures specified in the contract are applied, and if these are also violated, ownership of the soul is transferred.

With such terrifying yet effective contracts in place, they were able to proceed with the demonstration of the technology under absolute secrecy.

To enter the Isolated Area, the research institute connected to SB prepared three main things.

First, the Dimension Scissors. This massive mechanical device with two blades made of solidified ultra-high-density psychic energy could literally cut through space to create a doorway to the Isolated Area.

…Though it consumed 5g of psychic knight for just 10 seconds of operation.

Once a passage connecting to the Isolated Area was created by cutting through space, it needed to be maintained for a long time.

However, passages connected to the Isolated Area exert unimaginable gravitational forces that rapidly devour everything nearby, and due to dimensional homeostasis, even artificially created passages tend to close.

Therefore, to maintain this passage, the institute created a control device called the “Lid” that successfully allowed them to open and close the Isolated Area passage at will or keep an opened passage stable.

It could maintain a circular passage with a radius of exactly 3 meters and control the gravitational pull so that even standing right in front of the opening wouldn’t pull you in unless you actually touched it.

Compared to the Dimension Scissors, it had the excellent advantage of requiring only about 10 nuclear fusion power plants to operate or maintain.

The final piece of equipment prepared by the institute for exploring the Isolated Area was a special unmanned exploration vessel to enter it.

During their research process of opening passages to the Isolated Area, the researchers noticed that the interior of the Isolated Area was not safe.

When they inserted and then withdrew a long-processed adamantium ingot into the space, it was compressed to almost wire-level by extreme pressure. When they experimented with a prosthetic limb temporarily connected to neural pathways, the subject reported feeling pressure from all directions.

As a result of this research, the team discovered that the interior of the Isolated Area was subject to powerful pressure befitting its description as a dimensional gap. The next step was to create an unmanned exploration vessel capable of withstanding this pressure.

Since every physically reinforced object they sent in came back shrunken, it was clear that a vessel made purely through physical methods would be insufficient.

After conducting several additional experiments, they discovered that this pressure was a natural phenomenon caused by extremely high-density psychic energy, so they needed to solve this issue.

Even conventional anti-psychic materials, which merely decompose psychic energy back to its energy state, had no effect on the pressure of the Isolated Area caused by high-density psychic energy.

Anti-psychic materials designed to block psychic flow seemed to work initially but were eventually overwhelmed by the dominant energy flow and reversed.

After much deliberation, their solution was to cover the surface with special psychic circuits made of psychic crystals that could deflect the pressure of psychic energy coming from all directions.

Of course, this method was only a temporary fix, and the circuits would eventually break down over time, but it posed no problems for movement for about 3 hours.

The completed submersible had a mole-like appearance with a large drill on its crown that could bore through ultra-high-density psychic energy.

Fortunately, they also managed to create a wired connection device through several workarounds that allowed for simultaneous filming and control of the unmanned exploration vessel.

On the day of the operation, they proudly unveiled their Isolated Area exploration vessel through SB’s main channel and proceeded with the exploration of the Isolated Area’s interior.

It was the moment when the existence of the Isolated Area, once considered merely an urban legend among the Top 10 Danger Zones, was broadcast throughout our galaxy.

About 1 hour and 10 minutes after the unmanned exploration vessel began the world’s first(?) exploration of the Isolated Area…

The camera connected to SB captured something no one had imagined.

A massive artificial structure with the nano-tech group’s logo prominently engraved on it, and life forms in spacesuit-like attire working on it.

Monsters skillfully manipulating nano-tech objects were being broadcast live to over 5 quadrillion (5,000,000,000,000,000) viewers.