"Hey..." Qian Qian bit her finger and looked at me timidly. "Now it's in our hands."
Yes. That message from back then, the information recorded in the database of the probe salvaged from the Abyss Gate—its original copy was now in our hands. It had crossed tens of thousands of years of history, traveled from the Old Empire to the New Empire, begun and ended a mad chapter of history, and finally arrived in our possession.
"...Lock down all networks. Seal off the space occupied by Green Star. All fleets that directly contacted this planet after Green Star's database was opened are to land on its surface immediately. No contact with the outside world is permitted."
Sandora gave the orders in rapid succession with barely a moment's hesitation, and only then did I find a chance to speak. "Um, can that really happen? The Abyss hides inside a text message, then jumps out and contaminates the real world or something..."
"Hasn't it done exactly that before?" Sandora glanced at me. "It once contaminated an entire nation through the Empire's Spiritual Network. If the Spiritual Network could contain it, why couldn't a sentence? The Abyss can often conceal itself within the intangible. Since it can contaminate everything in the real world, anything that exists in reality—whether tangible or intangible, even a sentence, a concept, or a widely known word—can serve as a vessel for the Abyss. And Qian Qian is right. This message came from the deepest level of the Abyss. Perhaps it truly could evade every detection method."
Even I started to feel nervous this time. Qian Qian, Qian Qian... she really was the sort to either say nothing at all or drop a bombshell. That girl's bizarre leaps of thought had opened up one hell of a horror story.