(It was a new month. Apparently there would be double rewards at the end of this month, but... but I'm genuinely afraid you guys will forget about it by then. Could someone remind me to ask for monthly tickets at the end of the month? Also, if you have guaranteed monthly tickets, you can cast them early—or, if you really think you can't count on remembering at the end of the month, cast them early too...)
Sandora and I returned safely, perfectly completing the mission of salvaging the Database. We had also, incidentally, possibly come into contact with a world-shaking secret—not too big, not too small, but just enough to scare the cold sweat out of anyone. That turned our mission into a victory worth celebrating, practically a triumphant return.
Though even now, I still felt uncomfortable in all sorts of ways. I had no idea whether I'd really eaten something bad...
Before we had even emerged, Tawell had already made preparations outside. The entire Disassembly Space had been detached from the Research Center and pushed to the conceptual edge of Shadow Space. The instant Sandora, Lin, and I escaped safely, she activated the space abandonment procedure. The wreckage of the Deep Diving Ship, which was about to explode, along with the entire Disassembly Space, was pushed into the Void. One thousandth of a second later, it had completely vanished from the Prime Material World.
Follow-up tracking data showed that the wreckage exploded as expected during its twelfth minute in the Void. The intense energy shock burned out several Void probes observing it, and the "echo" generated by the information storm reverberated through the Void for a full sixty minutes before gradually subsiding.
In every sense, the Deep Diving Ship was a product of cutting-edge Old Empire technology. Its astonishing