After the Giant Turtle Rock Platform's Void Engine carried out a powerful "shock therapy," time at the warped point of Sulun's Gate began moving at a normal pace again. Strictly speaking, "began moving again" was inaccurate, because inside the warped point, time had always been normal relative to itself. It only appeared excessively slow compared with the surrounding normal universe. Still, those details were unimportant.
The Giant Turtle Rock Platform cautiously approached Planet Sulun, keeping all its warning radars and weapon systems online. The God-slaying War had ended only ten hours ago on this planet, and no one dared guarantee that the area around it was safe. Nolan conducted a rough scan of the planet's surface energy readings with the ship's radar and immediately discovered hundreds of locations with high-energy reactions, but apparently none showed any inclination to attack or posed any danger.
"This is the gateway to the divine kingdom. The entire planet was fortified, so high-energy reactions are perfectly normal, even after its destruction," Hao Ren said as he directed the ship to slowly enter the planet's atmosphere. "...Whoa. It looks awful."
Heavy clouds swept past outside the ship, revealing the surface hidden beneath them. Hao Ren saw a wasteland, a wasteland still covered in searing red light, almost entirely melted. The former boundaries between land and water and the vegetation on the planet's surface were impossible to distinguish. Rivers had been boiled dry, leaving behind ugly ravines like earthworm trails. Only a few boiling, filthy puddles remained of the oceans. Lava covered the land, and enormous craters were clearly visible even from space. They must have been bombardment craters created by some immensely powerful orbital weapon.
Hao Ren even saw a horrifying trench along the equator. It stretched across the entire planet, its depths glowing with unsettling