"...This is the final report. This is the Deep Dive Team. Operation Codename: 'Adulthood'..."
The somewhat indistinct voice reached his ears, and Yu Sheng froze where he stood.
He raised his head and saw that the mysterious "control hall" had already lost its colors. Huli and Eileen stood frozen like two phantoms in a black-and-white world. Even the fallen bullet hovered in the air a few centimeters above the floor in a bizarre state. Only that deep voice came clearly into his ears.
The scene was exactly the same as when he had conducted "conversations with the dead."
The voice continued, seemingly right in front of him, less than a meter away. Yu Sheng could not see anyone there, but he clearly heard someone speaking—not to him, but as if muttering to some kind of recording device—
"...Everyone in the team is no longer able to move. We've fallen in this hall, our bodies melting like wax, our thoughts... Our thoughts are mixed with all kinds of things, tangled together...
"My name is... is... No, I can't remember.
"This is the final report. I don't know whether this recording will ever have a chance to reach headquarters, but I have to record what we saw.
"Ankaela is a ship—at least, that's what it was when it first departed. After coming into contact with the device known as the 'umbilical cord,' we saw many things about it.
"I... don't understand where this ship came from. The memories transmitted to us by the umbilical cord are maddening and chaotic. It seems to have drifted for a very, very long time—so long that it exceeds the limits of rational understanding. It came from a place utterly different from the real universe we know... Perhaps that is the 'outside' the scholars have theorized about.