The tearing sensation of the overloaded jump had yet to fade completely when the Benatar tumbled violently out of the warped tunnel of streaming light like scraps spat out by a colossal beast, plunging headlong into a... bizarre starfield beyond description.
In an instant, every instrument needle spun wildly. Alarms wailed like the cries of something in its death throes, then all fell... silent.
They had not broken. They had... stopped functioning.
The engines' roar cut off abruptly-not because they had stopped, but as though some invisible force had forcibly "muted" them. The lights inside the ship flickered a few times and quickly dimmed, leaving only the faint, ominous glow of the red emergency lights. Every screen filled with static. Radar, sensors, navigation... every device that relied on conventional physical laws and energy detection had been disabled.
In a single instant, the ship seemed to regress from a marvel of advanced technology into a primitive skiff drifting through endless darkness.
"What's happening?! All systems are offline!"
"The engines are still running! But the power output reads zero! Every energy reading is zero!"
"Communications are down! Navigation's gone! We... we're blind!"
Panic spread through the bridge. Star-Lord hammered desperately at the unresponsive console, Rocket Raccoon cursed at the blackened displays in despair, and Gamora and Drax gripped their weapons, staring warily through the viewport into the unsettling darkness.
Lin Ye alone remained utterly calm. The instant every system failed, he pushed his [Dimensional Energy Perception] and [Thunder Law Insight] to their limits. Replacing the ship's sensors, they reached outward like exquisitely sensitive feelers.
The information they brought back made his brow furrow deeply.
This place... was a graveyard of rules, the edge of order.
Beyond the viewport lay something other than pure darkness: a thick, gray "chaos" that seemed to have