Dragging the azure crystal along, Xi Yan returned to the Empire with his head full of questions.
The journey was anything but smooth. To Xi Yan's surprise, space shattered along the way, and numerous Shroud Entities appeared in the universe. The blue, jellyfish-like beings charged straight at him, only to be crushed by his immense psionic power.
Picking a fight with the strongest Psionics User in the Milky Way?
The barrier between the Shroud and reality was violently torn open. Tentacles reached out through the cracks, unleashing a storm of attacks on Xi Yan.
Xi Yan could not understand why the Shroud was reacting so strongly. If anything was different, it could only be the High-Dimensional Crystals aboard his ship.
The Shroud coveted this crystal, or perhaps... feared it!
The closer he came to imperial territory, the fiercer the Shroud's attacks became. Xi Yan had already slain more than one Shroud Manifestations. These higher Shroud beings seemed to be acting at the command of something within the Shroud.
Finally, Xi Yan ran out of patience and used his Jump Drive to return straight to the Empire. The Nanite Fleet guarding the border struck hard, beginning a system-wide purge of the Shroud's minions.
At Alpha Sanctuary, the Synth Interstellar Guardians had said they knew little about the Heavenly People's plans back then. All they knew was that the Heavenly People's leader had left this crystal imbued with higher-dimensional power in their care, waiting for Xi Yan to retrieve it someday.
The crystal could open a wormhole to the Galactic Core. The final defense core had told Xi Yan that everything he wished to know lay within.
The High-Dimensional Crystals were handed over to the imperial Academy of Sciences for analysis. Later, Caedhes reported that energizing the crystal caused it to emit