"The surface?" Cora asked instinctively, then grew a little embarrassed. "I only know about battlefield defenses, all in the Shallow Zone. I don't know much else."
"There's no air above the surface. It's a vacuum... you know what a vacuum is, right?"
Cora hurriedly nodded.
"In this Sea of the Moon, we can breathe underwater, but we can't stay for long, or we'll suffer some kind of erosion and assimilation. Stay too long, and we won't be able to breathe air anymore."
"And we can't breathe above the surface either. There's no air in a vacuum. There are supposedly other dangers too, but those are all ancient records. It's been a long time since we sent an investigation team to the surface."
"So the only safe place on the moon is the Shallow Zone of this Sea of the Moon. There may be an endless stream of enemies here, but at least we can stay."
At this point, he glanced at Sidney.
Sidney immediately shook his head. "There are a lot of soldiers stationed above here. He'd have to pass through the entire Forward Base. It's almost impossible for him to float up there, and even if he happened to get through, someone would notice him."
"In other words, either he's in the Shallow Zone—I've already sent soldiers to search the surrounding area from here—or..."
The three exchanged glances, their expressions grim.
Below lay the Abyssal Sea.
"Does he have any relic for tracking his location, or anything similar? Even a general direction would help."
"Yes..."
"What's the situation?"
"There's a probe following him. I asked a Machine Priest to locate that probe, but it failed. Not only couldn't they locate it, even the scanning machine burned out."
"Try another machine. Those grease monkeys' things have never been reliable!" Michel