Free Web NovelChapter 516: Chapter 446: Bristling with Fear
She immediately tried to forcibly connect to the nearest annihilation array, wanting to manually trigger it to interrupt this terrifying eruption.
But it was too late.
The shattered binding array released chaotic energy currents, followed closely by the panic-induced energy surge from the living plane.
The two annihilation arrays that were slightly closer and not fully activated were like small boats in a storm, unable to make any decent resistance before being utterly engulfed and torn apart by the sweeping energy tide, turning into fragments and scattered energy.
Viola herself was the first to bear the brunt.
She was closest to the explosion center, and even though she had the protection of a sixth-level wizard, against this impact that seemed like the entire plane had "jumped up," she was like a leaf in a gale.
The multi-layered vibrant shields flickered fiercely as she was violently pushed away by the irresistible energy flow, tumbling in the void.
So much so that she could only exert all her strength to maintain her defense and stabilize her form, with no capacity to manipulate any array.
The only remaining annihilation array, because it was the furthest away, and three arrays ahead slightly blocked and consumed part of the impact, miraculously wasn’t directly destroyed.
But the energy barrier on its surface was already flickering unpredictably, the structure emitted dangerous creaking sounds, on the verge of collapse.
"Jeming! Fire! Immediately!!" Viola stabilized the communication while tumbling, her voice trembling with anger and energy shock, "During its post-burst gap! Open a breach! Give the old guy a chance to get out!!"
Her gaze, full of indisputable command and urgency, was fixed towards the direction of the battleship.
However, under her fiery gaze, that battleship, that last annihilation array... remained silent.
No attack beams lit up, no signs of energy focusing.
"Jeming!! What are you doing?!!" Viola’s voice suddenly rose, filled with disbelief and anger, "It destroyed all the binding arrays! Destroyed two annihilation arrays! It’s attacking! Can’t you see?! Fire now!!!"
Yet in the communication channel, Jeming’s voice was unusually calm:
"Senior, calm down. First, look at the deep emotional spectrum analysis data I just synchronized to you."
Viola was momentarily stunned, subconsciously diverting a bit of focus to look at the real-time data stream Jeming forcefully pushed to her terminal.
It was a set of readings parsed through special algorithms, extracted from the violent energy fluctuations, representing the emotional state of the plane’s consciousness.
After the living plane condensed a soul, it indeed enhanced the mobilization of power to a greater extent, but simultaneously made it easier for the equipment on the battleship to read its emotional data.
On the chart, the deep red waveform representing "malice," "desire for destruction," "aggressiveness," while present, was not dominant.
And the one that skyrocketed to the peak, almost piercing the chart’s top... was the bright yellow waveform representing "panic," "fright," "extreme unease."
Its intensity completely crushed all other emotional indicators!
Rather than saying it’s a malicious attack, it’s more like...
"These readings..." Viola’s eyes widened.
"This resembles... seeing a predator? Or an incomprehensible terrifying thing, being scared into a jump? Pure... excessive stress reaction?"
Not an attack.
That was just sheer terror, an uncontrolled... "fear response" triggered by seeing the incomprehensible for the first time after the soul was born and "opened its eyes."
At this point, the green plane that just erupted with a terrifying strike, its soul reading’s fear waveform began to slowly recede.
What replaced it was a more complex, mixed emotional fluctuation of bewilderment, confusion, pain, and a tinge of... grievance.
It seemed also "bewildered," unaware of what just happened, merely instinctively feeling scared and then instinctively used all its might to "push away" what frightened it.
In the control room, Jeming looked at the dominant "panic" waveform on the screen, as well as the subsequent emotional feedback that began to show signs of "shrinking" and "testing," slowly relaxing his clenched fists that he hadn’t realized he had tightened.
Viola’s figure transformed into a stream of light, traversing through the still chaotic void caused by the energy burst, rapidly flying back to the battleship.
As the airlock door opened, she charged into the control room carrying lingering agitation and chill.
"What the hell happened? That thing almost buried us all!" She asked right away, her sharp gaze piercing towards Jeming, while also sweeping over the view outside the window.
There, the last solitary annihilation array was being hit by another wave of subconsciously discharged energy from the still-frightened living plane.
The already precarious structure finally couldn’t hold, transforming into space debris amidst a dazzling flash and silent explosion.
Yet, in the face of this destructive scene, Jeming’s reaction was unexpectedly calm.
He didn’t even look at the demise of that last array, his gaze still locked on the deep emotional spectrum data on the main control screen.
"It was just scared, senior." Jeming’s voice was steady, carrying an understanding that comes with insight, "That incident just now was not an attack, it was a startled instinctive reaction—like being awakened suddenly from sleep by ice water, or a beast suddenly sees something incomprehensible exploding beside it."
He pointed to the screen upon which the dominant bright yellow waveform represented "extreme panic": "See, the malice waveform is low, but the fear value is off the charts. And..."
Jeming paused.
His cultivator’s perception was more acute than these instruments in sensing the world’s reactions.
So Jeming’s perception told him that the source of such terror wasn’t from the external bindings or threats we exerted, but from within itself.
Of course, these are things that can’t be plainly stated to Viola, so Jeming merely paused a moment, then looked up towards the view outside the window: "Judging by the plane’s reactions, its focus doesn’t seem to be on the external, the change should be internal."
Viola furrowed her brow tightly, also turning to look at those data.
Indeed, the emotional spectrum analysis results matched what Jeming said.
"Internal..." She chewed over this word, her mind quickly working, "Are you saying... Professor Clark?"
"It can only be him." Jeming nodded, his tone carrying a bit of amusement, "Think about it, a living plane that just formed a soul ’opens its eyes’ to see the world, the first clear sense of existence is a sixth level peak grand wizard, with unfathomable power, exploring ’inside’ it. If it were me, I would probably also be startled into jumping up, using all the strength available to first ’push away’ this ’unknown danger,’ or scare it into confusion."
(There will be an additional Chapter today.)
