BXBX NOVEL Chapter 1335: The Protoss Artifact
Chapter 1335: The Protoss Artifact
Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
Sheyan had only heard the name of the Twilight Council less than 24 hours ago. More precisely, he had learned about it from the Protoss hero Tochego.
The reason was because the main reason Sheyan had come to this place was to find Ronnie’s whereabouts, and Ronnie was closely related to the Dark Templars, so that was what Sheyan’s investigation had focused on. Regarding this topic, Tochego had told him with confidence that according to the legends, the origin of both the Dark Templar and the High Templar lay in the ancient, powerful and long-lost Twilight Council.
Sheyan checked the place out. From its architectural style and decorative patterns, he could basically confirm that they were in the style of the Protoss, but many of the details were different from what he had seen before in the other Protoss base. Therefore, Sheyan was sure that this place had absolutely no relation to the Protoss force led by Uraki.
Sheyan naturally had his reasons for making such an assumption.
The technology of Uraki’s Protoss was obviously more advanced than that of this mysterious place. At least in the medical field, Sheyan had witnessed it with his own eyes. Their limb restoration technology and cell activation technology could restore a dying Zealot back to his peak fighting condition in just three hours.
Considering Sheyan’s contribution to Uraki’s Protoss side, if he had fallen into their hands, he would surely be thrown into a cell activation container for more effective treatment instead of being left in such a quiet room for his body to heal by itself.
Therefore, the identity of these mysterious Protoss was now all too clear.
But he had his reasons for making such a harsh reply to the cold voice before he was completely sure of his current situation. He had only done so after careful considerations.
Since he was dealing with the Protoss, they were bound to be arrogant. Arrogance was a common characteristic of all Protoss even if they were not the ones led by Uraki. It was absolutely impossible to leave a good impression on an arrogant person by relenting or showing subservience. On the contrary, it would only make the other party look down on you even more. At least displaying an arrogant attitude back could possibly win you some semblance of respect.
Sure enough, after Sheyan gave such a reply, the other party did not sound angry at all. He only scorned, “A human has the audacity to speak to me of noble souls?”
“Have you really never seen a human with a noble soul, sir? In the old Galaxy Campaign at the Marginal Corridor, the Protoss and the humans cooperated for the first time ever. It was the humans who stood at the frontline, protecting you Protoss with their flesh and metal! The bodies of 1.3 million humans were reduced to ashes back then. Are their souls noble or lowly?” retorted Sheyan, his tone neither humble nor overbearing.
The cold voice had no reply to that. It was only a while later that he said, “You seem to be recovering well. Let’s go. The elder wants to see you.”
Sheyan simply had too little information on hand at the moment because he had not regained his consciousness for long, so he was naturally reluctant to see any of their leaders so soon. He immediately grabbed his head and said, “Oh, hell, my head feels like it’s going to explode. If you force me to walk right now, it’ll be no different from murder!”
The voice did not say anything, but a door silently slid open. Because Sheyan was lying on the operating table with his head hanging off the edge, he only saw two legs standing at the door.
The legs were wrapped in metallic armour that exuded killing intent and intimidation. The edges and corners of the metallic armour were so sharp that it seemed like they could cut the eyes of anyone who so much as gazed upon them.
Behind the legs was a flapping black cape. It was hard to tell what material the cape was made of, because it was as deep as the night sky, seemingly absorbing all the light that shone on it. But more bizarrely, anyone who looked at it would feel their line of sight constantly sliding away from it.
The pair of legs moved towards Sheyan. Every step was uniform, like it was measured with a ruler. The person stopped before Sheyan.
While Sheyan was still wondering what the other party was going to do, he suddenly felt a refreshing and comfortable feeling wash over him, as if a large amount of freshly-melted snow had flowed into his body from his eyes, ears, mouth and nose, then creeped slowly into his brain along his nerves.
The prickling pain on Sheyan’s head immediately felt better, and when that refreshing feeling converged at the back of his head, the pain slowly dissipated like snow that melted away after being splashed by hot water.
But after that, Sheyan felt his breathing becoming less smooth, like something wet was obstructing his breathing. He wiped with his hand and found blood flowing out of his nose and ears. The blood was dark red, and some blood clots had coagulated. As the blood slowly flowed out of him, the pain in his brain gradually eased until it completely disappeared.
“Get up,” the cold voice said.
Sheyan was going to stand up, but suddenly realised that his limbs were not listening to him. He felt as if there were invisible shackles in the air tying his hands and feet down, and these shackles have their own consciousness, forcing Sheyan to bend to its will!!
At first, Sheyan was going to struggle, but then he remembered where he was right now, thus he relaxed his body. He was instantly lifted up like a string puppet and forced to stand straight.
“There’s absolutely no more problem with your injury. Just follow me,” the voice continued. Sheyan could now see that the man standing in front of him was wrapped in a black cloak and wore a triangular mask. His metallic long boots were very conspicuous.
He also carried a long staff in his hand which had strange patterns on it. The patterns were very mysterious and looked like stars that moved across the sky. At the tip of the staff, a soft little blue light was flickering faintly.
As soon as the words “just follow me” were uttered, Sheyan instantly felt like two invisible men had grabbed onto him and forced him to move according to their will. He kept quiet, did not resist, and let his body walk forward.
Sheyan noticed that the corridor he passed through were all considerably old. Although the surfaces were still sparkling bright, the rust, the smoothness from wear and the traces honed by time could not be erased.
In addition, he also saw some six-pointed star symbols, which were totally taboo in Uraki’s base.
After passing through various long metal passages inlaid with crystals, Sheyan finally arrived in a hall that was at least a few hundred meters high. There were a large amount of what seemed like paintings at the ceiling, but upon closer inspection, he found that the figures in the paintings were moving.
On both sides of the hall were two rows of exquisite and magnificent giant metal pillars, each more than ten meters in diameter. At the other end of the metal pillars was a huge metal altar that had a blue pulsating flame on it.
For some reason, when Sheyan saw the blue flame, he felt a chill seep into his eyes.
Behind the flame was a large hologram thousands of square meters in size. One look at the hologram and Sheyan could not help gasping in surprise.
It could be seen from the hologram that 13 giant spirals had formed on the surface of the Lost Temple planet, sweeping madly across the planet’s surface. From the perspective of outer space, a huge funnel-shaped black hole several light-years in magnitude had formed with the Lost Temple planet at the core. It was brutally swallowing everything within its reach!
“So that’s why there were so many cases of mysterious disappearances around here!”
A loud rumble suddenly resounded through the hall. The ceiling of the hall slid slowly towards both sides to reveal the starry sky. After that, something which gave Sheyan an indescribable feeling slowly descended.
The surface of the object was shining with a weird glow, as if the light from all the stars in the sky was gathered on it. Its overall shape resembled a spinning top. It was visibly spinning at a high speed, but it felt extraordinarily stable, as if wherever this object was, it would ensure the balance and stability of the place, and never collapse.
“This... Could this be....?” Seeing this object, Sheyan was shocked speechless. He finally knew why every forces were congregating in his place. To hell with the secrets of the Colossus! That’s bullcrap! No wonder this place could turn someone into a Dark Templar...
It turned out that the Lost Temple hid a sacred object of the Protoss, a terrifying weapon of mass destruction, a Xel’naga artifact – the Keystone!!
(https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Keystone)
If this artifact was successfully put together, it could instantly wipe out all the Zerg on the planet!
Even more terrifying was that in Starcraft lore, even the Queen of Blades who once took over as the supreme ruler of the Zerg race was deprived of all her powers by the Keystone. It deinfested her and carried out a genetic reversal to make her human again! Thus, it could be inferred from this that the artifact should be able to easily turn a human into a Dark Templar too!
The Keystone descended slowly towards the flame inside the hall, and finally hovered over the flame. A blue ray of light suddenly shot out of the flame and landed on Sheyan. It penetrated him like an X-ray; he could not hide any secrets from it at all.
And so, a mark which shimmered with a gloomy blue light appeared from between his eyebrows – the mark which Uraki stamped on Sheyan’s forehead, recognising his status as an allied “hero”.