Colonia Storm Tour

The Griffin Special Operations Ship, like the Phoenix Flame, was designed based on the Griffin warship from Nova's covert operations, so its beauty is a given.

Raffi was thus retrieved into the warship's cabin by the magnetic ray of the Griffin Special Operations Ship. After smoothly stepping onto the black nanometal floor, Raffi soon saw a person.

A young man with black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin, dressed in a black hoodie, black pants, and military boots, approached her with a friendly smile.

Lin Haiyuan's charming smile seemed perfectly normal, making it impossible to tell that this guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes was actually a white-haired loli-loving guy who liked wearing white stockings!

This appearance... suggests someone from the Eastern Empire?

Raffi was quite surprised by this. She hadn't expected that the captain of the ship that rescued her would be an Eastern Huang person. She had previously thought he was from another country or something.

As unexpected as it may seem, it's still necessary to give the necessary greetings.

"Hello, unknown captain, thank you for rescuing Laffey."

Raffi didn't know what had happened before he regained consciousness, but there was no doubt that the captain of the Eastern Empire had taken down the two fighter jets in his warship.

“Well, Miss Raffi, you’re lucky you held on until I found you. Before that, I was searching this vast ocean for any possible survivors, and I only found one life form, and that was you. Now, let’s not talk about that now. You look a bit tattered. Let’s get your clothes treated and repaired first. We’ll talk in the medical room.”

Lin Haiyuan gestured for him to enter, then turned and walked toward the ship's medical room.

"Ah, thanks."

Raffi covered the damaged areas with her arms to avoid them being immediately visible, and only now did she feel embarrassed, realizing that those areas must have been scrutinized earlier.

After bringing her to the medical room, Lin Haiyuan led her to sit in a chair and then activated the nanotherapy tool. Several things that looked like a combination of mechanical arms and cannon barrels immediately popped out.

"Don't cover your wound, otherwise our special medical treatment beam won't be able to reach it."

Lin Haiyuan pointed out that he noticed Raffi's slightly flushed face and understood her little thoughts, so he turned away without looking at her directly.

"Lafite knows..."

When Raffi saw Lin Haiyuan turn around, he released his arms and, as if undergoing a physical examination, placed his hands facing the nano-repair device that looked like a mechanical repair instrument.

With a hissing sound, multiple nano-repair beams immediately shone on Laffey's damaged areas and wounds—the repair of ship girl equipment and the treatment of the ship girl herself were not too troublesome. With just a little adjustment, the repair and treatment effects could be achieved much faster and more conveniently than "taking a bath".

"It's so itchy..."

When Raffi is irradiated with nano-repair beams on her body's wounds, nanodrones swarm to further treat the wounds, a process similar to tissue regeneration that causes an itchy sensation.

Compared to nanotherapy, which has a unique ticklish sensation, nanorepair beams don't feel particularly special when repairing damaged ship equipment. They simply repair internal and external damage, making the ship look brand new.

As for clothing repair, that's outside the current scope of nano-repair, because the database hasn't been updated to allow the nano-repair device to support clothing repair. In other words, we haven't yet understood every aspect of their clothing from a nano perspective, so repair is not possible.

Lin Haiyuan took out a white coat with many holes from the other side and handed it to her: "Our repair and treatment equipment cannot repair your torn clothes, so please make do for now."

"Oh, thank you. May I ask your name, Captain?"

Raffi took the white coat and buttoned it up to cover her exposed area. She didn't know the name of the Eastern Huang captain.

"My name is Lin Haiyuan. As you can see, Miss Laffey, I am a human who looks like an Eastern Huang. I am currently the captain of the Griffin."

Lin Haiyuan turned around and answered.

"A human who looks like someone from the Eastern Huang?"

Raffi repeated this strange part of his words, puzzled.

“Strictly speaking, I am not the Eastern Huang person you imagine, Miss Raffi. I am from another world, just like those villains in the sky who are wreaking havoc.”

Lin Haiyuan directly revealed his identity.

"Huh?!"

Faced with this unexpectedly direct approach, Lafite's sleepy face turned quite surprised.

"This can't be, can it? From another world? The two appearances are so different," Raffi thought to himself.

"This 'from another world' doesn't mean that I and the Ring Messenger are from another world. We were never in the same world from the beginning. It's just that we learned about the existence of the Ring Messenger in this world through other means, and then we came to this conclusion."

Lin Haiyuan carefully explained the differences.

"is that so……"

Raffi's expression slowly returned to normal, but the sheer volume of information contained within made it difficult for him to digest and understand; at the very least, it would take time.

"I only found you as the only survivor being hunted in the nearby waters. Do you know where the other survivors are? I want to rescue as many survivors as possible and get them out of here."

Lin Haiyuan inquired, in fact, he could also learn about the movements of other ship girls through Walker.com AI if he wanted to.

“Raffi knows where they are, but they… I don’t know if Benson and Bailey are still alive after such a fierce attack.”

Raffi recalled the attack he had suffered before being rescued, which was far more terrifying than the pursuit by the two air-to-ground fighter jets.

Watching his comrades turn into dust and vanish in the black and red beams of light, or disappear directly in the earth-shattering energy bombs, helplessly lifted up by the air phase fighters and then surrounded and killed, Raffi's originally calm expression turned sad.

Everyone agreed to cover the retreat, but in the end, only she was left using the 127mm single-mounted cannon to fire and counterattack. The originally mighty pursuing army was reduced to two air-to-air fighters. Even so, she was no match for the two highly maneuverable air-to-air fighters. If Lin Haiyuan hadn't appeared to save her, she would definitely have lost her life.

"Miss Laffey, can you tell me how many warships you and your teammates saw in the sky when you were attacked?"

Lin Haiyuan inquired, wanting to judge the likelihood of her teammates' survival by the number of warships.

"There are so many, so many that Lafite can't even count them all."

Laffey couldn't give a precise number because there were simply too many Ringed Messenger warships appearing overhead. Faced with such a massive attack, their fate was already foreseeable.

"Is that so? It seems I'm a step too late. You can't fight against so many warships with your current equipment level. Don't be discouraged. You've done well enough to survive this long with your own resources and the equipment you have. Besides, I'm not confident I could rescue other survivors in a massive warship attack. That would have killed me too."

Lin Haiyuan has not received any message from Walker.com AI yet. Only after Walker.com AI confirms that the four ship girls Anshan, Fushun, Changchun, and Taiyuan have been recovered can he call on the Colonia flank air base to use time stop to rescue them.

"...Mr. Lin Haiyuan, after you rescued Raffi, where do you plan to take her?"

After a moment of silence, Raffi asked the question.

"Before answering this question, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the planet. Please follow me."

Lin Haiyuan got up from the chair and walked out of the medical room.

"it is good."

Raffi gripped the buttons with both hands and pulled the white coat up towards her chest. The coat was too big for her, and she had to lift it up if she didn't want the hem to drag on the ground and get dirty.

After bringing Raffi to the battle bridge, Lin Haiyuan sat down in the pilot's seat and then steered the Griffin Special Operations Ship toward the Colonia's flank air base at high speed.

The control panel has very few buttons, the monitor looks incredibly advanced, and it can even be controlled by touch—that's amazing…

Raffi's attention was then drawn to a holographic projection that appeared some distance in front of her.

When she saw the holographic projection, she pressed her hands to her cheeks.

"This is terrible?"

Holographic projection was still quite novel to her, but the novelty was quickly replaced by surprise, first of all, at the planet that appeared in the holographic projection.

"That's...Aquamarine Star?"

Raffi opened his eyes slightly wider as he looked at the ocean planet shrouded in an ominous purple mist. Although he had never viewed his home planet from a space perspective, the outlines of the islands and landmasses on it, compared with the maps he had seen, confirmed that it was indeed the ocean planet where he lived.

“Miss Raffi, if you’ve ever looked at a map, you’ll immediately recognize this as the planet where you live, the cradle that nurtured you… but your cradle is now in a terrible state.”

Lin Haiyuan magnified the part about the illusory mist in the holographic projection.

"You probably don't know the full name of this purple mist, but you should know best what happens after you enter it, right?"

"Laffey understands that this fog is like the mouth of a monster. Humans, animals, and even shells that enter it will no longer make an echo, as if they are completely swallowed and digested."

Raffi nodded to indicate that he understood.

“Very well, now I will introduce the name and origin of this fog to Miss Raffi. First of all, this fog is called the Void Realm Fog, and it is a fog that comes from the Void Realm.”

An introduction to the Void Realm was inevitable, as only by understanding the Void Realm could one grasp the necessity of leaving Aquamarine Star. He hoped Raffi would understand this.

"The mist from the illusory realm? What illusory realm is it?"

Raffi, of course, did not understand what the illusory realm was.

“You can think of the Void Realm as another world outside your world. However, that world is different from the world we see in front of us. It is a high-dimensional space, and the division of its dimensions is very complicated to explain. So, Miss Raffi, you can just think of it as a kind of unpredictable world made purely of energy. The Ring Messenger comes from that dimensional space called the Void Realm.”

Lin Haiyuan glanced at Raffi's expression and, seeing that she didn't seem confused or incomprehensible, continued his explanation.

"Once you understand the Void Realm, the Void Realm Mist becomes easy to understand. The Void Realm Mist originates from the Void Realm, and this mist plays a very strange role. The Void Realm Mist itself is also a special kind of energy, which sends unfortunate creatures who pass through the Void Realm Mist into the Void Realm. The Void Realm is not a good place. It can be said to be filled with malice that most creatures cannot bear. That malice will lead to deterioration and corruption, ultimately resulting in death. The Ring Messengers come from such a dimensional world. They believe in a Void Realm existence called the End of Reincarnation, which is meant to bring an end to everything in the world. In short, death."

Lin Haiyuan didn't just say the simple truth: "It's not just a simple death; it also absorbs the consciousness of the dead to form an energy monster composed of distorted consciousness that ravages the entire universe and hunts down all life."

"It will also absorb the consciousness of the dead to form an energy monster that hunts all life in the universe..."

Raffi felt a chill run down his spine at the thought, even though the cabin was kept at a comfortable, warm temperature.

"That's right, this is also the essence of the Ring Messengers. They want to turn all planets into part of the virtual world, kill all life, absorb their consciousness and twist them into energy monsters. However, Miss Raffi, you should pay attention to something here. The warships and infantry of the Ring Messengers that we see so far are all physical entities constructed and manifested by energy. That's why when you destroy one of them, you will see it turn into purple smoke and dissipate."

Lin Haiyuan also explained the special method by which the Ring Messenger's troops disappeared.

Raffi suddenly realized, "We've been fighting warships and soldiers made of mist all along?!"

"Essentially, it is a cloud of energy mist, but after being combined and altered in ways we cannot comprehend, it becomes real soldiers and warships. This process is similar to the birth of your ship girls, Miss Laffey, except that they do not need mind cubes and mind units, only a shaping master and enough mist."

Lin Haiyuan believed that the process should have something in common with the manufacturing of ship girls.

"is that so……"

Raffi lowered her head slightly and began to think about the possible process, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make a concrete connection to the specific manufacturing process of those vicious soldiers and warships, just as they themselves didn't understand every detail of their own birth, only knowing the general outline.

"Their construction is so cheap and convenient that they can multiply their military strength to eliminate their enemies by sheer numbers and quality. If we can eliminate the Void Mist, we can stop their troops from appearing. Without the Void Mist, they will have no way to move freely in this world."

Lin Haiyuan said this based on the premise that there are no other idealistic fools in this universe causing the appearance of virtual planets, allowing them to travel from elsewhere to Aquamarine Star.

"So, Captain, you have a way to dispel those illusory mists?"

Raffi's eyes lit up, and she looked up at him, her thick, waist-length ponytail swaying on either side of her hair.

"To be specific, the person who has the means to dispel the mist of the illusory realm is not me, but someone else. She has hinted that I have the means to dispel the mist of the illusory realm."

Lin Haiyuan is referring to Exile here, and her words in the Mind's Vision hinted at that point.

"Was hinted at?"

Raffi found it strange; why was he hinting at it instead of confirming Lin Haiyuan's statement?

"I don't know the reason why she won't say it directly. I only know that I have to go to her first to understand the reason... Miss Raffi, do you understand what I plan to do next?"

He has already said all he needs to say; Raffi will understand to some extent.

"Captain, do you intend to take me with you to that lady to find a way to dispel the illusory mist and seek her assistance?"

Lafite only understood half of it.

"Well, it's hard to say right now. If you don't want to, you can stay in the safe zone and live alone or with a few other people."