Deep Sea Embers

Alice leaves.

Duncan doesn't know how much this silly doll understands, but at least one thing, she is now aware of the danger of the "key". Before she understands the real situation of that thing, she should not think about winding it again. thing.

The setting sun outside the window was gradually sinking, and the two rounds of brilliant rune circles were gradually approaching the distant sea horizon. The diffuse golden-red radiance smudged the entire sea, passed through the window, and sprinkled into the room.

Duncan sat at the desk by the window, staring at the brass key quietly, watching the sunlight covering the key handle like an infinity symbol, the fine patterns seemed to come alive in the sunlight, and appeared with the light and shadow. Fluid texture.

After a short thought and hesitation, Duncan took a light breath and reached out to hold the key.

A fine green flame appeared on the fingertips, and gradually penetrated into the key.

He originally didn't plan to use the "spiritual body fire" to study this key, because the power of the flame is very likely to destroy the extraordinary essence of the key, and even if it is not destroyed, it may affect its original nature, but now he has no longer cared about it too much.

It is necessary to figure out what Rei Nora left in the key—under this premise, he can only be extra careful, try to avoid the power of the spirit body fire from burning the thing too violently, and at the same time carefully perceive the flames. Every little bit of information coming through, and ready to snuff out the flames if it doesn't feel right.

The flame is like water, flowing gently between the fingers and the key, and the dark green light seeps into the brass surface of the latter little by little. In Duncan's perception, his flame... seems to be sinking into a vast and inexplicable chaos. place.

He slowly closed his eyes, and then took the spreading flames as his vision, and began to observe the "world" behind the key.

Fog, boundless fog, flows like dust and smoke, undulates in the field of vision, sometimes condenses, sometimes disperses, where the flames see, there is only chaos and nothingness.

Duncan "observed" the dense fog in front of him suspiciously, but only saw the same uniform chaos in all directions.

He knew that this was the "truth" of the "inside" of the key, and he was doing the same thing as when he was investigating the doll's coffin, but the situation here was completely different from the inside of the coffin.

After staying quietly in the endless fog for a while, Duncan sensed that the flames were still spreading steadily, and the key itself showed no signs of damage or destruction. He was slightly relieved, and then tentatively moved in a certain direction. own vision.

But as soon as he moved forward, he felt the texture of a foreign object in his palm.

key?

Duncan immediately thought of the brass key he was holding in his hand in the real world, and then he realized another thing - he actually had a "body" in this thick fog?

He still clearly remembered that when he checked the doll's coffin last time, he had only one "vision"!

Why is there such a change? Is it because the nature of the two Transcendent items are different? Or was it because of some unknown change in his own strength?

Duncan's doubts rose sharply, and at the same time, he subconsciously raised his hand and looked at the "foreign object" in his hand.

A cuboid object with a black shell, whose texture is hard to tell whether it is metal or plastic, lay quietly in his palm.

Duncan froze.

The thing is only about half the length of a palm, and the width of two fingers. Its smooth and flat surface is obviously some kind of artificial creation. Under its pitch-black shell, some fine lines can be vaguely seen, whether it is decorative lines or internal structure. , and at one end, you can see a metal port with a complex structure, and a series of neat raised structures are arranged inside the port.

It looks... like a... "readable device" that can be attached to some kind of machine to store data or act as an enabler.

Duncan held the black cuboid in front of his eyes, and carefully looked at every inch of its details with inexplicable astonishment.

He thought of a USB flash drive from "another world", or a removable hard disk, but the interface specification of this thing was obviously not what he was familiar with.

After observing for a long time, another thing suddenly came to his mind——

In Purand, in the historical branch that was burned by the fire, he saw that the "children of the sun" who invaded the city-state were holding a big black umbrella in their hands. Inside the big black umbrella was a complex structure that looked advanced and sophisticated. Even the electronic structure...

Duncan recalled the black umbrella he saw in Prand, carefully observed the cuboid equipment in his hand, and finally confirmed that the black umbrella of the Son of the Sun seemed to be different from the strange "equipment" in front of him. It is the product of two technical routes or design styles, but they have something in common——

Sophisticated, advanced, and complex, from the appearance, it seems to be far beyond the technological level of today's world.

At least, it doesn't look like something that the city-states of the Boundless Sea can or have ever produced.

And this kind of thing seems to have a unique name in this world:

Blasphemy archetype.

Agou once described them like this:

"In the long history of this world, there are some histories that have been 'locked', and the things that have been born in these taboo histories are profane archetypes. Usually, their existence is harmful to the creatures of the real world... ..."

This "black box" that looks like some kind of data device... a "blasphemy prototype"?

Duncan frowned slightly, looked at the small device in his hand repeatedly, and at the same time thought about how it was related to the brass key he was holding in his hand in the real world, and at this moment, a strange, The low roar suddenly came from a very high and very far place, interrupting his thinking.

Duncan raised his head in astonishment, and looked in the direction where the voice came from.

In the next second, he saw a bright light suddenly appearing in the endless chaotic mist covering the entire space. The light came from a distance, like a meteor falling violently, and then formed a ball in the mist A flaming fireball!

It whizzed past Duncan's head, and gradually lowered the altitude as it flew, the fog was washed away, and some kind of huge thing was outlined in the dazzling fireball, and Duncan saw an entity pushed by the flames——

It looks like three spindles bound together. At the end of each spindle, you can see the huge stream of light gushing out from the propeller. On the outer shell of the spindle, you can see thick smoke billowing and flames overflowing. It is a shocking scene. Explosions and tearing are constantly happening, and during this period, fragments continue to fall from the explosion point, splashing in the thick fog like rain, and turning into meteors during the fall, burning up in the sky...

Without a reference object, Duncan couldn't judge the size of the "trimaran" that was flying across the sky, but he could feel the strong shock and coercion brought by the huge figure wrapped in flames and thick smoke, It may be larger than one city, or even many cities put together, it may have traveled a long way, it has passed the stars on some astronomical scale, it glides and falls in this misty vision, And under Duncan's astonished gaze, the fall ended with an earth-shattering explosion——

Accompanied by an explosion that could shake almost the entire time and space, the "Giant Ship Ark" composed of three spindles disintegrated.

It split into three parts, turning into three burning fireballs, three glaring trajectories wrapped in thick smoke, scattered in the depths of the dense fog.

Very far, that is a distance that cannot be reached by foot power alone.

Moreover, Duncan suspected that even if he could travel thousands of miles in an instant, he might not be able to reach the place where the three wreckage fell.

Because this fog... records only an event that happened in the distant past.

A slight heat came from the palm of his hand. Duncan lowered his head and saw a brass key lying quietly in his hand. The handle at the end of the brass key, which looked like an infinity symbol, was emitting a slight light. Slowly wandering in the light, and outlined a recognizable symbol:

"New Hope"

"boom!"

An illusory roar suddenly exploded in his mind, and the fog around Duncan suddenly dissipated into the darkness. Then, the light and shadow changed, and the familiar bedroom scene came back into view again.

Deng affirmed his composure and felt that his perception was recovering rapidly. He lowered his head again and saw that the brass key was still lying quietly in his hand.

The key no longer heats up or shines, and the fine lines on the handle of the key no longer wander away. The characters that appeared in front of my eyes... like a bubble that dissipates when I wake up from a dream.

But Duncan still clearly remembers what he saw, and remembers the name——

New Hope.

He frowned, quickly got up and took the notebook on the desk, wrote the words "New Hope" on it, and quickly and roughly recorded the scene he saw in the "phantom", waiting to write all these things After he got down, he breathed a sigh of relief, and resumed his original sitting posture.

In this world, it is unlikely that anything can affect his memory and thinking, but the necessary caution cannot be avoided.

After completing the recording, Duncan fell into deep thought.

He didn't know the cause and effect of the scene he saw, he didn't know what kind of connection or "transformation" process was between the black data device and the brass key in the "phantom", he didn't know that the fallen ark ship Where is he now, but he believes...what he sees is not some delusional hallucination.

That was a scene that actually happened, it was the real history that happened in this world in the distant past, before the era of city-states even started.

There was a huge spaceship that crashed into this world, and exploded during the crash, and the wreckage scattered on the world.

Duncan exhaled softly.

He put the key close to his body, raised his head, and looked out the window at Vision 001, which had almost completely sunk into the sea.

"This time... the fun is great."