Deep Sea Embers

All known history of this world begins with the "Great Annihilation" in the ancient times.

If the "Great Annihilation" is regarded as a wall, then this invisible wall is obviously not a simple "event node", but actually "cuts" the time flow of the entire history.

Everything before the Great Annihilation is unknown. Archaeologists have exhausted all their wisdom and efforts, but they are unable to restore the information before that time node. There is not even any historical relic that can point to the Great Annihilation in the world—— Even if it's a stone with words engraved on it.

This hopeless "black wall" has stood in the eyes of scholars for ten thousand years, and now Captain Duncan, who returned from the warp, has given this wall an appropriate name.

As the leader of the Faculty of Truth, the Pope of the God of Wisdom, Luen could deeply understand the existence of that black wall and the subtlety of the term "limit of horizon" better than anyone else.

"Our world seems to have been 'created out of thin air' at a certain moment after the Great Annihilation. The fragmented and contradictory history is just an ironclad proof of the existence of the 'horizon limit'," said three old In front of his friends, Lu En said with emotion in his tone, "Since the rise of the city-state, and even since the dark age, countless scholars have tried to go back to the past and try to find the 'source' before the Great Annihilation. They drilled deep into the earth, but in the end they were all blocked by that invisible barrier.

"A second, even a second before the outbreak of the Great Annihilation, is blank and unverifiable, even the 'Three Long Nights' mentioned in the 'Book of Blasphemy' that Captain Duncan got from the Annihilation Cultists , is only describing the period of history from the Great Annihilation to the establishment of the ancient Kingdom of Crete—the information before the 'Event Horizon Limit' is still blank."

"It's very dangerous to use the heresy of heretics as a reference." The dead Pope Banster couldn't help reminding him.

Luen shook his head lightly: "The danger of heresy lies in its deceptive and evil motives. Excluding these influences, 'Three Long Nights' itself is still a topic worth studying. There are many achievements in the dark age, which are based on the research on the Sun Sect and the Annihilation Sect."

"...All in all, what you're trying to say is that you can't explain what's going on with the 'leviathans' of the city-state, and the leviathans that carry the cathedral ark can't give us an answer either," Fram broke Silent, "Because this is an event that happened before the Great Annihilation, all the information pointing to it is unknowable, unmeasurable, and unverifiable."

Lu En didn't say a word, which was regarded as acquiescing to Fram's words.

Helena suddenly spoke after thinking for a moment: "But you can at least tell us where the Faculty of Truth found the four Leviathans—at least those giant beasts that carried the four church arks were discovered and revived by you." 'Yes, isn't it?"

"...they came from the border. After a huge 'border collapse'," Luen finally had a clear answer this time. "The specific location... is near the eternal curtain in the eastern sea."

"Eastern Sea?" Banster frowned subconsciously.

"Yes, it's near the former site of the Thirteen Isles of Viserand," Luen nodded, "Since the terrible warp disaster a century ago, the Eastern Curtain of Eternity has always been a fragile node. You should also know that the fog often collapses inward, or a temporary vision area appears on the sea area."

Helena and Fram nodded silently, and Banster showed a thoughtful look on his face, but they didn't interrupt Lu En's words, but motioned for the other to continue.

"When the Institute of Truth was in charge of patrolling the border, one of our ships encountered a strange situation there," Luen continued to speak while sorting out his memories, "The specific situation is no longer available, because the crew of that ship was involved in the incident. Severe cognitive confusion and memory blanks occurred during the incident, and it was impossible to accurately describe the experience during the incident afterwards, but there was a hastily written log on board, which recorded part of the situation at that time——

"The sea suddenly sunken inward, like a weird bowl, the edge of the 'bowl' was smooth and calm, the water seemed to be frozen, but the boat didn't fall with the sunken sea, but floated above the sunken sea ...The ship lost its power, unable to move forward or backward, suspended in a terrifying way at a height of 100 meters above the sea water... a colossal monster emerged from the sunken sea area, as if some kind of creature... …

"The above is the hastily written record of one of the crew members of that ship before the cognitive confusion and memory loss.

"Later, our other fleet found the missing patrol boat, which was slowly drifting out of a mist, with no power, the steam core was cold, and everyone on board was sleeping. Behind the ship, in the depths of the gradually dissipating mist, four behemoths appeared in the field of vision of search and rescue personnel.

"That's the Leviathan we found in the sea—the giant beast that has long disappeared in the long river of history, the apostle of the Storm Goddess, as recorded in the original storm.

"You will know what happened after that. The Institute of Truth managed to 'resurrect' those legendary giant beasts, and built a huge church ark on them, and delivered them to the Church of the Four Gods for use."

Lu En's narration is over, Fram and Banster are still thinking, but Helena gradually frowned: "Those Leviathans are actually one of the frontier relics... No wonder you have avoided talking about these details before, It turned out to be related to the collapse of the border.”

"Knowledge of the collapse of the frontier will increase the probability of the collapse of the frontier in the civilized world. The closer the time is, the higher the probability is. This is what Captain Duncan Abnomal was a great explorer a century ago. Summed up the law," Lu En nodded, "but now decades have passed since the border collapse incident in which Leviathan was discovered by the Academy of Truth, and it is not so dangerous to bring up these things again."

"...I am a little puzzled," Fram said suddenly, "Although the church ark is large, it is obviously not at the same level as the city-state—if the biological structure at the bottom of the city-state is really a Leviathan If it is, then their volume is several times the size of the cathedral ark Leviathan... Are these really the same species?"

"Who knows?" Luen spread his hands, "Maybe the four Leviathans we found at the border are just some kind of 'small individual'? Or are they 'juveniles'?"

"...It shouldn't be so in theory," Helena shook her head, "I often communicate with the Leviathan of the Ark of the Church. Although it doesn't know the things before the Great Annihilation and the truth at the bottom of the city-state, it has clearly stated , it is an adult Leviathan."

"The problem lies in the biological organizations at the bottom of the city-state. Perhaps they are extremely large-scale 'mutated individuals', or... it may be related to the influence of those 'blueprints' in the deep sea," Lu En said while guessing, " After all, if the information from the Lost Home is true, then all the city-states in the Boundless Sea can actually be counted as the 'creations' of the ancient gods, and even the biological structures at the bottom of the city-states are likely to be the Lord of the Deep. The result of 'secondary processing'..."

Speaking of this, Lu En suddenly stopped, then shook his head somewhat self-deprecatingly, brushed his eyes with his hands, and made a gesture of praying to the God of Wisdom, Raheem: "May the Lord forgive me, it feels like talking about these heretical remarks." How strange."

"May the Lord forgive."

Helena and Fram also made prayer gestures, confessing to the Storm Goddess and the Eternal Burning Fire behind them.

As the leaders of the church, they can view these topics that are on the verge of taboo, even heresy, from a higher perspective, and can analyze the intelligence from the heretics with a calmer attitude and a more practical perspective, but as the four The spokespersons of God, they also abide by the precepts of their respective sects and are bound by their beliefs-when talking about certain dangerous topics, the conflict and conflict in their hearts is inevitable after all.

Only Banster, the spokesperson of the God of Death, who was tall, thin and old, never spoke, as if he had been lost in thought since just now.

"Banster," Lu En focused his attention on the silent spokesman of the god of death, "you have been absent-minded since just now."

"I'm thinking about a question, Lune," Banster finally raised his head, and the sunken eye sockets were as deep as night, "Veserand Thirteen Islands——those Leviathans were discovered in Viserand Thirteen Don’t you think this is worthy of attention?”

Lu En nodded calmly, obviously he had expected that Banster's attention would fall on this detail.

"I know what you want to say—the Lost Home," said the old elf slowly. "A hundred years ago, the Lost Home opened a gate to the subspace on the Thirteen Isles of Viserand. All the islands and residents were dragged into the depths of the terrifying world. This incident also caused the space-time structure of the entire sea area to be extremely fragile, and visions occurred frequently... From this point, the patrol ship of the Institute of Truth decades ago There is a certain causal connection between the incident encountered and the incident on Viserand Thirteen Islands."

Speaking of this, he suddenly paused, then raised his head and looked at Banster seriously, and continued: "But we can't simply think that 'it was the Lost Land that sent the Leviathan monster into the real world' , which lacks evidence and does not have sufficient theoretical support.”

"But it is indeed possible that the four Leviathans entered our real world due to some kind of follow-up effect of the Vesseland Thirteen Island incident. Luen, this incident was actually risky from the very beginning."

"...You don't want the church ark anymore?"

"want."