Deep Sea Embers

The fleet returned to the foggy border in the direction it came from. Perhaps due to the sinking of the large entity "Holy Land Island", the nearby sea area did not appear to be very calm. The mirror-like sea was always echoing with layers upon layers of sounds. Ripples are as fine as fish scales, and the surrounding dense fog always presents strange and bizarre phantoms - which makes many people nervous.

But until halfway through the journey, no real threatening entity appeared in the fog.

The sail of the spirit body hangs high, and slight creaking sounds are heard from time to time as the angle of the sail rope changes. Mist flows on the deck of the Lost Home. In the thin mist, Agatha's figure faintly emerges and walks away. Through the fog.

She was checking the "environment" around the Lost Home. At this moment, her eyes reflected the scenery of the real dimension and the spiritual world at the same time - the surrounding fog looked different from when she came, and the spiritual world seemed to be slightly restless, although It didn't seem like this would have any impact on the Lost Home, but she was still a little concerned and was more vigilant.

Others are gathered in the cabin at the moment: the captain is communicating with his followers about the deep sea.

In front of his trusted crew members, Duncan did not hide his experiences in the Deep Sea, including the content of the exchange between him and the Holy Lord of the Deep Sea.

Morris was sitting at the long table with a pipe in his mouth. The wisps of smoke were floating, which seemed to show that he was not calm at the moment. After a long time, the old scholar put down the pipe and murmured with a subtle expression: " I have seen many incredible things in my life, but I have never seen anything like this. The creator of this world actually invites you to take over His place..."

Nina reached out and twisted her arm hard, as if she still suspected that she was dreaming. Then she looked up at Duncan: "Did you really refuse?"

Duncan looked indifferent: "Yes, there are big problems with Holy Lord Netherworld's plan, so I rejected it."

"Does the asylum have no future..." Lucretia said to herself. She seemed to recall a conversation with her father. She pondered for a long time before speaking softly, "I still remember the question you once asked me. You asked me if I think this boundless sea is narrow and cramped - but now it seems that even such a narrow and cramped shelter has reached its limit... I never expected that we come here far away from the civilized world and get so many conveniences. That’s the news.”

A slightly depressing atmosphere enveloped the cabin, and the area around the long table became quiet for a while. After a while, Nina approached Shirley and asked in a low voice with a hint of worry: "How are you feeling now? Are you okay? A comfortable place?”

"It doesn't feel any different from usual. Even my eyes and ears seem to be much stronger than before," Shirley muttered, her eyes still glowing with blood. "I just think about it when I go to the city in the future." With my eyes open or closed...it feels very troublesome."

"At least I came back safely," Nina couldn't help but murmur, "I was worried when I found out you were missing. I originally wanted to go to the island to find you, but the goat head stopped me from going..."

Listening to the whispers coming from the side, Duncan's eyes slowly swept across the figures at the long table. His tense expression relaxed slightly, and then he breathed out softly.

"Let's stop here. This trip to the Holy Land Island is very energy-consuming. Everyone should have a good rest before returning to the city-state."

As soon as he finished speaking, he stood up, waved his hand to indicate to others not to get up, and then turned around and left.

The captain left - and until his figure disappeared from the door, a slightly depressing silence was maintained in the cabin. It was not until a while later that Nina broke the silence with a murmur: "Uncle Duncan looks very good." Tired...he has a lot on his mind."

"He has too many things to think about," Morris said, extinguishing the pipe in his hand. "Unfortunately, there is too little we can do to help."

Lucretia, after thinking for a moment, turned her gaze to Agou: "Did father say anything after rejecting the 'plan' of Holy Lord Netherworld?"

Agou thought for a while and spoke uncertainly: "He said he had other plans, but right now it's just an idea, and he hasn't found the right way yet... That's all, he didn't mention anything else, let alone Explain it to me and Shirley.”

Listening to Agou's story, Lucretia fell into deep thought...

Duncan, who left the cabin, did not go anywhere else. He went straight through the middle deck and came to the door of the captain's cabin at the stern of the ship.

In the thin mist that slowly drifted across the deck, the dark wooden door stood quietly in front of him as before, and the words "Gate of the Homeless" on the door frame were clear and sharp.

Duncan put his hand on the doorknob, but suddenly stopped and just stood there quietly. During a brief period of contemplation, he raised his head and stood there for a long time, looking at the pale mist outside the ship's side like layers of curtains and the chaotic skylight shining through the mist.

After an unknown amount of time, he withdrew his gaze and pushed the door open.

After walking through the familiar door, stepping on the familiar floor, and walking into the familiar room, Zhou Ming exhaled softly and strolled through the living room.

Everything in the single apartment is as remembered, as if it will never change, as if it has always been the same not only in the past few years or ten years, but even in the past thousand or ten thousand years.

Everything here was imprinted on Zhou Ming's mind like a deep imprint. He passed through the familiar furniture and walked to the window, looking through the door that had never been opened before. window, looking out at the scenery.

The pale fog is like layers of curtains, and no scenery that should be a "street" can be distinguished in the fog. Only the chaotic skylight shines down from above, permeating the fog.

Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment, then slowly stretched out his hand towards the window and pressed it on the glass.

A cold and hard touch came, but the window remained motionless as before, as if solidified with the space.

He took a small breath, then blinked slowly.

The moment his eyelids closed, in the first 0.002 seconds when darkness fell, he... saw nothing.

There are no windows, no fog outside the window, and no so-called "real side" presented in my field of vision.

There was only boundless darkness in front of him, the ultimate nothingness like the death of all things.

Zhou Ming slowly took two steps back and calmed his breathing.

He remembered the changes that had happened to him. He remembered that when he was moving on the "other side" of the door, he could see some "real scenery" hidden under the real dimension for a brief moment of 0.002 seconds every time he blinked. But why is there only a darkness formed by the ultimate nothingness in front of him here?

Because I am "Zhou Ming" here instead of "Duncan"? Because this room is some kind of higher level existence? Or is it because there really is... nothing?

Zhou Ming stood in the living room and fell into deep thought. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a bright light in the room.

...That's his computer. The computer that has been unplugged is humming and running, and the monitor automatically plays the wallpaper image that keeps looping, just like always.

Zhou Ming frowned, as if thinking of something, he quickly came to the computer and sat down.

He shook the mouse and closed the wallpaper, then opened the browser and started typing in the search bar - it seemed that because he had not used it for a long time, his operation was a little rusty, and he made several typing errors, and then slowly Restored feel.

He still remembered that the browser of this computer once gave a response during one of his operations - it displayed "moon" at that time, and this response did answer to him the "truth of the world" to a certain extent. ".

Will it respond to other questions of its own?

Amidst the soft beeping of the keyboard, he first entered the words "0.002 seconds" into the search box, and then pressed Enter.

He anxiously looked at the rotating cursor and the slowly moving progress bar, while his thoughts were ups and downs——

Pilot 1 told him that he had come to this world at the beginning of the Great Annihilation. The ancient kings surrounded him and saw a chaotic light cocoon floating in the center of the ashes... Could that light cocoon be his " single-apartment"?

If so, then what do the various furnishings in this single apartment... mean?

What does this computer represent? What does the shelf at the end of the room represent? What about the "models" that were transformed here after being burned by the flames? What do they symbolize?

The cursor flickered, the progress bar at the bottom of the screen suddenly cleared, and the browser's error message appeared in Zhou Ming's field of vision.

But he wasn't surprised.

After thinking briefly, he typed new information into the search box: Great Annihilation.

The browser reported an error and the search failed.

Zhou Ming was not discouraged. After thinking for a moment, he typed in another keyword: end of time.

Then there is the new error message, and then there are more keywords——

"Cosmic Collision", "Red Shift", "Shelter", "Ancient Kings", "Deep Sea Age", "Stars"...

I kept trying keywords one by one, but the error message on the screen never changed.

After trying countless times in succession, Zhou Ming finally gradually frowned. As the last keyword "Zhou Ming" was replaced with a new error message, he sighed softly and felt a sense of disappointment in his heart.

"It" didn't respond to itself, didn't give any answer.

Unable to tell whether it was frustration or emptiness, Zhou Ming shook his head, leaned back on the back of the chair, and looked at the screen in front of him tiredly.

The little cursor was still flashing in the search bar, as if still waiting for him to type in new keywords, or just making a silent mockery.

Zhou Ming sat quietly like this for more than ten minutes, but suddenly, he stared at the flashing little cursor, and something suddenly seemed to come to his mind.

He sat up straight, put his hands on the keyboard again, and typed in another keyword——

"Inverse Singularity"

The moment he pressed Enter, an illusory roar suddenly broke into Zhou Ming's mind, and then the screen in front of him fell into darkness.