Chapter 564: Swift and Hasty Exchange
This Translation is hosted on bcatranslation.com
Deep within the sprawling mansion that had once belonged to Alice, at the edge of a garden shrouded in mystery, tentacles slithered in the shadows between lush bushes and thick undergrowth. These tentacles weren’t ordinary; they had a sinuous, elusive quality and appeared to be covered in shimmering, metallic scales, as if they belonged to a creature from another realm.
As Duncan navigated this enigmatic garden, a rustling sound captured his attention, echoing from a different direction than before. Swiftly turning his gaze, he spotted another tentacle that appeared to be the limb of a soft-bodied creature. It wound its way through the narrow gaps between bushes, disturbing the branches and creating a friction against the soil that produced a soft, almost melodious sound. Bizarrely, the rustling noise felt like it was beckoning him, almost like a siren’s call.
Immediately attuned to this strange experience, Duncan heightened his senses, becoming acutely aware of even the tiniest movements around him. He concentrated on the direction where he had last seen a tentacle vanish and began to cautiously move toward it.
As he stepped forward, ethereal green flames manifested beneath his feet, trailing behind him like faint wisps of fire. These flames gently seeped into the cracks in the ground, infusing the garden with an otherworldly glow.
Duncan knew better than to carelessly start a fire in such a sacred space since this could very well have been Alice’s soul manifesting in the form of this mansion. However, the unsettling activities he was witnessing made it clear that he must be prepared for any potential confrontations. If a malevolent entity had infiltrated this haven, he had to neutralize it without damaging the mansion or its garden.
Proceeding cautiously and guided by the mysterious rustling noises, Duncan moved further away from what he had mentally dubbed the “Sleeping Doll.” Soon, he reached the outer limits of the mansion’s enchanted garden. As he walked past thickets and crossed by a variety of unfamiliar small trees, he realized that the natural illumination from what he thought of as the “Doodle Sun” in the sky didn’t reach this secluded corner. The overlapping shadows cast by the foliage darkened the atmosphere, creating a twilight zone within the garden.
In this dim, dusky environment, he noticed a group of plants quiver momentarily before him. Seconds later, a tentacle emerged from within the flora, slowly rising and swaying in an almost hypnotic dance right in front of him. Unveiling itself without any pretense or subterfuge, the tentacle seemed to be inviting Duncan closer for some inscrutable reason.
Awestruck, Duncan studied this strange and inexplicable appendage. The tentacle was dark-hued, and its surface was adorned with complex, scale-like structures that appeared metallic. Interspersed among these intricacies, he could faintly make out pale blue patterns that struck a chord of eerie familiarity in him. The patterns evoked memories or perhaps primal fears deeply embedded in him. They reminded him of something ancient, possibly from the icy depths of Frost or even from the abyssal depths of the ocean—features similar to those found on the tentacles of a god from time immemorial.
Could it be? Is this mysterious tentacle a limb belonging to the enigmatic being known as the Nether Lord?
Duncan’s mind reeled as he suddenly recognized the source of the strange familiarity emanating from the tentacle. The moment he mentally linked the tentacle to the Nether Lord, the appendage shuddered as if an enormous and distant consciousness had finally managed to channel its essence through this limb.
In a slow, deliberate motion, the tentacle arched toward Duncan. Accompanying this action was a low, unique hum, almost like the resonant frequency of a distant world. The tip of the tentacle then gradually unfurled to unveil what appeared to be an “eye.” It flickered with an icy blue light, resembling a crystalline structure of irregular shape, its gaze locking directly onto Duncan’s eyes.
“Hello, Fire Usurper, I have words for you.”
A voice, murky and indistinct, devoid of any markers of emotion or gender, suddenly reverberated. It didn’t come from the air around him but seemed to originate directly within the confines of Duncan’s mind.
Caught off guard, Duncan squinted incredulously at the tentacle that hovered before him. “Nether Lord? King of Darkness? LH-01?”
“All of those names are correct, but listen carefully now,” the tentacle replied, vibrating intensely as if burdened with a tremendous weight it could barely sustain.
The voice conveyed through it deepened and distorted, its words hurried. “Our moments to communicate are incredibly sparse. Essential information must be imparted quickly. Whether or not you understand, commit this to memory: ‘?#%?#’ was engineered to last only eight thousand years and is currently overstressed. No external signals have been received within the expected timeframe. This is the final cycle reset; ‘?*??#’ will not regenerate again. Safeguard the fragments of ‘?#&**’ that have fallen. Should the worst come to pass, use these fragments to extend the lifespan of essential nodes. Survival is your ultimate mission. Your awakening at the end of this cycle holds importance we cannot fathom. Believe that neither you nor we are alone in this universe. This is the crucial message. If fate allows, I hope for a more stable, face-to-face communication next time.”
As the tentacle finished its rapid monologue, its vibrations began to subside. Its once vivid, metallic scales started to fade and looked almost decayed. The voice in Duncan’s mind similarly waned, quickly fading as if receding into the vast cosmic background from whence it had come. Duncan couldn’t claim to understand the mechanisms or forces that had enabled this ancient and cryptic entity to establish this fleeting connection, but it was evident that whatever loophole or energy source had been exploited to do so was now closing.
Given the urgency of the situation, Duncan didn’t have the luxury to ponder the gravity of the arcane information that had just been imparted to him. With a surgeon’s precision, he mentally cataloged each of the Nether Lord’s words, allowing himself the time to analyze the overwhelming revelations only after he was certain the message had been fully and securely recorded in his mind.
The first thing that struck Duncan was the presence of “garbled sounds”—auditory anomalies that should have represented vital information or key terms but were distorted into a jumble of incomprehensible, sharp, chaotic noises. It was as though the essence or meaning of these sounds had been deliberately filtered out, or that their weightiness had exceeded the carrying capacity of their fragile telepathic channel, leaving them indecipherable.
However, with the ancient entity’s message rapidly fading and the frail tentacle showing clear signs of impending collapse, Duncan realized this was not the moment to dissect these auditory oddities.
The spectral whisper of the Nether Lord was quickly diminishing, the brittle link they had managed to create fraying to its last threads. Duncan glanced at the tentacle, now visibly deteriorating and possibly capable of holding on for only a few more fleeting seconds.
With an urgency fueled by the ticking clock, Duncan seized the dwindling moments to ask, “If I need to find you, how do I get to the abyssal depths?” It seemed to him that a face-to-face meeting in these mythical depths would be the most direct way to clarify the numerous uncertainties that now clouded his mind.
The tentacle was already starting to stiffen, its form crumbling as fragments of its otherworldly substance began to flake off like decaying matter. The mysterious and potent will that had been channeling through it was steadily retracting, the ancient entity pulling back from this frail conduit to our world. And yet, in those final milliseconds before the connection severed entirely, it gathered what remained of its dwindling strength to issue a simple phrase directly into Duncan’s consciousness: “I don’t know.”
Duncan was dumbfounded. For once, he could empathize with those who had often been left bewildered by his own enigmatic words. He certainly hadn’t anticipated this sort of answer from the Nether Lord!
However, his moment of puzzlement was brief, soon replaced by another cryptic whisper that resonated within the caverns of his mind.
“Try capturing some Annihilators.”
“What?” Duncan was utterly confused. “Aren’t they your disciples?”
No additional words were offered in response. The whispered voice of the ancient god ceased altogether. Accompanied by a chorus of snapping and cracking noises, the beleaguered tentacle disintegrated, its matter transforming into a cloud of blue mist that dissipated into nothingness.
The mysterious rustling sounds that had originally led him to the edge of the mansion’s enchanted garden abruptly ceased. The heavy, unsettling shadows cast by the dense foliage lightened as if the natural order had been restored.
Duncan remained stationary amidst the shrubbery, pondering deeply as he did so. Several minutes elapsed before he shook his head vigorously as if trying to rouse himself from an entrancing daydream.
The entire experience felt surreal as if he had been swept up in some cosmic play. The entity identified as the “Nether Lord” had suddenly appeared, delivered an enigmatic, almost incomprehensible message, and then vanished as abruptly as it had manifested. An event like this would be considered supernatural not just in the town of Wind Harbor but perhaps across the entire expanse of the Boundless Sea.
However, when Duncan took a moment to contextualize these otherworldly events within the tapestry of his own complex life, they didn’t strike him as entirely earth-shattering. He turned to look back at the luxuriant “Mansion Garden” that lay not far behind him, glowing in the soft daylight. Nestled in a sunny clearing at the center of this garden was a silver-haired doll, serenely dormant.
This setting, connected intrinsically to an entity known as 099—a product of the Nether Lord’s ability to “clone”—was essentially a nexus tied not only to Alice and her mansion but also to that enigmatic deity from the abyssal depths. It was quite plausible to think of this entire sanctuary as a kind of interface, a vessel perhaps deliberately designed by the ancient god to channel messages to the terrestrial realm.
Given this dense network of spiritual and existential connections, encountering an emanation of the Nether Lord within the secluded pockets of this garden was far from implausible.
What truly intrigued Duncan was something else altogether: The Nether Lord’s demeanor or “state of being” was quite divergent from what he had initially expected. The entity displayed rational thought and seemed to be operating under some sort of extreme constraint or pressure. Contrary to popular myths that painted such beings as malevolent forces of chaos, this deity appeared strangely benign, even friendly.
But Duncan didn’t dwell too much on these apparent “deviations.” After all, only a very small number of individuals in this world had ever had direct experiences with so-called “ancient gods.” Popular narratives could hardly be considered reliable data. Moreover, perceptions of such beings were highly subjective. What manifested as a benign force in Duncan’s eyes could easily strike terror or awe in the hearts of average folks. He was acutely aware that his long adaptation to this mystical world had endowed him with a unique lens through which to interpret such phenomena.
What weighed heaviest on Duncan’s mind were the shards of “information” imparted to him by the ancient god.
He found himself replaying the mysterious phrases over and over in his mind, trying to distill meaning from the overload of cryptic hints:
Something had been engineered with a lifespan limited to eight thousand years and was now functioning beyond its intended operational span.
The “we” that the Nether Lord alluded to was waiting for some kind of signal, presumably from an external source, but had not received any feedback yet.
The term “cycle reset” was invoked… What could that possibly imply?
He himself was designated as the “Usurper of Fire” awakening at the end of this mysterious cycle.
Finally, there was the perplexing directive about preserving “fallen fragments” to prolong the existence of something called the Node.
As Duncan continued to ruminate on these fragments of unearthly wisdom, his facial expression turned increasingly solemn. The gravity of the situation began to dawn on him as he grappled with the layers of ambiguity and significance wrapped around each piece of information.
I think this is what each part is missing, “‘Vision-01’ was engineered to last only eight thousand years and is currently overstressed. No external signals have been received within the expected timeframe. This is the final cycle reset; ‘The Sun’ will not regenerate again. Safeguard the fragments of ‘The outer Ring’ that have fallen. Should the worst come to pass, use these fragments to extend the lifespan of essential nodes(The diffrent city states). Survival is your ultimate mission.”
Essentially, The sun is failing and time will completely stop after the sun dies and fails to restart again, to prevent this he should use the different fragments of the sun to continue the time of important places in the world. But does the Nether Lord not know Duncan is able to preserve time himself?
Thats what I thought too!
A reason why the Nether Lord doesn’t know is that it may be too preocupied with something (like keeping the sun working) that it can’t spare any attention to the rest of the world.
It could also be that the ability to keep reality going ain’t coming from his status as Ursuper of Fire but rather from his status as a Transmigrator (due to coming from earth).
As for why that could be?
A meta sort of idea:
They are like a player in a game.
A player needs a running world (server) to play in.
If there is no running world, the player makes it running (starts their own server), for they need something to play.
(That Idea is from the comments of the chapters where the sun had a hicup)
Lmao with the “I don’t know”
This one feels a lot more clear than most of the other “puzzling” pieces, if not all of them lol. Outside of the author pranking us, this one should be just be talking about the Vision 1 and its failure. Well, there were new terms there tho, like cycle reset and node. The node could be the cities or something else. The cycles could be “the turning off but then turning on again” but it sounds more like something like time loop or changing eras, since MC went through “awakening at the end of this cycle.”
The most valuable thing from this is likely “No external signals have been received.” They were expecting some change within this timeframe. But it either failed or there was some delay. And if there is a outside, then they are “inside.”
Something that comes next is the term “MC awakened.” It might actually refer to the true MC, rather than Ducan. It might click why some entities always refer “Fire Usurper.” Also, if he awakened, then the room can be explained as a dream or “a protection pod.” If he awakened, then perhaps there are others sleeping in ‘there’. If he awakened, then perhaps that was exactly what the OG Ducan wanted, a glitch.
And if that read is what the author meant, and there is no catch. Then, MC is a lot more powerful than even the ‘Gods’ expect. They think MC needs the Moons, they likely being the ones within that “message board” we saw in the subspace version of the vanished. However, MC needs no Moon, his fire has the same effect as the Moon had, at least within Vision 1 temporary failure. So, if that is what they want, then MC can save a lot more nodes than they might be hoping for.
Well, outside of “at the end of this cycle” nothing is as ambiguous as it was in some other messages.
I re-read it a few times, but still misread the awakening bit… Next chapter made it clear in my mind lol he will awaken in the end of this cycle.
Thats a suprise, i was thinking the netherlord was not sentient like the ‘gods’ and was only a machine. So netherlord reveals that vision 001 was only meant to last for 8000 years and something is supposed to happen to repair/ extend its lifespan but no signals have been sent and in the worst case scenario Zhou Ming is supposed to collect the fragments and use them to preserve a few city-states. I’m guessing he’s going to have to discover (trying to avoid that last resort) and attempt at repairing vison 001 since the alternative means 99% of the world population would die.
The Nether Lord didn’t know that the green fire can continue the frozen time during the blackout? I am wondering, during the blackout of the vision 001, except Frost, Pland and Wind Harbor, did everyone else get frozen? Even the cathedral HQ? Even gods like Nether Lord?
Shut up about the sun. SHUT UP ABOUT THE SUN
——THE OFFICE.