Chapter 455

Chapter 455: Thoughts and Tests

The ripples in the darkness slowly calmed. The pale words no longer appeared. No matter how Zhou Ming focused or searched through the darkness, he could no longer see that eerie “conversation”.

Yes, a conversation—without a doubt it had been a conversation. And it seemed… to be a conversation between the Gods.

At the very least, Zhou Ming recognized the name “Bartok”.

In the darkness, Zhou Ming stood quietly in place. He no longer tried to stir up new ripples but instead sank into long contemplation. An astonishing flood of information surged in his mind like a tide. Behind his seemingly calm thoughts hid deep shock and a tangled mess of ideas.

Was this a nasty joke? That was clearly unlikely.

Then had it really happened? If so, when had this conversation taken place? Was it a record of something that had happened long ago, or… was it going on right now, in some mysterious dimension? Were “They” talking at this very moment, and that conversation was being reflected into this dark and uncanny place?

Bartok was the name of the God of Death. That was beyond doubt. So what did the other names stand for? The most reasonable idea was that they all represented Gods. Then the King of Fire was very likely Tarrigan, the “Everburning Ember” worshiped by the Flamebearer faith… and Leviathan Queen? Was that the storm Goddess?

The storm Goddess’s other name was “Leviathan Queen”?!

In the darkness, Zhou Ming slowly furrowed his brow. The strange title “Leviathan Queen” stirred all kinds of guesses and associations in his mind, but even more distracting than that was the fourth name—

Among those speaking with the Gods, one had the name “LH-02”.

If the speakers he had just seen each stood for one of the Four Gods, then the last one could only be Rahm, who held the divine authority of wisdom and madness among the Four Gods.

Rahm’s name… was “LH-02”?! That did not sound like a name at all. It sounded more like a code. A sequence that belonged to a machine!

Countless wild guesses surged up. Zhou Ming felt as if his brain were boiling and tumbling. He had to work hard to rein in his wandering thoughts so those guesses would not spiral into pure nonsense. Even while he tried to sort through that chaotic mess, he did not overlook the shocking information mentioned in the “conversation”.

The situation was grim. The Critical Threshold was accelerating… The Cluster Controller had begun to copy itself or had already fully entered runaway state…

Just those two sentences were enough for Zhou Ming to smell the tense, heavy atmosphere. What situation were “They” referring to? The state of the mortal world? Then the Critical Threshold accelerating… did it mean that the collapse of some huge system was fast approaching?

Zhou Ming instantly recalled his last conversation with Agatha. Pland and Frostholm had both run into trouble one after another. Vision 001 had “malfunctioned”. This string of events all felt like the “Precursor Phase” of a vast system breaking down again and again.

Then the Cluster Controller had begun to copy itself…

Zhou Ming’s expression suddenly hardened, and a sentence surfaced in his mind—

“This is a replica.”

In the darkness, he could not help taking a quiet breath. He glanced toward the spot where the words had appeared earlier, as if expecting more information to show up there.

Of course, nothing appeared.

Zhou Ming withdrew his gaze with a grave expression.

There were, of course, many more questions worth worrying about. He had seen only a few lines of conversation, but the information behind each one was astonishing. Even each speaker’s name was worth thinking about at length—for example, Rahm, Gamona, and Tarrigan had all used “aliases”, so why had Bartok, the God of Death, used his straightforward true name? In the last message, LH-02, who was likely Rahm the God of Wisdom, also mentioned a suspicious visitor and said that the other party “sent a dog-head and left”… what was that about?

Honestly, if the earlier lines had not held such huge amounts of information, Zhou Ming’s full attention would probably have been caught by that last “dog-head”.

But now, that jarring sentence only seemed a bit strange.

Just then, a faint noise suddenly came from the depths of the darkness, interrupting the storm in Zhou Ming’s mind.

It sounded like something quietly shattering. At first the sound was very faint, almost like an illusion, but in almost no time, the breaking noises grew clear and rapid. Countless broken streaks of light and shadow appeared in the dark space. The growing noise filled Zhou Ming’s mind. The entire dark space began to fall apart and shatter at high speed. Whirling lights rose from all directions. The next second, he heard a booming explosion inside his head!

In the next second, a brief sense of weightlessness and vertigo yanked him back into the Mortal Realm. The feeling of sitting in a chair made Duncan snap his eyes open.

Raging flames filled his vision. The nameless Black Leather Tome in his hands was already burning fiercely!

Alice’s startled cry came from the side: “It’s on fire! Captain! The book is on fire!”

Duncan jolted in surprise and quickly pressed his hand onto the blazing flames, taking control of the fire in the blink of an eye. However, the book burned at an absurd speed. In just that blink, more than half of it turned to ash, and only a small pile of scattered pages remained on the table.

A dark red liquid like blood seeped from what was left of the book, soaking and rotting the pages. Frowning, Duncan flipped through the remaining sheets and found they had all turned into soft, pulpy clumps. They were clearly unreadable.

He raised his head, his expression a bit odd: “I don’t think I did anything.”

“Judging from what we saw… this book probably could not withstand your power,” Morris said after hesitating for a few seconds. “This is a clear case of supernatural overload.”

“Could not withstand my power?” Duncan frowned and muttered without thinking.

Was it really just his power it could not withstand? The book had just borne… probably not only his power.

Perhaps it had just served as a medium—a medium for something far beyond its own limits.

Duncan remembered the golden Sun mask he had obtained in Pland. Through that mask he had glimpsed the form of the true Sun god, and it had destroyed the mask.

Morris did not know what Duncan was thinking, but he noticed the captain’s expression did not look good and could not help adding: “This book should only be a ‘copy’, an supernatural item duplicated from an ‘original’ using some special ritual. supernatural items like this really are fragile by nature…”

Duncan looked up: “So if we had the ‘original’, it might be able to withstand me… ‘reading’ it?”

Morris adjusted his blessed monocle: “…In theory.”

Alice glanced left and right, then finally could not help coming closer: “Captain, did you see something just now? Why do you look so serious…?”

Duncan rubbed his brow. Everything he had seen in the darkness rose again in his mind, but just as he opened his mouth, he suddenly stopped himself from telling the truth.

For weaker mortals, much “information” was poisonous in itself.

“I saw some things—different from what Morris saw,” he said slowly after weighing his words for a few seconds. “But I can’t tell you the details. They might hurt you.”

Vanna and Morris exchanged looks at once. The next second, the same tension and gravity appeared in both their eyes.

After a brief thought, Morris spoke: “Different from what I saw… so the book shows different content depending on who is reading it?”

“That may be the case, but it might also be that it only shows different content in front of ‘me’,” Duncan said thoughtfully. Then his tone held a hint of regret: “It’s a shame… I should have left the test for last. Even letting Tyrian take a look at the contents first would have given us more clues. Now the only ‘sample’ is burned.”

Morris’s expression turned a little strange. He opened his mouth, then said nothing. Vanna, more straightforward, spoke instead: “Shouldn’t we think a bit about Mr. Tyrian’s mental and physical health?”

“Reading more books is better than watching burlesque shows,” Duncan said with a wave of his hand. “Besides, with me watching over him, nothing would happen… Enough about that.”

He shook his head, then fixed his gaze on Vanna, deciding to test a few things in a roundabout way.

“Vanna, have you ever heard the title or phrase ‘Leviathan Queen’?”

“Leviathan Queen?” Vanna froze, genuine confusion on her face. “Never heard of it… Is that the ruler of some city-state? But I’ve never heard of any city-state with that name.”

Duncan watched Vanna’s expression while also focusing his senses, checking whether any abnormal aura fluctuations or supernatural phenomena appeared around them.

He was very curious whether mentioning the name “Leviathan Queen” in the Mortal Realm would trigger anything.

But after half a minute, nothing happened.

“Alright, forget that for now,” Duncan said, shaking his head. He turned to Morris: “LH-02. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No,” Morris said, puzzled. But seeing the seriousness in Duncan’s expression, he still thought hard before shaking his head. “It sounds like some kind of machine code.”

The reactions of the two Saints did not look fake.

They truly had never heard those two titles.

But that still did not rule out the possibility that the two titles corresponded to the storm Goddess Gamona and Rahm the God of Wisdom.

After all, above the Saints there was still the Pope, and above the great city Cathedrals there were the “pilgrim Cathedral arks” that cruised the Boundless Sea for long periods. The secrets closest to the Gods were all kept in those places far from the mortal world.

“Forget these two names for now,” Duncan said at last, after confirming that nothing had happened in the cabin. He let out a breath and shook his head. “Don’t mention them to anyone. Especially after we leave the Vanished’s range, do not say those words to anyone.”