Chapter 567

Chapter 567: veil of night Visions

Duncan rubbed his slightly sore forehead. As he put away The key, he recalled his experiences in the “mansion,” the message that the tentacle of that Elder God in the garden had passed to him, and the “intruding foreign object” that had appeared beside the hollow inside the mansion.

Alice soon noticed the captain’s “return.” As she pulled her clothes back down over her back, she turned her head curiously: “Captain, you’re back! Did you find the answers you wanted?”

“I got more information, but only more questions,” Duncan sighed softly. Looking at Alice’s always carefree, bright expression, he put away the chaos in his mind for now and let a small smile appear on his face. “But I have made a lot of progress—at least I have a new goal for the near future.”

Alice tilted her head a little: “A new goal?”

Duncan thought for a moment, then spoke in a calm tone: “First, we will catch a few Annihilators and see.”

Why had the “trash” he threw out of his studio apartment drifted to Alice’s mansion? Why had those things turned into growing shadows in the eyes of the mansion’s servants? What had really happened to the missing gardener in the mansion? What was the true nature of the Cleaner? For now, there were no answers to this chain of questions, and there was no good way to break through in the short term. But in another direction, the suggestion that the Abyssal Lord had given him was worth a try.

As for the state of Vision 001, the meaning behind those brief bursts of noise, the ancient Elder Kings, the truth of the Great Annihilation and the several Long Nights, and the meaning of the so?called cycle and the End… The Elder God that lurked in the Abyssal Deep Sea, clearly knew many secrets about all of this, and It was willing to reveal them to him, the one who carried the Flame Usurper.

So finding a way to build a connection with the Abyssal Deep Sea, had become the only clear path for now, just as the Abyssal Lord had personally suggested—to try catching a few Annihilators.

Still, whenever he thought of this “suggestion,” Duncan could not help but feel a bit strange inside…

Alice did not think that much. She was simply happy that the captain had a new plan again. Even though she did not understand why, her face still showed eager expectation: “Okay, okay! Then when are we going to catch them? And where are we going to catch them?”

“…cultists are not jellyfish in the sea that you can just grab,” Duncan rubbed his forehead. “Rest for today. Tomorrow I will talk this over properly with Vanna and Morris.”

“…Oh,” Alice nodded, but then another question popped up: “What is a jellyfish?”

“It is something that lives in… probably lives in the sea,” the muscles in Duncan’s face twitched as he gave this very odd explanation. “It looks half transparent. Some are poisonous, and some can be eaten.”

“They can be eaten?” Duncan had only explained it offhand, but Alice’s eyes lit up at once. “Then do they taste good?”

Duncan’s face looked strange: “…You do not even have a digestive system. Why do you care about that?”

“I can cook them for you!” Alice said happily. “Captain, when we have time in the future, let’s go catch jellyfish together!”

He could feel the topic sliding into something strange, and he almost could not keep his expression under control. He hurriedly waved his hand to brush it off: “Alright, alright, I promise you. If we get the chance, we will catch some to eat…”

And so Alice left, happy and satisfied.

Duncan let out a gentle breath, shook his head with a touch of helplessness, and strolled to the window.

Judging by the time, veil of night had already descended now—Vision 001 had sunk below the sea’s surface several hours ago, and its power had faded from the world. The “rift” of the World’s Wound had appeared again in the sky, looking down coldly over the whole city.

But at the same time, there was still “sunlight” in the sky—that sunlight came from the “glowing geometric body” on the sea near the city-state. After its radiance spread out and was blocked again and again by the city’s buildings, only scattered beams that swept across the sky remained by the time they reached this area near the city center. Like light and shadow cast by blinds, those uneven beams swept over the high sky above the city, forming an eerie “view” that looked like some twisted form of dusk.

Under the “cutting” of that sunlight, the World’s Wound in the sky also appeared broken by light and shadow. It no longer stretched across the sky in one unbroken line, because wherever the sunlight swept, the World’s Wound became invisible. Only in the places that the sunlight could not reach could one see those pale, cold cracks, split into separate segments in the sky.

Duncan suddenly furrowed his brow. He realized a detail he had overlooked before and began to watch that thought?provoking “spectacle” in the sky with growing curiosity.

The glowing geometric body that had fallen onto the sea could not possibly project its light all the way up to where the World’s Wound lay—that high in the sky. Lucretia and the Scholars of Lightwind Harbor had already measured its range of light. It could more or less cover one city-state and part of the surrounding sea, but it could not reach the sky.

Yet what he saw now was that wherever the “beams of sunlight” swept across the sky above the city, the World’s Wound became invisible.

So… sunlight was actually not acting directly on the World’s Wound, but on the eyes of the “observers”?

The true role of Vision 001, the Sun, was not to suppress the World’s Wound, but to use some kind of covering or filtering method so that the world’s intelligent beings “could not perceive the World’s Wound” at all?!

Faintly, Duncan suddenly felt as if he had brushed against a key mechanism of Vision 001.

However, just as Duncan was about to follow this line of thought further, a strange sight that suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision broke his train of thought.

He immediately stepped forward, pushed open the window, leaned out, and looked toward a certain direction outside.

That was another street right next to the Crown Street district—he still clearly remembered that there were rows of rooftops and tall buildings there, and a distinctive spire that stood at the deepest part of the district.

Yet now, a lush forest shrouded in dusk appeared in his view.

Towering giant trees had suddenly risen from the city. The district’s original buildings and spire had, at some unknown time, turned into the shapes of a forest. There were also high, arching structures that looked like huge vines spreading out from the forest, and some of them had even extended into the area of Crown Street!

Under the crisscrossing light of the “sunlight” and the World’s Wound, those dark-colored vines crept and grew along the streets. They twined around the buildings by the road, climbed up the walls and high façades bit by bit, and wrapped around the streetlamps by the sidewalk, like tentacles stretching out from a nightmare, slowly stabbing into the Mortal Realm…

Duncan blinked and found that the “abnormality” in his field of view was still there. Under the crossing light of the sunlight and the World’s Wound, it even seemed a bit more real than before.

Yet the city was still silent. Neither the distant districts nor the buildings right before his eyes that had already been wrapped in vines made a sound.

It seemed that no one had noticed this vast abnormality, even though a few nearby houses still had their lights on, showing that until just a moment ago there had clearly been people awake and moving about inside.

Duncan pulled his gaze back from the window, turned, and walked quickly toward the door. Before he could open it, hurried footsteps already sounded in the corridor outside, and the door was pushed open with a bang.

Alice, who had left just a short while ago, rushed back in. Panic was written clearly on her face: “Cap… Captain! Outside! Did you see outside…”

“I saw it,” Duncan cut off the doll, who was so nervous she was stuttering. “It may be some kind of otherworld or illusion that covers a huge area, but it has not affected our house yet. Do not panic. Go call everyone together. We need to figure out what is happening.”

Hearing this, Alice finally calmed down a little and nodded quickly. As she turned to leave the room, she spoke in a rush: “Oh… oh, right! Wait here. I will go look for the others!”

The doll left at a trot and soon vanished down the corridor outside. Duncan turned his head and looked again at the “strange scene” on the street outside.

The “forest” that covered a large part of the district was still there, lush under veil of night and as thick as shadows rising up. But the vines that had spread from the forest seemed to have stopped growing—many vines of different thicknesses had halted at the edge of Crown Street, with no sign of stretching further this way.

But that was only what he could see from here. He had no way of knowing what things looked like on the other side of that “forest.”

Just as Duncan began to worry whether other parts of the city had also changed, Alice’s hurried footsteps sounded again in the corridor, and her panicked voice reached his ears at the same time: “Captain, captain, captain! The… the others are all gone!”

This time Duncan finally froze: “All the others are gone?”

“Not a trace,” Alice ran over quickly, nodding in a hurry. She even clutched her head as if afraid it might fall off. “I just went to Nina and Shirley’s rooms. They were both gone. Miss Lucretia was gone too. No one answered when I knocked on the other doors. In the living room there were only those clockwork-driven servants—they were all standing still and not moving at all. It was so scary!”

Duncan’s gaze turned serious at once, but he still took a moment to calm the nervous Alice first. Only then did he narrow his eyes slightly and slowly spread out his senses.

He searched for the Marks on Vanna, Morris, and the others, trying to confirm their condition.

The Marks still existed, but their state… was very strange.

“Let us go downstairs and take a look,” Duncan opened his eyes, then beckoned to the cabinet beside him. The AI, who had been dozing on top of the cabinet, fluttered down onto his shoulder. Only then did he nod to Alice: “Stay close to me. Do not run around.”

Alice nodded at once: “O… okay, Captain!”