Chapter 731

Chapter 731: Before It All Began

The whole Abyssal Deep and Deep Sea seemed to fall silent at that moment. The entire dimension sank into dead stillness. Even the drifting dust between the floating islands stopped in the air. For a long time, no one spoke. Only the Elder God that looked like a mountain waited for an answer. Lights as dim as distant stars slowly flickered over its body, full of patience.

After an unknown time, Shirley’s voice finally broke the stillness beside him: “…Wow…”

Duncan raised his head and calmly looked at the “mountain”: “I hope you can be a bit clearer—what does ‘take over all of this’ mean?”

Amid soft tremors, a very human-like sigh seemed to come from deep within the star-shaped mountain. Then it spoke slowly: “Flame Usurper, you may already know that in the so-called ‘third Long Night,’ I did not carry out every plan on the Blueprint. The Boundless Sea is not a perfect Sanctuary World. In a sense, my ‘Genesis Protocol’ failed, just like the attempts of the King of the Pale giants and the King of Dreams. The only difference is… this failure was delayed by ten thousand years.”

Standing in the deepest part of the Abyssal Deep and Deep Sea, hearing with his own ears an Elder God who had shaped all things admit its failure was a shocking experience even for Duncan. He had already gathered many clues about this, yet he still could not help letting out a long sigh after hearing the Abyssal Lord’s words.

After a while, he finally broke the silence: “Yes, I know. Many clues point to this. I have seen those city-states called mirror world in the Deep Sea of the Mortal Realm, and those unfinished ‘half-finished products’ in the Abyssal Deep and Deep Sea. I have also learned the truth about the Abyssal demons—in a place called Sacred Isle, I saw that hall where data on tens of thousands of living creatures was recorded…”

“All signs show that the present age of the Deep Sea is actually just some half-true scraps of civilization struggling on after Doomsday. As a ‘Sanctuary World,’ it is full of flaws.”

Alice listened and muttered quietly at the side: “Isn’t that a little too blunt…”

“That is already very polite,” Shirley whispered back in a low voice.

Their quiet talk was then cut off by the tremor from the dark mountain: “Yes, it is full of flaws—and now this flawed Sanctuary World is also slowly reaching its limit… Flame Usurper, how many times has the Observer Effect stabilizing anchor failed?”

Duncan’s eyes changed at once: “…Twice already.”

“It is the key that lets the many ‘ashes’ inside the Sanctuary World stay stable, balanced, and compatible. Under its light, those conflicting, untranslatable fragments of worlds left after the Great Annihilation can collapse into a single Mortal Realm. Its failure means the flaws that existed when the Sanctuary World was first built have already piled up to the limit—once it goes completely dark, this clump of ‘ashes’ we forced together will scatter again.”

“…So what does that have to do with me taking over ‘all of this’?” Duncan spoke slowly. “The Sanctuary World is already on the verge of its limit. Do you think it will be reborn just because I take control?”

“In my calculations, yes.”

Duncan felt a jolt in his heart at that quick and firm answer from the Abyssal Lord. In that instant, he realized something—the Elder God knew him, this “Flame Usurper,” far better than he had expected!

His expression hardened at once, and he asked in a serious voice: “Why?”

“…Because you are an observer stronger and more stable than the Observer Effect anchor,” the lights on the dark mountain’s surface flowed and flickered like a river of stars. The Abyssal Lord’s voice echoed through the entire dimension: “If you take over all of this, your power will be enough to cover every flaw in the Sanctuary World. All the unbalanced systems will regain stability and return to the perfect state they had at the very beginning.”

“…You seem to understand me better than I do myself,” Duncan said after a short silence. He still did not answer the “invitation.” Instead he frowned and added: “You, and the other so-called ‘ancient Elder Kings,’ all seem to know more about me than I do.”

“…We are only guessing at your nature through long observation. Even after guessing for ten thousand years, we still have not figured out what you actually are,” the Abyssal Lord’s tone grew slow and hesitant, as if it was uneasy about something. After a brief pause, it still went on: “Flame Usurper, do you truly not know where you came from, or what your nature is?”

Duncan did not speak for a moment.

As for his own origin and nature… by now, he actually had many clues. The information that had appeared in the darkness, that “message” sent from the human civilization at the end of time to the distant past, and that 0.002-second universe… all of them pointed to the truth of the individual called “Zhou Ming.”

But after a few seconds of hesitation, he chose not to answer this Elder God he was meeting for the first time. Instead he asked in return: “I want to know what you meant by ‘long observation’ just now. You, and the other ‘ancient Elder Kings’—when did you first discover me?”

“…We saw you in the first shock wave raised when dozens, even hundreds of worlds crashed together—you were the earliest of us, Flame Usurper.”

Duncan’s expression shifted slightly, but in the next instant it returned to calm.

He had been the earliest one… He had come to this world long before the age of the Deep Sea began, in a time far older than ten thousand years.

It was not in New City-State Calendar year 1900. It was not on the day the Vanished returned to the Mortal Realm. It was not when he, as “Zhou Ming,” pushed open that door…

He had only woken up on that day.

Expecting something in your heart was one thing. Hearing it with your own ears and confirming it yourself was another.

Yet Duncan simply stood there calmly, as if every shift of feeling had sunk to the deepest part of his body. Then he nodded lightly: “…Go on.”

“…To this day, we still do not know why that collision happened. The only thing certain is that only a very small number of… ‘survivors’ came out of it, and those lucky or unlucky survivors are the ones called the ‘ancient Elder Kings.’

“Our survival was a result full of accidents and twists. Our nature… changed completely after that collision. At that time, time itself was in chaos. Space was squeezed and torn. We rose from the hot, chaotic ashes left after the Great Annihilation. When we first confirmed each other’s existence, it was almost another disaster—many died from corruption during that ‘first contact.’ The ones not strong enough, not lucky enough, soon became new ash in the ash heap. In the end, only a dozen or so figures remained. Among them… were the few names you already know.

“And you were there from the very start, sleeping deep inside a ‘cocoon’ we could not understand. You never woke up and did not even have a form. In our observation… you were a mass of formless light, and you seemed separate from everything around you. You did not react to the outside at all—through three Long Nights, countless gatherings, and countless changes strong enough to reshape the world, nothing affected your existence.

“In fact, if you had not suddenly begun to move in recent times, I would have thought you would sleep like that forever, always keeping that form of formless radiance, until this destroyed world was destroyed again…

“And ‘our’ observation of you took place under such complete silence from your side. Tarrigan was the first to grasp your name. He called you the ‘Flame Usurper,’ but he kept the reason for that name to himself. Navigator Two understood your power or ‘property’ to some extent. As for the King of the Pale giants… he stood at the center of the ashes and used his divine gaze on you for seventy-seven cycles of the clock. He left only one sentence—he said he would meet you again. After that, until he died in the first Long Night, he never spoke another word.”

The Elder God’s deep tremors echoed through the Abyssal Deep and Deep Sea. Ancient, dim starlight fell from the sky, carrying a strange chill.

“Flame Usurper—we still cannot understand what you truly are. But in the long years before you woke, we kept casting our divine gaze on your sleeping ‘cocoon.’ That formless radiance showed each of us different truths and futures. And now, it is my turn to be the first to meet you.”

Duncan did not speak for a long time.

He needed to slow down—his thoughts were too tangled and had to be sorted out.

An incomprehensible “cocoon,” an invisible thing sleeping deep inside it… Was that what he had always looked like in the eyes of the “ancient Elder Kings”?!

And those “Elder Kings” who had survived the worlds colliding in the Great Annihilation had been watching him like this all along… and had even gained many “revelations” from this long observation?

A strange feeling filled his heart. After a long while, Duncan finally spoke with a frown: “What about you, then? What ‘insight’ did you gain from all those years of watching? Was it just that I should ‘take over’ this ‘Sanctuary World’ you created today?”

Under the dim starlight, the grand star-shaped mountain fell into darkness for a brief moment. Then every light on its surface came on at once, and each dark blue stream of light slowly swelled. A deep rumble rose from the mountain’s depths. In Shirley and the others’ stunned divine gaze, the central “peak” of the mountain slowly opened. A dark red core, flickering between light and shadow, rose from its deepest point like a giant single eye, calmly fixing its divine gaze on Duncan.

“No,” that dark red core spoke, its voice stiff and cold like a machine. “The revelation I received is that you will set the whole world on fire—all timelines, all flows of history, every last flame of civilization left in any world will gather into a single, unheard-of ‘Cremation Fire.’”