Chapter 737

Chapter 737: Keywords

The fleet sailed back toward the fog boundary along the route they had used to come. Maybe because the large solid mass of Sanctuary Island had sunk, the nearby sea was far from calm. The surface, which usually looked like a mirror, now rippled again and again with fine, fish?scale?like waves. The thick fog around them also kept showing strange and colorful illusions. It made many people tense.

But until they had gone halfway, nothing truly threatening appeared in the fog.

The spirit form sail hung high. Now and then, faint creaks sounded as the ropes shifted. Thin mist flowed over the deck of the Vanished. In the pale haze, Agatha’s figure faintly appeared as she walked slowly through the fog.

She was checking the “environment” around the Vanished. In her eyes, the scenes of both the Mortal Realm and the Spirit Realm were reflected at the same time. The fog around them did not look quite the same as when they came. The Spirit Realm also seemed faintly restless. It did not seem likely to affect the Vanished, but she still cared about it and stayed on guard.

Everyone else had gathered in the cabin. The captain was talking with his followers about the Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea.

In front of the crew members he trusted, Duncan did not hide his experiences in the Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea, including his conversation with the Abyssal Lord.

Morris sat by the long table with a pipe between his teeth. Thin threads of smoke drifted up, showing how uneasy he felt. After a long time, the old scholar finally put the pipe down and muttered, his expression odd: “I have seen many unbelievable things in my life, but nothing like this. The Creator of this world actually invited you to take His place…”

Nina pinched her own arm hard, as if she still doubted she was awake. Then she looked up at Duncan and asked: “You really turned Him down?”

Duncan’s face stayed calm. “Yes. The Abyssal Lord’s plan has serious problems, so I refused.”

“Does the Sanctuary World really have no future…” Lucretia murmured to herself. She seemed to recall a talk she had once had with Father. After a long pause, she spoke softly: “I still remember the question you asked me. You asked whether I felt this Boundless Sea was narrow and cramped. But now it seems that even this already cramped Sanctuary World has reached its limit. I never thought that, after we left the civilized world and came all this way, this would be the news we received.”

A slightly heavy mood hung over the cabin. The long table fell silent for a time. After a while, Nina leaned close to Shirley and asked in a low, worried voice: “How do you feel now? Is anything wrong?”

“Actually I don’t feel much different from usual. My eyes and ears even seem sharper than before,” Shirley muttered. Her eyes still shone with a bloody light. “It’s just that, when I think about having to cover my eyes or keep them shut every time I go into a city from now on… it sounds really bothersome.”

“At least you came back safely,” Nina could not help grumbling. “I was so worried when I heard you were missing. I even wanted to go up on the island to look for you, but Goathead stopped me…”

Listening to the quiet talk beside him, Duncan slowly let his gaze move over each figure at the table. His tense expression eased a little, and he let out a soft breath.

“Let’s stop here. This trip to Sanctuary Island was very draining. Before we return to the city?state, everyone should rest well.”

As he finished speaking, he was already standing. He waved a hand to tell the others not to get up, then turned and left.

The captain left. Until his figure vanished at the doorway, the cabin stayed quietly heavy. Only after a while did Nina mutter and break the silence: “Uncle Duncan looks really tired… he has a lot on his mind.”

“He has to think about too many things,” Morris said as he put out his pipe. “Sadly, there is very little we can help with.”

After thinking for a moment, Lucretia turned her eyes to Dog and asked: “Did Father say anything else after he turned down the Abyssal Lord’s ‘plan’?”

Dog thought for a while and then spoke, not very sure: “He said he had another plan, but right now it is only an idea. He hasn’t found the right path yet… That’s all. He didn’t say anything more, and he didn’t explain it to me or Shirley.”

Listening to Dog, Lucretia fell into thought…

After leaving the cabin, Duncan did not go anywhere else. He went straight across the mid?deck to the door of the captain’s cabin at the stern.

In the thin mist drifting slowly across the deck, the dark wooden door stood before him as always. The words “Door of the Lost Ones” on the doorframe were sharp and clear.

Duncan put his hand on the doorknob, then suddenly stopped and simply stood there. In a brief moment of thought, he lifted his head and watched the pale fog outside the rail, stacked like layers of curtains, and the hazy daylight that fell through it. He stood like that for a long time.

After who knew how long, he finally drew back his gaze and pushed the door open.

Passing through the familiar door, stepping onto the familiar floor, and walking into the familiar room, Zhou Ming let out a quiet breath and strolled through the living room.

Everything in the studio apartment was just as he remembered, as if it would never change—as if not only the past few years or decades, but even the past thousands and tens of thousands of years had all been the same.

Everything here was etched deep in Zhou Ming’s mind. He walked past the furnishings that were familiar beyond all measure and stepped up to the window. He looked out through the glass that had never once been opened and stared at the view outside.

Pale mist hung like layers of curtains. In the fog no trace of what should have been “streets” could be seen. Only hazy daylight fell from above and spread through the vapor.

Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment, then slowly reached toward the window and pressed his hand against the glass.

Cold, hard glass met his touch. The window, as always, did not move at all, as if it had set solid with the space around it.

He drew a gentle breath, then slowly blinked.

In the instant his eyelids closed, in the first 0.002 seconds of the coming darkness, he… saw nothing at all.

There was no window, no fog outside, and no so?called “true side” of the world in his sight.

In front of him there was only endless darkness, an ultimate void in which everything had perished.

Zhou Ming slowly stepped back two steps and steadied his breathing.

He remembered the changes that had happened to him. He remembered that, whenever he moved on the “other side” of the door, each blink gave him a 0.002?second glimpse of the “true landscape” hidden beneath the Mortal Realm. So why, here, did he see only utter darkness made of absolute nothing?

Was it because, here, he was “Zhou Ming” and not “Duncan”? Because this room belonged to some higher level of existence? Or was it because, here, there truly was… nothing at all?

Zhou Ming stood in the living room, lost in thought. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a patch of light in the room.

It was his computer. The machine whose power cord had already been pulled out was humming along, and the monitor was playing a looping wallpaper as always.

Zhou Ming frowned a little, as if something had come to mind. He quickly walked over and sat down in front of the computer.

He moved the mouse and closed the wallpaper, then opened the browser and began typing in the search bar. He had not used it for so long that his fingers were clumsy. He mistyped several times before slowly getting his feel back.

He still remembered that, once before, the browser on this computer had given him an answer. It had shown “the Moon”, and in some way that reply had really explained part of the world’s “truth” to him.

Would it answer his other questions again?

As the soft clack of keys sounded, he first typed “0.002 seconds” into the search box and pressed Enter.

He watched the spinning cursor and the slowly moving progress bar with uneasy eyes while his thoughts churned.

Navigator One had told him that he had come to this world at the very start of the Great Annihilation. The ancient Elder Kings had gathered around him and seen a chaotic Light Cocoon floating at the center of the ashes. Was that Light Cocoon this “studio apartment” of his?

If so, then what did all the furnishings and items in this studio apartment represent?

What did this computer represent? What about the shelves at the far end of the room? And those “models” that had been burned by flames and transformed into what they were now—what did they stand for?

The cursor flashed. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen suddenly emptied, and an error message from the browser appeared before Zhou Ming’s eyes.

But he was not surprised.

After a brief pause for thought, he typed new words into the search box: “Great Annihilation”.

The browser errored out. The search failed.

Zhou Ming was not discouraged. After a moment’s thought, he entered another keyword: “End of Time”.

Another error followed. Then came more keywords—

“cosmic collision”, “redshift”, “Sanctuary World”, “ancient Elder Kings”, “Deep Sea era”, “the stars”…

He tried one keyword after another, but the error message on the screen never changed.

After trying who knew how many times, Zhou Ming slowly began to frown. When the last keyword—“Zhou Ming”—brought yet another error, he let out a soft sigh, and a wave of disappointment rose in his heart.

“It” had not responded to him. It had given no answers.

Not sure whether he felt more frustrated or empty, Zhou Ming shook his head and leaned back in the chair, staring at the screen with tired eyes.

The little cursor still flashed in the search bar, as if it were waiting for him to type another keyword—or silently mocking him.

Zhou Ming sat there quietly for more than ten minutes. Then, all of a sudden, he stared hard at the tiny flashing cursor as something seemed to leap into his mind.

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

“Inverse Singularity”

In the instant he pressed Enter, a phantom roar suddenly crashed into Zhou Ming’s mind, and the screen before his eyes fell into darkness.