Finally, a faint ray of light entered my field of vision, blurry, shaky, and with double images.
She seemed to lie in an extremely empty, immense space. Light came not from above, but from... the walls? As far as the eye could see, towering, breathtakingly vast, curved walls stretched to the horizon. The walls were made of neither gold nor stone, a deep, dark silver that seemed to absorb light. Their surface was not smooth, but covered in countless, incredibly complex geometric patterns and grooves. These patterns resembled living circuit boards, or the growth rings of some ancient tree, layer upon layer, stretching towards a darkness beyond the reach of the eye.
Deep within the grooves of some of the lines flowed extremely faint, firefly-like green lights. It was these faint, seemingly extinguished dots of light that constituted the sole source of light in this vast space, shrouding everything in a hazy, eerie, and deadly dark green shadow.
The air was cold and thin, thick with the dusty smell of a millennium-old tomb, mingled with a strange, metallic odor, like cooled lava. Absolute silence. No wind, no water, not even the faint sound of her own heartbeat. Only a deep, distant hum, as if emanating from the depths of the earth beneath her feet, or like the sleeping breath of this vast space itself, carrying an indescribable ancient heaviness.
Where is this? Is this the place Qingluo finally threw her into? Pei Du... Where is Pei Du?
Xu Shuangyao struggled to turn her neck and examine her surroundings. This tiny movement strained the wounds all over her body, especially the side of her neck. A piercing pain made her vision go black, and she nearly fainted again. She could only barely move her eyeballs, scanning the limited area within her sight with blurry vision.
She seemed to be lying on a massive, slightly tilted metal platform. The platform was also composed of an unknown, dark silver material, covered in a thick layer of ash-like dust. The cold beneath her penetrated her thin clothing, piercing her very bones. Around her lay the remains of vast and bizarre objects: broken metal pillars riddled with intricate joints; a transparent substance twisted into bizarre shapes, resembling giant crystal clusters, its interiors frozen with a dim light; and indescribable structures, resembling the fossilized bones of enormous creatures, yet gleaming with a cold metallic sheen.
This place... is like a huge... tomb. A tomb that contains something beyond comprehension.
Just as she was struggling to stand up, she caught a glimpse of a curled up figure in the shadows at the edge of the platform not far away.
The dark golden thorn energy armor had long since vanished, leaving only the tattered battle uniform covering his scarred body. Pei Du lay on his side in the cold dust, his back to her, his body slightly huddled like an insecure child. The shadow of the crown of thorns between his brows was almost invisible, with only a faint golden glow flickering beneath his skin. His breathing was weak and rapid, and each breath was accompanied by a slight twitch, as if he was still enduring great pain in his sleep.
He's still alive! This realization was like a shot of adrenaline, sending a surge of strength through Xu Shuangyao's nearly drained body. Ignoring the excruciating pain, she gritted her teeth and struggled to support her upper body with her trembling arms. Every movement sent a tearing pain through the wound on the side of her neck. Blood seemed to seep out again, and the warm liquid flowed down her collarbone.
She had to go! She had to check on him! This was definitely not a safe place!
As she struggled to crawl towards Pei Du, her eyes inadvertently swept across the center of the platform, a slightly raised, dusty, dark silver metal plate. The metal plate seemed to be integrated with the platform, but its shape was relatively regular. It seemed to be engraved with something?
Xu Shuangyao paused. An inexplicable intuition forced her to temporarily put aside her worries about Pei Du and drag her heavy body, inching towards the metal plate.
As the distance closed, she reached out her hand, stained with her own blood and dust, and tremblingly brushed away the thick dust that had accumulated on the surface of the metal plate.
Dust fell.
Revealing what was hidden under the metal plate.
It wasn't a word. Or rather, it wasn't any kind of word that Xu Shuangyao knew.
Countless infinitesimal yet incredibly complex three-dimensional geometric symbols! Like the most precise micro-carvings, these symbols were deeply engraved within the dark silver metal plate. Illuminated by the faint green light flowing from the edge of the platform, they exuded an inhuman, cold, and vast aura of wisdom. They interconnected, nested, and rotated, forming an incomprehensible three-dimensional matrix that seemed to contain the ultimate truth of the universe.
And below the matrix of these geometric symbols, at the edge of the metal plate, where Xu Shuangyao brushed away the last piece of dust, a line of... marks appeared that she could barely recognize!
It wasn't a geometric symbol, but an extremely ancient pictographic script with twisted, root-like strokes! Xu Shuangyao had seen fragments of this script deep within the top-secret archives of the "Higanbana" project! It was believed to be a relic from the previous era of destruction, and was called "Root Script"!
She held her breath, endured the severe pain and dizziness, and focused all her energy on those ancient and twisted strokes, trying to decipher them.
There were only a few words, but they exploded in her mind like thunder:
[…Observation Station…Seed Vault…World Tree…Server…Self-Test…Failed…Logical Plague…Spread…Civilization…Tombstone…]
World Tree Server! Civilization Tombstone!
Xu Shuangyao's pupils suddenly constricted! Her heart raced! The "World Tree Server" Qingluo had mentioned last... was this the place?! The remains... of a previous civilization? Their final bastion against the "Logic Plague"... had ultimately become their grave?!
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com