A dim green flame rose up in the captain's room, and a skeleton bird wrapped in spiritual fire flew out of the fire. The swirling flames formed a vortex-like door behind it. After the door opened, Vanna, Alice, and Maurice stepped into the cabin.
As soon as the dizziness caused by the replacement of light and shadows subsided, they turned to the navigation table not far away and bowed to Duncan who was sitting behind the table studying the nautical chart: "Captain."
"Let's find a place to sit down and rest for a while. It's easy to fall if you walk after being teleported," Duncan said without looking up. He then confirmed a few points on the sea chart before he breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up to look at Morris. "Did you bring the book?"
"Yes," Morris nodded quickly, then took out the black-covered and untitled "Book of Blasphemy" from his arms, stood up and handed it to Duncan, "Here it is."
Duncan reached out to take the book, and Vanna beside him couldn't help but speak: "Now Morris, Alice and I have returned to the ship. Only your avatar is left in the city-state... Is that okay?"
"There will be no more major troubles in the city, and Tyrian will become the new Archon of Frost. With him and Agatha maintaining order in the city, there is nothing to worry about," Duncan said with a smile, "For you, your work in Frost City has been completed. My avatar can handle the follow-up work."
As he spoke, Duncan took the heavy black leather book and sat back behind the navigation table. He placed it next to the nautical chart, and his expression became serious.
This is the "Book of Blasphemy" that Morris and Vanna got from the little leader of the Annihilation Cult. It records the contents about the Holy Lord of the Deep, and it is suspected that it mentions some secrets before the creation of the gods and the time of the Great Annihilation.
Judging from the appearance alone, this book has nothing special about it except that the cover is black and has no title, nor does it exude any extraordinary aura.
Vanna, Morris and Alice had come over curiously, but except for the heartless Alice, the other two kept a certain safe distance and did not dare to look directly at the book.
The goat head wooden sculpture on the edge of the navigation table also creaked and turned its neck, curiously turning its head towards the big book in front of Duncan. After looking at it for a long time, it finally couldn't help but ask: "What is this? A book? Is it worthy of your seriousness?"
"In theory, it's a missionary manuscript of the Annihilation Cult," Duncan said casually, "It seems to record something related to the creation of the gods. Although it's a crazy theory of those cultists, there is a part of the content... that really concerns me."
"The record of the gods' creation of the world?" The goat-headed man was stunned for a moment, and then his tone changed subtly. "The 'Creation of the Deep Lord' by that bunch of lunatics? Excuse me, their theory has no reference value in my opinion. If one can make up a history of the birth of the world without rigorous evidence and reasoning, then any drunken playwright can explain the foundation of our world. There is even an absurd play claiming that our world was stewed out of a big pot of hodgepodge..."
"But Maurice was mentally polluted when he read this book, and even attracted the attention of the Four Gods," Duncan raised his eyelids slowly, "You should know what this means."
There was a sudden "crack" sound from under the goat's neck, and the goat didn't speak for a long while.
After an unknown amount of time, it finally managed to utter: "The closer you are to the truth, the further you are from reason..."
"Yes, the first rule of anomalies and visions is that the closer you are to the truth, the further you are from reason," Morris nodded solemnly. "The more likely an item is to cause serious mental pollution, the more likely it is to record the true state of the world. Therefore, sometimes scholars will even judge the credibility of the contents of ancient scrolls based on the degree of mental damage they suffer after reading them."
The goat-head shook his head in place, thinking for a long time and couldn't help but say: "But huge distortion and pure superior extraordinary power can also cause mental pollution. In this case, the facts will point to the opposite direction - the more the reason is damaged, the more deceived it is."
It paused for a moment, then added, "I'm serious. Morris, many unlucky people in your industry have died from this, and those who survived mistakenly believed that they knew the truth when they were on the verge of madness. Now most of them are on the wanted list of heretics of various churches - of course, you are on this ship now, and if you really want to be picky, you are also on the wanted list..."
This goat-head creature has a strange style, but after spending so much time together it is clear that it still has some sincerity towards the members on the ship. Although its words are unpleasant to the ears, its concern is genuine.
Of course Morris knew this, so he didn't mind. Instead, he said to Goat Head sincerely: "Thank you for your concern. You are right. This world is very good at fooling mortals. Curiosity often leads us in the opposite direction. Therefore, the captain is needed to take final control now."
"Captain, come..." The goat-head was startled, and then he noticed that Duncan's hand was already on the cover of the big black leather book, and he seemed to be about to open it. "Ah? Are you sure you want to read it?"
"What else?" Duncan looked up. "Did I ask Morris to bring this thing on board so that it could serve as a base for you?"
The goat head was stunned, shaking its head slightly from side to side: "Actually, it's not impossible..."
Duncan didn't care about this guy's obvious show-off behavior. He was already prepared, so he took a deep breath and gradually focused his mind.
A faint green flame rose from within his body, instantly transforming the body into a spirit form. After confirming that he had completed the transformation, Duncan opened the first page of the black leather book.
At first glance, he saw that there was no text on the page.
The second time he looked, he saw boundless darkness suddenly gathering from all directions.
In a flash, the light and shadow changed, and there was no time to react - just like the first time he used the spiritual compass, Duncan's consciousness suddenly "fell" into endless darkness.
He looked up in astonishment and saw that all the familiar things in the captain's room had disappeared, including Goat Head, Morris and others. Even the big black leather book he was reading a second ago had disappeared.
He stood in the darkness, frowning and thinking for a few seconds.
Something was not right—this was not the process Morris had described.
After I opened the book, something completely different happened than when Morris opened the book!
At this moment, something suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye.
Zhou Ming looked subconsciously and saw the tiny white light and shadow floating in the air not far from him. He concentrated again to identify it and finally found out... it was text.
The text becomes clear——
[After he opened the book, a completely different change occurred from when Morris opened the book.]
Zhou Ming was suddenly stunned.
He stood there motionless, quietly staring at the line of words floating in the air. For a moment he even forgot to breathe and think.
After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly remembered something.
He remembered. He had seen places like this before. He had visited darkness like this before and seen writing in the darkness - it was in the Warp...
[It was in the warp, on the wrecked Lost Hometown sailing in the warp. I pushed open the door leading to the captain's room. There was a dark place, and words emerged in the darkness, describing...]
Pale words appeared quickly in the air, but soon faded away.
Zhou Ming suddenly stopped - he controlled himself and tried to stop himself from thinking too much, which was very difficult. But after filling his mind with a bunch of messy numbers, words and meaningless memories of the scenery, the words that appeared in the darkness before his eyes really disappeared.
Then, he made great efforts to control his thoughts and calm his pounding heart.
What is going on? What is this darkness? And what are these words emerging from the darkness?
They seem to be describing "themselves"... Are they really describing "themselves"? What does this "description" mean?
Is this some kind of mind-reading process? Or some kind of "reflection" phenomenon at the soul level? The last time I saw a similar dark space was on the broken Lost Hometown in the subspace, but this time it was after I opened the book - why did the book have this kind of "power"?
All kinds of thoughts emerged in his mind again, and almost at the same time, new words appeared in the darkness.
But this time, the text was not describing "himself", but a few words without a beginning or an end -
[Materialization... transformation into reality... real...]
Zhou Ming frowned, subconsciously moved closer to the new line of text, and stretched out his finger to try to touch it.
His fingers passed through the shadows, causing only slight ripples in the darkness.
As the ripples shook, he could vaguely see that there seemed to be other words hidden behind those words!
He hesitated for only a second before reaching out his hand and continuing to fiddle with the words that were like reflections in the water, making the ripples expand, revealing the true appearance of the overlapping words, and making other information hidden in the depths of darkness appear in his field of vision.
Suddenly, he saw several lines of intermittent words emerging in the darkness, shaking, extending and moving downwards.
[Source - Queen Leviathan - The situation... is not optimistic, the critical state is accelerating...
Source - Fire King - Is there a new record?
Source - Bartok - Bad news... Node feedback is fuzzy... Suspected that the cluster controller has begun to replicate itself... Or has completely lost control...
...Source - LH02 - has relevant information.
……specific?
...LH-02——Observed an individual with the characteristics of a cluster controller approaching, suspected mental mutation, suspected to be able to communicate with me.
Source: Leviathan Queen - Shocking information! What's next?
Source: LH-02 - No follow-up.
Source - Bartok——?
Source - LH-02 - The suspicious individual sent a dog head and left. ]