Duncan rubbed his slightly sore forehead, put away the key and recalled his experience in the "mansion", the message conveyed to him by the ancient god's tentacle in the garden, and the "invading alien object" that appeared next to the hole inside the mansion.

Alice quickly noticed the captain's "return". She pulled up her clothes on the back and turned her head curiously: "Captain is back! Did you find the answer you wanted?"

"I got more information, but only more questions," Duncan exhaled softly. Looking at Alice's carefree and brilliant expression, he temporarily restrained the chaotic thoughts in his mind and smiled. "But I have made great progress - at least I have a new goal in the near future."

Alice tilted her head slightly: "New target?"

Duncan thought for a moment and said calmly, "Let's try to capture a few Annihilation Cultists first."

Why did the "garbage" that I threw out of my bachelor apartment end up in Alice's mansion? Why did those things become a growing shadow in the eyes of the servants in the mansion? What happened to the missing gardener in the mansion? What is the nature of the cleaner? There seems to be no answer to these questions at present, and there is no suitable breakthrough in the short term, but in another direction, the advice given to me by the "Lord of the Deep" is worth a try.

About the status of Vision 001, about the meaning behind those short noises, about the ancient kings, about the truth of the Great Annihilation and several long nights, and the meaning of the so-called end of the cycle...about all this, the ancient god entrenched in the deep sea obviously knows a lot of inside information, and he is willing to reveal these inside information to himself, the "fire usurper".

Then finding a way to establish a connection with the Abyss becomes the only clear-cut path at present, just as the Saint Lord of the Abyss himself suggested - try capturing a few Annihilation Cultists.

But whenever Duncan thought of this "suggestion", he still felt a little weird...

Alice didn't think too much about it. She was just happy that the captain had a new plan. Although she didn't understand why, she still showed anticipation on her face: "Okay, okay, then when are we going to catch it? And where should we go to catch it?"

"…Cultists are not jellyfish in the sea that can be caught easily," Duncan rubbed his forehead. "Let's take a rest today. I will discuss this matter with Vanna and Morris tomorrow."

"...Oh," Alice nodded, but soon asked another question, "What is a jellyfish?"

"They live... probably in the sea," Duncan explained with a twitch on his face. "They look translucent. Some are poisonous, and some are edible."

"Is it edible?" Duncan just casually explained, but Alice's eyes lit up instantly. "Is it delicious?"

Duncan looked weird: "...You don't even have a digestive system, why do you care about this?"

"I can cook it for you!" Alice said happily, "Captain, let's go catch jellyfish together when we have time in the future!"

The topic quickly turned weird, and Duncan almost couldn't keep his expression. He quickly waved his hand to brush off the question: "Okay, okay, I promise, I'll catch it and eat it when I have the chance..."

So Alice left happy and satisfied.

Duncan exhaled softly, shook his head helplessly, and walked to the window.

In terms of time, it is now nightfall - Anomaly 001 fell below the sea surface several hours ago, and its power has faded from the world. The "crack" of the creation of the world then appeared in the sky, overlooking the entire city with a cold look.

But at the same time, there is still "sunlight" in the sky - the sunlight comes from the "luminous geometric bodies" on the sea near the city-state. The diffused light is blocked by layers of buildings in the city. When it reaches this area near the city center, there are only trivial beams of light sweeping across the sky from high above - just like the light and shadow cast by blinds, irregular beams of light sweep across the sky above the city, forming a weird "scenery" that seems like an alienated dusk.

Under the "cutting" of the sunlight, the Creation of the World in the sky also presents a discontinuous posture of light and shadow: it no longer stretches continuously across the sky, because in the places where the sunlight passes, the Creation of the World is invisible, and only in places where the sunlight cannot shine can those cold and pale cracks divided into sections be seen in the sky.

Duncan's brows suddenly frowned, he realized a detail that he had overlooked before, and began to observe the thought-provoking "wonder" in the sky with more curiosity.

Of course, it is impossible for the luminous geometric body that fell on the sea to project its light to a place as high as the Creation of the World. Lucrecia and the scholars of Breeze Harbor have measured its luminous range, which can only cover a city-state and part of the surrounding sea area, and it is impossible to reach the sky.

And what he saw now was that where the "beam of sunlight" swept across the sky above the city, the creation of the world became invisible.

So... the sunlight doesn't actually directly affect the creation of the world, but affects the eyes of the "observer"?

Anomaly 001: The real function of the sun is not to suppress the creation of the world, but to make the intelligent creatures in the world "unable to observe the creation of the world" by covering or filtering? !

Duncan suddenly felt vaguely that he seemed to have touched upon a crucial mechanism related to Vision 001.

However, just as Duncan was about to continue thinking along this line of thought, a sudden glimpse of something strange in the corner of his eye interrupted his thoughts.

He immediately took a step forward, pushed open the window, leaned out, and looked in a certain direction outside the window.

It was another street adjacent to the Crown Block - he still remembered clearly that there were rows of roofs and tall buildings, and an iconic spire located at the deepest part of the block.

But now, a lush jungle shrouded in dusk appeared in his sight.

Towering giant trees suddenly rose from the city. The original buildings and spires in the block had turned into a forest. There were also tall, raised structures like giant vines spreading out from the forest, some even extending to the Crown Street!

Under the illumination of the interlaced "sunshine" and "world creation", those dark-colored vines meandered along the street, entwining the buildings facing the street, climbing up the buildings and high walls little by little, and entwining the street lamps, like tentacles extending from a nightmare, piercing into the real world little by little...

Duncan blinked and found that the "strangeness" in his vision still existed, and under the illumination of the interlaced sunlight and the Creation of the World, it seemed a little more real than before.

However, the city was still silent. Whether it was the other blocks in the distance or the buildings right in front of them that were entangled by vines... no sound was made at all.

It seemed that no one noticed this huge abnormality, even though the lights were still on in several nearby houses, and it was obvious that there were people awake and moving around in the houses until the previous second.

Duncan withdrew his gaze from the window, turned around and walked quickly towards the door, but before he could open the door, hurried footsteps were heard from the corridor outside, and the door was suddenly pushed open.

Alice, who had just left, ran back in a hurry, with a panic expression on her face: "Ship...Captain! Outside! You see outside..."

"I saw it," Duncan interrupted the puppet that was so nervous that it stuttered, "It might be some kind of strange world or illusion that covers a wide range, but it has not affected our house yet. Don't panic. Go and call the others together. We have to figure out what happened."

Alice finally calmed down a little after hearing this, and nodded quickly. Then she turned and walked out while saying quickly: "Oh... Oh, right! Please wait, I'll go find the others!"

The puppet trotted away and soon disappeared in the corridor outside. Duncan turned his head and took another look at the "strange scene" on the street outside.

The "forest" that covered a large area of ​​the city block still existed, lush and green in the night, as flourishing as rising shadows, but the vines spreading out from the forest seemed to have stopped growing - many vines of varying thicknesses remained on the edge of Crown Street, with no signs of extending further in this direction.

But this was only what he could observe here, and he had no way of knowing what the scene was like on the other side of the "forest".

Just as Duncan began to worry about whether other parts of the city had also experienced changes, Alice's hurried footsteps appeared in the corridor again, and her nervous voice reached Duncan's ears at the same time: "Captain, Captain, Captain! The others... are gone!"

This time Duncan was finally stunned: "Everyone else is gone?"

"They're all gone," Alice ran over quickly, nodded hastily, and then hurriedly held her head with her hands, as if she was afraid of missing the nod. "I just went to Nina and Shirley's room, they were not there, Miss Lucrecia was not there either, and there was no response when I knocked on the doors of other rooms. There were only those clockwork servants in the living room - they all stayed there motionless, it looked so scary!"

Duncan's eyes suddenly became serious, but he still tried to calm the nervous Alice first, then he narrowed his eyes slightly and gradually spread out his perception.

He looked for the "marks" on Vanna, Morris and others, trying to confirm their situation.

The mark is still there, but its state is... strange.

"Let's go downstairs and take a look." Duncan opened his eyes and waved to the cabinet next to him, letting Ai, who was napping on top of the cabinet, fall on his shoulder. Then he nodded to Alice, "Follow me closely and don't run around."

Alice nodded immediately: "Okay...Okay, Captain!"