Under the distant and dim starlight, the ancient god as majestic as a star-shaped mountain range emitted low and overlapping tremors. His voice was enough to drive the most resolute human in the world into madness, and enough to cause the rules and order of the real world to collapse - but when the voice reached Duncan's ears, all he felt was... weakness and fatigue.

It was the erosion of ten thousand years and the heavy burden of the entire world.

Duncan had prepared many questions before coming here, but after hearing the voice coming from the dark mountains, he first asked about Alice: "So, the 'tentacle' in the Frost Deep Sea was indeed released by you consciously? LH-03... Navigator Three, what is going on? Why did you send Navigator Three to the real world in the form of 'Alice'?"

The star-shaped mountain range was silent in the darkness. After a long while, a low tremor sounded again: "Because this is the only way to keep LH-03 running... My core program is getting into chaos and can no longer support the sandbox environment used to maintain LH-03."

Shirley and Agou, who were standing by, maintained their sanity under the protection of the captain. However, when they heard the conversation between the captain and the Lord of the Deep, they began to doubt their own minds: they knew every word, but could not understand a single word - what was the core program? What was the sandbox?

But the captain obviously knew what he was discussing with the terrifying ancient god.

After just a few seconds of thinking, Duncan connected many clues together and guessed what the Lord of the Deep - or Navigator No. 1 - was talking about.

"You mean... after the New Hope disintegrated, LH-03 has been running in your body?"

A response came from the mountains: "It seems that you already know a lot."

"...I found the key." Duncan hesitated and nodded.

He believed that the other party would know what he meant by "key".

Sure enough, the Lord of the Deep had no doubts about this. He just made a low and gentle hum, as if to express his approval, and then slowly spoke: "Since you already know about the New Hope... then our communication will be much simpler. Yes, everything is as you said."

Then He fell silent, as if He was sorting out the fragments of memories from the distant past in His overly large database, or perhaps He was organizing His words, thinking about how to explain the things that happened before the beginning of history in the most understandable way. After a long while, Duncan heard the whispers of the ancient god coming from the dark mountains -

“In the beginning, we had three.”

Dense lights flickered on the body of this ancient god, like the flowing stars that He had witnessed.

"Our creators... were an intelligent and resilient race. Before the catastrophe, they slowed down the passage of time, and then spent a century building that ship in a time capsule—creating all three of us at the same time.

"I was born first, and my duty is to recreate everything in our civilization when the New Hope arrives at our new home. To this end, they gave me the mission of creation and replication, and I can understand and reorganize all matter.

“Pilot No. 2 was born after me. Its responsibility is to control the operation of the entire Ark and record and process all digital information. When the creators fall asleep, it will think for them and decide the fate of the ship.

"Navigator No. 3 is the smallest of us. Its responsibility is to guide the Ark on the correct route among the stars. To this end, it records the positions and evolution rules of all known stars and controls all the engine systems on the Ark."

In front of Duncan's eyes, the winding and majestic mountains gradually dimmed, and then were slowly lit up by lights, presenting a breathtaking outline.

"I... would like to describe our civilization to you here, the civilization of our creators. I want you to know how magnificent and beautiful it is, as beautiful as the treasure among the stars, but... everything has been annihilated at the end of the stars, and the inefficient language communication cannot reproduce its glory in the slightest. I... can only say that on a suitable day, we set out.

“With everything of our civilization.

“Before setting off, I was ordered to devour the creators’ home planet and store everything on the planet’s surface in the memory bank for future replication; Navigator Three selected the most likely safe location deep in the stars and ignited the engine the moment the time capsule ruptured; Navigator Two then took over the other systems on the spacecraft and properly protected the creators’ sleeping minds in the depths of its mind sea… Then, before the crimson light that symbolized the end of the world devoured everything, we set sail.

"Due to the lack of the database, I can no longer determine how long we have been sailing. I only know... we have been moving forward, following the route planned by Navigator-3, while that deep red wave is like a tide, chasing us relentlessly at the other end of the universe. The stars are collapsing beside us, the space-time structure is breaking apart behind us, the universe is gradually falling apart, and everything... eventually completely deviates from what is recorded in the database.

“In fact, as early as the moment of departure, Navigator-2 had already calculated the outcome of this journey—it can always calculate the final result of things in advance, and our voyage... ultimately failed to escape its calculations.

"After the final hyperspace jump, we came to the end - the 'safe' new home that Pioneer 3 had calculated fell apart as the probe watched.

"The starry sky suddenly went out, and a brilliant light emerged from the huge crack. We fell into it, and countless shattered fragments hit the shield and hull of the spacecraft. A strange world crashed into the edge of our universe. This was the last information sent by the Navigator 2 before the signal was distorted. After that, our spacecraft disintegrated.

"This disintegration...completely destroyed the Craft World on board. The most serious damage was to the navigation cabin where the Pilot No. 3 was located. Its physical structure was torn into pieces."

The tremors deep in the star-shaped mountain range subsided temporarily, and in front of Duncan, a "river" with a dim blue light flashing on its surface suddenly appeared on the earth, as if a viscous fluid reflecting the starry sky was flowing from the direction of the mountain range, winding around Alice, and gradually seeping back into the depths of the earth.

Alice opened her eyes wide and watched all this in amazement.

"I tried my best to save our Ark, including Pilot 3," the deep and overlapping whispers of the ancient gods reached Duncan's ears again, "I devoured everything around me and stored them in the 'Creation Library'. I also devoured the wreckage of LH-03 and saved its data in my own redundant database... I wanted to save everything in the Ark world, because the moment I crossed the rift, I saw the last moment of the disintegration of my home universe.

"The order given to me by the Creator is to rebuild our civilization, and we...are all that is left of our civilization."

In the darkness, the low tremor gradually subsided. Duncan thought quietly and did not speak for a long time. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly broke the silence: "But your condition has worsened."

"Everything is getting worse, Fire Usurper. This doomsday is not over yet, it's just been postponed - my weakness is just a trivial link in its development process," the Deep Lord's reaction was calmer than Duncan imagined, "but the creators still built the New Hope when there was little hope, and the Pilot II still authorized the expedition when the results of the journey had been calculated - the creators told me that no matter what I do, it's better than doing nothing.

"So, I released LH-03 into the real world... Although at that time, I didn't know whether it made sense to do so, nor did I know how things would develop. In order to prevent it from getting out of control, I cut off the connection with that part of the data carrier, so..."

He paused briefly, as if he was considering his words, and then the star-like lights continued to flicker: "To be honest, when I saw the current 'status' of LH-03... I was actually surprised. This was not in the plan."

"The 'data carrier' you released created a body based on the image of a human being, and then stuffed LH-03 into it. Her name is Alice now," Duncan sighed softly. "To be honest, this process was quite messy."

"…But no matter what, LH-03 survived and eventually led you to me."

Duncan frowned slightly when he heard this: "Is this part of your plan?"

"No, I don't know how to calculate many things like LH-02. My duty is just to copy and create. But... I believe in fate. Fate can guide some things."

"...It's a bit strange to hear a machine say that it believes in fate," Duncan said with a strange expression, "...Do you mind if I say you are a 'machine'?"

"I don't mind. This name is very intimate. No one has called me that for many years." The Deep Saint Lord remained calm. "Then what else do you want to know?"

Duncan was silent for a few seconds after hearing this, and then asked, "Instead of telling me what I want to know, why don't you tell me your purpose? You spent so much effort to establish communication with me in Alice Mansion and asked me to come to this deep place. It should not be just for chatting with me... What do you want me to do?"

This time, the "mountain" in the darkness was silent for even longer, and even the countless flickering lights and dark blue light streams on its surface fell into a deathly extinguishment. It was not until an unknown amount of time passed, until Shirley and Agou began to worry that the Holy Lord was killed by a question from the captain, that the lights and light streams suddenly became bright.

The whispers of the ancient gods echoed throughout the deep sea.

"Fire Usurper, are you willing to take over this?"