After passing through the broad "pilgrim road", Duncan arrived at the gate of the temple - it was a huge entrance that seemed big enough for a giant to pass through. It was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with a towering doorway. The two doors of unknown material had long since collapsed. They fell off from both sides of the doorway, one fell to the ground, and the other leaned crookedly against the wall of the palace.

The faint sound of waves came from the doorway, mixed with chaotic and low noises, as if a giant beast was gasping for breath and talking in its sleep in the darkness. The slightly fishy and salty sea breeze swirled at the end of the pilgrimage road, bringing with it a chill.

"What an incredible creation..." Morris came to the outer wall of the palace. One of his eye sockets deformed and retreated, and a set of lenses extended from it along the copper slide rail. He carefully observed the rough and dilapidated dark green boulders. "It fits so perfectly... It's as if they were originally 'grown' like this..."

"I have seen walls like this in some dreams," Vanna reached out and gently stroked the outer walls, "and in visions during prayer... Many saints will see strange high walls or piled-up boulders in their hallucinations. It turns out... those visions point to this..."

Lucrecia stood in front of the huge doorway and casually threw a piece of white paper into the dark corridor. The white paper began to burn out of thin air after it left her hand, turning into a ball of fire with a vague human shape, flying a short distance in the darkness.

"It's... very peaceful inside," the witch said hesitantly, "but my spell dissipated very quickly, as if there was some invisible suppression."

Duncan looked inside the palace, then turned back to look at his followers who had followed him onto the island. After a moment's thought, he raised his hand and waved it gently - a dark green flame immediately ignited out of thin air and spread to everyone.

Nina was startled at first, but soon began to curiously fiddle with the flames on her arms, rolling them into a small ball and tossing it back and forth in her palms. Vanna and Maurice moved their bodies in the flames, one of them took up a big sword and made a few gestures, and the other made a crackling sound in her joints. Lucrecia seemed a little at a loss - she was not very familiar with her father's habit of "lighting a small fire when he was in the mood", and she was obviously a little nervous at this time.

But the one who was more nervous was obviously not Miss Witch - Anomaly 077 next to her jumped up almost instantly. The mummy screamed and jumped up almost two meters on the spot. When it fell down, its voice was out of tune: "Fire, fire, fire... Captain is on fire. I'm on fire, ahhh——"

A bone spur limb shot out from behind Shirley and knocked the mummy to the ground: "Why are you howling like a ghost? It's just a fire - Agou didn't even... Agou, don't tremble!"

The bones in Ah Gou's body were clacking like a typewriter: "I... I'm not shaking... I'm calm..."

"It's just a layer of protection," Duncan looked back helplessly at the group of guys who suddenly became lively. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart that in other stories, when explorers faced the final challenge, they were either solemn or sad, or took out photos of their fiancées and sucked them fiercely. Why is it that the group of "people" he led were as noisy as a vegetable market even at the end of the world? But he had to explain patiently, "We are about to step into the place where the ancient gods sleep - your minds will face a great test, so I will cover you with flames throughout the journey to protect you from the influence of the power in the temple."

Anomaly 077 finally understood and clapped his hands: "Oh, it means to kill the hostage before he gets hurt..."

Shirley swung him to the ground again, but after that she nodded thoughtfully: "Actually, I think you are right."

The mummy climbed up and glared: "Then why did you hit me?!"

"The captain must want to beat you," Shirley said casually, turning her head and looking at Duncan with a smile, "right, captain?"

Duncan nodded expressionlessly, but at the same time, he suddenly had some subtle feelings -

I don't know if I was overthinking it, but it seemed that the atmosphere changed instantly after my fire covered everyone - including Shirley and the sailors, everyone had been caught in a somewhat dull and even heavy atmosphere after stepping onto the island, and now, the usual "vitality" seemed to have suddenly returned to them.

He frowned, as if he had gained some understanding of this island, and then looked at the dark doorway...

The dim green firelight illuminated the dark corridors in the palace. Cautious footsteps broke the silence that had lingered for countless years. The long shadows of the visitors were cast on the mottled and old stone walls and floors. Duncan and his party moved forward in this palace that was so huge that it was almost suffocating. As they went deeper, the fishy and salty ocean smell and the waves, whispers, and noises in the air became more and more obvious.

"Pay attention to the shadows under your feet, and pay attention to the changes in light and darkness reflected by the surrounding firelight that are not in line with common sense," Vanna walked in the front of the team, paying careful attention to the surroundings while reminding others, "Do not respond to calls from outside the team, and..."

She paused and looked back at Morris: "Don't touch the things around you."

"I didn't touch it," the old scholar suddenly felt a little embarrassed and raised his hand to show his innocence, "I just looked closer."

Duncan walked at the front of the team, his eyes constantly scanning every corner of this magnificent building. The green firelight flowed along with his sight as if it had life, illuminating those ancient and dark places. Suddenly, his pace slowed down.

A huge, pale vine-like thing appeared on the nearby ceiling, winding along the vault to the wall on the other side, passing through the hole at the top of the wall and disappearing into the depths of the building.

Shirley subconsciously raised her head and looked in the direction Duncan was looking. In an instant, she felt her heart suddenly stop beating - both of them stopped.

She felt a bang in her mind, and then another bang - the flames that surrounded her body and soul "pulled" her back the moment she fell into madness, burning fiercely at the edge of her vision, dispelling the intense mental shock brought by witnessing the body of the ancient god.

"It's the limbs of God..." Lucrecia at the side quickly reacted, looking up and muttering to herself, "Those pale structures we saw spreading out from the palace in the distance before...are they extending from here?"

"It's really different to see it up close than to see it from a distance," Agou muttered, "I almost thought my heart was beating again."

"Be careful, don't stare at these limbs for too long." Duncan reminded casually and continued to move forward.

As the team continued to move deeper into the palace, they saw... more.

Pale tentacles - some are only as thick as masts, while others almost take up the entire roof and are wider than the hull of some medium-sized ships - they are like out-of-control, criss-crossing roots, almost penetrating and invading all the corridors and halls of the palace. This amazing biological structure spreads and grows in this ancient and magnificent building, and then withers and dies, as if it has become an integral part of the building, and even substantially devours and replaces the original pillars and beams in some areas.

When passing through a certain hall, the criss-crossing tentacles and organ structures of unknown function almost filled the entire space.

Astonishing, shocking, awe-inspiring, and even terrifying - even if there was no spiritual pollution from the gods, just witnessing a "limb" of this scale would be enough to cause ordinary people with fragile minds to collapse and go crazy.

Duncan had reason to suspect that even such an amazing biological structure was actually only a small part of a huge entity - more parts might be hidden under this island, hidden in the dark deep sea.

This temple is just a place for that huge being to communicate with the "pilgrims on land", a small reception room, a meeting room. The Queen of Leviathan extended a small part of her tentacles from the deep sea into this building, just to facilitate conversations with the humans who were protected by her in the ancient times in the past.

The team finally stopped at the end of another long corridor.

The end of the corridor was no longer a hall or a room, but... a pool of water that was almost like an "indoor lake".

This is a huge circular space. The ground is paved with huge stones and is gradually sunken in the middle. Two-thirds of the entire space is occupied by a circular pool of water with a faint glow. There are many doors and window holes distributed on the surrounding walls. Countless tentacles, blood vessels and nerve cords pass through those doors and windows, sink into the depths of the pool of water, and merge into a huge and complex structure that is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye in the pool of faintly glowing "lake water".

Part of it protruded from the pool and lay lifeless on the stone floor, and near the part of the limb structure that protruded from the pool, there seemed to be some "debris" lying down.

"...Is this building so big?" After being stunned for a long time, Shirley finally couldn't help muttering to herself, "Why do I feel that this 'hall' alone is almost as big as the palace I see from outside..."

"Did you notice that, too?" Morris glanced at Shirley, then looked around thoughtfully and said, "The space inside it... doesn't seem to conform to common sense. Either it has been greatly expanded, or... when we passed through a certain door or corridor, we were no longer in the palace, but in a secret space connected to it."

Vanna did not say anything. She just looked quietly at the lifeless, pale limbs at the edge of the pool, her expression complicated and sad.

Many layers of whispers lingered in her ears, and the gentle sound of waves never stopped for a moment, but she could not understand anything. From the moment she stepped into this palace, the goddess's conscious will seemed to have disappeared, and she could no longer hear any voice from Her.

Duncan stood next to Vanna, his brows tightly frowned, with a hint of doubt in his expression.

He thought that when he came here, he could talk to Gemona face to face. Even if she was in a strange "death" state, he should be able to hear her voice here - reverberation, illusion, soul, or anything else, just like dealing with those strange things in the past, but...

Nothing at all.

There was only a long-dead body here, and everything had disappeared from that body.