Frankly speaking, for a few brief seconds, Duncan even had an absurd and disturbing thought - was he late?
Just because she was a little slow when she started, or was delayed for a moment on the way, the Storm Goddess, who had been in a state of death for 10,000 years, didn't wait for her to enter the door, and died here truly and completely? Her will had dissipated?
But this somewhat absurd idea soon dissipated from Duncan's mind - he confirmed that until the Lost Homeland docked next to the island, Vanna still "read" the thoughts of the storm goddess Gemona, which means that at least at that time the latter was still in a certain "operating" state...
It can't be such a coincidence, right?
Duncan looked up at Vanna with a subtle expression, but saw that Vanna also turned her head to look at him. Their eyes met briefly, and then immediately turned away strangely.
"...Don't think too much about it for now, let's go down and take a look at the situation." Duncan pondered for two or three seconds, took the lead and stepped forward, and the others followed closely behind.
They stepped into the circular "hall" which was so wide that it made people suspect that it violated the laws of architectural structure, and walked up the circular stairs that sank downward layer by layer, as if walking towards a whirlpool and heading towards the pool at the end of the stairs. The huge and pale tentacles of the "Queen Leviathan" lay across the vicinity, and the smaller branches extending from the tentacles had merged with the black "stones" that made up the building like roots, and withered between the stairs.
Duncan suddenly had a feeling. He felt that this huge palace, and even the black island that carried the palace, were like a huge, man-made "shell", and the ancient sea beast that was endowed with "divinity" was the flesh and blood in the shell. When the giant beast died, its flesh and blood withered and shrank, leaving behind many "chambers" - those corridors, rooms, and halls.
They walked in the "shell" of the giant beast, stepping on the cavity left after the flesh and blood withered, and were approaching the stopped heart of the giant beast little by little.
The green flames burned on the steps, dispelling the darkness around. Duncan came to the point where the circular pool and the steps met, and noticed that there was actually an arc-shaped stone platform that was slightly higher than the surrounding area. A mass of pale tissue about the size of the roof of a church in the block protruded from the pool and lay lifelessly on the platform. Next to it, the edge of the platform...
There were remains of what looked like tables, chairs, and altars, as well as... human skeletons?!
Lucrecia was the first to notice the skeletons. She was stunned for a moment, then quickly came to the stone platform. She observed them carefully while frowning and speaking slowly: "They are not standard human or elf remains, but they are similar in structure... at least some kind of humanoid creature."
Duncan also came over and looked at the situation on the platform with a frown.
Those skeletons were so small compared to the body of Queen Leviathan and were scattered in a corner that no one noticed their existence when they first entered the hall.
"Who could have left this place behind?" Nina was a little nervous and afraid. She subconsciously hid behind Duncan. "An explorer who arrived before us? The Sea Song?"
"No, Miss Lucrecia just said that these bones are not standard human or elf remains. They don't look like Sen'jin either. The sternum of a Sen'jin is a whole bone plate," Anomaly 077 immediately broke the silence. "And I remember... the sailors of the Sea Song finally melted into the fog and foam near the island and gained 'peace'. It is impossible for them to leave any remains in the temple."
Duncan said nothing, but examined with a solemn expression the other things scattered around the skeleton - some fragments of armor or clothing, some remains of weapons and sacrificial utensils, and the collapsed small altar.
Vanna, who was beside him, suddenly noticed something and broke the silence with a whisper: "These clothes... look a lot like what I saw in my vision, of those people who once made pilgrimages to this island..."
"People who are making pilgrimages to this island?" Duncan asked in surprise. "The generation before the Great Annihilation?!"
What Vanna saw in the illusion was undoubtedly the scene when the storm goddess Gemona was still the "Queen of Leviathan". It was a record left by a civilization that coexisted and developed with the Leviathan monster before the Great Annihilation, just like the elven civilization before the overthrow of Silantis, or the era in Tarekin's memory... Could the "matter" of that time have survived to the present day?
Duncan looked at the relics scattered around the skeleton with a hint of surprise - outside the palace, everything from the old times had long since turned into that strange black, shrunken substance, or as the sailors described, into fog and sea foam, into forms that were incomprehensible to humans.
Why have these bones and relics been preserved?
At this moment, Alice's voice suddenly sounded, interrupting Duncan's thoughts: "Captain, look! What is this?"
Duncan immediately came to the puppet, and following the direction of the latter's finger, he saw an object covered with dust and torn cloth in the corner of the altar.
It was an hourglass with a peculiar shape, exquisite and ancient style.
After a slight hesitation, Duncan reached out, picked up the hourglass and blew away the dust.
The complex symbols and text on the surface of the hourglass are clearly visible.
"An hourglass?" Morris looked at the thing in the captain's hand in surprise. The lens group extending from his eye sockets stretched and adjusted, and then he seemed to notice something wrong, "Strange..."
Vanna asked subconsciously: "What's strange?"
Morris thought for a moment, "...I feel that the style is somewhat different from the overall style of this temple, especially the words on the hourglass...There are also many runes on the outer wall of the temple, but they are obviously not in the same system as the one on the hourglass. This thing is a bit like..."
Duncan listened to the old scholar's analysis and thought for a while. Then he suddenly noticed something:
The overall outline of the hourglass looks like two inverted triangles when viewed from the side. The shape formed by the decorative outer frame and the hourglass body inside seems to be... Bartok's door.
"…Like some holy artifacts of the Church of Death!" Morris said quickly.
The holy relic of the Church of Death... a creation of Bartok, the God of Death?
Duncan's expression froze, and then he vaguely guessed something. Thinking about the skeletons and relics preserved in the palace, an idea gradually emerged in his mind.
After a moment of contemplation, he turned around, looked at the lifeless remains of the giant beast by the pool, and then gently turned over the hourglass in his hand.
The light golden sand in the hourglass made a rustling sound that was imperceptible to human ears. Quicksand fell from the container like mist and flowed between the two inverted "Doors of Death".
The next second, the whole world became quiet, as if some force had separated the world into two parts: life and death. Everything in Duncan's vision turned into the black, white and gray tones of the spiritual world, and layers of constantly swaying phantoms spread across the boundaries of every object. In the illusion, all the figures disappeared, and next to the stone platform, there was only him holding the hourglass, and... those skeletons that were rapidly reorganizing and growing flesh and blood.
The remains turned into living people - two tall men wearing armor, with serious faces and looking taciturn, and a young woman in a white robe who looked at him with a smile.
Duncan looked in surprise at the three figures who had "reversed life and death" before his eyes, but before he could speak, the woman in the white robe shook her head at him and quietly stepped aside.
At the edge of the pool, the huge pale limb that was as big as the roof of a church swayed slightly, and then a faint light like water appeared on its surface, and a gentle voice came into Duncan's mind -
"We finally meet, Fire Usurper."
"Ge Mona?" Duncan reacted immediately and looked at the hourglass in his hand with some surprise, "...I didn't expect it to work. I just tried it casually."
"Yes, thank you for your casual attempt. In the time flow of the temple, I am in a state of complete death, and the hourglass contains a brief period of life, which allows me to talk to you when necessary... Bartok said when he made the hourglass that you would definitely flip it over."
Listening to the gentle voice in his mind, Duncan suddenly raised his eyebrows in surprise: "Wait, you mean... you knew I would definitely come, would definitely flip this hourglass, and would definitely talk to you here... everything was destined?"
"The day this shelter was born, its time was closed, Fire Usurper... In our eyes, the time in this narrow dwelling is not a river, nor a line, but a plane with no obstructions - on this spread out 'Scroll of Time', all possible things have ended..."
The gentle voice paused for a few seconds, then continued softly:
"As for you, Fire Usurper, your arrival is the only event at the end of this scroll of time that is certain to happen, but how it will end is uncertain."
"I have learned a lot about the issue of time flow... I can imagine what you said, but it's hard to connect it to reality at the first time," Duncan said, looking up and looking around the place, "The time flow in the temple... No wonder, after we stepped into this temple, neither Vanna nor I could sense your 'activities' anymore, and when we saw those on the platform..."
When he said this, he subconsciously glanced at the figures standing nearby, and then quickly looked away.
"After seeing those corpses, I vaguely guessed that there seemed to be some kind of 'difference' between the inside and outside of this temple - after stepping into here, we seemed to have walked into a unique 'selection branch'. Why is this so?"
"In order to delay the 'decay' of the outer barrier," Gemona said softly, "We are rotting, Fire Usurper. We must find a way to 'lock up' our own rot. Otherwise, before the life of the shelter reaches its limit, this world will be completely corroded by the 'rot' we release."