Alice left.

Duncan didn't know how much the simple-minded doll had understood, but at least she now realized the danger of the "key." Before figuring out the truth about that thing, she probably wouldn't consider winding it up again.

Outside the window, the setting sun was gradually sinking. Two brilliant rune rings were slowly approaching the distant horizon, and the golden-red light that filled the air dyed the entire sea, then passed through the window and sprinkled into the room.

Duncan sat at the desk by the window, quietly watching the brass key. He watched the sunlight cover its key handle, which resembled an infinity symbol. The fine patterns seemed to come alive in the sunlight, presenting a flowing texture with the light and shadow.

After a brief moment of thought and hesitation, Duncan took a light breath and reached out to grasp the key.

A little fine, ghostly green light emerged from his fingertips and gradually permeated the inside of the key.

He hadn't originally planned to use "spirit fire" to study the key, because the power of the flame was likely to destroy the key's extraordinary essence. Even if it didn't destroy it, it could affect its original properties, but now he couldn't worry about so much.

He had to figure out what Lei Nora had left in the key—under this premise, he could only be extra careful, trying to avoid the power of the spirit fire from burning the thing too fiercely, while carefully perceiving any small piece of information transmitted by the flame, and preparing to extinguish the flame immediately if he felt something was wrong.

The flame was like water, flowing gently between his fingers and the key. The ghostly green light seeped little by little into the brass-textured surface of the latter, and in Duncan's perception, his flame… seemed to be sinking into a vast and boundless, chaotic and inexplicable place.

He slowly closed his eyes, and then, with the spreading flames as his vision, began to observe the "world" behind the key.

Fog, boundless fog flowing like dust and smoke, undulating in the field of vision, sometimes condensing, sometimes dispersing. Wherever the flame reached, there was only chaos and nothingness.

Duncan "observed" the thick fog in front of him with doubt, but only saw the same and uniform chaos in all directions.

He knew that this was the "truth" inside the key. He was doing the same thing as when he had explored the doll's coffin, but the situation here was completely different from inside that coffin.

After staying quietly in the endless fog for a while, Duncan sensed that the flame was still spreading steadily, and that the key itself showed no signs of damage or destruction. He breathed a slight sigh of relief, and then tentatively moved his vision in a certain direction.

But just as he moved forward, he felt the texture of a foreign object in his palm.

The key?

Duncan immediately thought of the brass key he was holding in his hand in the real world, and then he realized another thing—he actually had a "body" in this fog?

He clearly remembered that when he had examined the doll's coffin last time, he only had a "vision"!

Why this change? Was it because the nature of the two extraordinary items was different? Or was it because some unknown change had occurred in his power?

Doubts arose in Duncan's heart, and at the same time, he subconsciously raised his hand and looked at the "foreign object" in his palm.

A rectangular object with a black shell, the texture of which was indistinguishable as metal or plastic, lay quietly in his palm.

Duncan was stunned.

The thing was only about half a palm long and two fingers wide. Its smooth and flat surface was obviously some kind of artificial creation. Under its black shell, some fine lines, whether decorative or internal structure, could be vaguely seen. At one end, a metal port with a complex structure could be seen, the port containing a series of neat protruding structures.

It looked… as if it were a "readable device" that could be connected to some kind of machine, used to store data or serve as a starter.

Duncan held the black rectangle in front of him, carefully examining every inch of its detail with a feeling of astonishment.

He thought of a USB drive or a portable hard drive from "another world," but the interface specifications of this thing were obviously not the same as those he was familiar with.

After observing for a long time, another thing suddenly came to his mind—

In Prand, in that burning historical branch, he had seen the "Sun Offspring" who invaded the city-states holding a black umbrella in their hands. Inside the black umbrella were complex and seemingly advanced and precise mechanical, even electronic, structures…

Duncan recalled the black umbrella he had seen in Prand and carefully observed the rectangular device in his hand. He finally confirmed that the Sun Offspring's black umbrella seemed to have a different style from the strange "device" in front of him. They seemed to be products of two different technological routes or design styles, but they had something in common—

Precision, advanced, complex. From the outside, they seemed to far exceed the technological level of this world today.

At least, it didn't seem like something the cities of the Boundless Sea could manufacture or had manufactured.

And this kind of thing seemed to have a unique name in this world:

Blasphemy Prototype.

Agou had described them this way:

"There are some histories in the long river of time in this world that are 'locked,' and the things that were born in these forbidden histories are Blasphemy Prototypes. Under normal circumstances, their very existence is harmful to the creatures of the real world."

This "black box" that looks like some kind of data device… is a "Blasphemy Prototype"?

Duncan frowned slightly, repeatedly looking at the small device in his hand, while thinking about what connection it had with the brass key he was holding in his hand in the real world. Just then, a strange, low rumble suddenly came from a very high and distant place, interrupting his thoughts.

Duncan looked up in astonishment, looking in the direction from which the sound came.

The next moment, he saw a flash of strong light suddenly appear in the endless chaotic mist that enveloped the entire space. The light came from afar, like a violently falling star, and then formed a ball of burning fire in the mist!

It roared past Duncan's head and gradually decreased in height as it flew. The mist was dispersed, and the dazzling ball of fire outlined some kind of huge object. Duncan saw an entity propelled by flames—

It was shaped like three spindles tied together. At the end of each spindle, a huge stream of light could be seen spurting out of the thrusters. On the outer shell of the spindles, thick smoke billowed, and eye-catching explosions and tears were constantly occurring. During this time, fragments were constantly falling from the explosion point, like rain, splashing into the thick fog, and turning into meteors in the process of falling, burning to ashes in the sky…

Without a reference, Duncan couldn't judge how big the "three-body ship" that was flying across the sky was, but he could feel the strong shock and pressure brought by the huge figure wrapped in flames and smoke. It might be bigger than a city-state, or even bigger than many city-states combined. It might have crossed a long journey, crossed the stars on some astronomical scale. It glided and fell in this misty illusion, and in Duncan's astonished gaze, this fall ended with a earth-shattering explosion—

Accompanied by an explosion that could almost shake the entire space-time, the "giant ark" composed of three spindles disintegrated.

It split into three parts, turning into three balls of burning fire, three dazzling trajectories wrapped in thick smoke, scattered in the depths of the fog.

Very far, a distance that could not be reached by foot.

And Duncan suspected that even if he could teleport thousands of miles in an instant, he probably wouldn't be able to reach the place where the three wreckage pieces fell.

Because this mist… recorded only something that happened in the distant past.

A slight heat came from his palm. Duncan lowered his head and saw a brass key lying quietly in his hand. The handle of the brass key, which resembled an infinite symbol, was emitting a slight light. The fine lines slowly wandered in the light, and outlined recognizable symbols:

"New Hope"

"Boom!"

A illusory roar suddenly exploded in his mind. The mist around Duncan suddenly dissipated into darkness. Then, the light and shadow changed, and the familiar bedroom scenery returned to his vision again.

Duncan calmed himself down, feeling that his perception was rapidly recovering. He looked down again and saw that the brass key was still lying quietly in his hand.

The key was no longer hot, nor was it emitting light, and the fine lines on the key handle no longer wandered. Those characters that had appeared before his eyes… seemed like a bubble that dissipated with the awakening from a dream.

But Duncan still clearly remembered everything he had seen, remembered that name—New Hope.

He frowned, quickly got up and took the notebook on the desk, wrote the words "New Hope" on it, and quickly roughly recorded the scene he had seen in the "illusion." After writing these things down, he breathed a slight sigh of relief and returned to his initial sitting position.

In this world, it was unlikely that anything could affect his memory and thinking, but the necessary caution could not be lacking.

After completing the record, Duncan fell into deep thought.

He didn't know what the causes and consequences of the scene he had seen were, didn't know what kind of connection or "transformation" process existed between the black data device and the brass key in the "illusion," didn't know where the fallen ark giant ship was now, but he believed… everything he had seen was not some disordered hallucination.

That was a scene that had really happened, in the distant past, in the years before the city-state era had even begun, a real history that had happened in this world.

A huge spaceship crashed on this world, and exploded in the process of crashing, the wreckage scattered in the mortal world.

Duncan took a light breath.

He carefully put away the key next to his body, raised his head, and looked out the window at the phenomenon 001 that had almost completely fallen into the sea.

"This is… going to be a lot of fun."