Chapter 31 New Target

Duncan rubbed his slightly sore forehead, putting away his keys as he recalled his experiences in the "mansion," recalling the information conveyed to him by the ancient god's tentacles in the garden, and the "invading anomaly" that appeared beside the hollow inside the mansion.

Alice quickly noticed the captain's "return." She pulled up the back of her dress and turned her head curiously, "Captain's back! Did you find the answer you were looking for?"

"I got more information, but only more questions," Duncan sighed softly, looking at Alice's always carefree and bright expression. He temporarily suppressed the chaotic thoughts in his mind, and a smile appeared on his face, "But I've made great progress—at least I have a new goal in the near future."

Alice tilted her head slightly, "New goal?"

Duncan thought for a moment and said with a calm expression, "Let's catch a few Annihilation cultists first."

Why did the "garbage" he threw out of his apartment end up at Alice's mansion? Why did those things become burgeoning shadows in the eyes of the mansion's servants? What happened to the missing gardener in the mansion? What is the essence of the Cleansers? None of these questions seem to have answers at the moment, and there are no suitable breakthroughs in the short term, but in another direction, the "Abyssal Saint"’s suggestion is worth a try.

Regarding the state of Anomaly 001, the meaning behind those short noises, the ancient kings, the Great Annihilation and the truth of the several Long Nights, and the meaning of the so-called end of the cycle... regarding all of this, the ancient god entrenched in the abyssal deep sea obviously knows many inside stories, and He is willing to reveal these inside stories to him, the "Fire Usurper."

So finding a way to establish contact with the Abyssal Deep Sea has become the only clear path for now, just as the Abyssal Saint personally suggested – catch a few Annihilation cultists and see.

But whenever he thought of this "suggestion," Duncan couldn't help but feel a little strange...

Alice didn't think so much. She was just very happy that the captain had a new plan. Although she didn't understand why, she still looked forward to it, "Okay, okay, when are we going to catch them? And where should we go?"

"...Cultists aren't jellyfish in the sea, you can't just catch them on a whim," Duncan rubbed his forehead. "Let's rest today. Tomorrow, I want to have a good discussion about this with Vanna and Morris."

"...Oh," Alice nodded, but another question popped up quickly, "What's a jellyfish?"

"It's something that lives in...probably lives in the sea," Duncan's face twitched, and he explained very strangely, "It looks translucent, some are poisonous, some are edible."

"Edible?" Duncan was just explaining casually, but he didn't expect Alice's eyes to light up instantly, "Is it delicious?"

Duncan's face was weird, "...You don't even have a digestive system, why do you care about that?"

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

The topic was rapidly turning bizarre, and Duncan almost couldn't maintain his expression. He quickly waved his hand to brush off the question, "Okay, okay, I promise you, we'll catch some to eat when we have the chance..."

So Alice left happily and contentedly.

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, shook his head helplessly, and strolled to the window.

In terms of time, it was already nightfall—Anomaly 001 had fallen below the sea surface several hours ago, and its power had also receded from the world. The "crack" of the Worldscar was presented in the sky accordingly, coldly overlooking the entire city.

But at the same time, there was still "sunlight" in the sky—that sunlight came from the "glowing geometries" on the sea surface near the city-state. The overflowing brilliance was blocked by layers of buildings in the city, and only fragmented pillars of light swept across the sky in this area near the city center—like the shadows cast by blinds, irregular pillars of light streaked across the city's high altitude, forming a bizarre, seemingly distorted twilight-like "landscape."

And under the "cutting" of those sunbeams, the Worldscar in the sky also presented a discontinuous appearance of light and shadow: it no longer continuously spanned the high altitude, because in the places where the sunlight swept over, the Worldscar was invisible, and only in places where the sunlight could not shine could one see those segmented, cold, pale rifts in the sky.

Duncan suddenly frowned. He realized a detail he had previously overlooked and began to observe the thought-provoking "spectacle" in the sky with increasing curiosity.

The luminous geometries that fell on the sea surface could not possibly project light to such a high place as the Worldscar—Lucretia and the scholars of Lightwind Port had already measured its luminous range, which could only cover a city-state and part of the surrounding sea area, and it was impossible to reach the sky.

And what he was seeing now was that in the areas where the "sunlight beams" swept across the city's sky, the Worldscar appeared invisible.

So... the sunlight didn't directly affect the Worldscar, but rather the eyes of the "observer?"

The true effect of Anomaly 001-Sun is not to suppress the Worldscar, but to use covering or filtering methods to make the world's intelligent beings "unable to observe the Worldscar?!"

Vaguely, Duncan suddenly felt that he had touched a very crucial mechanism related to Anomaly 001.

However, just as Duncan was about to follow this line of thought, an anomaly that suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye interrupted his thoughts.

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

It was another street adjacent to the Crown District—he still clearly remembered that there were rows of roofs and tall buildings, with a landmark spire located at the deepest part of the district.

But now, a lush jungle shrouded in twilight appeared in his vision.

Towering giant trees rose abruptly from the city. The original buildings and spires of the district had somehow turned into a forest, and towering, vine-like structures stretched out from the forest. Some even extended into the Crown District!

Under the light and shadow of the interweaving "sunlight" and "Worldscar," those dark-colored vines meandered and grew on the streets, entwining the buildings along the street, and bit by bit climbed the buildings and high walls, entwining the street lamps, like tentacles extending from a nightmare, piercing into the real world bit by bit...

Duncan blinked, and found that the "anomaly" in his vision still existed, and under the illumination of the intertwined sunlight and Worldscar, it seemed even more real than before.

However, the city was still silent. Whether it was the other districts in the distance, or those buildings close at hand that were already entangled by vines... not a single sound was heard.

No one seemed to notice this huge anomaly, even though the lights were clearly on in several nearby houses, indicating that someone was awake and active in the houses just a second ago.

Duncan withdrew his gaze from the window, turned around, and walked quickly to the door. But before he could open the door, hurried footsteps sounded from the corridor outside and suddenly pushed open the door.

Alice, who had not left for long, ran back in a hurry, with a clearly panicked expression on her face, "Cap... Captain! Outside! Did you see outside..."

"I saw it," Duncan interrupted the stuttering doll, "It might be some kind of extremely wide-ranging otherworld or illusion, but it hasn't affected our house yet—don't panic, call the others together. We need to figure out what's going on."

Alice calmed down slightly when she heard this and quickly nodded, then turned around and went out while quickly saying, "Oh... oh right! You wait, I'll go find the others!"

The doll trotted away and quickly disappeared into the corridor outside. Duncan turned his head and glanced at the "strange scene" on the street outside again.

The "forest" covering a large area of the district still existed, lush and green in the night, as lush as rising shadows, but the vines extending from the forest seemed to have stopped growing—many vines of varying thicknesses remained on the edge of the Crown District, with no signs of further extension towards this side.

But this was only what he could observe here, and he couldn't determine what the other side of the "forest" looked like at all.

Just as Duncan was starting to worry about whether other parts of the city were also undergoing changes, Alice's hurried footsteps appeared in the corridor again, and her anxious and helpless voice simultaneously entered Duncan's ears, "Captain, Captain, Captain! Th... the others are gone!"

This time Duncan was finally stunned, "The others are gone?"

"They're all gone," Alice ran over quickly, nodded quickly, and hurriedly held her head with her hand, as if afraid of nodding it off, "I went to Nina and Shirley's room just now, they weren't there, Miss Lucretia wasn't there either, there was no response when I knocked on the doors of other rooms, and there were only those clockwork-driven servants in the living room—they were all standing still, it looked so scary!"

Duncan's eyes instantly became serious, but he still comforted the nervous Alice first, then narrowed his eyes slightly and gradually spread his senses out.

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

The marks still existed, but their state... was very strange.

"Let's go downstairs and take a look," Duncan opened his eyes and beckoned to the cabinet next to him, letting Aiyi, who was dozing on top of the cabinet, land on his shoulder. Then he nodded to Alice, "Stay close to me, don't run around."

Alice nodded immediately, "O... okay, Captain!"

(End of Chapter)