Like before, Alice always held unconditional trust in the captain's words—she didn't even wonder why Duncan suddenly needed to use the key again, and happily agreed.

But Duncan still carefully explained to the doll, "I need to enter that 'Alice Manor' again to confirm some guesses about the 'Old World.'"

Alice nodded emphatically, although she didn't quite understand what the "Old World" the captain was talking about was, she knew it was a very serious matter.

Because they already had one experience of cooperation, this time she quickly found a comfortable and stable place to sit down, and then turned around to reveal the keyhole on her back.

"Actually, I discussed it with Nina before, and asked her to help me alter the back of my clothes to see if she could cut a hole here at the keyhole," the doll happily said while waiting for the captain to "wind her up," "But she was worried that sand and dust would get into my keyhole... I think she's worrying too much. I won't be rolling around on the ground, how could sand get into the keyhole?"

"It's better to cover it up normally," Duncan said casually, "Who knows if this precision structure is fragile? If something gets in and breaks it, I don't know how to fix it."

"Ms. Lucretia might be able to fix it, Luni was fixed by her... But you're right, it's better to be careful. Luni's head took a long time to fix."

The silver-haired doll babbled on, discussing these things that sounded too strange and ominous to others as if chatting about everyday matters. Duncan couldn't help but smile faintly, then he shook his head with a smile, picked up the peculiar brass key, and carefully inserted it into Alice's keyhole as before.

The familiar click came, and the key began to turn on its own. Duncan steadied himself slightly, and in the next second, he felt the light and shadow in front of him change, and his perception was rapidly orienting and reshaping.

After a moment, he opened his eyes in the darkness, adapting to the changes in his five senses after the environment changed. After the scene in front of him quickly stabilized, that bizarre "garden" shrouded in a cartoon sky and lush greenery reappeared before his eyes.

The silver-haired gothic doll identical to Alice was still quietly leaning against the pillar in the center of the garden, sleeping in the flower vines and brambles. The drawing board in the doll's hand was also in the same position and shape as before, without any change.

Duncan blinked, and didn't rashly move at first. Instead, he cautiously confirmed the surrounding situation and compared it with the scenes in his memory.

Half a minute later, he confirmed that there was nothing unusual around. Everything remained as it was when he left—he even had a feeling that during his departure, the time in this "manor" had been paused, and only when he returned did time here begin to move again.

...This was likely not an illusion.

Duncan recalled the peculiar time rules in Alice Manor that the strange "headless butler" had told him, and thought to himself.

After a moment of thought, he raised his head and looked up at the "sky" above the garden.

The last time he came here, most of his energy was attracted by the various bizarre and strange scenes in the manor, and he had a pile of questions occupying his mind. His limited energy was scattered everywhere, so that although the sky in this garden had attracted his attention, he had not observed those bizarre cartoon graffiti too carefully.

And this time, he looked particularly carefully.

Clouds seemingly drawn with children's crayons floated against the light blue sky background. Exaggerated "sunlight" lines passed through the clouds, and the "sun" painted with golden yellow pigment, as seen last time, released light and heat, maintaining the garden's vitality.

Still full of "childishness," still overflowing with weirdness in the "childishness." Duncan suddenly narrowed his eyes slightly.

He carefully observed the golden yellow sun. This time, he finally noticed a detail that he had previously overlooked—

There was no rune ring structure around that "graffiti sun"!

"No wonder... no wonder last time, I felt like something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it..."

Duncan muttered, his expression slightly changing. He finally confirmed where the biggest sense of disharmony that the sky presented in this bizarre graffiti came from: it was a normal sun. Although the brushstrokes were abstract and simple, it was undoubtedly the "sun" he was familiar with!

But it was precisely because he was too familiar with it that he failed to notice this obvious "abnormality" when he glanced at it in a hurry last time—if "native residents" like Morris or Vanna came, they would probably feel that something was wrong at first glance.

Duncan's eyebrows furrowed little by little. After confirming that the sky was a "normal sun," the secrets hidden in this "Alice Manor" seemed to be quietly lifting a corner to him.

In the Boundless Sea, the "sun" is a man-made celestial body with double rune rings. This is a universally recognized common sense, a "fact" that has not changed for ten thousand years from the Deep Sea Era to the present. No one in the world knows what the "real sun" looks like. Even those Sun Cultists who claim to worship the real sun god only depict a distorted and terrifying ancient god creature when preaching—

Then who left this "normal sun," or "original sun," in Alice Manor?

The doll "Alice" was "born" only after the Frost Queen Rhea Nora fell into the deep sea. Then why does the depths of Alice Manor, which is connected to her, record the appearance of the "sun" before the Great Annihilation Era?

And if we consider the "world aggregation theory's" speculation on the Great Annihilation, that the Deep Sea Era was formed by the accumulation and reshaping of countless old world remnants, then the "original sun" recorded in Alice Manor... which old world should it belong to?

Does it represent a certain star in a certain old world? Or is it just an abstract symbol?

For some reason, what Duncan thought of at this moment was that chubby pigeon.

He frowned tightly, shook his head, and repeatedly reorganized the complicated information in his mind. Suddenly, another clue appeared in his mind—

Alice's birth.

It is true that her image was copied from the Frost Queen Rhea Nora, but her original coffin was also a faulty copy of the "Alice Guillotine"—facts have proven that for the "creator" of Anomaly 099, the source and process of the copy itself are not important. Whether it is a great human or a hard piece of wood, they are just the initial "materials." What is truly important is the "creator" himself.

The "faulty copy" of the Deep Sea Lord created Anomaly 099.

So can it be assumed that this so-called "Alice Manor" is also a "creation" of the Deep Sea Lord's faulty copy—and further extended, even the Deep Sea Lord's faulty copy should retain a large amount of "body" information. Then, the source of some "things" in this Alice Manor may point directly to that "ancient god" stranded in the Deep Sea?

Duncan raised his head and once again carefully examined the abstract and simple sun, as well as the clouds and sunlight around the sun.

...Are these graffiti-like pictures a part of the "memory" unintentionally leaked by the Deep Sea Lord, or a kind of "information" consciously conveyed to the outside world?

The more Duncan thought about it, the more likely it seemed, because one thing was undoubtedly certain:

The real appearance of the "original sun" only exists before the time node of the Great Annihilation. The secrets of this Alice Manor should also be traced back to before that time node. And based on the information currently available... only the Four Gods, and those mysterious and bizarre "ancient gods" in the depths of the world, may have some understanding of the world before the Great Annihilation.

Duncan's heart stirred, and he lowered his head to look at the drawing board in the doll's hand.

After hesitating slightly, he bent down, carefully bypassed the surrounding thorns, and slowly pulled the drawing board from the doll's hand.

The front of the drawing board still depicted that bizarre vortex, twisted stars, and ominous dark red radiance. And on the back frame of the drawing board, the familiar words were still engraved:

"...The messenger brings news from afar, the chosen clan picks up the lost ancient stars and forges them into a crown of blessing—the Third Long Night is over."

The chosen clan picks up the lost ancient stars and forges them into a crown of blessing.

Duncan's gaze lingered on this sentence for a long time.

This describes the process of the ancient Cretan clan, under the leadership of the "Crawling King," building Anomaly 001 and raising it into the sky.

When he first entered this garden and saw this line of text, he couldn't understand what it meant.

But now, he suddenly had some understanding.

He thought of that ten-meter-diameter "moon"—it was a "part" that fell off from the rune ring of Anomaly 001.

The rune ring that binds the sun can be regarded as a magnificent "crown."

And the "moon" twisted and compressed by unknown forces... naturally also fits the description of "lost ancient stars."

Some slight noises suddenly came from the depths of the garden, startling Duncan from his thoughts.

He suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction from which the sound came.

There were only lush plants, and dim shadows between the dense bushes and the shade of the shrubs.

But Duncan was sure that he had really "heard" something.

This is the deepest part of Alice Manor. According to the headless butler, even the senior servants in the manor are not qualified to enter here at will—only the mistress Alice and the existence called the "gardener" would come here, but that "gardener" seemed to have disappeared a long time ago.

Invaders? Or has that "gardener" returned?

Duncan frowned slowly. He casually stuffed the drawing board back into the doll's arms and cautiously walked towards the lush bushes.

"Rustle... Squeak..."

A slight noise came again from a certain shadow.

Suddenly, the corner of his eye caught something—

A shadow, like a slippery and bizarre tentacle, was traversing and wriggling in the darkness at the edge of the garden!