Alice left.

Duncan didn't know how much the silly doll had understood, but at least she now realized the danger of the "key." Until she figured out what it really was, she probably wouldn't consider winding it up again.

Outside the window, the setting sun was gradually sinking, and two dazzling rings of runes were slowly approaching the distant horizon. The diffused golden-red light dyed the entire sea, then streamed through the window and into the room.

Duncan sat at the desk by the window, quietly watching the brass key. Sunlight covered its 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 wisp of fine, ghostly green firelight appeared at his fingertips and gradually seeped into the key's interior.

He hadn't originally planned to use the "Spiritfire" to study the key, because the power of the flame could very likely damage its transcendent essence. Even if it didn't, it could affect its original properties. But he couldn't worry about that now.

He had to figure out what Ley Nora had left behind in the key—given this premise, he could only be extra careful, trying to avoid the Spiritfire's power from burning the thing too fiercely, while carefully sensing any small piece of information coming from the flame, and preparing to extinguish the flame immediately if he felt anything was amiss.

The flame was like water, flowing smoothly between his fingers and the key, the ghostly green light seeping little by little into the latter's brass surface. In Duncan's perception, his flame... seemed to be sinking into a vast, boundless, and chaotic place.

He slowly closed his eyes, then used the spreading flame as his vision, beginning to observe the "world" behind the key.

Fog, an endless fog flowed like dust and smoke, rising and falling in his vision, sometimes condensing, sometimes dissipating. Where the flame saw, there was only chaotic nothingness.

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

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

After quietly staying 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 sigh of relief, then tentatively moved his vision in a certain direction.

But as soon 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 thick fog?

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

Why was there such a change? Was it because the properties of the two transcendent items themselves were different? Or was it because some unknown change had occurred in his power?

Doubts rose 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, its texture 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, flat surface was clearly some kind of artificial creation. Under its black shell, one could vaguely see some fine lines, whether decorative or internal structures. At one end, one could also see a metal port with a complex structure, with a series of neat raised structures arranged inside.

It looked... like a "readable device" that could be connected to some kind of machine, used to store data or act as a starter.

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

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

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

In Pruland, in the historical branch burned by the great fire, he saw that the "Sun Offspring" who invaded the city-states all held a black umbrella. The inside of the black umbrella had complex and seemingly advanced and precise mechanical, even electronic structures...

Duncan recalled the black umbrella he had seen in Pruland and carefully observed the rectangular device in his hand. He finally confirmed that the Sun Offspring's black umbrella and the strange "device" in front of him seemed to be different styles. 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 current world's technological level.

At least, it didn't seem like something that the cities of the Boundless Sea could make or had ever made.

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

Blasphemy Prototype.

Agou once described them like this:

"There are some histories in the 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 existence itself is harmful to living beings in the real world…"

This "black box" that looked like some kind of data device... was a "Blasphemy Prototype"?

Duncan frowned slightly and repeatedly examined 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 of the sound.

The next second, he saw a strong light suddenly appear in the endless chaotic fog that enveloped the entire space. The light came from afar, like a meteor falling fiercely, and then formed a ball of burning flames in the fog!

It roared past Duncan's head and gradually decreased in altitude as it flew. The fog was dispersed, and the dazzling fireball outlined some huge object. Duncan saw an entity being pushed by flames—

It was shaped like three spindles tied together. At the end of each spindle, one could see the huge light stream ejected from the thrusters. On the outer shell of the spindles, one could see thick smoke billowing and flames raging. Horrifying explosions and tears were constantly occurring, and pieces were constantly falling from the explosion points, splashing into the thick fog like rain, and burning to ashes in the sky as they fell...

Without a reference, Duncan couldn't judge how large the "three-body ship" that was flying across the sky at high speed was, but he could feel the strong shock and pressure brought by the huge figure wrapped in flames and smoke. It might be larger than a city-state, even larger than many city-states combined. It might have crossed a long journey, passed the stars on some astronomical scale. It glided and fell in this illusion covered in mist, and in Duncan's astonished gaze, this fall ended with an 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 thick 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 a thing that happened in the distant past.

A slight warmth 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 infinity symbol, was emitting a faint light. The fine patterns slowly wandered in the faint light and outlined recognizable symbols:

"New Hope"

"Boom!"

A virtual 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 once again.

Duncan steadied his mind, feeling that his senses were rapidly recovering. He lowered his head again and saw that the brass key was still lying quietly in his hand.

The key was no longer hot, nor was it glowing. 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 breaking of 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 scenes he had seen in the "illusion." After writing all these things down, he breathed a slight sigh of relief and returned to his original 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 contemplation.

He didn't know what the cause and effect of the scene he had seen was, didn't know what kind of connection or "transformation" process there was between the black data device in the "illusion" and the brass key, didn't know where the fallen ark giant ship was now, but he believed... that everything he had seen was not a chaotic illusion.

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

A huge spaceship crashed on this world and exploded during the crash, the wreckage scattered in the mortal world.

Duncan took a light breath.

He kept the key close to his body, raised his head, and looked out the window at the anomaly 001 that had almost completely fallen into the sea.

"Now... things are getting interesting."