Chapter 143

The black-haired, white-robed figure brushed past him, and the fleeting glimpse at the moment of intersection seemed like a hallucination produced by Duncan himself—he saw the other person walk into the depths of Anomaly 004 and disappear silently from his sight after passing through a wall.

Doomsday Observer... Termination Survey Team...

These titles, which inevitably evoked all sorts of associations, finally made Duncan unable to suppress his curiosity. He turned to look at the tall guide beside him, "What is the mission of these people?"

"To enter the timestream, confirm within the knowable timeframe whether the Shelter is operating according to the creator's original blueprint, and confirm the timestamp of the system's collapse."

The tomb guardian said calmly, while striding forward, continuing to lead Duncan deeper into this "Tomb of the Nameless King."

And the "gravedigger's" answer had already set off a wave in Duncan's heart.

Observers traversing the timestream, a survey team tracking the end... could it really be them!?

Duncan suddenly raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the corridor's walls and columns in an ancient style, and soon he thought of something else: "What exactly is this place?"

As soon as the question came out, he felt a little strange, because it sounded like he was asking the obvious, but for some reason, he felt that the gravedigger in front of him should understand his intention.

The gravedigger's footsteps paused almost imperceptibly for a moment.

"This is the first Crete Observation Station—and it will also be the last," a low, calm voice reached Duncan's ears. "A long, long time ago, there were twelve hundred such doomsday observation stations, and we directly controlled ten of them."

Duncan was stunned for a moment. Suddenly, he recalled a passage he had once read—

"...To avoid repeating the mistakes of the Dream King and the Pale Giant King, He divided the blueprint, so that the mortal world would no longer have kingdoms, so that the kingdoms would be transformed into twelve hundred cities, and that the clan would take charge of the first ten cities, bestowing upon them the name 'Crete'..."

The stylistic characteristics of Anomaly 004 were explained—it was indeed a relic left behind by the ancient Cretan kingdom, a relic that had been running for ten thousand years, and even after becoming an "anomaly," it was still operating!

At the same time, the things recorded in that blasphemous book were once again confirmed. The "twelve hundred cities" mentioned in the book were real, but they did not refer to twelve hundred city-states, but twelve hundred "doomsday observation stations"!

Personnel called the "Termination Survey Team" departed from here, entered the timestream to monitor the operation of the "Shelter," and determined the "time boundary" when the Shelter reached its limit...

A glimpse of open scenery suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye, and Duncan was immediately awakened from his thoughts, raising his head to look forward in surprise.

Without knowing when, he had already walked past the seemingly endless passage under the leadership of the "gravedigger." After passing through a towering gate, the scene before him suddenly opened up—more than just opening up, it was simply not like being inside a "building"!

He saw a plaza, a plaza covered by a dim yellow sky, seemingly large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people.

The gate of the passage where Duncan was located was high above, with a stone ramp sloping down to the edge of the plaza. The plaza was covered with huge, flat gray-white stone slabs, and a wide walkway ran across it. He also saw solemn pillars with a faint metallic luster standing on both sides of the road. The tops of the pillars seemed to have had more complex structures, but they had already weathered and collapsed under the erosion of time. Around the plaza, various collapsed and dilapidated giant structures could be seen, as if they had once been many gates and pillars. The only complete thing in sight was the huge throne in the center of the plaza.

The black throne stood in the center of the plaza, its back towering high, as if overlooking everything around it. A chaotic, twilight-like light enveloped the plaza, and under this dim light, a sense of near-eternal... solitude seemed to linger in the dilapidated ruins before him.

For some reason, Duncan felt a sense of sadness in his heart, as if the heavy atmosphere brought by these collapsed and dust-covered ruins stirred his heart.

The white-robed tomb guardian had already passed Duncan. He walked onto the sloping ramp and silently walked towards the ruined plaza.

Duncan hesitated for a moment, then silently followed.

They walked down the slope and came to the wide walkway that ran through the entire plaza, slowly walking forward between two rows of towering, solemn stone pillars. Duncan's gaze swept around from time to time, looking at the ruined walls that had once been glorious and majestic, but now were collapsed and broken.

Occasionally, he would see visions of the past—he would see people in white robes or gray short robes appearing outside the stone pillars, hurrying through the plaza, either walking towards the deserted gates on the edge, or gathering and talking in certain places, as if discussing something.

He could almost imagine how busy and important this place once was—in those Genesis years, when the "Crawling King" was still adjusting the blueprints of the new world, and when the ancient Cretan kingdom was still acting as the creator's "assistant" in building this world, they gathered here, busy with the establishment of the Shelter, planning for the future ten thousand years of civilization.

At that time, the Great Annihilation had just ended, and the continuous ruins caused by the world collision were still floating in the mortal world, and the order of all things was born and died in the morning and evening; at that time, the meetings of the kings were held again and again, the two Long Nights had failed, and the third Long Night had gradually revealed its dawn; at that time, the troops called the "Termination Survey Team" passed through the veil of time, as a vanguard to check the boundaries of the Shelter—the boundaries in the time dimension; at that time, the boundless sea may have just taken shape, and the city-states had not yet been established, and the "sun" had not yet risen, and the first "humans" were still sleeping in the Crawling King's database, and in the long night, only the lights of the ancient Cretan kingdom briefly illuminated this chaotic world...

At that time, this place had not yet become Anomaly 004—there were still eleven hundred and ninety-nine observation stations like it scattered in the ashes of the Great Annihilation, waiting for the moment when the new world would open.

Now, everything has passed away with the wind.

Only this desolate and dilapidated ruin remains, floating in the cracks outside this real world, stirring Duncan's thoughts and endless guesses.

The tall tomb guardian walked slowly in front of Duncan, as if strolling through the corridor of time. When another team of Termination Survey Team figures passed through the stone pillars, he suddenly broke the silence, "They haven't sent back any news for a long time."

"...They're mad," Duncan said softly.

"Oh."

The tomb guardian nodded and continued to walk forward slowly.

Then after a while, he spoke as if to himself, "In the beginning, they would send back a lot of information—within the first contact cycle after departure, they sent back news of the city-state era, and then, the rise and fall of the Far Sea Alliance in the darkness.

"They mentioned the disappearance of the Cretan kingdom, and were also pleased to mention the appearance of the 'sun.' The information they sent back contained many bizarre things that didn't seem like blueprint designs, but in the creator's subsequent calculations, the appearance of those things seemed inevitable..."

The gravedigger stopped, raised his head to look at the huge, black throne in the center of the plaza, and shook his head gently after a long silence.

"Then, their news became less and less, and sometimes... some content that we couldn't understand would appear. They seemed to be diving very deep in the timestream, or had gone very far, which had exceeded our initial plan...

"Many times, the information they sent back was contradictory and out of order, and this situation became more and more frequent in the later stages. The creator's calculations judged that this was a normal phenomenon, because the Shelter is a limited model—it takes this place as the center, like a light illuminating the wilderness. Time is the distance that the light extends. The farther away, the more the undefined darkness controls everything... At the edge of time, if they couldn't find another light, then it meant that there was really nothing to report..."

The gravedigger fell silent, and after an unknown amount of time, he whispered again as if to himself, "They haven't sent back any news for a long time..."

Duncan said nothing.

He had already arrived in front of the black throne that seemed to be built for giants. He slowly raised his gaze and looked at the figure on the throne.

A headless body was sitting quietly on the throne, and countless huge cables and pipes were intricately intertwined like blood vessels and nerves extending from the body, connecting the whole body of the figure, connecting the countless interfaces and slots on the throne. Some of those interfaces were still flashing with faint lights, and some kind of active streamer was flowing in some pipes, constantly flowing into the body and flowing out of it again.

The moment he saw the headless body on the throne, Duncan's expression changed slightly. He suddenly recalled the scene that Ted Riel had described to him, the one he had seen in the subspace, but what surprised him even more than this memory, and even made him feel at a loss, was a certain... familiarity that came from that body.

He looked up in astonishment, staring fixedly at the body on the throne. After nearly a minute, he couldn't help but ask, "In the subspace, there is a headless body sitting on a black throne..."

"That is his shadow," the tomb guardian said softly. "The creator took away his body, but could only take away a part—he was torn apart, and what was split was not only the body, but also his memory, soul, shadow, thoughts, past and future... all shattered in the Second Long Night. The creator brought this body here, and the shadow remained in the place where he first died."

Duncan suddenly turned his head and looked into the eyes of the tomb guardian. He felt that the sense of familiarity that the body on the throne gave him was becoming stronger and stronger, which finally made him unable to help but ask, "Who exactly is on the throne?"

"Saslokar—the creator used him as the prototype to create the first 'Crete'."