The second luminous geometric shape fell on the boundless sea, its core still a "lost star," but different from the first fragment—this "lost star" was a compressed gaseous planet.

According to scholars' preliminary measurements, the diameter of this gaseous planet serving as the core was still ten meters, completely consistent with the "moon" inside the first luminous body.

What Duncan was more concerned about was another matter: he didn't recognize this planet.

At least he could be sure it wasn't a gas giant like Saturn or Jupiter, which once belonged to the "solar system"—the silver, gray, and blue metallic colors it exhibited, as well as the several highly characteristic storm vortexes on its surface, were all completely unfamiliar to him.

Duncan stood beside this compressed gas giant, carefully observing the cloud bands and vortex structures on its surface, his mind surging with thoughts.

The core of the first luminous geometric shape was the "moon" of his hometown, so when this second fallen object appeared, he subconsciously thought he would see another familiar solar system object, but now it seemed… The "raw materials" used for the runic rings around the sun were not limited to his hometown's "solar system." These "lost stars" constituting the rings all came from more distant deep space, and were even very likely from different universes.

Celestial bodies from different worlds, after being compressed and distorted, were transformed into halos around the sun to maintain the operation of the observer effect's stabilization anchor. The "sun" as the main body was essentially an eyeball encapsulated in a crystalline shell… The eyeball symbolized the observer's eye… This device ensured that the incompatible remnants of the world after the Great Annihilation could collapse into the same reality…

It seemed that this was the principle of Anomaly 001.

After a long period of contemplation, Duncan gently shook his head.

He knew that there was actually no use in him thinking about the principle of Anomaly 001 now. This stabilization device, which had severely exceeded its service life, had now reached the end of its lifespan, and its collapse and extinguishing were destined to happen. Even if he accepted Pathfinder One's "continuation plan," he could only use his own flame to replace Anomaly 001, allowing this world to usher in a "Flame Age" after the "Deep Sea Age"—in any case, the disintegration of the observer effect's stabilization anchor was an irreversible process.

But even so, the effective mechanism of Anomaly 001 still brought him some inspiration. After rejecting Pathfinder One's plan, he had to find other ways to continue the civilization of the Deep Sea Age. He vaguely had an idea, and the principle of Anomaly 001 was very useful for him to improve his idea.

Tirion and Aiden stood on the beach, looking at Duncan not far away with slight tension and confusion. They didn't know what their father (the old captain) was doing, and they didn't dare to rashly step forward to disturb him, but it was obvious that they had noticed the thoughtful and suddenly enlightened expressions on Duncan's face from time to time.

Aiden looked around, confirmed that irrelevant personnel had retreated far away, and then leaned close to Tirion, lowering his voice and said, "What do you think the old captain is studying?"

"How would I know," Tirion also lowered his voice, "I can't understand the things Lucy usually studies, let alone father's thinking—maybe he's communicating with that thing?"

Aiden thought for a while and nodded: "...I think you're right."

Duncan actually heard the whispered murmur coming from not far away, but he ignored it and suddenly spoke in his heart after a moment of thought: "Alice."

The doll lady's voice came back almost immediately: "Huh? Captain?"

"Come over here, there's something I want you to see—Iyi has already gone to pick you up."

Alice over there was stunned for a moment: "Ah, then wait for me for a while, my potato cakes are about to come out of the pan—do you want to eat them? I'll send a portion to your captain's room?"

Duncan: "...No need, I'm not hungry over here. Come over as soon as you're done."

Then, he stood there patiently waiting. After several more minutes, a faint green flame suddenly rose beside him—the flame turned into a rotating door, the bone giant bird flew out of the door, and then Alice's figure came out.

The doll lady was holding a steaming paper bag in her hand. As soon as she saw Duncan, she showed a happy look and sent the bag forward: "Captain! Potato cakes! I've brought them to you!"

Duncan turned his head and silently looked at the silly doll in front of him. He didn't know what expression was under the bandaged face, only his eyes were very helpless.

Alice reacted for a moment, and this time she reacted very smoothly: "...Ah, I forgot that this body of yours doesn't usually need to eat..."

"You can drink tea occasionally, but you really don't need to eat," Duncan said lightly, but he still took the paper bag from Alice's hand, "But thank you anyway."

Alice immediately smiled happily, and then noticed Tirion and Aiden, who were constantly looking over here from not far away, and immediately waved to them: "You're here too!"

Tirion hesitated for a moment, and then walked over with Aiden, while looking at the doll, who was exactly the same as the Frost Queen, with a somewhat subtle expression—no matter how many times they saw her, that unspeakable sense of disharmony would involuntarily emerge every time they saw this face, especially when this doll spoke...

Alice seemed to not notice Tirion and Aiden's subtle expressions at all. She just felt very happy to see acquaintances, and then raised her finger to point at the paper bag in Duncan's hand: "Do you want to eat potato cakes? They're freshly made! They're also sprinkled with compound spices from Light Breeze Harbor!"

As soon as the doll's voice fell, Tirion hadn't spoken yet, but Duncan suddenly reacted: "Wait, did you say...spices from Light Breeze Harbor?"

Alice supported her head and nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, Luni bought them back from outside when we were in the city-state before, saying they could open the eyes of northerners... The taste is a bit strange, but the feel is quite interesting..."

Duncan finally knew what the strange smell constantly wafting from the paper bag was all about.

He silently raised his head and glanced at Tirion: "Try one."

Tirion didn't know what was about to happen—he didn't care about food, and he knew very little about the food legends of Light Breeze Harbor. At this time, he didn't have any extra thoughts when faced with his father's invitation, but was a little happy, so he reached out and took a potato cake from the bag and stuffed it into his mouth...

Then he stood there without moving.

"It seems your spices are very authentic—he'll probably need a while to wake up," Duncan withdrew his gaze, nodded to Alice, and then turned around and pointed to the "compressed planet" floating on the beach, "Let's take a look at this first."

"Oh." Alice agreed. Although she was a little curious as to why Tirion suddenly shed tears, she still focused her attention on the "lost star" with its magnificent appearance, constantly emitting a slight hum.

Of course, she knew what this was—before setting off, she knew that the captain was investigating the "No. 2 Fallen Object" in the north, and the strange-looking but beautiful ball in front of her was obviously the core of the No. 2 Fallen Object.

"What is it 'saying'?" Duncan asked curiously from the side.

He could share Alice's vision, he could see the "lines" or those information originating from Anomaly 001 through Alice's eyes, but he couldn't understand those things instinctively like Alice—this was a unique ability of Pathfinder No. 3.

And now, he was very curious as to what intelligence the doll could read from the "No. 2 Fallen Object."

Alice frowned slightly. After a while, she slowly opened her mouth: "A lot of information… various errors, host communication failure, protocol conflicts, reconstruction of the operating environment errors… very chaotic, much more chaotic than the error messages I saw last time…”

Duncan: "Besides that? Is there anything like a system restart countdown?"

"No," Alice shook her head, "It's all kinds of faults, and some miscellaneous information, some of which I don't understand."

Listening to Alice's report, Duncan just sighed lightly and nodded slightly.

The situation was very bad, but he had somewhat expected it.

Aiden, who was on the side, looked at this scene in a daze. It wasn't until this time that he suddenly reacted, and immediately touched Tirion's arm: "Putting aside everything else, Miss Alice can really communicate with this thing!"

Tirion then woke up with a jolt, as if waking up from a rapidly attacking nightmare. His whole body obviously trembled, and then he bent down and began to cough and retch violently.

This scared Aiden. The bald strong man quickly supported Tirion's arm, while patting the other person's back and asking in a panic: "What's wrong with you?"

Tirion finally recovered from the extremely spicy and pungent sour smell, and he couldn't figure out why a potato cake would bring him such a "thrilling" impression. At this time, he raised his head and his eyes seemed to be surrounded by layers of phantoms, and in the phantoms, he even saw his father's gentle expression with a smile.

He reacted and realized that his father was really here.

"This... is too stimulating... ugh," Tirion finally caught his breath, looking at the remaining half of the potato cake in his hand with a strange expression, "How was this thing made?"

"The key lies in the spices from Light Breeze Harbor—it's enough to awaken a person's reverence for food," Duncan said lightly, "We've been in the south for a while, and the food in Light Breeze Harbor is what impressed me the most."

Tirion looked at the paper bag in his father's hand in a daze, and understood from the bottom of his heart what reverence for food meant.

Very reverent—almost fearful.

Just then, a gust of wind whistling suddenly came from not far away, interrupting the conversation of the several people on the scene.

Duncan subconsciously looked in the direction of the sound, and in the faint golden light that filled the entire port, he saw a wind wrapped in grayish-white dust rapidly passing through the sky—the gray wind circled over the beach for a few seconds, and then came straight to him.

The gray wind condensed, and Agatha, dressed in a black goddess robe and skirt with a cold temperament, walked out of the wind.

(End of this chapter)