Chapter 717: Crossing of Real and Imaginary

Chapter 717 – The Crossing of Falsehood and Reality
Descending from the entrance, it was at first a narrow and low slope, with rough traces of artificial excavation clearly discernible on the surrounding rock walls, but after moving forward for a dozen meters or so, the pathway ahead began to open up, and the gradient was slightly gentler.

The greenish firelight spread among the rocks, emitting a glow that illuminated the path ahead, and Duncan looked at the tunnel that continued to extend into the darkness, his brows gradually furrowing.

“Those were dug by those cultists in the days after the sun went out?” He couldn’t help but look over at Shirley, “They dug a tunnel this deep in such a short time?”

“No, they just dug through the entrance of this passage and dug through the rock at the bottom of this,” Shirley shook her head, “This section of the road under our feet seems to have existed originally …… “

“A passageway that originally existed deep underground in this ‘Holy Land Island’?” Maurice frowned slightly when he heard this, he came to the rock wall in front of him, carefully observed the surrounding stones and the ground under his feet, and spoke thoughtfully, “That means that before those cultists found this place, there were people digging here …… “

He stopped abruptly, furrowing his brow in puzzlement for a moment before slowly raising his head to look at the path ahead illuminated by the ghostly green fire.

“No, it doesn’t look like it was dug by hand …… This ‘originally existing passage’ was made by something else …… “

Duncan sniffed and stepped forward, “What did you find?”

“Look at the marks on these rock formations,” Maurice raised his hand and pointed to the surrounding walls, “these smooth undulating faults and regularly distributed ring-like patterns …… This doesn’t look man-made.”

Duncan immediately noticed the unusual marks on the surrounding rock walls that Maurice had mentioned.

He saw that the rock wall of the tunnel in front of him was smooth, the hard texture of the black and gray stone was as if it had been cut by something sharp as a whole to present a continuous form, and there was also a ring of raised structures that could be seen every three meters or so, distributed in rings throughout the entire passageway, and the ground under his feet was smooth and gentle, and it was as if the large and small stone blocks had been carefully sculpted and set tightly in the entire ramp –This was certainly not something that could have been created by the cultists’ human tools or their demonic spells, and was clearly not the result of any “excavation” prior to this.

Even the current city-states did not have such underground excavation and construction techniques.

Morris slowly stroked the smooth rock wall on both sides with his fingers and muttered in a low voice, “It’s like we’re walking inside a huge pipe …….”

“…… In the beginning, there were some areas of the great hollow under the Frost Ground that also showed such a state …… And the scholars in the city-state couldn’t explain in the end how this smooth and leveled fault was formed, and could only think that it was the Profound Holy Lord ‘erosion hole’ left behind after the flesh and blood of the Profound Holy Lord faded away,” Duncan whispered, “but this Holy Land Island …… it is a part of the Profound Holy Lord as a whole, so why would there be such ‘erosion holes’ left inside this ‘erosion void’?”

Shirley was listening to the exchange between Maurice and the Captain from the side, when a sudden flash of illumination darkened her mind, “…… Maybe this is the rectum of the Profound Sacred Lord?”

The words came out all quiet, Duncan and Maurice’s faces were suddenly darker than Shirley’s aura, Duncan glared hard at the girl, “Which one of you even said it was a blood vessel?!”

Shirley subconsciously scrunched her neck, scratching her hair as she pretended to change the subject, “Veins seems likely too hey ……”

Duncan, however, didn’t continue to get serious with Sherry, but instead frowned thoughtfully after the offhand remark he’d just made.

Blood vessels …… tubes in the body?

If this holy island is really as Shirley described, is the “ancient god’s meat”, then this piece of meat will really exist in the so-called “blood vessels” and “nerves”? If so,……, will they really appear in front of this “channel”-like appearance?
Duncan subconsciously associated, in the imagination sketched out what kind of form, what kind of “physiological structure” of the profound holy Lord, and just at this moment, he suddenly noticed that Alice has not spoken for a long time.

In the past, the doll girl who followed the captain to explore the unfamiliar environment would be sure to blabber on and on, but today she seemed exceptionally quiet.

“Alice,” feeling something perverse in his mind, Duncan immediately looked over at the mannequin who was standing next to her and seemed to be a little lost in thought, “What are you thinking about?”

Called twice in a row, only then did Alice seem to suddenly wake up as if she returned to her senses and hurriedly turned back, “Hey …… hey? Captain you say what?”

“I asked what you were thinking – you seemed to have been lost in thought just now,” Duncan’s brow furrowed slightly as he looked Alice in the eye with some concern, “Did you see or hear something again? ”

Alice looked around in confusion and hesitated for a few moments before saying to Duncan with extra caution, “I haven’t seen anything …… yet, but I don’t know why, but after walking here I had a …… very familiar feeling.”

Duncan and Morris spoke in unison, “Familiar feeling?”

“Well, familiar, reassuring, like ……” Alice gesticulated and thought for half a day before finally finding the right description, “like lying in my wooden box.”

While saying that, she raised her hand again and pointed to the even darker depths of the tunnel, “And in that direction, there’s an even stronger sense of familiarity, as if …… I’ve been to this place a long time ago, or …… I’ve been in this place for a long long time been in this place ……”

Duncan listened to Alice’s description with a serious look on his face for a moment before nodding gently, “Let’s keep going deeper – Alice, Shirley, Dog, whatever you see or hear that’s unusual, let me know immediately.”

With growing caution, the group began to walk deeper into the seemingly endless passage.

The flames spread slowly through the passage, and after advancing for an unknown amount of time longer, Duncan noticed that the surrounding area had suddenly become more open.

They seemed to have entered a huge underground cavern structure, the two sides like some kind of pipe-like passage suddenly expanded into a spacious rock wall, and above the roof of the cave has become more than ten meters high – the sudden expansion of the underground space so that the surroundings fell into a short period of darkness, but just a second or two, the green flames quickly spread to the surrounding ground but in just a second or two, the ghostly green flames quickly spread to the surrounding ground and began to illuminate this spacious area. Shirley tilted her head and looked at this underground cavern that looked like a huge assembly hall with a marvelous expression. Although she had a quick glance at it in the “illusion”, when she saw it with her own eyes, she still couldn’t help but marvel at the spaciousness of this place: “…. …Crap ……”

“…… I suddenly feel like it’s okay for Vanna to come over here,” Duncan said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “It seems like there’s enough room for her to jump as well …… “

For his part, Maurice did not say a word, the old scholar’s attention seemed to be fully immersed in this strange and secret-filled cavern, and he looked around carefully as he slowly walked forward along the path lit by the spirit fire, before suddenly stopping in front of a rock wall.

“There’s something up here!”

Duncan quickly walked over, and a scene like a “relief” was reflected in his eyes.

On the dark stone wall, a creature with strong limbs and a long, prostrate body came to life.

Shirley and Dog also followed over, and looked at the “relief” on the wall with Duncan.

After a while, Duncan heard Shirley mutter in a low voice: “…… This is the Profound Hound?”

“It seems …… to be,” Dog’s voice was particularly uncertain, “but it doesn’t look like me …… This one looks like it has flesh and blood, and the body proportions aren’t …… right. And the body proportions aren’t quite right ……”

It this side is not yet finished, Morris’s voice immediately followed by another from the front, “This side and!”

Following Maurice’s guidance, Duncan saw a second relief.

It was a jellyfish-like creature floating in mid-air – however, it was not soot, but had a solid body, a more delicate tentacle structure, and even in the “head” you could see what looked like eyes.

Duncan slowly raised his head, and in the cavern lit by the spirit fire, more reliefs shadowed the rock walls and seemed to be stretching infinitely out of his field of vision.

He frowned slightly, and took a step toward another relief –

A shivering shimmer appeared at the edge of his vision.

Duncan jerked to a halt.

And almost at the same time, the light shifted before him.

It was as if everything were suddenly transformed into crumbling fragments of light and shadow, dark caverns and ancient, mysterious bas-reliefs disintegrating noiselessly before his eyes, and then, after a moment, the crumbling fragments of light and shadow swarmed up, reorganized, illuminated, and appeared – and, in a silent “boom”, he saw a hall, a hall that seemed to have no boundaries.

In a silent “roar” he saw a hall, a hall that seemed to have no boundaries, and it whirled and reorganized before Duncan’s eyes, and he saw a silver-gray substance of some unknown material stretching out into solid ground in his vision, and mysterious patterns of dark blue glow spread across the floor, and the high dome was illuminated with huge pipes, cables intertwined in the dome like nerves and veins.

And in this hall stood one cylindrical platform after another.

Those platforms emitted a faint light, as if there was some kind of invisible force field above the platforms, imprisoning all kinds of things stagnated in the force field – strong limbed hound-like creatures, predatory beasts, all kinds of birds, as well as the outlines of many creatures he did not recognize at all, nor could he see them clearly.

Lights flickered in front of his eyes, the hall lights flickered on and off, and in the blink of an eye, Duncan felt as if he were seeing the dark cavern again, the “bas-reliefs” neatly arranged on its walls – but in the next moment, the darkness of the cavern was so dark that he couldn’t see anything else, and he couldn’t see anything else.

But the next second, the dark cave collapsed into the hall again, he saw something standing at the end of the front, it seems to be a huge machine, or some kind of …… terminal, countless pipelines surrounded by the complex structure of the prism, the pipeline is surging with the black sludge that emits a metallic luster, and in the core of the prism on the light flickering, and there was something like a holographic projection floating in front of it, a line of characters constantly refreshing.

They were unfamiliar characters, Duncan didn’t recognize that kind of writing – but with a mere scan, the meanings of those words seemed to be reflected directly into his mind-

“…… New Hope …… Main System Offline ……

“LH-01, Pilot One, ecological reconfiguration mainframe …… status abnormal.

“LH-02, Pilot Two, data and general control mainframe …… status abnormal.

“LH-03, Pilot Three, navigation mainframe …… offline.

“The ship has disintegrated ……”

(End of chapter)