Chapter 481.
Chapter 481: The Blueprint
As the light from the submersible swept around, the forms floating in the dark waters came into Duncan’s field of vision in every way possible – people, uncountable people, floating in the water.
As Duncan looked closer, however, he realized something else about these human bodies.
They had no features, not even clearly defined arms and legs, and no clothing on their bodies – they were just “forms” with rough textures and dark colors, roughly resembling the outline of a human.
It was just like a rough surface with a rough texture and a dark color, like a rough doll made of black clay with a clumsy and rough technique.
Duncan told Agatha the details of what he saw.
“Only the outline?” Agatha’s tone was stunned, “Yet to my eyes …… they radiate a spiritual glow like the living in the city-state ……”
Duncan didn’t say anything, but frowned slightly as he cautiously controlled the submersible toward a “humanoid” floating a short distance outside the porthole.
The current driven by the submersible disturbed the calmness of the deep sea, the dark humanoid object slowly rolled over at an angle in the sea water, and its flat, smooth, spherical “head” was first turned toward the porthole, followed by a short, bare, as if unfinished arm structure.
The arm slowly poked forward, the end of the grappling hook on the torso of the human body, and carefully fiddled with it.
It was completely unresponsive, showing no sign of being “alive”.
Duncan raised his head again and looked through the porthole at the silently floating humanoids in the distance, watching as they stretched out into the distance in the light and eventually disappeared into the darkness of the deep sea.
Just how many were here? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or dozens and dozens of millions?
Suddenly, memories came to mind, and Duncan remembered a detail he’d heard back when he’d been talking to Tirion about the submerged abyssal program – the frantic uplift of Submersible Three during its last deep-diving operation, the explorers caught up in the frenzy shouting a single phrase frantically after they’d returned to the sunlight:
“We all died there!”
Duncan frowned a little, looking gravely at the countless human bodies floating silently outside the portholes – was this the image the Seeker had seen before he descended into madness?
Agatha on the side, on the other hand, suddenly broke the silence, and there was a seriousness in her tone, “This reminds me of those ‘fakes’ that invaded the city-state before …….”
“I thought of that too,” Duncan nodded his head gently, “but it’s not like that – those fakes, even though they would show all sorts of inhuman features, would at least have detailed structures like features, arms and legs, and would try to mimic humans as much as they could, and Wearing normal clothes, but the ‘humanoids’ here only have the most basic outlines, if I have to say …… they are more like ‘roughs’ that are even more rudimentary than fakes. ”
“Some sort of half-finished product?” Agatha suddenly thought, “Those fakes were ‘made’ from this ‘rough’?”
“It’s hard to say,” Duncan said with uncertainty in his tone, “They could have been floating in the deep for many, many years, or at least they were there when the Subterranean Program opened. In addition, the power that invaded the city-state intervened in reality through the qualities of a ‘mirror image’, but here it is an ‘entity’ in the deep sea, there is a connection between the two, but it should not be a direct ‘half-finished’ and ‘finished’ product. and ‘finished’ relationship.”
Agatha listened thoughtfully, for some reason, but in her mind, she suddenly recalled a sentence spoken by the other party during the previous confrontation with the cultists –
“There was no such thing as a fake from the beginning, or rather …… we are all fakes ……”
And almost at the same time, Duncan seemed to have thought of something as well, his gaze crossing over the floating human bodies to the unknown depths of the sea further down, before reaching his hand towards the joystick.
Certain devices in the depths of the mechanical compartment let out low growls and chirps as if dying, and the creaking noise of an overburdened hull came from the vessel, accompanied by the sound of filling with water as the submersible began to continue its descent.
Agatha couldn’t help but look to Duncan as she listened to the downright terrifying commotion coming from all around her, “Captain, is this thing holding up?”
Duncan’s eyes swept over the various gauges on the console, and sensing the faint messages that the Spirit Fire was conveying to him, he did not relax his hand that was pulling the dive lever.
“It’s holding,” he murmured, “We should be almost there.”
“Almost there?” Agatha froze, “You know what’s down here?”
Duncan, however, didn’t answer, but continued to cautiously control the submersible as it dived downward, while adjusting the angle of the thrusters extremely minutely – the hull on the verge of its limits was making a creepy, alien noise almost every second, and even the edges where the portholes joined the hull began to make a horrible creaking and clacking sound as if in the next moment, the fragile equilibrium would be broken, and the entire submersible would turn into a wrinkled mass of metal under the weight of the sea.
Still, it kept on diving, on the narrow knife-edge of collapse and balance, continuing to dive into that darkest place.
But the noise coming from the hull and machinery compartments wasn’t the only terrifying sound; another sound was even more chilling – the constant, solid thumping coming from outside the hull:
“Bang”, “Bang”, “Bang” ……
Humanoid objects like rough billets of black mud crashed into the shell of the submersible from time to time, like stones hitting the skull, and the dull rattling sound was particularly terrifying to listen to.
Even Agatha couldn’t help but grip the handrail in front of her.
She could feel that the submersible was tilting forward as a whole, and the angle of tilt had reached a point where it was difficult to stand still without gripping the handrail.
Then, she suddenly “saw” something outside the porthole.
An undulating, chaotic, seemingly infinite outline appeared at the edge of the searchlight beam, near the lower edge of the porthole.
It looked …… as if it were a surface.
“The bottom of the ocean?” Agatha exclaimed in dismay, “I see something …… Is that the bottom of the ocean?” Duncan gazed out the porthole in silence, looking at the undulating surface that suddenly appeared in the dark deep sea, looking at its twisted and jagged “coast” and the hazy structure that could not be seen in the distance, after a long time before gently shaking his head, “It’s not the bottom of the sea, we’re far from touching the so-called ‘seabed’ – it’s a piece of land floating in the water.”
Agatha spoke with confusion, “A floating land?”
“…… Another Frost Island,” Duncan replied softly, “It’s terrain I know well, despite only being able to make out a small section of the coastline. That is Frost Island – Frostbourne Island in its pristine form with no city-state, no harbor, no buildings of any kind.”
Agatha’s body visibly shook slightly.
Duncan raised his head and looked at the waters around and above the “Frost Island”.
Countless humanoid objects were floating around the “deep sea floating island”, like a swarm of bees surrounding a hive.
This scene, like amber, was sealed in the depths of the deep, dark and cold sea, as if the years had been pressed to pause, quietly stagnating in an extremely ancient moment.
Agatha s voice sounded beside him, “Here …… in the end is ……”
“The …… original blueprints.” Duncan said softly.
On the Third Night, the King of the Creeps gave the blueprints to the clusters and began the work of creation. In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the King of Dreams and the King of the Pale Giants, he divided the blueprints so that there would be no more kingdoms in the earthly world, and then the kingdoms were transformed into 1,200 cities. ……
Civilization continued after the Third Night, and the Age of the Deep began, and everything in the Age of the Deep was built on the blueprint of the King of Creeps, the “1,200 Cities”.
The contents of the Book of Blasphemy have been partially confirmed.
But could there be other possibilities?
Duncan’s mind is tossing and turning, and for a while he fell into silence, but Agatha beside him has already reacted, after realizing the meaning of the “original blueprints”, she incredulously opened her mouth: “Do you mean …… that nowadays the Frost, as well as the Frost People, and even all the city-states and mortals in this world …… were made based on these ‘things’ in the deep sea ……”
“It is a possibility,” Duncan said in a deep voice as he gently shook his head, “The heretical theories of the Annihilists that document the creation of the Profound Sacred Lords certainly fall under the category of heresy, but it is undeniable that the ancient texts in their hands may also reveal a part of the truth of history. ”
Agatha opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Since the moment she dived into the deep sea, it was as if the world she perceived was undergoing a radical reshaping, too many shakings, too many doubts, making it difficult for even the tough-minded Gatekeeper to clarify her thoughts for a while.
The primitive islands floating in the deep sea “template”, countless humanoid “rough” …… annihilationists about “the profound holy lord created the world If the claim of the Annihilationists that “the Profound Holy Lord created the world” is true, then …… wouldn’t all earthly beings be the equivalent of the Profound Holy Lord’s creations?
Even after experiencing the mirror crisis of Frost, in the great test to re-establish their own beliefs, firm their own beliefs, Agatha is also difficult to accept this too much challenge to the three views of the “possibility”.
But she did not blindly deny what she saw in the midst of this great contradiction and hesitation.
The moment she decided to go on this deep dive, she prepared herself mentally…
In the deep sea, anything is possible.
“Shall we …… keep getting closer?” She turned her head and said to Duncan in as calm a tone as she could muster.
Duncan, however, didn’t touch the joystick again.
His eyes swept over the many gauges on the console.
His senses permeated the submersible.
“…… has reached its limit,” he said, “the submarine’s shell won’t hold.”
“…… It’s obviously just the last bit,” Agatha said, obviously with great regret, “We’re about to touch that floating island in the sea …… “
“It’s okay, it’s just that the submersible won’t hold up,” Duncan shook his head gently, his eyes casting out the porthole, “There’s something here that will hold up.”
Agatha turned her head in confusion.
Duncan, however, was still gazing silently out the window, at the …… humanoid things floating in the light.
“I remember you saying earlier that in your eyes, these ‘rough’ humanoids emanated a spiritual glow like that of the living.”
Outside the porthole, a “humanoid thing” with a rough outline slowly turned its head toward Agatha.
(End of chapter)