Chapter 699 – The Figure on the Throne
Chapter 699 – The Figure on the Throne
The figure with short black hair and wearing white robes staggered past, and the momentary glance at the intersection seemed as if it was just an illusion created by Duncan himself – he saw the other party walking towards the depths of Vision 004, disappearing silently from his view after passing through a wall.
Doomsday Observer …… Endgame Survey Team ……
The inevitable associations with this address caused Duncan to finally press his curiosity, and he turned his head to the tall leader beside himself, “What is the mission of these men?”
“To enter the timestream and confirm within a knowable timeframe that the Asylum is functioning according to the initial blueprints of its creators, and to confirm the timestamp of the system’s collapse.”
The tomb guard said calmly as he stepped away and continued to lead Duncan deeper into the Tomb of the Unknown King.
The tomb guard’s reply had already created a wave in Duncan’s heart.
The Watchers who traveled through the time stream, the survey team that tracked the end of …… the world, it was really them!
Duncan raised his head sharply, his eyes swept over the ancient style of walls and columns in the surrounding corridor, and soon thought of another thing: “What is this place?”
He felt a little odd as soon as the question left his mouth, as it sounded like a knowing question, but somehow he felt that the tomb keeper in front of him should be able to understand his intentions.
The tomb keeper’s footsteps paused imperceptibly for a split second.
“This was the first Cretan Observatory – and it will be the last,” the low, calm voice reached Duncan’s ears, “There were twelve hundred Doomsday Observatories of this type a long, long time ago, and we directly control ten of them.”
Duncan was stunned for a moment, and suddenly, he recalled a passage he had read –
“…… To avoid repeating the mistakes of the King of Dreams and the King of Pale Giants, He divided that blueprint so that there would be no more kingdoms in the earthly world, so that the kingdoms would be transformed into twelve hundred cities, and so that clan would rule over the first ten cities, giving them the name ‘Crete ‘ ……”
The stylistic characteristics of Vision 004 are explained – it is indeed a relic of the ancient kingdom of Crete, which has been in continuous operation for ten thousand years, and continued to operate even until it became a “vision”!
At the same time, what was recorded in the profane book was also confirmed once again, the “1,200 cities” mentioned in the book was real, but it did not refer to 1,200 city-states, but 1,200 “Doomsday Observatories”!
From here, people called the “Endgame Survey Teams” traveled into the time stream to monitor the operation of the Shelter and to determine the “Time Boundary” when the Shelter reached its limits. ……
Out of the corner of his eye there was a sudden glimpse of an open landscape, and Duncan snapped out of his thoughts and looked up in surprise.
At some point, he had already walked through the seemingly never-ending tunnel under the guidance of the “Gravekeeper”, and after passing through a towering door, the scene in front of his eyes suddenly opened up – not just opened up, it was almost like he was no longer in a “building”. It was no longer like being in the interior of a “building”!
He saw a square, a square that seemed to be large enough to hold tens of thousands of people under a yellowish sky.
Duncan was at the gate of the tunnel is located in the high place, there is an inclined downward stone ramp to the edge of the square, the square is covered with a huge and flat gray stone, and there is a wide walkway across, he also saw some kind of slightly metallic solemn pillars on both sides of the road, the top of the pillars seems to have been a more complex structure, but in the erosion of long years in the weathering collapse, the square can be seen around the various collapsed and crumbled! All around the square, you could see various huge structures collapsing and falling, as if they were once many gates and pillars, and the only thing intact as far as the eye could see was the huge throne in the square.
The black throne stands in the center of the square, chair back towering, as if overlooking everything around, a kind of chaotic, as if the light of the sky at dusk is shrouded in the square in the sky, in the light of this yellowish light, in front of the eyes of this decadent ruins as if lingering a nearly eternal …… loneliness.
For some reason, Duncan’s heart was flooded with a sense of desolation, it seems to be in front of these collapsed and dusty ruins brought a heavy atmosphere, so that he could not help but touch his heart.
Dressed in white robes tomb guards but has crossed Duncan, he walked up the slope down the ramp, silent toward the square into ruins.
Duncan hesitated and followed in silence.
They walked down the ramp to the wide walkway that ran the length of the plaza, and walked slowly forward between two rows of towering, stately stone pillars, Duncan’s eyes sweeping around from time to time to look at the crumbling remains of what had once been a glorious and majestic place, but had now collapsed into disrepair.
Occasionally, visions of the past would appear before his eyes – he would see men in white robes or gray robes appearing beyond the stone pillars, walking briskly through the plaza, either towards the deserted gates at the edges, or gathering in certain places to talk as if discussing something.
It was as if he could imagine what a busy and important place this had once been – a place where the King of Creeps was still adjusting the blueprints of the New World in the days of Genesis, where the ancient kingdom of Crete was still building the world as an “assistant” to the Creator. In the days when the ancient kingdom of Crete was still working as the Creator’s “helper” to build this world, they gathered here to work for the establishment of the shelter, and to plan for the reproduction of civilization in the next 10,000 years.
At that time, the Great Annihilation had just ended, the continuous ruins caused by the world collision were still floating in the earth, and the order of everything was born and died; at that time, the meetings of the kings had been held again and again, the two Long Nights had already failed, but the third Long Night had already shown the dawn of time; at that time, the troops called “the final survey team” passed through the curtain of time, and went to check the border of the shelter as a vanguard force. At that time, the so-called “Final Survey Team” went through the curtain of time, as a vanguard to check the borders of the Shelter – in the dimension of time; at that time, the Boundless Sea might 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 Worms. The first “human beings” were still sleeping in the database of the King of Worms, and only the lamps of the ancient kingdom of Kritzerland briefly illuminated this chaotic world during the long nights …… At that time, this place had not yet become Vision 004 – there were still one thousand one hundred and ninety-nine observatories like it spread out in the ashes of the Great Annihilation, waiting for the moment when the new world would open.
Now, all that had gone with the wind.
Only this bleak and tumbled ruin remained, floating in the crevices of this real world beyond, invoking thoughts and endless speculation in Duncan’s mind.
The tall mausoleum guardian walked slowly in front of Duncan, as if he were strolling through a corridor of time, and suddenly broke the silence as yet another group of the Final Survey Team passed between the stone pillars, “It has been a long time since they have returned with a message.”
“…… They’re mad.” Duncan said softly.
“Oh.”
The mausoleum guard nodded and continued to walk slowly forward.
Then after another moment, he spoke as if to himself, “In the beginning, they sent back a lot of information – within the first contact cycle after their departure, they sent back news of the Age of City-States, and then, the rise and fall of the Far Sea Alliance in the darkness.
“They mentioned the disappearance of the Kingdom of Crete, and the appearance of the ‘Sun’ with glee, and there have been many outlandish appearances in the information they have sent back that do not appear to be blueprinted designs, and yet the appearance of all those things seems to have been inevitable in the Creator’s subsequent maneuvers ……”
The Gravekeeper paused, looking up at the huge, black and heavy throne in the center of the square, and remained silent for a long time before gently shaking his head.
“And then, they were heard from less and less, and sometimes …… something we couldn’t understand. They seemed to have dived deep or traveled far in the time stream, and that was beyond what we had planned in the beginning ……
“Very often the messages they sent back were inconsistent and in the wrong order, and this became more and more frequent in the later stages, and the Creator’s algorithms judged it to be normal because the Asylum is a finite model – it is centered here, and like a light illuminating the wilderness, time is the light extending of distance, and the farther away it is, the more the undefined darkness takes control …… At the boundaries of time, if they failed to find another light, that means there is indeed nothing to report ……”
The Gravekeeper fell silent and was quiet for an indeterminate amount of time before he whispered again as if to himself, “It has been a long time since they have returned with a message ……”
Duncan said nothing.
He had come to the black throne that seemed to have been built for a giant, and slowly raised his eyes to the figure on the throne.
A headless body was sitting quietly on the throne, while countless huge cables and pipes were intertwined as if they were veins and nerves extending from the body, connecting the whole body, connecting to countless ports and slots on the throne, and some of those ports were flickering with a faint light, while some kind of stream of light as if it had the ability to be activated flowed through some of the pipes, flowing into the body, and then flowing out of it. It flowed into the body and out of the body.
In the instant he saw the headless body on the throne, Duncan’s eyes changed slightly, and he suddenly recalled the scene that Ted Reel had described to him and that he had seen in subspace, but more than this recollection, what made him more surprised, and even a little bewildered, was a certain …… familiarity that came from that body.
He raised his head in dismay, gazing fixedly at that body on the throne, and after nearly a minute he couldn’t help but open his mouth, “In subspace, there is a headless body sitting on a pitch black throne ……”
“That was his shadow,” the tomb guard said softly, “The creator took his body, but only part of it – he was in pieces, but it was not only the body that was split, his memories, soul, shadow, mind, the Past and Future …… all shattered in the Second Long Night, the Creator brought this body here, and the Shadow stayed where he first died.”
Duncan snapped his head back and looked into the eyes of the mausoleum guard, he felt the familiarity that the body on the throne brought to him grow stronger and stronger, which made him finally speak, “Who exactly is that on the throne?”
“Sasloca – the creator modeled the original ‘Critter’ (CREATE) after him.”
(End of chapter)