Chapter 721: Crossing the Dome
Alice blinked in the dimly lit, tunnel-like space, her mind swirling with confusion. She tried to make sense of the fleeting voice she had just heard. Could she have misheard it? But then she remembered...
The captain had explicitly instructed that it was crucial to immediately report any unusual sights or sounds in this strange and mysterious place, even if they seemed like mere hallucinations.
Without a second thought, Alice reached out and grasped Duncan's arm with urgency. "Captain, I just heard a voice!" she exclaimed.
Duncan spun around, his sharp gaze cutting through the enveloping darkness as if searching for the source. "A voice?" he asked, his voice laced with intrigue. "What did it say?"
Alice hurriedly recounted the experience to Duncan, describing the fleeting, unidentifiable noise she had heard and the strange utterance of "LH-03, Pilot Three."
In the oppressive darkness of the tunnel, Duncan's eyes gradually widened in disbelief. He stared at the doll before him, his expression shifting from curiosity to astonishment, and then a glimmer of realization flickered in his eyes.
A thought struck him - could it really be true?
As Duncan's mind raced with a flurry of thoughts and astonishing hypotheses, he suddenly became aware of a dense, mesmerizing play of light and shadow at the edge of his vision.
He turned, his astonishment evident, looking in the direction of the emerging lights and shadows.
In the next instant, Duncan and Alice were greeted by a breathtaking sight - the "starry sky" that adorned the dome of this place.
This wasn't just any starry sky. It was a magnificent spectacle at the end of the tunnel, an expansive tapestry woven from countless stars, star-forming nebulae, and swirling high-energy radiation clouds, all interlacing in the vast expanse of darkness. The chaotic dance of these colossal celestial bodies, ripping apart into luminous clouds strewn across galaxies, presented a scene of endless, awe-inspiring beauty.
Duncan's eyes widened in sheer amazement.
This was the "starry sky" known to captains who navigated the Boundless Seas, a celestial vision that existed between the spirit realm and the ocean. It was usually visible only through a complex spirit lens from above, with mortal seafarers catching mere glimpses through thick lenses and protective barriers. But here, its true and unfiltered majesty was laid bare before their eyes.
With a sense of urgency, Duncan and Alice surged towards the static starry sky as if "falling" into the "dome layer".
They sailed through the "starlight," swiftly weaving between the stationary celestial bodies.
In a moment of wonder, Duncan reached out his hand towards the unfamiliar starlight.
A bright orange star passed ethereally through his palm, making his hand shimmer with light, yet the two entities remained distinct and did not interact.
Then, Duncan realized that Alice was unusually silent next to him. Normally, the doll would have been bubbling with excitement at the sight of such a magnificent scene.
Alice, enveloped by the surreal surroundings, gazed wide-eyed at the starlit expanse. The radiant starlight cast reflections in her deep purple eyes, sparkling with an almost sentient glow. After a brief moment, she abruptly lifted her hand, pointing toward the cosmos, her voice distant and dreamlike: "Coordinates misaligned."
Duncan's brow creased with concern. "What did you say?" he asked.
Yet, Alice seemed lost in her own world, her attention fixed on the celestial tapestry around them. She raised her hand again, this time pointing in a different direction: "Coordinates misaligned."
She began to repeat the phrase with increasing urgency, "Coordinates misaligned. Coordinates misaligned. Coordinates misaligned..." Her eyes darted from star to star, frantically searching for some celestial landmark, a guide to help her orient herself. Just as Duncan was preparing to snap her out of this trance-like state, Alice abruptly ceased her murmurs. It was as though she had been abruptly awakened from a deep, bewildering dream. She turned to face Duncan, her expression blank and confused: "...Report, navigation system malfunction."
After a short pause, where she seemed to regain a semblance of clarity, she patted her head and then scratched her hair in a gesture of perplexity. "Ah... Captain, it's like a flood of strange thoughts just burst into my mind..."
Duncan gently grasped Alice's arm, his fingertips glowing faintly with firelight. His voice softened as he asked, "What did you see?"
Amidst lingering confusion, Alice replied, "Stars... There were lines connecting them, and numbers, symbols too." She still seemed partially lost in thought, her mind trying to piece together the fragments of her vision. "I should find a path, avoid those collapsing gravity traps... But the coordinates are misaligned, we... don't have a safe route..."
Her gaze lifted, scanning the static "starry sky" around them. Frozen in time, these stars seemed to bear witness to an ancient voyage from a long-lost era in a universe now extinct. She had once charted courses here, leading the last of the refugees in search of a path to safety. But what were they fleeing from?
Visions of a dark red light flooded her mind.
The universe was undergoing a redshift... Stars were crumbling, physical space collapsing around them... Material structures disintegrating... The servo system emitting a critical breakdown whine...
Their spaceship was falling apart, the navigation cabin engulfed in flames... She had to initiate the disaster backup.
Suddenly, Alice's eyes widened, the turmoil of thoughts and memories flattening under some unseen, powerful force. She shook her head, her neck joints slightly loosening, and the chaotic thoughts that had just consumed her mind faded away.
Beside her, warm flames burned quietly, their power gently restoring stability to her thoughts. Turning, she saw Duncan standing close, his eyes filled with concern. "Alice, don't think too much," he reassured her.
Alice paused to reflect, then shook her head, a look of bewilderment crossing her features. "Captain, I think I just saw something... but now, it's gone from my memory!"
Duncan responded with a gentle tone, offering a comforting pat on Alice's arm, "It's okay if it's forgotten. We don't need to worry about that now. We'll uncover the truth together."
Alice nodded, her expression showing a mix of understanding and lingering confusion.
Duncan chose not to dwell on it further. He focused on carefully maintaining the protective flames around Alice, ensuring her mind remained shielded, while his own gaze was drawn deep into the mesmerizing starry expanse.
In his mind, pieces of information began to weave together, forming a coherent narrative—
Before them lay a static "holographic snapshot" of a constellation, an ancient guide that had floated in the "dome" layer above the deep sea for centuries, aiding the navigators of the world.
The enigmatic ruler of the deep sea, known as Pilot One or code LH-01, was revered as the Nether Lord of the Abyss.
Upon her entry through the "black gate," Alice had briefly heard a mysterious voice addressing her as LH-03, Pilot Three.
The God of Wisdom, Lahem, was also known as LH-02, Pilot Two, depicted in ancient texts as a massive server aglow with innumerable lights.
A millennia-old legend spoke of a spacecraft, the New Hope, which had crashed into this "world ruin." It had seemingly fled the destruction of its own universe, but in its final journey, it fragmented, breaking into three distinct parts...
These three fragments eerily matched three modular "hosts"...
With a soft exhale, Duncan allowed the whirlwind of thoughts in his mind to settle. He cast a sidelong glance at Alice, who was faithfully at his side. Now, he understood what the duplicate of the Nether Lord had implanted within this doll during their time in Frost's waters.
The panorama of starlight they had been following was now coming to an end. Ahead lay the depths of the dome layer, a realm filled with countless shattered floating islands, all suspended in a dark, chaotic void—the abyssal deep sea.
....
A monstrous skeletal limb, covered in ghastly barbs, descended ominously from above. It pinned down a writhing, pulsating mass of flesh known as the "fear demon." Despite its frantic attempts to escape, the skeletal limb firmly trapped the creature. In mere moments, the demon withered like a deflated balloon, a cloud of murky dust rising from its form. What remained turned into a viscous, flowing substance, quickly absorbed by the relentless skeletal limb.
The towering skeletal limb, a haunting sight, arched upwards. At its core, surrounded by twelve symmetrically arranged limbs, a colossal shadow demon, still retaining a semblance of a human female form, slowly raised her head.
Shirley, with an air of calm detachment, surveyed the desolate landscape strewn with remnants of chaotic battles—the torn remains of dark hounds, the death crows in their frantic, futile struggles on the ground, the nightmare jellyfish and fear demon dissolving into mud, and a sinister black skull suspended in the air, its eye sockets eerily glowing with flickering red lights.
In the distance, more shadow demons were converging, their approach marked by a sense of hesitation.
Though devoid of hearts, shadow demons possess a primitive instinct for self-preservation, an innate drive to seek advantage and avoid danger. Clearly, they were not gathering here with the intention of becoming prey to a more formidable demon.
Shirley, moving with a grace that belied her monstrous form, her twelve elongated limbs touching the ground as if they were legs and her bent bone wings rhythmically adjusting to her gait, slowly made her way towards the end of the barren expanse. Occasionally, a severely wounded demon, unable to evade her path in time, would be impaled on her "long legs," its essence absorbed as nourishment.
Initially, Shirley had found this process repulsive. She had tried to pick her way across cleaner ground, avoiding the consumption of these grotesque, mud-like remnants as much as possible.
But now, such concerns seemed distant to her.
"Shirley... relax..." she whispered to herself, her voice barely audible as she traversed the field of grievously injured demons, moving towards a destination she believed to be the right one.
Sensing danger, the scarred black skull in the sky nearly fled in terror to avoid the path of this "strange invader."
However, Shirley paid it no mind. Her attention was not fixated on the skull for even a moment.
She simply continued her slow, steady advance, murmuring reassuringly, "...Don't be afraid."
Her presence alone was enough to part the sea of demons on the plain, their fear creating a clear path for her to pass.