Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 472

Chapter 472: Chapter 473: The Blasphemy Archetype and the Fall Chapter 472: Chapter 473: The Blasphemy Archetype and the Fall Alice had left.

Duncan didn't know how much the silly puppet had understood, but at least one thing was clear to her now, she had realized the danger of the “key,” and wouldn't consider winding it up again until she figured out what it really was.

Outside the window, the setting sun had already begun to sink, and the two splendid Rune Circles were gradually approaching the distant horizon. The pervading golden-red brilliance dyed the entire Endless Sea and then passed through the window, spilling into the room.

Duncan sat at the desk by the window, quietly staring at the brass key. He watched as the sunlight covered its handle, which resembled infinite symbols, and the intricate patterns seemed to come to life in the light, displaying a flowing texture with the shadows.

After a brief moment of thought and hesitation, Duncan took a deep breath and reached out to grasp the key.

A fine greenish glow emerged at his fingertips and slowly infiltrated the key's interior.

He had originally not planned to use the “Spiritual Body's Fire” to investigate the key, as the power of the flames could very likely destroy the key's transcendent essence. Even if it didn't destroy it, it could still affect its original nature, but now there was no time for such concerns.

He had to understand what Lei Nora had left inside the key. Under this premise, he could only be extremely careful, trying to avoid the Spiritual Body's Fire burning the object too fiercely while carefully sensing any slight bit of information from the flame, prepared to extinguish it immediately if something felt wrong.

The fire flowed gently between his fingers and the key, the greenish light seeping into the brass surface of the latter. In Duncan's perception, his fire seemed to be sinking into a vast and chaotic place, boundless and indistinct.

He slowly closed his eyes, then used the spreading fire as his view to begin observing the “world” behind the key.

Fog, boundless fog, flowing like dust and smoke, undulating in vision, sometimes condensing, sometimes dispersing. Gazing through the flames, all that could be seen was chaos and emptiness.

Duncan “looked” at the dense fog before him in puzzlement, only to see the same uniform chaos in all directions.

He knew this was the “reality” within the key, and he was doing the same thing he had done when investigating the puppet's spiritual coffin. However, the situation here was completely different from that within the coffin.

After remaining still in the endless fog for a while, he felt the fire was still spreading steadily and the key itself showed no signs of damage. He breathed a sigh of relief and then cautiously moved his perspective in a certain direction.

But as soon as he moved forward, he felt an unfamiliar texture in the palm of his hand.

The key?

His first thought was of the brass key he was holding in the real world, followed by the realization of another fact–he actually had a “body” in this fog?

He remembered clearly that when he looked at the puppet's spiritual coffin last time, he only had a “view.”

Why was there this change? Was it because the properties of the two transcendent items were different, or had something unknown changed within his own power?

Doubt surged within Duncan as he subconsciously raised his hand to look at the “foreign object” in his palm.

A black-cased object, indistinguishable as being made of metal or plastic, lay quietly in his palm.

Duncan froze.

The object was only about half a palm long and two fingers wide. Its smooth and flat surface was obviously a crafted artifact, with intricate lines visible beneath the black shell, which might be decorative or part of the internal structure. At one end, there was also a complex metal port, with a series of neat protrusions within it.

It looked… like a “readable device” that could be connected to some sort of machine, used for data storage or as an activator.

Duncan held the black rectangular object in front of him, examining each inch of it with a sense of awe and confusion.

He thought of a USB flash drive or a portable hard drive from “another world,” but the interface of this object was clearly not the standard he was familiar with.

After a long observation, another object came to his mind–
In Prand, within that branch of history consumed by fire, he saw the invaders from the City-State, the Scions of the Sun, each holding a black umbrella. Within that black umbrella was a complex and advanced-looking mechanical and even electronic structure…

Duncan recalled the black umbrella he had seen in Prand and looked closely at the rectangular device in his hand. He confirmed that the black umbrella of the Scions of the Sun and the odd “device” before him did not seem to be of the same style; they appeared to be the products of two different technological paths or design styles, but they had something in common–
Precision, advanced, complex, from an outward perspective, they appeared to be far ahead of the current world's technological level.

At least, this did not seem like something that could be, or had been, manufactured by the City-States of the Endless Sea.

And within this world, such things seemed to have a unique name–
Profane Archetype.

A'Gou once described them this way:
“In the river of time of this world, there are some histories that are 'locked away', and the things born from these forbidden histories are the Profane Archetypes. Usually, their very existence is harmful to the creatures of the real world…”

Was this “black box” that looked like some sort of data device… a “Profane Archetype”?

Duncan frowned slightly, examining the small device in his hand over and over again while pondering its connection to the brass key he currently held. Just then, a strange and deep roar suddenly came from a very high and distant place, interrupting his thoughts.

Startled, Duncan looked up in the direction of the sound.

The next second, he saw a bright light suddenly appearing in the enveloping mist of endless chaos. The light came from afar, like a meteor in fierce descent, and then it turned into a fireball burning fiercely in the mist!

Zooming past over Duncan's head, the fireball descended lower and lower as it flew, scattering the mist. Within the blinding fire, the outline of something massive became visible–a propelled entity shaped like three spindles bound together. Duncan saw the back of each spindle, where thrusters spewed out brilliant streams of light. The shell of the spindles emitted thick smoke and intense flames, and the shocking sight of explosions and rending occurred continuously. Fragments were constantly breaking away from the blast points, scattering like rain into the mist, and as they fell, they turned into meteors, burning out in the sky…

Without any points of reference, Duncan couldn't judge the actual size of the tri-spindle ship streaking across the sky, but he felt the strong intimidation and pressure of its massive, flame- and smoke-shrouded form. It might be larger than a City-State, perhaps even bigger than many City-States combined. Maybe it had traversed a long journey, soaring past groups of stars on a cosmic scale. It glided and fell within this mist-shrouded illusion, and just as Duncan watched in amazement, the fall culminated in a thunderous explosion–
Accompanied by an explosion that could nearly shake the entire space-time continuum, the giant “Ark Ship” made of three spindles disintegrated.

It split into three parts, turning into three blazing fireballs, their glaring trails carrying thick smoke as they scattered into the depths of the mist.

Far away, that was a distance unreachable by mere foot.

Moreover, Duncan suspected that even if he could teleport thousands of miles in an instant, he likely couldn't reach where the three fragments had fallen.

Because this mist… only recorded an event from the distant past.

A slight heat came from the palm of his hand. Duncan glanced down and saw the brass key lying quietly in his grasp, its handle, shaped like an infinity symbol, emitting a faint light. The fine lines were slowly moving in the light and outlined a recognizable symbol:
“New Hope”
“Boom!”

A surreal roar suddenly exploded in his mind, the mist around him dissipating into the darkness. Next, the light shifted, and the familiar scene of his bedroom came back into view.

Duncan steadied himself, feeling his perception quickly returning. He looked down again to see the brass key still lying quietly in his hand.

The key no longer radiated heat or light; the fine lines on the handle no longer moved. The characters previously floating before his eyes… seemed like a bubble shadow that dissipated as one awoke from a dream.

But Duncan still clearly remembered everything he had seen, remembered that name–
New Hope.

He frowned, quickly stood up, grabbed the notebook from his desk, wrote down the words “New Hope,” and rapidly jotted down the scenes he had witnessed in the “phantom.” Only after he wrote it all down did he let out a slight breath and returned to his initial sitting posture.

In this world, very few things could affect his memory and thoughts, but a necessary caution was indispensable.

After recording, Duncan fell into contemplation.

He didn't know the causes and consequences of the scene he had just witnessed, nor the connection or “transformation” between the black data device and the brass key in the “phantom.” He didn't know where the fallen Ark Ship is now, but he believed… everything he saw wasn't any deluded hallucination.

It was a scene that had truly occurred, in the distant past, long before the era of City-States began in this world–a real history.

There was a massive ship, that had crashed in this world, exploding during its descent, scattering its debris across the mortal coil.

Duncan exhaled softly.

He tucked the key away close to his body, then raised his head to look out the window at Phenomenon 001, which had almost completely descended into the Endless Sea.

“This is going to be interesting.”

Chapter end

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