Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 653

Chapter 653: Chapter 650: The Memory of the Crystal Chapter 653: Chapter 650: The Memory of the Crystal Flames seeped into the crystal, rapidly spreading and flowing between the hair-like delicate, complex three-dimensional structures within the crystal, and as the flames were injected, Duncan's consciousness also began to sink.

He felt as though he had entered an empty, silent, ice-cold place.

It was like a corner that had been forgotten for endless years, a sense of inexplicable isolation and loneliness almost instantly transmitted to him along with the flames, followed by a perception of light in his field of vision–a strong, almost indiscernible-scale, ice-cold light.

He opened his eyes and found himself standing on a gigantic black rock, floating in the void, while a near-terrifying golden sun burned quietly before his eyes. The flames on the surface of the sun churned, the astonishing solar prominences rose and fell silently in the void.

However, this sun produced no heat–despite being so close, Duncan did not feel the horrific high temperature that should come from sunlight shining upon him; it merely burned silently and coldly, as if it was just a scene purely recorded… as an image.

Is this the Black Sun? Seeing It again?

Duncan frowned slightly, thinking this subconsciously, but then he realized that this golden sun, devoid of heat, was not the same “Black Sun” he had seen before–it lacked those bizarre and terrifying tentacle structures deep within its shell, there was no sight of the dying pale eyeball, and more importantly… this “sun” made no attempt to cry out to him.

It was a recorded image left behind by a real star!

Duncan quickly came to this realization, then his gaze finally shifted away from the cold sun, and he began to take note of the “black rock” beneath his feet.

This was a colossal artificial object!

Its surface was smooth, with clearly man-made grooves and scratches, and the stone-like material shimmered with a metallic luster. At certain “nodes” within those grooves, there were protruding structures of unknown purpose that seemed to be made of extraordinary crystals.

Duncan's gaze followed the edge of the rock outward, then looked towards the expansive dark void surrounding the golden sun–
He saw more “rocks”–countless huge black artificial objects like “stele” floating around the golden sun within the boundless darkness, arranged into a wall-like orderly array. From this perspective, he finally saw more details on their sides facing the sun–precisely cut crystal surfaces on one side of the rocks reflected sunlight, and beneath the crystals, there appeared to be intricate mechanical devices, seemingly used to adjust the angle of the crystal array. The entire structure seemed… as if it were designed to collect the energy released by the sun?!

Duncan stared blankly at the “rock” array floating around the sun, seeing them form a massive and loose spherical shell in the darkness, encompassing the star at the center. He then noticed the faintly visible distortions, like some kind of force field, between each floating device, and outside this astonishing “spherical shell” structure, within that boundless darkness, there seemed to be more hazy shadows, but they were too distant and obscured by sunlight to see clearly.

What was that?

Were they distant planets? Residential stations in space? Gigantic spacecraft? Or…

The control center meant to maintain and control this astonishing Dyson sphere?

It took an unknown amount of time before Duncan pulled his gaze back from the vast spherical shell array in space, taking a long time to come back to his senses after realizing what he had seen.

…Within the crystal devices left behind by the Scions of the Sun, what was stored was not some dark forbidden truth or ancient gods' corrupted knowledge, but… an ancient Dyson sphere structure.

Duncan narrowed his eyes slightly.

No, these were indeed the dark forbidden truths and the ancient gods' corrupted knowledge–for the ocean deeps era, for the remnants left behind by other universes, for all things established under different mathematical systems, a Dyson sphere supported by the parameters of an alien universe represented the ultimate corruption and pollution.

After recovering from his shock, Duncan took steps towards the edge of the black “rock” beneath his feet, his mind recalling the “New Hope” that had crashed into this world.

Did that ship also become “pollution” of this world? After its fall… what had it become?

He stood on the edge of the star energy-gathering structure, looking down.

The mechanical shell, like a cliff, and the endless darkness beyond entered his field of view.

Duncan knew that there was actually no “up or down” here; if anything, the gravity emanating from the distant star directed the only “downward” here, but his senses still told him that the black device below was down, standing on the shell of this device was like standing on solid ground–neither falling into endless cosmic space nor being captured and pulled away by the sun's gravity.

This mismatch between what he knew rationally and what he felt helped remind him that this place was just an illusion recorded within a “Book of Desecration” prototype.

So what was deeper within this record? Was there anything else?

Duncan sensed his own flames, maneuvering them to spread deeper into the crystal, allowing his consciousness to sink further.

The magnificent golden sun and the astonishing Dyson sphere structure vanished.

Boundless darkness spread from all sides, engulfing his vision.

Contrary to expectation, he did not witness the scene of the civilization's demise that had constructed the Dyson sphere; there was no collision with another world–he seemed to have bypassed that process and arrived in the dark chaos following the Annihilation of All Things.

And in this dark chaos, after an indiscernible period of lingering, just as Duncan was almost doubting whether there was any more information left in the crystal, a faint light suddenly appeared in his vision!

Several beams of light emerged, and within their dim glow, vague forms could be discerned–some massive, some bizarre, and others twisted and shapeless. He could not make out the true contours of the lights, but he heard… “voices”.

These voices sounded directly in his mind–
“…compatibility severely lower than expected, the 'Dreaming King' has also failed… We must adjust the plan…”

“The Shelter can't possibly save everyone… some entities have overly stringent survival conditions, to preserve them while ensuring the safety of others… the difficulty is too high.”

“…prepare a list, those not on the list…”

“Who will make this decision? How will we establish the criteria for the list?”

“…first we need to determine the compatibility threshold, then simulate… LH-01 has come up with a plan, creating a stable anchor, which can ensure to the greatest extent… but we still need to give up a portion…”

What followed was a chaotic noise, as if the corresponding record had gaps; the noise was making Duncan's head spin, but soon he heard clear information amidst the noise–
“…the entities on this portion of the list cannot withstand the Transformation, the cost to preserve them is too high… they have to be abandoned.”

“…there is still 3% redundancy, we can make some adjustments…”

“…they must live in a specific stellar environment, to other entities, their sunlight is a deadly poison… LH-01's plan cannot meet this requirement… there isn't much time.”

“…let's abandon them.”

Boom!

A phantom boom shattered all the voices and the boundless darkness; Duncan felt as if he had touched the bottom layer of this information–no more emerged. Amidst the booming and dizziness, his consciousness quickly withdrew from the depths of the crystal.

He opened his eyes and saw the familiar cabin before him; the pale golden crystal lay in his palm, quickly turning to a pile of ashes under the scorching of a dim green flame.

The information the crystal carried had been drained, and this “Prototype of Desecration,” not meant to exist in the realm of reality, also lost its stability.

Duncan rubbed his hands together, and the last remaining bit of ash in his palm immediately dissipated into the air.

He looked up, meeting the gaze of the goat-headed creature.

“What did you see?” asked the goat-headed creature with a hint of nervousness.

“…the process of their abandonment, the content recorded in the Book of Desecration has been confirmed once more.”

Duncan did not hide the truth; he laid out everything he saw and heard deep within the crystal, telling it all to the goat-headed creature before him.

Of course, he did not explain the details like “Dyson sphere”–that part was not something that could be clearly explained in a short time.

After he finished speaking, the captain's quarters fell into a long silence.

After an indeterminable duration, the goat-headed creature suddenly stirred, its tone somewhat complicated: “…the Book of Desecration records that during the third 'Great Night,' some 'Clans' were exiled into the darkness…”

Duncan nodded slightly; he certainly remembered this part of the description: “It also says that the clans banished to the darkness did not perish–they gradually became distorted over the long exile, turning into… even more dangerous entities.”

The goat-headed creature pondered for a while before suddenly asking, “What's your take on this? Do you think the actions of the Scions of the Sun today… can be justified?”

“In matters like this, discussing right and wrong is meaningless,” Duncan shook his head, “The world is not built on fairness–I don't know what state the world was in after the Annihilation of All Things, before the Deep Sea Era began, how many plans the 'kings' who tried to build the Shelter had or how much they compromised, to judge the past decisions from a stable era is foolish and shortsighted, especially from our current standpoint… any form of 'sympathy' is both unreasonable and unnecessary.”

“…You are right,” the goat-headed creature said softly after a pause.

Duncan did not say anything more; he simply nodded lightly, then his gaze fell upon the small “sun” obtained by Fenna from a giant's hand.

Chapter end

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