Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 741

Chapter 741: Chapter 738 Knocking on the Door Chapter 741: Chapter 738 Knocking on the Door A surreal roar suddenly came, the screen before Zhou Ming's eyes plunged into pitch darkness, and the next second, he felt all sounds drifting away from him–the humming of the computer's fan quieted down, and the buzzing from the refrigerator nearby gradually ceased, leaving the entire room in an oddly silent deathly stillness, the atmosphere around him… was changing.

And all this happened after he had typed “Reverse Singularity” into the search box.

He blinked, pushed back his chair, and stood up from the computer desk.

Without a sound, the chair glided backward and his rising did not produce any noise, a pen on the desk was knocked off and fell to the floor soundlessly.

In these brief seconds, Zhou Ming thought he might have lost his hearing.

Then, he confirmed that it was the surrounding environment that was problematic–the room was darkening.

The lights went out, everything in the room gradually covered by a layer of chaotic shadow, as all objects began losing color in the darkening environment, starting with the patterned curtains that first turned into a grey-white patch, followed by his desk, chairs, and bed, as one by one they became gray-white and then were gradually engulfed by the rising darkness…

Just like the individual units of a massive system shutting down one by one, Zhou Ming's “room” turned into a chaos-darkened space in a matter of seconds, and when the walls around him also disappeared, true darkness filled his vision.

Zhou Ming stood still, looking around, feeling an inexplicable… familiarity and strange reassurance in this sudden darkness.

Another moment passed, and his “vision” seemed to adapt to the dim environment here, some faint outlines in the deep chaos caught his attention.

With slight hesitation, Zhou Ming then made connections based on the positions and distances of those outlines and immediately started walking towards them.

Deep in the dark chaos, some objects came into his sight–these were several vividly detailed “models,” floating where the far end of the room used to be.

Homeloss, the White Oak, Proland, Frost…

And the “World Tree,” Silantis, slowly spinning in mid-air.

They floated in this endless darkness, as if in a space where 'Annihilation of All Things' had taken place, seemingly the only objects left in this “world.”

Zhou Ming stared dumbfounded at these “collectibles” floating around him, with thoughts surging in his mind, and countless questions and conjectures arose.

Why? What does this mean? What are they trying to convey to me?

Like a floating pot plant, Silantis spun in the darkness, drifting nonchalantly before him, part of its branches slowly unfurling in the void, as if sensing the environment or just growing unconsciously, Zhou Ming watched the little “World Tree,” hesitated for a moment, then reached out a finger towards it.

It was only when he stretched out his hand that he noticed his body had changed form unknowingly–the starlight had replaced flesh and blood, dense river systems, and sparkling nebulas filled his body like misty fog, and this array of stars stagnated inside him, much like… the ancient stellar ghost image on the dome of the Mysterious Deep Sea.

But there seemed to be a difference.

Zhou Ming looked at his arm in amazement, but before he could think further, his finger already touched a branch stretching out from the World Tree.

In an instant, an overwhelming amount of information that could not be understood by human intellect flooded into his “mind,” amid the storm-like barrage of information fragments, he felt as if he had blinked through endless eons, an unending long journey–primeval deities, the first living beings, the great trees, forests, rivers, mountains, civilizations, memories…

Zhou Ming stepped back abruptly, the storm of information suddenly receded, and he opened his eyes in the darkness, seeing Silantis still spinning freely in place, its branches occasionally striking the White Oak, Proland, Frost…

Zhou Ming was dazed for several seconds before coming back to his senses. He looked at the scene before him and muttered in a slightly bizarre tone: “Silantis, don't bully your roommates.”

Then he looked up again, towards the boundless darkness before him.

Before the “room” disappeared, this place should have been where the shelf on the wall was, the end of his bachelor apartment, the barrier that trapped him here–the outer shell of the “cocoon.”

But now the entire room had vanished, and this darkness seemed boundless.

Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment before slowly getting up and walking towards that darkness, feeling in front of him in the dark with his hand–he moved very cautiously, as if afraid he might bump into that wall from memory.

Fortunately, he was cautious.

Because almost instantly, he encountered an invisible barrier–something hard and cold in the darkness blocked his way, he felt his arm hit the barrier, then he pushed against it, finding it immovable.

The room had disappeared, but the outer shell of the “cocoon” still existed, he still couldn't leave this place–the seemingly endless darkness was just part of the hard shell.

Zhou Ming stopped in front of the invisible shell, and after futilely knocking several times, he gave up and turned around to look back where he came from.

All the furnishings in the room had disappeared, including the computer, only one door still stood quietly in the depths of darkness, the only “exit” from this space.

“Can someone explain this?” Zhou Ming suddenly spoke after an unknown period of silence. He questioned the darkness, knowing the look of “talking to oneself” might seem foolish, but he spoke with utmost seriousness, “Is this some kind of 'answer'?”

In the darkness, no one responded to his voice.

After a while, he spoke again, “Is this an explanation of the keyword 'Reverse Singularity'? Or is it merely some kind of ambiguous 'demonstration,' intended to help me understand my own essence or the things I'm capable of?”

The darkness remained silent, soundless.

“Can anyone give me a detailed explanation–what's the point of sending a 0.002-second cosmic slice along the timeline? Where do I find my user manual?”

“Don't you have customer support? Have civilizations really developed to the end of time without leaving even a user guide? Hello? Hello–”
“Is anybody there?”

No one was there, only he was in the darkness.

In the long nihilism after his native universe had been torn asunder by the Annihilation of All Things, the only remaining, solitary consciousness still aimlessly operated within this hard, pitch-black “cocoon,” and the only difference from the countless years past was that for the first time, the mind realized the void around “it” was so vast.

An indeterminable amount of time passed, and Zhou Ming felt he might have been standing in this meaningless darkness for an entire century before he finally sighed softly.

“There's nothing here…”
Muttering to himself with a hint of self-derision, he then sat down in the darkness, ready to rest–though his body, filled with starlight and wondrous, seemed to never feel fatigue.

At that moment, just as he was about to sit, Zhou Ming caught something in the corner of his eye–a very thin, almost imperceptible “bright edge” that flitted across the periphery of his vision, flashing past in the darkness.

He immediately widened his eyes slightly.

It was a thread.

In the next second, he had unhesitatingly grabbed the thread, the slight stickiness in his hand telling him the thread was real… not an illusion!

Zhou Ming quickly raised his hand, holding the thread in front of his eyes for a closer look, and after a while, he began to try to trace the origin of the thread.

The thread came from beyond that invisible barrier–outside the “cocoon.”

Zhou Ming slowly stood up, his hand firmly gripping the thread, and he saw that the almost imperceptible line seemed to pass through the “invisible barrier” he could never break, effortlessly floating in the endless darkness outside. The other end of the thread vanished into nothingness, with no visible destination or connection to anything.

He pulled on the thread a few times, feeling as though it would never come to an end. The slight resistance he felt on the other side made him cautious not to pull too hard, fearing he might break this sole “connection” to the outside world.

After a while, following some hesitation and thought, he finally made up his mind, slowly lifted his finger, and summoned a small ball of pale green flame, cautiously bringing it close to the thread.

In the blink of an eye, the small flame seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, and it plunged completely into the depths of the thread.

Then, his connection with the flame was severed.

Zhou Ming blinked, taken aback by this unprecedented situation.

His connection with the flame was cut off! Completely, entirely, without a trace.

And before today, even with the dimensional barrier of Mysterious Deep Sea, his connection with the flame had never been completely severed!

Was it a problem with the thread? Or was it because of the invisible barrier?

Zhou Ming pondered in his mind but only for a few seconds before suddenly feeling emptiness in his hand–the thread had disappeared.

Before he could react, a low hum rose from all directions, and then, all the light and color abruptly returned to his sight–as if a briefly shut down system's modules had come back online, accompanied by dazzling lights and shadows, the room's walls, windows, roof, floor, and all furnishings made a tumultuous reappearance!

Caught off guard by the abrupt change, Zhou Ming instinctively stepped back, bracing himself against a shelf–branches of Silantis brushed against his arm.

“No warning at all… it's supposed to be my 'home'…”
Zhou Ming couldn't help muttering, shaking his head as he surveyed the room to confirm the changes, then, as if sensing something, he suddenly looked up towards the nearby space.

Almost simultaneously with his gaze lifting, a sound echoed, reverberating through the quiet bachelor apartment–
“Knock, knock, knock…”

Someone was at the door.

Chapter end

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