Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 701 - Chapter 701 Chapter 698 The Figure on the Throne

Chapter 701: Chapter 698: The Figure on the Throne Chapter 701: Chapter 698: The Figure on the Throne The figure with black short hair and dressed in a white robe brushed past Duncan, a glance in the moment of their crossing seeming like nothing more than a figment of Duncan’s own imagination–he saw the other walking toward the depths of Anomaly 004, quietly disappearing from his view after passing through a wall.

End Observer… End Observation Team…

These appellations, unavoidably prone to inspiring various associations, made Duncan finally unable to contain his curiosity. He turned his head to look at the tall guide beside him, “What is the task of these people?”

“To enter the stream of time, to confirm within the known temporal scope whether the Shelter is operating according to the creator’s original blueprint, and to ascertain the time stamp of system collapse.”

The Tomb Keeper spoke calmly while stepping forward, continuing to lead Duncan deeper into the “Tomb of the Nameless King.”

And this “Tomb Guardian’s” reply had already stirred a wave in Duncan’s heart.

Observers who traverse the stream of time, the survey team tracking the apocalypse… Was it truly them?

Duncan suddenly lifted his head, his gaze sweeping across the ancient-styled walls and pillars of the surrounding corridors. He quickly thought of another question, “What exactly is this place?”

As soon as he voiced this question, it felt somewhat strange to him, because it sounded like he knew the answer but asked regardless. Yet for some reason, he felt that the Tomb Guardian in front of him would understand his intention.

The Tomb Keeper’s footsteps paused imperceptibly for an instant.

“This is the first Cretan Observation Station–and it will also become the last,” a deep and calm voice reached Duncan’s ears. “A very long time ago, there were twelve hundred such End Observation Stations, and we directly controlled ten of them.”

Duncan was momentarily taken aback, suddenly recalling a piece of text he had once read–

“…To avoid repeating the mistakes of the Dreaming King and the King of the Pale Giants, He divided the blueprint, ensuring that no nations remained in the mortal world, turning nations into twelve hundred City-States, and entrusting the initial ten cities to that clan, bestowing the name ‘Crete’ upon them…”

The stylistic characteristics of Anomaly 004 were explained–it indeed was a relic left by the Ancient Crete Kingdom, a relic that had continued to operate for ten thousand years, even becoming an “anomaly,” yet still persevering!

At the same time, the contents recorded in the Book of Desecration that he had once read were once again validated. The “twelve hundred City-States” mentioned in the book were real, but they referred not to twelve hundred City-States but to twelve hundred “End Observation Stations”!

The personnel known as the “End Observation Team” set out from here, entering the time stream to monitor the operation of the “Shelter” and to determine the “temporal boundary” when the Shelter ran to its limit…

Suddenly, a glimpse of an expansive view appeared in the corner of Duncan’s eye. Startled out of his thoughts, he looked up in surprise at what lay ahead.

Unknown to him, he had, under the guidance of the “Tomb Guardian,” crossed that seemingly endless corridor and, after passing through a towering gate, was met with a dramatically expansive scene–it was more than just expansive; it was almost inconceivable that this could be inside a “building”!

He saw a plaza, a plaza shrouded by a dim, yellow sky, seemingly large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people.

The corridor’s gate where Duncan stood was situated above, with an inclined stone slope leading to the edge of the plaza. The plaza itself was covered with huge, flat, grey-white stone slabs, and a broad pathway crossed it. He also saw solemn pillars with a faint metallic sheen on either side of the path. At the top of the pillars seemed to have been more complex structures, but they had weathered and crumbled under the long years of Corrosion. Around the plaza were various giant structures in various states of collapse, resembling numerous gates and pillars. The only thing intact was a massive throne at the center of the plaza.

That dark throne stood at the heart of the plaza, its back towering as if surveying everything around it. A hazy, twilight-like Sky Light enveloped the space above the plaza. Under this dim light, the crumbling ruins seemed to be shrouded in an almost eternal… solitude.

For some reason, Duncan felt a surge of desolation in his heart. It seemed the heavy atmosphere brought about by these dust-covered ruins touched a chord within him.

The white-robed Tomb Keeper had already walked past Duncan, ascending down the inclined slope in silence toward the plaza now laid to waste.

Duncan hesitated for a moment, then followed in silence.

They walked down the slope, coming to the wide path that ran through the entire square, and slowly walked forward between two rows of towering, majestic stone columns. Duncan’s gaze swept around from time to time, looking at those remnants of walls, which were once glorious and magnificent but had now collapsed into ruins.

Occasionally, visions of the past would appear before his eyes–he would see people in white long robes or grey short robes appearing beyond the stone columns, hustling through the square, either heading towards the deserted gates at the edges or gathering in certain places to converse as if discussing something.

He could almost imagine how busy and important this place once was–during the era of Creation, while the “Crawling King” was still adjusting the blueprint of the new world, and the Ancient Crete Kingdom was serving as the “creator’s” “assistant” in crafting this world. They gathered here, busily rushing about for the establishment of the Shelter, planning for the civilization that would thrive for the next ten thousand years.

At that time, the great eradication had just ended, the continuous ruins created by the world’s major collision still floated in the mortal realm, the order of all things born anew and vanishing by night; at that time, the council of kings met again and again, after two failed Long Nights, the dawn of the third was gradually breaking through; at that time, a unit known as the “End Survey Team” had crossed the curtain of time as a vanguard to inspect the boundaries of the Shelter–boundaries on the dimension of time; at that time, the Endless Sea might have just formed, and the City-State had not yet been established, the “sun” had not yet risen, and the initial “humans” still slept in the database of the Crawling King, and in the long night, only the lights of the Ancient Crete Kingdom briefly illuminated this chaotic world…

At that time, this place had not yet become anomaly 004–there were still one thousand one hundred ninety-nine observation stations like it scattered about in the ashes of the great eradication, waiting for the moment when the new world would begin.

Now, everything had gone with the wind.

All that was left was this desolate ruin, floating in the cracks outside of this real world, stirring Duncan’s innermost thoughts and endless speculations.

The tall Tomb Keeper walked slowly in front of Duncan, as if strolling through the long corridor of time, and when another figure from the End Survey Team passed between the columns, he suddenly broke the silence, “They haven’t sent back any messages for a long time.”

“…They’ve gone mad,” Duncan said softly.

“Oh.”

The Tomb Keeper nodded and continued to walk slowly forward.

After a while, he began speaking again as if talking to himself, “At first, they sent back a lot of information–within the first contact cycle after their departure, they relayed messages from the era of the City-State, then came the rise and fall of the Distant-sea Alliance in the darkness.

“They mentioned the disappearance of the Crete Kingdom, and they were delighted to report the emergence of the ‘sun.’ There were many bizarre things mentioned in their reports, things that didn’t look like they were part of the blueprint. But in the creator’s subsequent calculations, the emergence of those things seemed inevitable…”

The Tomb Guardian stopped, looked up at the large and dark throne in the center of the square, and fell silent for a long time before gently shaking his head.

“Then, their messages became fewer and fewer, and sometimes… there would be content we couldn’t understand. It seemed they had delved deep into the current of time or traveled far away, beyond what we had initially planned…

“Often, the messages they sent back were contradictory and the sequence was disordered, a phenomenon that became more frequent later on. The creator’s calculations deemed this normal, considering that the Shelter is a finite model–it’s centered here, much like how light illuminates the wilderness, time is the distance that light extends, the further the place, the more undefined darkness takes control of everything… At the boundary of time, if they didn’t find another light, it meant there truly were no reports to be made…”

The Tomb Guardian fell silent again, quiet for an indeterminate amount of time before speaking again, almost to himself, “They haven’t sent back any messages for a long time…”

Duncan said nothing.

He had come to the massive black throne seemingly crafted for giants, slowly raising his gaze to look at the figure upon the throne.

A headless torso sat quietly on the throne, and numerous massive cables and pipes, like veins and nerves branching out from inside the body, intertwined and connected its entirety to countless interfaces and slots on the throne. Some of these ports still blinked with faint lights, while an active flow glimmered within some of the pipes, continuously flowing into the body and back out again.

The moment Duncan saw the headless body on the throne, his eyes changed subtly. He suddenly remembered a scene described to him by Ted Riel, one he had seen in Subspace, but more than the memory itself, what surprised him–and left him somewhat at a loss–was a sense of familiarity emanating from that body.

He looked up, stunned, fixating his gaze on the body upon the throne for nearly a minute before he couldn’t help but speak, “In Subspace, there was a headless body sitting on a dark throne…”

“That’s its shadow,” the Tomb Keeper said softly, “The creator took its body but could only take part of it–He was split to pieces, and it wasn’t just the body that fragmented. His memory, soul, shadow, thoughts, past, and future… all shattered in the second Long Night. The creator brought this body here, while the shadow remained in the place where it first died.”

Duncan abruptly turned his head to look into the eyes of the Tomb Keeper, the feeling of familiarity from the body on the throne growing stronger. It finally made him blurt out, “Who is it that sits upon the throne?”

“Saslouka–based on him, the creator crafted the very first ‘Crete’.”