In the final connection with the paper ship, Lucrecia struggled to control it as it descended towards the Holoss, which was flying over the forest.
Holoss also noticed the shaky little ship, struggling in the sky and on the verge of crashing. With a sudden burst of speed in midair, the enormous ship, though in its Spiritual Body state, moved as lightly as a gust of wind, almost instantly positioning itself below Lucrecia and the others.
The torn paper ship resembled an uncontrollable cloud, and after several dangerous directional adjustnts, it finally crashed askew onto the deck of the Holoss.
Sherry and A-dog tumbled out of the paper ship, rolling several tis on the deck before finally stabilizing. Then, a tall figure appeared in front of them—Duncan bent down, reached out, and pulled the dizzy Sherry upright, then did the sa for Nina, who had also rolled over.
Sherry seed a bit dazed, but after shaking her head vigorously, her gaze finally started to focus. She looked around, fully relieved, "TMD, I finally survived... I thought I was definitely dead this ti..."
"Uncle Duncan!" Nina cheered joyfully, throwing herself into Duncan’s arms.
Duncan smiled and patted Nina’s hair gently, giving her a light hug before looking up not far away.
Morris stood firmly on the deck, one hand on his cane and the other holding a sophisticated chanical device like a gyroscope, smiling at them. Lucrecia, anwhile, floated gently down from a nearby mast—the mont before the paper ship impacted the deck, she had preemptively flown out.
Then she montarily hung from the mast.
"You all seem to be in good shape," Duncan smiled and nodded at them, "But really, riding a paper-folding ship towards a burning sky was quite risky."
Lucrecia, approaching them, showed a hint of embarrassnt on her face, "...This spell indeed has room for improvent."
Nina imdiately tugged at Duncan’s arm, pointing upwards at the barrier that seed to separate two worlds, "Uncle, look up there—"
Duncan nodded slightly, "I’ve already seen it."
A resplendent barrier, as if constructed from sunlight, covered the sky between the two worlds, hanging low like an "outer shell", enveloping the sandy landscape below.
Holoss was gradually increasing its altitude; it had now reached the upper limits of the forest. At this mont, the lustrous sunlight barrier nearly grazed the highest mast of Holoss, with faint ripples emanating outward, appearing gentle and harmless.
"Fenna might be trapped on the other side," Morris approached with a serious expression, "This barrier is powered by the ’Creeping Sunwheel’, its builder was targeting the ’sun’ Fenna spoke of; we hit this barrier just earlier..."
Duncan nodded, "I know—the barrier is trying to keep out."
"What do we do now?" Nina asked curiously, looking upwards, "Can we just smash through it?"
Duncan glanced at her sowhat helplessly, "You’ve been led astray by Sherry—girls shouldn’t always think of brute-force thods."
As he spoke, he looked up at the grand "Sunlight Curtain" floating above Holoss.
The next second, a faint creaking noise emanated from deep within Holoss; following that, the Ghost Ship, ablaze with fierce Spiritual Fire, suddenly elevated further, then charged directly into the surging sea of light.
Gravity inversion occurred—in the instant the inversion took place, Holoss rolled violently within the barrier, navigating the shifting direction of gravity after crossing the threshold between the two worlds.
When Sherry, dizzy and disoriented, climbed up from the deck once again, she discovered that Holoss was now sailing on the surface of the hot, undulating light barrier. Below the barrier was the vaguely visible desert landscape, while the familiar forest and the almost completely wrecked Silantis hung upside down above her head.
The "Sunlight Curtain," separating the two worlds, reacted almost imdiately, just like when the paper ship neared it earlier—blazing sunlight instantaneously transford into surging flas that began to undulate towards the unwelco visitor navigating on the surface of the barrier—flas like mountains, rushing forth, roaring and boiling!
However, every streak of light that neared Holoss instantly took on a deep green hue, transforming into subdued Spiritual Fire, swirling around Holoss.
The next second, these eerie green flas began to spread across the barrier, spreading like a growing contamination, expanding in area and speed increasingly.
This seemingly magnificent barrier was visibly corroding and lting at a rapid pace!
Nina’s eyes widened as she watched the golden curtain outside the ship’s bulwarks instantly turn into an expanse of spreading green fire, unable to help but exclaim softly, "Wow—"
Duncan did not speak; he continued to silently watch this "dividing line" between the two worlds, a thoughtful expression gradually forming on his face.
He was still recalling the phenonon he observed at the mont of the gravity inversion.
The direction of gravity changed instantly—there was no "equilibrium point" of zero gravity between the two worlds; he didn’t feel the gravity gradually weakening and shifting a "gradual process" as he neared this dividing line.
This further showed that the "collision" between the two worlds was not a simple physical process, and was not rely two celestial bodies coming into physical contact—though they were now so close together, the gravity of each of their lands still distinctly operated independently, as if...
they were incompatible.
While revealing this "incompatibility," both the forest and the desert worlds simultaneously experienced the strange phenonon of "Corrosion," where everything underwent grotesque mutations, and indescribable entities bred from the shadows. Silantis even began to crumble and combust before the inverted desert approached, which felt like...
a contamination of the spiritual realm on a world scale.
The two worlds, completely unable to interpret, establish, or be compatible with each other, were distorting simultaneously as they drew closer.
Duncan raised his head and looked up at Silantis, hanging inverted in the sky and collapsing completely in flas; the World Tree had beco unrecognizable, and, in its collapse, the holand of the Elves was gradually taking on a state completely eroded by darkness, dissolving and breaking down amidst the chaos.
The unique racial Trait of the Elves constructed this peculiar dinsion known as "The Dream of the Naless," where Silantis was trapped in an eternal nightmare, and this scene before him was the deepest part of that nightmare.
The era just before the Deep Sea was about to begin, and The Annihilation of All Things was occurring.
The essence of The Annihilation of All Things... was the collision of two worlds.
Duncan suddenly furrowed his brow.
Two worlds? Were there really only two worlds?
He suddenly rembered that "warrior" transford into living tal, the world of swords and Magic collapsing at twilight, his holand’s "moon," and the endless fog outside his apartnt, along with the contradictory historical records still preserved in various City-States, the countless bizarre legends recorded in the scrolls of the Dark Age, those ancient civilizations that couldn’t be verified, those inexplicable, historical artifacts not belonging to any known civilization, and the...strong contamination they carried.
So historical artifacts, by their re existence, seed "toxic" to the world; rely being placed there, they would distort and contaminate everything around them.
And then there were so things that weren’t even allowed to exist in reality, with no possible containnt or neutralization thods—their imdiate destruction was the only safe asure, and they were fearfully referred to as... "Profane Prototypes."
Duncan quietly stood on the deck of Holoss, between two worlds that were destroying each other; at the brink of this apocalypse that annihilated all things, he finally grasped the true nature of The Annihilation of All Things.
Lucresia suddenly felt sothing.
It was as if an invisible wind was stirring on the deck, a suffocating, heavy pressure forming by her side.
In a panic, she looked in the direction where the oppressive force was emanating.
A bright starlight quietly stood not far from her, outlining a faint human figure—it seed to stand right before her, yet also seed to be infinitely distant at the sa ti. It wasn’t very tall, yet it gave off a weird impression of being enormously vast, forever impossible to fully perceive its boundaries.
Lucresia rembered—she had seen this fragnt of starlight once before when she had just recently reunited with her father during a perilous mont, in a fleeting glimpse she had seen so of the "truth" behind her father’s form.
But this ti it was different.
All optical laws and visual perceptions seed to fail in front of that starlight. Lucresia was shocked to find her own sight distorting within the starlight, brewing so kind of "logic" she couldn’t understand; she tried to look away but found it utterly impossible—
her gaze seed to have beco part of that starlight.
However, the next second, just as she thought her sanity was about to be completely swallowed and assimilated by that gigantic starlight, all of the starlight receded.
A broad palm covered her eyes.
Lucresia paused for a mont before realizing—it was her father’s hand.
She numbly grasped the hand, carefully pushed it aside, and looked toward where the bright starlight had been.
The starlight had once again collapsed into Duncan’s form.
"Don’t be afraid," she heard her father say gently, "I’m still here."
"What just happened?" Lucresia blinked, only calming down after hearing Duncan’s voice, yet the "scorch mark" left by the bright starlight seed to still be deeply imprinted in her mind, "Just now you..."
"It’s nothing," Duncan said softly, "I just suddenly understood sothing."
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