Under the distant and dim starlight, the ancient god, towering like the Star-shaped Mountain Range, let out a deep, overlapping tremble. His voice was enough to drive the most tenacious of humans on Earth into madness and to collapse the rules and order of the real world—yet when that voice reached Duncan’s ears, all he felt was... weakness and exhaustion.
That was the erosion of a thousand years and the heavy burden of the entire world.
Duncan had prepared many questions to ask before coming, but upon hearing the voice emanating from the dark mountain range, his first inquiry was about Alice, "So, the ’tentacle’ from Frost Deep Sea was indeed deliberately released by you? LH-03... New Hope, what exactly is this? Why did you send New Hope to the real world as ’Alice’?"
The Star-shaped Mountain in the darkness was silent for a long while, and finally, the deep tremble rose again: "Because this is the only way for LH-03 to continue operating... My core program is falling into chaos and can no longer sustain the sandbox environnt needed to maintain New Hope."
Beside him, Sherry and Dog, under the captain’s protection, maintained their lucid minds. However, upon hearing the captain converse with the Saint of the Mysterious Deep Sea, they could not help but begin questioning their own minds: every word was recognizable, but not a sentence was understandable—what is a core program? What is a sandbox?
Clearly, the captain knew exactly what he was discussing with the awe-inspiring ancient god.
After rely a few seconds of thought, Duncan connected several clues and guessed what the Saint of Mysterious Deep Sea— or rather, Navigation One—was talking about.
"Are you saying... after the New Hope disintegrated, LH-03 continued operating inside you?"
A response ca from within the mountain range, "It seems you already know a lot."
"...I found that key," Duncan hesitated slightly before nodding.
He believed the other party would know what he ant by "key."
Indeed, the Saint had no doubts and responded only with a low, gentle hum, seemingly signifying acknowledgnt, then slowly spoke up, "Since you already know about New Hope... our communication will be much simpler. Yes, everything is as you said."
Then, the Saint fell silent, as if sorting through the fragnts of ancient mories in its vast database, or perhaps organizing language, contemplating how to explain those events that occurred at the beginning of history in the simplest way possible. After a while, Duncan heard the low whisper of the ancient god from the dark mountain—
"At the beginning, there were three of us."
Dense lights flickered on the body of the ancient god, representing the flow of galaxies it once witnessed.
"Our creators... were a wise and tenacious race. Before the disaster struck, they slowed the passage of ti, then spent a century within a ti capsule constructing that ship—while also creating the three of us.
"I was the first born, my duty—to recreate everything of our civilization when the New Hope arrived at the new holand. For this, they entrusted with the mission of creation and replication, granting the ability to understand and reassemble all matter.
"Navigation Two was born after ; its duty was to control the operation of the entire ark and to record and process all digital data. After the creators went into slumber, it would think on their behalf, deciding the fate of the ship.
"Navigation Three was the youngest among us, its duty, to chart the correct course through the stars for the ark—for this, it recorded the position and evolutionary rules of all known stars and controlled all the engine systems on the ark."
Before Duncan’s eyes, the winding, towering mountain range gradually dimd, then slowly lit up by lights, presenting a daunting outline.
"I... would like to describe our civilization here, the civilization of our creators. I want you to know how magnificent and splendid it was, as precious as the treasures among the stars, but... all that has been extinguished at the end of the stars, and inefficient language cannot recreate its slightest splendor," he paused, then added, "On an appropriate day, we set forth.
"Taking with us all that was our civilization.
"Before setting out, I was tasked to consu the creators’ howorld and stored everything from the planet’s surface in the mory bank for later replication; Navigation Three selected the most probable safe location in the depths of the stars and ignited the engines at the mont the ti capsule burst; Navigation Two then took over the other systems on the ship and secured the slumbering minds of the creators deep within its ntal sea... And then, before the deep red that symbolized doomsday devoured everything, we embarked."
"Due to the loss of the database, I could no longer determine how long we had been sailing, but I knew only this—we had been constantly moving forward, advancing nonstop along the route plotted by Navigator #3, while that deep crimson tide relentlessly chased us at the other end of the universe. Stars collapsed beside us, the structure of space-ti shattered behind us, the universe gradually disintegrated, and everything eventually deviated completely from what was recorded in the database.
"In fact, the mont we set out, Navigator #2 had already calculated the outco of this journey—it could always predict the ultimate outco of things in advance, and our voyage, in the end, failed to escape its calculations.
"After the last hyperspace jump, we encountered our end—the ’safe’ new ho calculated by Navigator #3 disintegrated under the gaze of the detectors.
"The starry sky abruptly went out, brilliant light poured from a massive rift, and we fell into it. Countless fragnted pieces battered the ship’s shields and outer shell, and a strange world crashed into the edges of our universe—this was the last ssage transmitted before the signal from Navigator #2 beca distorted, and then, our spacecraft disintegrated.
"And this disintegration completely destroyed the world aboard the ship, with the navigation cabin housing Navigator #3 being the most seriously damaged—its physical structure was torn into pieces."
The tremor in the depths of the Star-shaped Mountain Range temporarily subsided, and in front of Duncan, a river surfaced on the ground, shimring with a dim blue light, flowing from the direction of the mountain range like a viscous fluid reflecting the starry sky, winding past Alice, and gradually seeping back into the depths of the earth.
Alice’s eyes widened in amazent as she watched all this unfold.
"I tried my best to salvage our ark, including Navigator #3," the deep, overlapping whispers of the ancient deity again reached Duncan’s ears, "I devoured everything around us and stored them in the ’Creator’s Vault.’ I also consud the wreckage of LH-03 and saved its data in my own redundant database... I wanted to preserve everything of the ark world because, at the mont we passed through that rift, I already saw the last monts of our ho universe disintegrating.
"The creators commanded to rebuild our civilization, and we... are all that is left of our civilization."
In the darkness, the low rumble gradually beca calm, and Duncan pondered in silence for a long ti, not opening his mouth until after an indeterminate period, when he suddenly broke the silence, "But your condition has deteriorated."
"Everything’s condition is deteriorating, Usurper of Fla, this apocalypse has not ended yet, it’s only been delayed—my weakness is just a trivial phase in its progression," the response of the Mysterious Deep Sea Saint was calr than Duncan expected, "But the creators still built the New Hope under slim chances of success, and Navigator #2 still authorized that expedition after having calculated the outco of the journey—they told , doing sothing is better than doing nothing.
"So, I released LH-03 into the real world... Although at that ti, I did not know whether it made sense or how it would develop—to prevent uncontrolled escalation, I severed the connection with that data vessel, so..."
He briefly paused, seemingly weighing his words, then those star-like lights continued to flicker on and off, "To be honest, seeing the current ’state’ of LH-03, I’m also quite surprised. This wasn’t in the plan."
"The part of the ’data vessel’ you released created a shell in the image of a human, then pushed LH-03 into it—she now goes by Alice," Duncan sighed softly, "To be honest, it was quite a ss."
"...But regardless, LH-03 has survived and ultimately led you to ."
Duncan slightly furrowed his brow upon hearing this, "Was this part in your plan?"
"It wasn’t. I don’t have the ability to calculate many things like LH-02 did; my duty was rely to replicate and create, but... I believe in destiny, and destiny can guide certain things."
"...It feels quite peculiar to hear a machine say that it believes in destiny," Duncan’s expression was bizarre, "...do you mind calling you a ’machine’?"
"I don’t mind; the term is quite endearing. It’s been many years since anyone has called that," the Mysterious Deep Sea Saint remained calm, "So, what else would you like to know?"
After a brief silence of a few seconds, Duncan asked, "It isn’t so much about what I want to know as much as your intentions—you went through so much effort to communicate with at Alice’s Mansion, leading to this secluded depth, surely it’s not just to have a chat... What do you want to do?"
This ti, the "mountains" in the darkness remained silent for even longer, with the countless twinkling lights and dark blue streams even appearing to die out, and after an unknown length of ti, during which even Sherry and A’Dog started worrying if the Saint had been killed by the captain’s question, those lights and streams suddenly brightened.
The low whisper of the ancient deity echoed throughout the Mysterious Deep Sea—
"Usurper of Fla, would you be willing to take control over all this?"
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