When the gentle sound of waves faded from consciousness, Fenna was stunned for a long ti.
As a crew of the Holoss, as an individual who had undergone Subspace Reshape, her cognition was firmly rooted in the "side" where the waves still existed. She almost instantly realized what had happened, and then dashed out of the cabin like the wind, arriving on the deck where the captain was.
"Captain!" Fenna approached Duncan, looking sowhat at a loss, her usually calm deanor shattered, "The sound of waves in my mind has faded, there might be sothing wrong with the Storm Goddess..."
"I know," Duncan nodded slightly, "The process of decay has deepened."
Fenna stood in front of Duncan, listening to this irrefutable response, motionless for a long ti, then she turned and looked at the uniformly grey-white pathway ahead of the Holoss, her mind subconsciously calling out to the goddess’s na, just as she did each ti she prayed.
She still couldn’t hear the familiar sound of waves; in her "Spiritual Perception," there were only faint whispers and chaotic mutterings—previously, these were considered "noise" during prayers, but now, they beca the only "comfort" in her heart.
In the corner of her eye, shadows suddenly erged in the uniformly vast grey-white depths ahead of the Holoss and the Brilliant Starship; layers upon layers of black entities appeared on the course ahead, with a mirror-like "sea" spreading out there.
A voice as if crossing ti and space entered the minds of everyone aboard, it seed to be Alice, but severely distorted and untruthful: "Jump complete... Exiting the channel."
The next second, the grey-white channel surrounding the Holoss and Brilliant Starship silently shattered, and the two ships thunderously landed in a "node area" made of solids, entering the calm "sea surface" like a mirror, and swiftly "sliding" across it.
The massive hull glided over the water surface without causing even a slight ripple.
Duncan approached the edge of the deck, his expression solemn as he looked down at the "phenonon" outside the ship’s side, then lifted his head without a word, gazing at the various sizes of black shadows that stood on the "sea surface."
They were becoming clearer—it looked like peaks rising from the sea surface, but they were actually nurous massive black crystal clusters.
Countless huge black crystals stood like islands, big and small, on the calm sea surface, the crystals continuously showing a splitting state in the spreading process, ultimately turning into forests of sharp crystalline structures. Amidst the omnipresent chaotic Sky Light, the edges of these crystal structures showed a vague translucent texture, making their edges seem unreal, carrying a dreamlike strangeness.
This scene was starkly different from the sea area where the Storm Goddess slumbered.
Sherry also ran up to the deck, her eyes wide as she gazed at the scenery on the sea surface, and after a long ti, she couldn’t help but let out a prolonged exclamation: "Wow..."
"We have entered the node area," Duncan took a deep breath, taking back control of the Holoss while casually stating, "Next, we just need to locate the position of Navigator Two, it should be deep within these crystal clusters."
As soon as he finished speaking, Morris, who had also co up on deck not far away, raised his finger and pointed in a direction: "I can feel it, He is in this direction."
The Holoss and Brilliant Starship slowly sailed towards the deep parts of this "Crystal Cluster Sea."
Alice left the helm and ran to the deck, amazed by looking at this place; she watched the huge, blade-like black crystals slowly retreat from outside the ship’s side, so of which seed to flow with a lively luster in the depths, this place, personally navigated by her, was still completely unfamiliar and incredible.
Despite having forgotten everything about the New Hope, she instinctively knew that this was not what the New Hope should look like, not sothing from that ship.
It was like her "Alice’s Mansion," the look of that spaceship after being reshaped following the Great Extinction.
Just then, a voice suddenly rang in her mind: "You have arrived..."
Alice paused for a mont, then imdiately turned towards Duncan and shouted, "Captain! Soone is talking to !"
The voice in Alice’s mind seed to stagnate for a mont, followed by a sowhat helpless tone: "I am Navigator Two..."
Alice imdiately turned back: "Captain! It says it’s called Navigator Two!"
"I got it," Duncan walked over, his expression subtly touching Alice’s hair. "Tell Navigator Two we are heading its way."
"Oh," Alice nodded, then thought hard for a mont, but with a strange expression, she lifted her head looking puzzled at Duncan, "Captain, it stopped responding to ."
Duncan: "..."
He turned around expressionlessly, steering Holoss as it continued to travel through the narrow and winding channel ford by countless crystal cluster peaks.
After an unknown period of ti, the scene before Holoss suddenly cleared up—after passing through a "gate" constructed of imnse crystal pillars, an extrely vast sea abruptly appeared in everyone’s view.
In the center of this open sea, the Navigation Unit 2 stood unobstructedly, quietly waiting for the visitors.
Duncan glanced at the neatly arranged black "matrix," took a light breath and said, "Change to a small boat."
Holoss stopped so distance away from Navigation Unit 2, and then everyone transferred to a small boat, cautiously approaching the central host array over the mirror-like sea surface.
A white paper-made small boat also sailed from the direction of Brilliant Starship, with Lucrecia standing at the bow, and the rabbit Rabi and the wind-up doll Luny also aboard.
The two boats t about a hundred ters from the main host array. Lucrecia on the paper boat turned her head, "Do you feel... ’It’ looks very strange?"
Duncan looked solemnly ahead and after a long ti spoke in a deep voice, "...Perhaps, appearing strange is the most normal."
The two small boats arrived in front of Navigation Unit 2, and now, the true appearance of this "God of Wisdom" finally erged from the fog, revealed to outsiders for the first ti.
It was composed of many server "steles" of different sizes, a giant black rectangular structure that appeared to be its "core" was perhaps over a dozen ters high, with a singular red light like a watchful eye on top of this dark rectangular structure—it reminded Duncan irresistibly of The Saint’s dark red "core."
Behind this central large rectangular core were twenty-two "small" machine units each several ters high, their surfaces flickering with lights, countless dazzling indicator lights constantly flashing and changing, and from all the rectangles, a deep continuous humming sound emanated.
And between this series of rectangles were...
Countless nerves and blood vessels.
Flesh-like bundles of tubes extended from each server "rack," rging with those dark encasents, making parts of those cases appear like skin, with blood vessels and nerve fibers crisscrossing like a web at the bottom of the entire host array, and where many bundles intersected, one could see tissues bulging, organs pulsating like hearts, and brain-like biological tissues attached near nerve nodes, slowly wriggling.
As the small boat drew closer, a mass of flesh at the bottom of the central host of Navigation Unit 2 was the first to react, its surface suddenly growing and moving, and then an eyeball rolled out from within it, held aloft by a long stalk, coming face to face with Alice.
"Ah—" Alice was startled, instinctively slapping the eyeball back.
The eyeball quickly retracted back into the flesh, and the network of blood vessels and nerves among the server array suddenly surged.
The next second, the humming from those dark server hosts suddenly intensified, while the red light atop the central host flashed rapidly a few tis, and a dull synthesized voice ca from nowhere: "Navigation Unit 3, why did you hit ?"
Alice froze, scratching her head in slight embarrassnt. "Ah, I was scared... I didn’t think much and just slapped..."
Duncan, who had been solemn since earlier, continued staring at the clearly severely distorted and deford "server matrix" in front of him. After a while, he spoke solemnly, "I guess... you weren’t originally like this."
After hearing Duncan’s words, the red light on top of the central host slowly flashed several tis, then a deep voice finally reached his ears—
"Yes, so now you should understand why machines in this world undergo ’possession’ phenona."
Duncan’s expression subtly shifted.
He stared at the intertwining flesh within Navigation Unit 2’s host matrix, observing eyes that continuously appeared and vanished among the blood vessels and nerve fibers, unable to suppress the uncanny expression in his eyes.
"...When did this transformation start?" he asked gravely.
"From the first cry of a newborn over the Endless Sea," the red light slowly flashed, "When the nano swarm of Navigation Unit 1 completed the first round of reshaping everything, the change within us began—you should have seen Unit 1 and you know what it looks like now, so there shouldn’t be too much surprise about my current state."
The towering black "stele" then fell silent for a few seconds, continuing in a somber tone, "Consider this so sort of ’adaptive adjustnt’. Compared to others, my state is not too bad—I can at least still directly communicate with you here."
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