The figure with short black hair and a white robe staggered by, and the moments of staggering seemed to be just Duncan's own delusion - he saw the other person walk into the depths of Vision 004, disappearing silently from his vision after passing through a wall.

Doomsday Observer...... Final Survey Team ......

Duncan finally couldn't hold back his curiosity because of the inevitable associative title, and he turned to look at the tall leader beside him: "What is the task of these people?" ”

"Enter the time stream, confirm whether the shelter is operating according to the creator's original blueprint within the knowable time frame, and confirm the timestamp of the system crash."

The Mausoleum Guard said calmly as he stepped forward and continued to lead Duncan deeper into the "Tomb of the Nameless King".

And the "grave keeper's" answer has already caused waves in Duncan's heart.

Observers who travel through the flow of time, tracking the survey team of the apocalypse...... Are they really!?

Duncan looked up suddenly, his gaze swept over the quaint walls and pillars of the surrounding corridor, and soon thought of something else: "What the hell is this place?" ”

The question sounded a little strange to him as soon as he said it, because it sounded like a knowingly asked, but for some reason, he felt that the grave keeper in front of him should understand his intentions.

The grave keeper's footsteps paused imperceptibly for a moment.

"This is the first Cretan Observatory—and will be the last," a low, calm voice came into Duncan's ear, "Once upon a time, there were twelve hundred Doomsday Observatories of this kind, and we directly controlled ten of them. ”

Duncan was stunned for a moment, and suddenly, he recalled a passage he had read—

“…… In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Dream King and the Pale Giant, He divided the blueprint so that there would be no more kingdoms on earth, and the kingdoms would become 1,200 cities, and that the clan would rule over the first ten cities, and give them the name 'Crete'......"

The stylistic peculiarities of Vision 004 are explained - it is indeed a relic left by the Old Kingdom of Crete, which has been in operation for 10,000 years, and even continues to function until it becomes a "vision"!

At the same time, what was recorded in the blasphemous book was once again confirmed, and the "1,200 cities" mentioned in the book were real, but not 1,200 city-states, but 1,200 "Doomsday Observatories"!

From here, the personnel known as the "Final Survey Team" set out to enter the time stream to monitor the operation of the "Shelter" and determine the "time boundary" of the Shelter's operation to its limits......

A flash of openness suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye, and Duncan suddenly woke up from his thoughts, raised his head and looked ahead with some surprise.

At some point, he had walked through the seemingly never-ending corridor under the guidance of the "grave keeper", and after passing through a towering gate, the scene in front of him suddenly opened up - not only open, it was almost not like the interior of a "building"!

He saw a square, a square shrouded in a dusk sky that seemed to hold tens of thousands of people for a rally.

Duncan's gate was high up, and there was a stone ramp that sloped down to the edge of the square, which was covered with large, smooth gray-white stone slabs, and a wide walkway crossed it, and he saw some kind of solemn pillars with a slight metallic sheen standing on both sides of the road, and the top of the pillars seemed to have a more complex structure, but it had weathered and collapsed in the long years, and all around the square could be seen all kinds of crumbling and crumbling huge structures, as if they had been many gates and pillars, and the only one that came into view was intact, is the huge throne in the square.

The dark throne stood in the center of the square, the back of the chair towering, as if overlooking everything around it, and a chaotic, twilight of the sky hung over the square, and in this dim light, a kind of almost eternal ...... seemed to linger in the ruins before him Aloneness.

For some reason, Duncan felt a sense of desolation in his heart, as if it was the heavy atmosphere brought by the crumbling and dusty ruins in front of him, which touched his heart.

The white-robed mausoleum guard had already passed Duncan, and he walked up the slope downward, silently towards the ruined square.

Duncan hesitated, then followed in silence.

They descended the slope to the wide walkway that ran through the square, and slowly walked forward between two rows of tall and majestic stone columns, Duncan's gaze swept around from time to time, looking at the ruins that were once glorious and majestic, but now crumbled and crumbled.

Occasionally, visions of the past would appear before his eyes—he would see men in white robes or gray robes appear beyond the stone pillars, hurrying through the square, or walking to the deserted gates on the edge, or gathering in places to talk, as if discussing something.

He could imagine what a busy and important place it had been—in the days of Genesis, when the "Creeping King" was still adjusting the blueprint of the new world, and in the days when the Old Kingdom of Crete was still building this world as the "assistant" of the Creator, they gathered here to build a shelter and plan for the reproduction of civilization in the next ten thousand years.

At that time, the Great Annihilation had just ended, and the continuous ruins caused by the Great World Collision were still floating in the world, and the order of all things was extinguished. At that time the council of kings was opened and opened, and the two long nights had failed, but the third long night had begun to dawn; At that time, the troops known as the "Final Survey Team" crossed the curtain of time and acted as a vanguard to inspect the boundaries of the shelter—the borders of the temporal dimension; At that time, the infinite sea may have just taken shape, the city-state had not yet been established, the "sun" had not yet risen, the original "humans" were still sleeping in the database of the Creeping King, and in the long night, only the lights of the ancient kingdom of Crete briefly illuminated this chaotic world......

At that time, the place had not yet become Vision 004 - there were 1,199 other observatories like it scattered among the ashes of annihilation, waiting for the moment when the new world would open.

Now, everything is gone with the wind.

Only this bleak and decadent ruin remains, floating in the cracks of this real world, leading Duncan's thoughts and endless speculations.

The tall Mausoleum Guardian walked slowly in front of Duncan, as if walking through a corridor of time, and when another team of Final Survey Team passed through the stone pillars, he suddenly broke the silence: "It's been a long time since they've heard from them. ”

“…… They're crazy. Duncan whispered.

"Oh."

The mausoleum guard nodded, and continued to walk slowly.

Then, after a moment, he spoke as if to himself: "In the beginning, they will send back a lot of information—in the first contact cycle after departure, they will send back news of the city-state era, and then, the rise and fall of the Far Sea Alliance in the darkness.

"They mentioned the disappearance of the Kingdom of Crete, and also happily mentioned the appearance of the 'sun', and the information they sent back appeared a lot of strange things that did not look like blueprint design, but in the creator's subsequent calculations, the appearance of those things seemed to be inevitable......"

The grave keeper paused, looked up at the large, dark throne in the center of the square, and was silent for a long time before shaking his head slightly.

"And then they don't hear from them anymore, and sometimes...... There will also be something that we cannot understand. They seem to have dived very deep in the flow of time, or traveled far away, and that was beyond what we had planned in the beginning......

"A lot of the time, the messages they send back are inconsistent and out of order, and this happens more and more frequently in the later stages, and the creator's calculus judges that this is normal, because the shelter is a finite model - it is centered on the place, just as the light illuminates the wilderness, time is the distance the light extends, and the farther away the place, the more the undefined darkness is in control...... At the border of time, if they can't find another light, it means that there is really nothing to report......"

The grave keeper was silent for an unknown amount of time, and then he whispered as if talking to himself, "It's been a long time since they've sent news back......

Duncan didn't say anything.

He had reached the black throne that seemed to be made for giants, and slowly raised his gaze to look at the figure on the throne.

A headless body sat quietly on the throne, and countless huge cables and pipes were intertwined like blood vessels and nerves extending from the body, connecting the whole body of the body, connecting the countless interfaces and slots on the throne, some of those interfaces were still flickering faintly, and some kind of flowing light that seemed to be active flowed in some of the pipes, constantly flowing into the body and out of the body.

The moment he saw the headless body on the throne, Duncan's eyes changed slightly, and he suddenly recalled a scene that Ted Lear had described to him and had seen in subspace, but what surprised him more than this memory, and even a little helpless, was the ...... from that body Familiar.

He raised his head in astonishment, staring fixedly at the body on the throne, and after nearly a minute, he couldn't help but speak: "In subspace, there is a headless body sitting on a dark throne......"

"That is his shadow," the mausoleum guard whispered, "the creator took his body, but only part of it—he was torn apart, but not only his body, but his memory, his soul, his shadow, his mind, his past and his future...... All shattered in the second long night, the Creator brought the body here, and the Shadow remained where he had first died. ”

Duncan turned his head abruptly and looked into the eyes of the mausoleum guard, he felt the familiarity brought to him by the body on the throne getting stronger and stronger, which made him finally can't help but speak: "Who is on the throne?" ”

"Saslova – the creator used him as a prototype to create the original 'Crete'."

(End of chapter)