The fleet returned to the Misty Frontier in the direction it came, perhaps due to the sinking of the large entity "Holy Land Island", the nearby sea did not seem very calm, the mirror-like sea was constantly reverberating with layers of fine ripples like fish scales, and the dense fog around it always showed strange phantoms - this made many people tense their nerves.

But until halfway through the journey, there were no real threatening entities in the mist.

The sails of the spirit were hoisted high, a slight creak sounding from time to time as the angle of the sail line changed, and the mist flowed from the deck of the Lost Country, and in the thin mist, Agatha's figure loomed and walked through the mist.

She was inspecting the "environment" around the Lost Country, and at this moment, her eyes reflected the scenery of both the real dimension and the spirit world - the fog around her was different from when she came, and the spirit world seemed to be faintly restless, although it didn't seem to have any effect on the Lost Country, but she was still a little concerned and raised her vigilance.

Everyone else was now gathered in the cabin: the captain was communicating with his followers about the deep sea.

In front of his trusted crew, Duncan did not hide his experiences in the deep sea, including the content of the exchange between him and the Dark Lord.

Maurice sat at the long table with his pipe in his mouth, and the wisps of smoke wafted in it, as if to show that he was not at peace at the moment, and it was a long time before the old scholar put the pipe down and muttered subtly: "I have seen many strange things in my life, but I have never encountered such a situation." The Creator of this world has invited you to take His place......"

Nina reached out and twisted her arm vigorously, as if she still suspected that she was dreaming, and then she looked up at Duncan, "Did you really refuse?" ”

Duncan looked indifferent: "Yes, there is a big problem with the plan of the Secluded Holy Lord, so I rejected it." ”

"Doesn't the shelter have a future...... Lucrecia muttered to herself, as if recalling a conversation with her father, and muttered for a long time before she whispered, "I remember the question you asked me, you asked me if I felt that the endless sea was cramped and cramped—but now it seems that even such a cramped shelter has reached the point of its limit...... I really didn't expect that we came here far away from the civilized world and got such news. ”

A slightly oppressive atmosphere enveloped the cabin, and there was a moment of silence around the long table, and after a while, Nina leaned over to Shirley and whispered a little worriedly, "How are you feeling now?" Is there something uncomfortable? ”

"It doesn't feel any different than usual, and even the eyes and ears seem to be a lot stronger than before," Shirley muttered, her eyes still glowing with blood, "just thinking that you will have to be blindfolded or closed when you enter the city...... It feels like it's a lot of trouble. ”

"I'm back safely," Nina couldn't help but mutter, "I was worried when I knew you were gone, I wanted to go to the island to find you, but the goat's head stopped me from ......"

Listening to the whispered conversation next to him, Duncan's gaze slowly swept over the figures at the long table, his tense expression slowed slightly, and then exhaled softly.

"That's it, this trip to the Holy Land Island is very draining, and everyone should rest well before returning to the city-state."

As soon as the words fell, he stood up, waved his hand to signal that the others did not need to get up, and then turned to leave.

The captain was gone—and until he disappeared in the doorway, there was a slightly oppressive silence in the cabin, and it wasn't until a moment later that Nina broke the silence with a mutter, "Uncle Duncan looks tired...... He has a lot on his mind. ”

"He's got too much to think about," Morris said, extinguishing his pipe, "but unfortunately there's so little we can do to help." ”

Lucrecia looked at Ah Dog after a moment of thought: "Did Father say anything after rejecting the 'plan' of the Netherworld Holy Lord?" ”

Ah Gou thought for a moment and said uncertainly: "He said that he had other plans, but it was just an idea now, and he hadn't found the right way yet...... That's all, he didn't mention anything else, let alone explain it to me and Shirley. ”

Listening to the dog's story, Lucretia fell into deep thought......

Duncan, who had left the cabin, had gone nowhere else, and had made his way through the middle deck to the door to the captain's quarters at the stern.

In the thin mist that slowly drifted across the deck, the dark wooden door stood silently in front of him as before, and the words "Gate of the Lost" on the door frame were clear and sharp.

Duncan put his hand on the doorknob, but suddenly stopped, just standing still. In a brief moment of contemplation, he raised his head and stood for a long time at the pale mist that was like a curtain on the side of the ship, and the chaotic light that shone through the mist.

It took an unknown amount of time before he withdrew his gaze and pushed the door open.

Walking through the familiar door, stepping on the familiar floor, and walking into the familiar room, Zhou Ming exhaled softly and strolled through the living room.

Everything in the bachelor apartment is as it is remembered, as if it will never change, as if it has always been the case not only for the past few years, more than ten years, but even the past thousand years and ten thousand years.

Everything here is imprinted in Zhou Ming's mind like a deep imprint, he walked through the familiar home furnishings, stepped to the window, and looked at the scenery outside the window through this window that had never been opened.

The pale mist was like layers of curtains, and there was no discernible scenery in the fog that was supposed to be a "street", only the chaotic sky light sprinkled from above, permeating the mist.

Zhou Ming hesitated, slowly stretched out his hand to the window, and pressed it on the glass.

The cold and hard touch came, and the window remained as unmoved as before, as if solidified with the space.

He inhaled softly, then blinked slowly.

The moment his eyelids closed, within the first 0.002 seconds of darkness, he ...... Didn't see anything.

There are no windows, no fog outside the windows, and no so-called "real side" presented in their field of vision.

There was only an infinite darkness in front of him, the ultimate nothingness of all things that were dying.

Zhou Ming slowly took two steps back, calming his breathing.

He remembered the changes that had taken place in him, and remembered that when he was moving on the "other side" of the door, he could see some "real scenery" hidden under the dimension of reality in a brief moment of 0.002 seconds in the blink of an eye, but why was there only a darkness formed by extreme nothingness in front of him here?

Because he is "Zhou Ming" and not "Duncan" here? Because this room is some kind of higher-level existence? Or is it because it's really ...... Nothing?

Zhou Ming stood in the living room and fell into deep thought, and then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a bright light in the room.

…… It was his computer, the one that had been unplugged was humming, and the monitor was automatically playing a constant loop of wallpapers, as always.

Zhou Ming frowned, as if he thought of something, and quickly walked to the computer and sat down.

He shook the mouse, closed the wallpaper, then opened the browser and began typing in the search bar - it seemed that because he hadn't used it for a long time, his operation was a little rusty, and he made several mistakes before slowly regaining his feel.

He also remembered that the computer's browser had responded to one of his operations, when it showed the "moon", and that response did to some extent explain to him the "truth" of the world.

Will it respond to any other questions of its own?

With the soft sound of the keyboard, he first typed the words "0.002 seconds" into the search box, and then pressed enter.

He looked apprenantly at the spinning cursor, and the slow-moving progress bar, as his thoughts fluctuated—

Pilot One told him that he had come to this world at the beginning of the Great Annihilation, and that the ancient kings had surrounded him and seen a chaotic cocoon of light floating in the center of the ashes...... Is that light cocoon his "bachelor apartment"?

If yes, then all the furnishings in this bachelor apartment...... And what do they all represent?

What does this computer represent? What does the shelf at the end of the room represent? What about the "models" that were burned by the flames and transformed here? What do they symbolize?

The cursor flickered, and the progress bar at the bottom of the screen suddenly cleared, and the browser's error message appeared in Zhou Ming's field of vision.

But he wasn't surprised.

After a brief thought, he typed a new message into the search box: annihilation.

The browser returns an error and the search fails.

Zhou Ming was not discouraged, and after thinking for a moment, he typed another keyword: the end of time.

Then there are new error messages, and then more keywords -

"Cosmic Collision", "Redshift", "Shelter", "Ancient Kings", "Age of the Deep", "Stars", ......

One keyword after another is constantly tried, and the error message on the screen remains the same.

After trying for an unknown number of times in a row, Zhou Ming finally gradually frowned, and as the last keyword "Zhou Ming" was exchanged for a new error message, he sighed softly, and a sense of loss rose in his heart.

"It" did not respond to itself, did not give any answer.

Unable to tell whether it was frustration or emptiness, Zhou Ming shook his head, leaned back on the back of the chair, and looked at the screen in front of him with tired eyes.

The tiny cursor still flickered in the search bar, as if waiting for him to type in a new keyword, or just let out a silent taunt.

Zhou Ming sat quietly like this for more than ten minutes, but suddenly, he stared at the flickering little cursor, and something seemed to suddenly remember in his mind.

He sat up straight all of a sudden, put his hand on the keyboard again, and typed another keyword—

"Inverse Singularity"

At the moment when he pressed enter, an illusory roar suddenly broke into Zhou Ming's mind, and then the screen in front of him fell into darkness.

(End of chapter)