Alice looked excited.

Now she was staring at everything in this place with wide eyes and curiosity, if Duncan hadn't stopped her, she might have even run into the black fog at the end of the hall, and she pulled Duncan to ask this and that, from the cables hanging from the ceiling to the door not far away - under Duncan's very patient explanation, she had figured out that this was inside the "Alice Mansion", and it was a "special Alice Mansion", and this incredible experience was obviously regarded by her as a very interesting one." adventure".

"That's amazing...... That's what Alice's Mansion looks like," Miss Doll smiled happily as she walked around the platform where she had been sitting at the beginning, "is this really my house?" So big? It's just a pity I can't move in......"

"First, this is only a part of Alice's Mansion, strictly speaking, it should be a hall inside," Duncan couldn't help but remind, looking at the puppets in the circle around him, "Second, the other Alice's Mansion doesn't look like this, and there is a garden in the corresponding position over there—I judge that opening the door with a different key will lead to a different Alice Mansion." ”

"Oooh......" Alice nodded as she listened, not knowing if she had really listened.

Duncan's gaze quickly fell on the sketchpad that Alice was holding in her arms.

Before Alice's consciousness awoke, the tablet was held in the puppet's arms, and she still subconsciously holds it all the time - Duncan still remembers very well that in "Another Version of Alice's Mansion", the sketchpad held by the puppet in the garden depicts the scene of "Doomsday Red Shift", so here, what would be on this canvas?

"Alice, show me your sketchpad." He said suddenly.

"Sketchpad?" The puppet was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted, and then realized that he was holding something in his arms, and hurriedly ran over and handed the sketchpad to the captain, "Here!" ”

Duncan took the tablet and flipped to its front, frowning.

On the front of the "drawing board" was a screen, full of lines and symbols that even he couldn't understand, and countless dense, constantly refreshing data flowed around those lines and symbols, as if extremely complex calculations and reconstructions were being carried out every moment.

Duncan looked at these with a frown, and suddenly vaguely guessed something in his heart, and at this time, Alice also came over curiously, squeezed her head next to Duncan's shoulder to look at the content on the "drawing board", and suddenly let out a long-term exclamation: "Oh......"

Duncan immediately looked up: "Do you know what this is?" ”

"Location, our current coordinates relative to the overall structure of the sanctuary," Alice said without thinking, and then, without waiting for the captain to continue asking, she added with a look of pride in her face, "What do I mean by that?" ”

Duncan: "......"

He found that since he woke up Alice here, the words of the puppet made him more and more unsure of how to take the stubble!

But Alice's response at least confirmed his guess: this is the route!

The "route" opened by the navigation key handed over to her by Queen Leviathan is indeed on the sleeping "puppet" in the mansion, which is this "drawing board"!

The puppet on the side curiously observed the change in Duncan's expression, and tilted his head in confusion: "Captain? Why don't you ignore me? ”

"Alice," Duncan suddenly awoke from his contemplation and looked at the puppet lady in front of him with a serious expression, "If that's right, this is the 'route' to the various nodes of the outer barrier, do you know how to 'use' it?" ”

Alice was stunned, and with some hesitation, she took the sketchpad from Duncan's hand, slid her fingers over the "screen" that was constantly refreshing data and lines, and after a while muttered as if to herself, "I seem to ...... Know? But it seems that it needs to be studied......"

She frowned and raised her head: "I feel like the 'usage method' is in my heart, and I can activate something by instinct, but it takes a process...... Don't worry, it won't be long. ”

When the puppet explained this, Duncan suddenly noticed something, and he immediately looked up, and saw that the "tree" composed of countless cables and pipes connecting the dome and the platform had moved—

Countless flowing shimmers of light quickly became bright and active between its "branches", and many cables that had been hidden in the darkness appeared on the edge of its "canopy" as if out of thin air, and extended into the black fog around the hall, and a low humming sound came from those fogs, as if something was activating and gradually increasing its power......

The doll's fingers slid over the lines and symbols on the canvas, and the rapidly flowing data emerged from her, floating in the air like a ghost, and she gradually stopped talking, as if all her "attention" was immersed in the work thread.

Duncan suddenly heard a voice, it was Alice's voice, but it didn't come from the puppet's mouth, but directly from some "radio device" above the hall:

"Host Boot ...... The star map is being analyzed, and the star map is authorized by ...... Pilot 1 ......"

Duncan watched this scene in amazement but not unexpectedly, and there was a faint expectation in his heart at some point, but at this moment, a noise suddenly came into his ears, and then the glow flowing on the "tree" and the humming sound of equipment in all directions quickly subsided.

"Parsing paused...... Unauthorized access detected. ”

Duncan's eyes changed slightly, and then he saw that Alice was also stunned for a moment, and then she raised her head as if she had woken up: "Captain, there is a knock on the door!" ”

Someone's knocking on the door?!

Duncan reacted immediately, and almost at the same time, he heard the knock on the door—it was not loud, but it seemed to ignore distance and attenuation, and came directly and clearly into his ears from a long distance.

The knocker is very patient, and the rhythm repeats itself as if it were mechanical.

Alice jumped off the platform with a drawing board and came to Duncan's side a little nervously: "Captain, do you want to open the door?" ”

“…… Follow me," Duncan said with a serious expression on his face, after a moment's thought, and then reminded him, "Take the sketchpad and don't let it get out of your hands." ”

"Oh...... Good! ”

Alice agreed with some panic, and followed the captain's footsteps, and hurried to the door not far away.

The two of them left the dimly lit navigation hall, and under Duncan's leadership, they stepped into the extraordinarily long corridor, passing through silent rooms and porches, and quickly advanced to the main hall on the first floor of the mansion.

The knock on the door still continued patiently, as if it were knocking directly on the bottom of the heart.

Duncan inexplicably thought of the knock he heard at the door of his bachelor apartment, of the Queen of Frost who had come to visit her through the fog—and then put the vague association behind him for a moment.

Alice, holding her sketchpad, followed the captain almost at a trot, looking in amazement at the corridors, the narrow windows, and the wooden doors that led to nowhere, as if she had a stomach full of questions, but she didn't bother to speak.

The building was so large that if it weren't for the captain leading the way, she figured she might even get lost here.

Then, they finally arrived at the main hall of the mansion.

The gloomy, towering door stood like a giant at the end of the dark red carpet, and the knocks kept coming from outside the door, bang, bang.

Duncan frowned and led the doll to the door.

He tried to sense the breath outside the door, but it felt like nothing outside, he didn't feel hostility, he didn't feel danger—not even a concrete "being".

The knock seemed to be urging, and in the midst of weighing and hesitating, Duncan put his hand on the door.

He remembered what the headless butler had said to himself—

"Don't open the door, it's the end of the world."

Alice stood nervously behind the captain, obediently clutching the sketchpad in her arms, looking at the gloomy and towering door.

A creaking sound reached her ears.

Duncan cautiously pushed the door open with a force in his hand—and then he found it lighter than he had imagined.

It was not locked, it was not rusty, and despite its creaking sound, the gate was as light as a feather—and as it opened, a ray of sunlight pierced the darkness and pierced through the door into the eyes of Duncan and Alice.

A brilliant sun burned in the void, and the bright and fierce sunlight shone on the façade and the main entrance of Alice's Mansion, but this fierce sunlight did not pierce anyone's eyes.

Duncan felt a sense of familiarity in the sunlight, and then he saw the magnificent sun wheel slowly turning in his vision—the corona was fading, and beneath the burning shell was the true face of the old gods.

Countless pale and dying tentacles and swollen flesh piled up into stars, supporting the burning shell, and a huge one-eyed was surrounded by tentacles, slowly adjusting its angle to look at the two figures standing at the door of the mansion.

Creep Sun Wheel, Black Sun, the "real Sun God" in the mouth of the Sunists - it is it knocking on the door.

"I'm almost giving up," a weak voice reached Duncan's ears before he could speak, and the corona-scorched Old God said with cascading tremors, "I'm about to leave." ”

Duncan stared blankly (actually because he was a little dazed by accident) at the mass of "old gods" floating in the void, whose specific distance and scale could not be judged with the naked eye, and after a long time spoke: "...... The house is big and it takes a long time to walk from the innermost to the door after hearing a knock. ”

His voice fell, and Alice next to him also nodded: "Yes, it's big!" We ran in the hallway for half a day! ”

The misshapen sun fell silent, and it took several seconds before it spoke again: "Well, that makes sense. ”

(End of chapter)