Chapter 782: Vitality in the Hourglass
Frankly speaking, for a few brief seconds, Duncan even had a ridiculous and disturbing thought - was he too late?
Just because she was a little slow when setting off, or was delayed for a moment on the way, the Storm Goddess, who had been "delayed" in the state of death for ten thousand years, did not wait until she entered the door, and truly and completely died here? Her will has dissipated?
But this somewhat absurd idea quickly dissipated from Duncan's mind - he confirmed that until the Homeless Ship docked next to the island, Vanna had also "read" the mind of the storm goddess Gemona, which at least showed that At that time, the latter was still in some kind of "running" state...
It can't be such a coincidence, can it?
Duncan glanced up at Vanna with a subtle expression, but saw that Vanna also turned to look at him. Their eyes briefly touched, and then immediately turned away strangely.
"...Don't think so much, go down and take a look at the situation." Duncan pondered for two or three seconds, then took the lead to move forward, followed by the others.
They stepped into this circular "hall" that was so wide that it was suspected that it violated the rules of the architectural structure. They stepped onto the circular stairs that descended layer by layer, and walked towards the pool at the end of the stairs as if they were walking into a vortex. , the huge and pale tentacles of "Queen Leviathan" lie nearby, and the smaller branches extending from the tentacles have been fused with the black "stones" that make up this building like roots. And withered between the steps.
Duncan suddenly had a feeling. He felt that this huge palace and even the black island carrying the palace were like a huge, man-made "shell", and the ancient sea beast that had been endowed with "divine nature" was It was the flesh and blood in the shell. When the giant beast died, the flesh and blood withered and shrank, leaving many "chambers" - those corridors, rooms, and halls.
They walked in the "shell" of the giant beast, stepping on the cavities left after the flesh and blood withered, and came little by little to the stopped beating heart of the giant beast.
The green fire spread on the steps, dispersing the surrounding darkness. Duncan came to the location where the circular pool and the steps connected, and noticed that there was actually an arc-shaped stone platform slightly higher than the surrounding one. A mass of pale tissue, about the size of a neighborhood church roof, poked out of the pool and lay lifeless on the platform, and beside it, on the edge of the platform...
There were debris like tables, chairs, altars, and...human skeletons? !
Lucretia was the first to notice those skeletons. She was stunned for a moment, and came to the stone platform in a few steps. While observing carefully, she frowned and spoke slowly: "They are not standard human or elf skeletons, but Structurally similar to...at least some kind of humanoid creature."
Duncan also walked over, frowning and looking at the situation on the platform.
Those skeletons were too small compared to the body of Queen Leviathan, and they were scattered in a corner, so that no one noticed their existence when they first entered the hall.
"Who could... leave this behind?" Nina was a little nervous and fearful. She subconsciously hid behind Duncan, "The explorer who arrived before us? The Sea Song?"
"No, Miss Lucretia just said that these bones are not standard human or elf bones - I don't think they are Sen'jin. The Sen'jin's sternum is a whole bone plate," Abnormal 077 immediately broke the silence, "And I still remember... the sailors of the Sea Song finally melted into the fog and foam near the island, thus gaining 'peace'. It is impossible for them to leave any remains in the temple. "
Duncan did not speak, but looked solemnly at the other things scattered around the skeleton - some fragments of armor or clothing, some remnants of weapons and sacrificial utensils, and the small altar that had collapsed.
Fanna, who was next to him, suddenly noticed something and broke the silence softly: "These clothes... are very similar to what I saw in the vision, those who once made pilgrimages to this island..."
"Pilgrims on this island?" Duncan sounded a little surprised, "The generations before the Great Annihilation?!"
What Vanna saw in the vision was undoubtedly the scene when the storm goddess Gemona was still the "Leviathan Queen". It was left behind by a civilization that developed symbiotically with the Leviathan monster before the Great Annihilation. Records, like the elven civilization before the fall of Silantis, or the era in Tarijin's memory... Can the "material" from that time survive to this day?
Duncan looked at the relics scattered around the bones with a hint of amazement - outside the palace, everything in the old era had long turned into that weird black shriveled substance, or as the sailor described it, turned into fog and The foam in the sea changes into a form that humans cannot recognize.
Why are these bones and relics preserved?
At this moment, Alice's voice suddenly came to mind, interrupting Duncan's thinking: "Captain, look! What is this?"
Duncan immediately came to the doll, and following the direction of the latter's finger, he saw an object covered with dust and torn pieces of cloth in the corner of the altar.
It was a strange, delicate and ancient hourglass.
After a slight hesitation, Duncan reached out, picked up the hourglass and blew away the dust.
The complex symbols and text on the surface of the hourglass are clearly visible.
"An hourglass?" Morris looked at the thing in the captain's hand in surprise. The lens group extending out of the eye sockets expanded and adjusted, and then he seemed to notice some kind of violation, "Strange..."
Fanna subconsciously said: "What's weird?"
Morris thought for a while: "... I feel that the style is different from the overall style of this temple, especially the words on the hourglass... There are also many runes on the outer wall of the temple, but they are obviously not a unified system with the ones on the hourglass. This thing is different. Kind of like..."
Listening to the old scholar's analysis, Duncan was thoughtful, and then he suddenly noticed something:
The overall outline of the hourglass looks like two inverted triangles when viewed from the side. The shape formed by the decorative outer frame and the inner hourglass body seems to be... Bartok's door.
"...like some of the holy weapons of the Church of Death!" Morris said quickly.
The Holy Artifact of the Church of Death...a creation of Bartok, the God of Death?
Duncan's expression condensed, and then he vaguely guessed something. Then thinking about the bones and relics preserved in this palace, he gradually came up with an idea.
After a moment of contemplation, he turned around and stared at the lifeless remains of the giant beast beside the pool, and then gently turned over the hourglass in his hand.
The light golden sofa in the hourglass makes a soft rustling sound that cannot be detected by human ears. Quicksand falls from the container like mist and flows between the two mutually inverted "Death Doors".
The next second, the whole world quieted down, as if there was some kind of force that separated the world into two parts: life and death. Everything in Duncan's field of vision turned into the black and white gray tones of the spiritual world, and a mist spread out at the boundaries of everything. There were layers of phantoms that kept shaking, and in the phantom, everyone's figures disappeared, leaving only himself holding the hourglass next to the stone platform, and...the skeletons that were rapidly reorganizing and growing flesh and blood.
The remains turned into living people - two tall men in armor with serious faces and seemingly taciturn, and a young woman in white robes looking at her with a smile.
Duncan looked at the three figures who were "reversing life and death" in front of him in surprise, but before he spoke, the woman in white robe shook her head at him and quietly retreated to the side.
At the edge of the pool, the huge pale body like a church roof swayed slightly, and then its surface shimmered like water, and a gentle voice came into Duncan's mind -
"We finally meet, Fire Usurper."
"Gemona?" Duncan reacted immediately and glanced at the hourglass in his hand in surprise, "...I didn't expect it to actually work. I just gave it a try."
"Yes, thank you for your casual try - in the time flow in the temple, I am in a state of complete death, and the hourglass preserves a short period of life, allowing me to talk to you if necessary... …Bartók once said when he was building the hourglass, you will definitely turn it over.”
Listening to the gentle voice ringing in his mind, Duncan suddenly raised his eyebrows in surprise: "Wait, you mean... you know I will definitely come, I will turn this hourglass over, I will definitely talk to you here... …Is everything doomed?”
"The day this shelter was born, its time was already closed. The Fire Usurper... In our eyes, the time in this narrow dwelling is not a river or a line. It is an unobstructed view. Plane - on this unfolding 'Scroll of Time', everything that may happen has ended..."
The gentle voice paused for a few seconds, then continued softly:
"As for you, Fire Usurper, your arrival is the only event at the end of this scroll of time that is certain to happen, but cannot be determined how it will end."
"I have learned a lot about the issue of time flow...I can imagine what you are talking about, but it is difficult to connect it to reality in the first place," Duncan said, raising his head and looking around the place, "In the temple Time flow... No wonder, after we stepped into this temple, neither I nor Fanna could sense your 'activities' anymore, and after seeing those on the platform..."
When he said this, he subconsciously glanced at the figures standing aside, and then quickly looked away.
"After seeing those bones, I vaguely guessed that there seemed to be some kind of 'difference' between the inside and outside of this temple - after stepping here, we seemed to have entered a unique 'choice'. Why is this? "
"In order to delay the 'rot' of the external barrier," Gemona said softly, "We are rotting, Fire Usurper, we must find a way to 'lock' our own rot, otherwise we will not be able to wait until the life of the shelter reaches its limit. The world is about to be eroded by the 'fester' we unleash."