After standing in front of this "room" composed entirely of chaotic lines and blocks of color for a long time, Duncan turned his head slightly and observed the reaction of the goat head on the table with the corner of his eye.
From the perspective of that "goat head", it should be able to see the scene in the room now - he wanted to know how the goat head would react after seeing this strange and disordered room.
But it didn't react at all. It just continued to stare calmly in Duncan's direction with its emotionless dark eyes, like a real piece of wood when it didn't make any sound.
Duncan turned around, and after a brief hesitation, he finally took a step towards the strange room made up of chaotic lines.
At the same time, he was also prepared to forcibly ignite the fire, wake up Silandis and escape from this "dream" if the situation was not right.
But the worst-case scenario did not happen.
He stepped through the door, and a layer of translucent ripples like water appeared faintly in the whole chaotic room, and then there was no other reaction. The room itself did not collapse, and he himself did not seem to be affected by the chaotic colors and lines.
Duncan walked deeper into the room and closed the door behind him. The door finally blocked out the disturbing silent gaze of the strange "goat head".
Chaotic colored lines extended under his feet, and the furniture that was outlined by the lines and looked like something but not really was was all around him. Duncan carefully observed everything in the room, feeling an extremely weird atmosphere all around him. After a moment, his eyes finally fell on a corner of the "room".
Several translucent colored lines were shaking there, connecting to each other to form a geometric outline. The center of the shaking outline seemed to be filled with a layer of calm water, faintly reflecting the surrounding scene.
Duncan walked to the geometric outline, stretched out his hand and gently brushed across the calm "water surface". Wisps of dark green flames spread across the plane. After a moment, the scene reflected on the surface became clear - it turned into a mirror.
The next second, a shadow appeared in the center of the mirror, and Agatha's figure quietly emerged from it.
The lady in the mirror looked at the weird and chaotic place outside the mirror in astonishment.
"This... is this what's behind that door?!"
Duncan nodded slightly: "Yes, this is the situation inside the door - the 'deepest part' here."
"This place looks... so weird," Agatha frowned, "How could this be?"
Duncan seemed to have figured out some things. He said calmly, "Because on the Lost Homeland in the real world, Goat Head never dared to peek into the captain's bedroom. He didn't know what the room looked like."
At least, it didn't know what happened inside the room after the "Captain" moved into it - this was the part that Duncan didn't say in his mind.
Agatha instantly understood the profound meaning of Duncan's words.
"You mean... this 'Lost Homeland' was indeed 'created' by the goat head in the real world?" She said quickly, "It turned the shadow of the Lost Homeland into this ship sailing in the darkness and fog, but it can't restore the parts of the ship that it doesn't understand..."
At this point, Agatha suddenly frowned and couldn't help shaking her head: "But in the real world, Goat Head acted as if he knew nothing about this, and how did he do all this..."
"Perhaps it really knows nothing," Duncan said calmly, his eyes slowly sweeping around. "I now have a bold guess: this ship may be a dream of it."
"Its dream?!" Agatha was stunned when she heard this. Then she remembered something and showed a puzzled look on her face. "But it clearly said that it never dreams, and even never rests. And I have personally seen that the first mate is always awake, including when the Nameless Man's dream appeared last time, it was also at the helm, just like usual."
"Because it doesn't know it's dreaming at all, or even that it will dream, or even..." Duncan paused for a moment, and an even bolder idea than before came to his mind. He hesitated for a few seconds before speaking softly as if talking to himself, "Perhaps our 'first mate' has never woken up."
After realizing the meaning of the captain's words, Agatha slowly opened her eyes.
Duncan was silent for a moment before speaking again: "Well, now there is only one last question."
Agatha repeated subconsciously: "One last question?"
Duncan raised his head and looked at the door standing in the middle of the chaotic lines. His eyes seemed to pass through the door and stared at the "goat head" on the table outside. After a long while, he spoke to himself: "Sasloka is dead, he died a long, long time ago..."
…
Night fell in the desert - very, very suddenly, and the surroundings became dim. The sourceless light that originally filled the sky disappeared in an instant as if absorbed by something, and the quiet night covered the entire sea of sand and the vast ruins in the sea of sand.
Now, the only thing left in the sky was a huge and disturbing dark red "crack". The crack was like blood and its edges were like fog. It covered the sky and exuded a huge sense of oppression.
Even an Inquisitor with a strong will like Vanna subconsciously avoided looking up at the "Scar of the World".
But the giants in the same industry seem to have adapted to all this long ago.
At the edge of the city's ruins, they found a corner that was not afraid of wind and sand. This place used to be part of a majestic building, but now only a few molten and twisted dark walls remained. The giant picked up many gray-white stones from the nearby ruins. He piled them in a corner of the sheltered place, then picked up two of the stones and knocked them patiently.
The dark and silent desert and the dark red and depressing scars of the world seemed to no longer exist to him. It seemed that only the knocking stones remained in his eyes. The "da, da, da" knocking sounds echoed monotonously in the night and spread far away.
Vanna sat under the wall in a sheltered place, watching the giant's actions curiously. After a long time, she couldn't help but ask: "What are you doing?"
"Start a fire," the giant said calmly, "the nights will be cold here."
"... But those are just stones," Vanna looked at the gray-white stones collected by the giant, her tone full of doubt, "... Are they stones that can burn?"
"It's just ordinary stones," the giant said without looking back. "There is nothing else here, only sand and stones."
Fanna opened her mouth: "Then..."
Before she could finish her words, she was interrupted by a sudden burst of sparks - tiny sparks burst out from the stones struck by the giant's hands, fell on the pale stone piles on the ground, and then turned into flames, and bright flames rose from the rocks and gradually became stronger.
Vanna looked at this scene in confusion.
"Fire and stone are the most important things," the giant quietly watched the fire burning in the rock, as if he was talking to Vanna, or to himself, "The ignited fire is an eye opened in the night, and the broken stones are far better than sharp teeth and claws. When they lit the branches and hit the stones against each other, incredible things happened..."
The giant turned his head and lowered his eyes: "Traveler, do you know? The history of civilization began with fire and stone."
Vanna listened to the giant's words as if she understood them not quite, and nodded slowly.
Her academic performance was not very good, but she was not so bad that she could not understand what the giant said. She just didn't understand... why the giant suddenly said this to her.
Does this have anything to do with "stones can light fires"
But the giant obviously had no intention of explaining further, and he soon returned to his "work" - he put his hand deep into the pile of stones, as if he didn't care about the burning flames at all. He took out a piece of burnt black stone from the fire and knocked off one corner of it, making it have a sharp point. Then, the giant picked up the huge staff that had been placed aside before, and using the sharp corner of the stone, he began to patiently carve something on the surface of the staff.
The texture of the long staff is hard, while the sharp corners of the stone are fragile and easy to break. Therefore, the giant's carving work is very slow. It often takes many times to leave a not too deep mark on the staff, and he also has to frequently re-strike the stone to make a new "carving knife".
The surface of that huge staff was covered with dense carvings... Was that how those carvings were made?!
Even after just watching for a while, Vanna realized that this was an almost difficult, slow and hopelessly slow job. She couldn't imagine how long the giant had taken and how much amazing patience he had to leave those countless scratches on the huge cane - she felt that even if she had an endless life, she probably wouldn't be able to do such a thing!
But the giant just carved silently and patiently, using the only tool he could find in this dead world - stone burned by fire.
Vanna finally couldn't help but break the silence: "... What are you doing?"
"Record," the giant said slowly, "record those things I still remember, record what has happened in this world."
He stopped, placed the staff in front of Vanna, raised his hand and pointed at the end of the staff, where there was a string of fine symbols.
“Here, they learned to use fire.”
The giant spoke softly, with a hint of pride in his tone.
Vanna looked in the direction of the giant's finger and saw the fine symbols - it was only now that she could see their details.
Simple lines outline two small human figures, who are standing in front of an abstract picture of a fire, with their hands raised high, as if they are cheering and jumping, or as if they are worshiping the fire.
For some reason, Vanna suddenly felt a heavy force pressing on her heart. She subconsciously looked up along the cane, looking at the densely packed symbols. Soon, she found that they were not all pictograms. As she moved up along the cane, the pictograms gradually turned into abstract and unfamiliar words. The words gradually evolved into various forms. Some of them were differentiated into letters, while others still retained the structure of pictures...
Her gaze finally rested on a small blank space at the end of the cane, where a campfire was crackling and the flames were reflecting and jumping.
Vanna slowly raised her head, her eyes moving along the rough stone and skinny arms, finally falling on the giant's face.
The wrinkled face was gazing calmly at the fire beside him, motionless, like another stone.
(End of this chapter)