The light and shadow collapsed again - the spacious hall and the huge device at the end of the hall suddenly disintegrated into countless fragments of light and shadow, and collapsed again into a dim cave like an avalanche. Everything seemed to be a short dream, a chaotic projection of another real world in the current dimension.
Yet Duncan knew that he had really “seen” it, and could still see it.
He looked into the depths of the dim cave and blinked several times - in each extremely brief moment, in each blink, he could see something emerging at the moment his eyelids closed and darkness fell, and it was the magnificent hall.
He gradually realized that two realities were superimposed here, superimposed deep underground on this holy island. The "reality" at a deeper level could not be observed by ordinary means, but it would appear within 0.002 seconds every time he blinked.
For no reason, the unit "0.002 seconds" emerged in Duncan's mind, and he was sure that it was the exact time when he saw the hall every time he blinked - a moment that was almost impossible for the human eye to capture, but enough to be reflected in his perception.
He turned around and looked at the "relief" on the wall beside him. The next time he blinked, he saw a lifelike bird creature appear in the sample containment tank. Then darkness surged, reality switched, and it turned into a relief on the wall again - it was a hideous and twisted "death bird".
Alice seemed to notice the change in Duncan's expression. She was a little worried: "Captain? Are you okay... Your expression suddenly looks so serious..."
"... LH-01 failed to put everything in the database into the shelter. Those that failed to be generated during the Genesis process remained in the original 'hatching place'," Duncan suddenly whispered, "... This 'shelter' should have been larger and more complete, but it failed..."
Morris looked at Duncan in astonishment, and suddenly realized: "What did you touch?"
"There is another appearance here, that is what it looked like before the Great Oblivion... but you can't see it or touch it," Duncan raised his hand and gently pressed it on the stone wall next to him. When the green spirit fire spread into the cracks in the stone, he could vaguely feel that he was touching more than just the cold stones. "Two realities are superimposed here, but the one that is closer to the original form has almost been completely swallowed up by the Great Oblivion. It can only exist briefly every time I blink."
Morris was struggling to understand the incredible "state" described by Duncan, who had already raised his head and looked deeper into the cave.
"There should be a 'contact point' here," Duncan said in a deep voice, "Those cultists must have touched something here."
As he spoke, he took a step into the darkness, and as the green flames slowly spread, he walked towards the end of the "hall".
Maurice and Alice immediately followed the Captain.
…
Agou lowered his head tiredly and followed Shirley silently. The blood-red light in his eyes flickered, and the sound of the chain rubbing against the ground seemed to have turned into some distant noise. He walked forward for a while, and suddenly raised his head belatedly, only to find that Shirley had walked a long way forward - the girl's back looked blurry, and the edges kept shaking, as if something unstable was superimposed on her.
Agou shook his head, and his empty mind seemed to lose the ability to think and judge for a short time, but the next moment, he suddenly woke up again and found himself following Shirley closely as usual - the scene of the two of them being far apart just now was like a bizarre illusion and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Shirley lowered her head in confusion and saw Agou walking with her.
She felt a tingling sensation in her arm again, and a burning sensation flowing toward her along the symbiotic chain, like... freshly shed blood.
"Agou?" She said hesitantly in a low voice - she was not sure whether she made a sound or was simply calling out in her heart through the symbiotic link.
Agou did not respond. All Shirley heard were two sounds of "plop" and "plop".
It sounded like a heartbeat.
Something is not right... I don't know what it is, but something is not right!
Shirley's whole body tensed up all of a sudden. The moment she realized something was wrong, she reacted and looked up at the captain: "Captain! What's Agou's situation..."
There was no sign of the captain.
In the dark cave, only her own voice echoed and soon turned into a vague noise. The captain was gone, and the figures of Maurice and Alice were also gone. There were only her and Agou here, as if they were the only ones there from the beginning.
Shirley instantly gasped. The vast and boundless darkness turned into an even greater fear. This fear was so familiar that she once thought she had forgotten the feeling that penetrated into her bones. But now everything suddenly reappeared in her mind. Fire, smoke, the smell of blood, the sound of something collapsing, something gnawing at her flesh and blood...
She opened her eyes wide in horror in the darkness. Bone-like structures gradually emerged from her arms, shoulders, and spine. A bloody glow filled her eyes, gradually distorting everything in her vision. In her increasingly distorted perception, she heard a slightly unfamiliar voice suddenly coming from the side: "Shirley... I feel... a little cold..."
She slowly turned her head and looked in the direction where the sound came from.
Agou was sinking slowly - sinking in the soil and rocks, as if melting, its body was gradually swallowed by the ground. The ground seemed to come alive, with sticky and slow ripples on the surface. The ripples seemed to contain billions of living things. Agou's figure sank into those "living things" bit by bit, first the limbs, then the body, and now only the neck and part of the head were left.
It opened its mouth towards Shirley, the skeleton opening and closing, as if it was speaking something with difficulty, or as if it was trying to spit something out -
"Ah dog!!!"
Shirley's numb and rigid mind finally began to function. She finally remembered the name on the other end of the chain. She rushed towards the ground that was gradually coming alive, pulling the chain on her arm with all her strength while shouting, "Agou! I'll pull you out! Just hold on!"
However, her efforts were unable to stop Agou from sinking - just as the Deep Hound's head was about to be completely swallowed by the sticky mud, a voice suddenly came into her ears.
"... Shirley, my dad and I are going to buy you a cake. Today is your birthday... When we come back, you won't be angry anymore, okay?"
The girl was suddenly stunned.
The sound coming from the other end of the chain briefly interrupted her sanity - and at the moment her sanity was interrupted, she heard a crisp breaking sound.
My hand suddenly felt light.
The figure of the Deep Hound completely disappeared in the mud. The heavy pulling force from the end of the chain suddenly disappeared, and Shirley staggered and fell backwards.
She saw the other end of the chain flying out of the mud - it had broken, and there was no familiar Agou at the end of the broken chain. Only two fist-sized things were carried out of the mud and landed beside her one after another.
They flopped on the ground as if they were alive.
Those are two hearts.
Shirley stared at the scene in a daze, motionless like a sculpture.
The dark mud began to slowly surge, gathering from all directions. It seemed as if an illusion of a distant land appeared in the mud, and countless strange and hideous shadows floated around.
In the deep sea, countless demons noticed that an uninvited guest was approaching their dimension.
And in the even more distant darkness, an incomparably huge structure is sleeping. Its main body stretches across the broken earth like a mountain range, and its winding tentacles are entangled with countless floating islands. A dark blue light surges on its body surface, and countless demons are spawned from the surface of the tentacles, and are constantly devoured by it every moment.
However, Shirley seemed not to see the approaching illusions - she sat on the ground blankly for a while, finally slowly got up, crawled towards the two still beating hearts, then carefully picked them up and held them in her arms.
She hadn't hugged them in a long time.
"Dad...Mom..."
Darkness swarmed in, and her figure disappeared into the deep sea.
…
Duncan suddenly turned his head and looked at the open space not far behind him.
A vague figure flashed there and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
He reacted instantly: "Something happened to Shirley!"
"Shirley!?" Morris, who was walking behind Duncan, was stunned for a moment when he heard the words, as if in this brief moment, he even forgot the name "Shirley", and the captain's words instantly reset his memory to the correct "position". Then he raised his head belatedly and realized that there was one person missing in the team... and a deep demon.
"Hey! She was walking next to me just now!" Alice also reacted at this time, staring at the place where Shirley and Agou were before, "I heard her talking to Agou..."
Duncan's expression suddenly became serious: "Didn't you notice when she disappeared?"
Maurice and Alice shook their heads one after another.
Duncan frowned immediately, and after a very brief thought, he waved his hand violently in the air.
The dark green spiritual flame rose up in the blink of an eye, accompanied by a series of explosions that were almost roaring, and the flames roared like a storm and rolled towards every corner of the cave!
The roar of the flames seemed to shake time and space itself. The entire cave, and even the entire Holy Island, trembled violently at this moment. After this "tremor" that almost shook the dimension, Duncan's face quickly turned gloomy.
"The marks on Shirley and Agou are still there," he raised his head and looked at Morris with a serious expression, "... but they are separated."
(End of this chapter)