When the submersible's light swept across the surroundings, all the shapes floating in the dark seawater came into Duncan's field of vision - people, countless people, floating in the water.
However, as Duncan observed carefully, he discovered the strangeness of these human bodies.
They have no facial features, not even clear hands and feet, and no clothing on their bodies - they are just "shapes" with roughly human outlines, with a rough texture and a pitch-black color on the surface.
It's like a rough doll made from black mud and made using clumsy and rough techniques.
Duncan told Agatha the details of what he saw.
"Only outlines?" Agatha's tone was filled with surprise, "But in my eyes... they exude spiritual aura like living people in the city..."
Duncan did not speak, but frowned slightly, carefully controlling the submersible to approach a "human figure" floating not far from the porthole.
The water flow driven by the submersible disturbed the calmness in the deep sea. The pitch-black human-shaped object slowly rolled at an angle in the seawater. Its flat and smooth spherical "head" first turned towards the porthole, and then became stubby and bare, as if it was unfinished.
General arm structure.
The mechanical arm slowly stretched forward, and the grapple at the end was placed on the torso of the human body, and it was carefully fiddled with.
It was completely unresponsive and showed no "alive" characteristics.
Duncan raised his head again and looked through the porthole at the quietly floating figures in the distance, watching them continue to extend into the distance in the light, and finally disappear into the darkness of the deep sea.
How many are there? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or tens of millions?
Suddenly, memories came to mind, and Duncan remembered a detail he had heard when discussing the abyss plan with Tirian - the No. 3 submersible surfaced crazily during the last deep dive, and the frantic explorer was returning.
After reaching the sun, he shouted frantically:
"We all died there!"
Duncan frowned little by little and looked solemnly at the countless human bodies floating quietly outside the porthole - was this the scene the explorer saw before he fell into madness?
Agatha on the side suddenly broke the silence, with a serious tone in her tone: "This reminds me of...the 'counterfeits' that invaded the city-state before."
"I thought about it too," Duncan nodded lightly, "but it's not like that - even if those fakes show all kinds of inhuman features, they at least have detailed structures such as facial features, hands and feet, and they will try their best to imitate them.
Humans wear normal clothes, but the 'humanoids' here only have the most basic outlines. If I have to say... they are more like 'rough parts' that are even cruder than fakes."
"Some kind of semi-finished product?" Agatha suddenly thought, "Are those fakes 'manufactured' based on this 'rough blank'?"
"It's hard to say," Duncan said with uncertainty in his tone. "These things may have been floating in the deep sea for many, many years. At least they were already there when the Abyss Project was launched. In addition, the power to invade the city-state is with the help of the 'mirror image'
'The characteristics of the product intervene in reality, but this is the 'entity' in the deep sea. There is a connection between the two, but it should not be a direct relationship between 'semi-finished product' and 'finished product'."
Agatha listened thoughtfully, and for some reason, she suddenly recalled in her mind what the cultist said when she confronted them before -
"There were no fakes from the beginning, or...we are all fakes..."
At almost the same time, Duncan seemed to have thought of something. He looked beyond the floating human bodies to the unknown deep sea below, and then stretched out his hand towards the joystick.
Some devices deep in the mechanical room made low roars and sounds as if they were dying, and there was an overwhelming creaking noise from the hull. Along with the sound of water injection, the submersible began to continue its descent.
Agatha listened to the terrifying noises coming from all around and couldn't help but look at Duncan: "Captain, can this thing still hold up?"
Duncan's eyes scanned the various instruments on the control panel, and he sensed the weak message conveyed to him by the spiritual fire. His hand that pulled the dive control lever did not relax.
"You can still hold on," he said in a deep voice, "We should be there soon."
"Almost there?" Agatha was stunned, "Do you know what's down here?"
Duncan did not answer, but continued to carefully control the submersible to dive downwards, while adjusting the angle of the propeller extremely minutely - the hull that was on the verge of reaching its limit was making a creepy noise almost every second.
Even the edges connecting the portholes to the hull began to make terrible creaking sounds, as if the fragile balance would be broken in the next second, and the entire submersible would turn into a ball of wrinkles under the weight of the seawater.
Metal.
But it continues to dive, on the narrow blade of collapse and balance, continuing to dive into the darkest place.
But the noise coming from the hull and the mechanical room is not the only scary sound, there is another sound that is even more creepy - it is the real impact sound that is constantly coming from outside the hull:
"Bang", "Bang", "Bang"...
Humanoid objects that looked like black mud would hit the submersible's shell from time to time, like rocks hitting the skull, and the dull sound sounded particularly terrifying.
Even Agatha couldn't help but grasp the handrail in front of her.
She could feel that the submersible was tilting forward as a whole, and the tilt angle had reached the point where it was difficult to stand still without holding on to the handrails.
Then, she suddenly "saw" something appear outside the porthole.
An undulating, seemingly endless chaotic outline appeared at the edge of the searchlight beam and near the lower edge of the porthole.
It looked... like a piece of earth.
"Under the sea?" Agatha exclaimed in surprise, "I saw something... is that the bottom of the sea?"
Duncan stared silently outside the porthole, looking at the undulating land surface that suddenly appeared in the dark deep sea, looking at its rugged "coast" and the hazy structures that could not be seen clearly in the distance. After a long time, he gently shook his head: "
It's not the bottom of the sea, we're far from touching the so-called 'bottom of the sea' - that's a piece of land floating in the water."
Agatha said with confusion: "Land floating in the water?"
"...Another Frost Island," Duncan replied softly, "Although I can only see a small section of the coastline clearly, I am familiar with the terrain. That is the Frost Island - there is no city-state, no port, and no buildings.
, Frost Island in its original form.”
Agatha's body visibly shook slightly.
Duncan raised his head and looked at the water around and above the "Frost Island".
Countless humanoid objects float around the "deep sea floating island", like a swarm of bees surrounding a hive.
And this scene is sealed like amber in the deep, dark and cold depths of the sea, as if the years have been pressed on the pause button, quietly frozen in an extremely ancient moment.
In the third long night, the "Creep King" gave the blueprint to the cluster and began the work of creation. In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the King of Dreams and the King of Pale Giants, he divided the blueprint so that there would no longer be any in the world.
The country was transformed into 1,200 cities...
Civilization continued after the third long night, and the Deep Sea Age began. Everything in the Deep Sea Age was built on the "Twelve Hundred Cities" blueprint of the Creeping King.
Part of what was recorded in the "book of blasphemy" has been confirmed.
But are there other possibilities?
Duncan's thoughts were swirling in his mind and he fell into silence for a moment, but Agatha next to him had already reacted. After realizing the meaning of the "original blueprint", she spoke in disbelief: "You mean... today's frost
And the Frost People, and even all the city-states and mortals in this world... are all based on these 'things' in the deep sea..."
"This is a possibility," Duncan shook his head slightly and said in a deep voice, "The creation process of Holy Lord Netherworld is recorded in the heretical theory of the Annihilation Cult. This is certainly a heresy, but it is undeniable that in their hands
The ancient classics may also reveal part of the truth about history.”
Agatha opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
From the moment she dived into the deep sea, the world she knew seemed to be undergoing an earth-shaking reshaping. There were too many shakes and too many doubts, making it difficult for the tenacious gatekeeper to clarify his thoughts for a while.
.
Primitive island "templates" floating in the deep sea, countless humanoid "rough blanks"... If the Annihilation Cult's statement about "The Holy Lord of the Deep created the world" is true, then... wouldn't all living beings in the world be equivalent to
A creation of the Holy Lord Netherworld?
Even after experiencing the mirror crisis of Frost and re-stabilizing her faith and strengthening her faith in the huge test, Agatha still found it difficult to accept this "possibility" that was too challenging to her three views.
But she did not blindly deny everything she saw amid the huge contradiction and hesitation.
The moment she decided to take this deep dive, she was mentally prepared——
In the deep sea, anything is possible.
"Should we... continue to get closer?" She turned her head and said to Duncan in as calm a tone as possible.
Duncan didn't touch the joystick again.
His eyes scanned the many instruments on the control panel.
His perception pervades the submersible.
"...The limit has been reached," he said. "The submersible's outer shell cannot support it."
"...We are obviously just shy of the last point," Agatha said with obvious regret, "We are about to touch that floating island in the sea..."
"It's okay, it's just that the submersible can't support it," Duncan shook his head slightly and looked out the window, "There is something here that can support it."
Agatha turned her head in confusion.
Duncan was still staring out the window quietly, watching those... humanoid things floating in the light.
"I remember you just said that in your eyes, these 'rough' humanoid objects exude a spiritual aura like living people."
Outside the porthole, a "human-shaped thing" with a rough outline slowly turned its head towards Agatha.