Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 835 The Real Appearance of the Mansion

After hearing the captain's order, Alice immediately thought very seriously - and then looked into Duncan's eyes more seriously: "What is an escape pod?"

Duncan was not surprised at all. He would be panicking if this puppet lady really failed to let him down one day. However, the current situation was not a big problem, because he had confirmed after several incidents that although "Alice" might be confused about many things, the operating status of "Navigation No. 3" was actually still online. That ancient and powerful space navigation system... was in Alice's "instinct".

Now all we need to do is make Alice's "instinct" realize that a part of the house is missing - in theory.

"That's the missing part of this 'Alice Mansion', but you don't have to understand what it is," Duncan said casually when he saw the puppet still looking at him curiously with wide eyes. "Do you remember what I told you about the Frost Queen?"

Alice thought for a moment. "Which one? There are many, but I don't seem to remember them all..."

"Leonora took a room from your 'mansion'. That room is the escape pod I mentioned. Now she is 'riding' the escape pod to the ash zone at the edge of the world. I need to locate her," Duncan explained patiently. "It doesn't matter if you don't understand now. I will try to guide you to 'understand' the process."

Alice listened with a confused look, but nodded quickly after the captain finished speaking: "Oh, what should I do now?"

"You stay here and continue to sit under this 'tree'. Just like when you analyzed the route of the external barrier, keep 'connected' with this mansion," Duncan said as he raised his right hand. A cluster of green flames stained with starlight burned quietly in his palm. He handed the flame to the puppet in front of him, "Take it. It will build an extra 'bridge' between you and me. Next, I will go to the 'missing' part of the mansion to mark it. If the situation is in line with my judgment, I should be able to 'intervene' in the operation of Navigator No. 3 in this way and transmit the data to your 'system core' through the external bridge."

Alice said "Oh", and immediately nodded happily and agreed: "Yeah, okay!"

As she spoke, she reached out without hesitation and grabbed the flame handed to her by the captain - a wonderful warm touch came from the palm of her hand, and the illusory flame seemed to suddenly become real, shaking gently in her hand.

Alice carefully held the small fire in her hand, and held her "drawing board" in her other hand. She turned back to the "data tree" made up of countless cables and pipes, sat down on the platform, raised her head and showed a bright smile: "I'm ready!"

Duncan smiled and nodded, then turned and left the hall - he walked through the gorgeous little door that originally connected the garden to the depths of the mansion, through the long corridor with many locked rooms and the humming sounds of servers, through the stairs and halls, and soon came to the deepest part of the corridor on the second floor of the mansion: the "breaking point" between the escape pod and the main body of the spacecraft.

The end of the corridor was still the same as when he left last time. The floor, roof and walls were in a fragmented state as if they had been torn apart by an invisible force. Beyond the breaking point was an endless and deep dark space, so deep that one could "fall" into it with just one glance.

Duncan ignored the darkness outside the crack. He came to a wall on one side of the corridor with a clear goal in mind. Soon, he found what he was looking for near the crack.

It was a display screen "fused" into the wall, which was looping a warning message about the illegal release of the escape pod.

"... Next, it's time to verify the hypothesis..." Duncan came to the display screen, took a deep breath, and slowly closed his eyes, "Let me 'see'... what this place really looks like."

A ray of deep starlight escaped from between his half-closed eyes - he carefully controlled his increasingly restless "essence", understood his own power, and tried to open his... "other eyes" without completely releasing the anti-singularity.

Duncan slowly opened Zhou Ming's eyes.

Starlight burst out from those eyes, as if the eternal stars suddenly remembered how to move at this moment. In the starlight, he saw... the other side of Alice Mansion.

The Ark spacecraft of astonishing scale floated in the boundless dark chaotic space. Only one-third of the structure of the torn starship remained. He stood at the end of a connecting corridor in the middle of the spacecraft. The silver-gray and silver-white alloy structures replaced the dark floors and walls in the original corridors of the mansion. Various warning lights were flashing in the distance, and in front of him were the burnt and melted escape pod brackets.

A big hole was blown in the escape hatch in front, which looked shocking.

"... When Lenoira left, she definitely didn't leave as 'quietly' as she said." Duncan only took a look at the broken pipelines, brackets and the blasted spaceship hull at the end, and his mouth twitched, "... How did she blow this place up when she had no idea what it was?"

Of course, no one in the empty spaceship corridor could answer his question. After all, the only "owner" and "victim" of this place didn't even know what an escape pod was. Duncan just shook his head after sighing and turned his attention back to the flickering display screen.

Now, he has seen the whole picture of the device - it is part of the external release system of the escape capsule, fixed on a bent bracket. The entire bracket has been severely twisted and damaged, and its internal pipes are even exposed, but it is obviously still functioning normally.

Duncan placed his hand on the device, ready to use his own flame to "read" the data here and transmit it to Alice - this was his idea, simple and crude.

Alice is currently unable to understand the "essence" of her mansion, and therefore is unable to sense the system failure here. The "Navigation No. 3" system's instincts are still there, but it has no response because Alice cannot read the signal. So what Duncan has to do is to weld a flying wire between Alice and the "fault point" of this mansion.

He himself certainly didn't understand how the spacecraft worked - but most people who repair mobile phones don't know the specific internal structure of the chip. Anyway, as long as the flying wires are soldered and it works, it's fine.

The flying line technology is stunning.

The flames burned quietly and began to gradually seep into the escape pod release system.

At this moment, Duncan suddenly saw something out of the corner of his eye.

A mass of... a substance with a black-gray metallic luster, constantly surging and undulating like mud, had flowed out from some nearby equipment grids and pipes at some point in time!
The strange mud substance accumulated and flowed on the floor, slowly approaching him, making a creepy low noise. However, just when Duncan was on high alert and ready to do something, the mud suddenly stopped not far away, as if watching or judging something.

Duncan was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized——

It was the "cleaner" in Alice's mansion! That strange shadow that was used to expel "invading foreign objects"!

...Is this part of the New Hope's maintenance system? Some kind of "damage control" device? A swarm of nanomachines?

While Duncan was maintaining the data penetration of the escape pod system, many thoughts popped up in his mind. At this moment, he saw the ball of "nano mud" crawling towards him a few more steps.

There was no animosity whatsoever.

As Duncan watched carefully, the nanomachine swarm slowly differentiated into a tentacle-like "limb", which it used to knock on the curved bracket of the release system, and as if to demonstrate something to Duncan, it pulled a broken cable out of the bracket.

Duncan had a weird expression on his face: "...You mean, let me connect from here?"

The mud split into another limb, swaying up and down in the air.

Duncan was stunned, and hesitantly spread his flame to the damaged cable.

The mud shook its two limbs with satisfaction, then collapsed into liquid again, making gurgling sounds as it slowly drilled towards a crack in the nearby wall.

Duncan: "..."

This thing can actually communicate and think?!
While he was distracted, the ball of mud had completely disappeared. Then, he heard Alice's voice coming through the mental connection: "Captain! The drawing board is lit! The drawing board is lit! I think I figured out where the 'escape pod' is!"

……

"There are 176 people here now—all those who have 'woke up' are here," Helena said as she led Vanna and Lucrecia across the connecting bridge in the center of the residential area. "This was originally part of the port power plant. After more and more people 'awoke', the first ones who woke up and were in better condition gathered here spontaneously and built a camp."

Fanna stopped on the connecting bridge, held the railing and looked down at the residential areas that were temporarily built based on the original facilities of the power plant.

The Pope's voice continued after a moment: "We will soon expand to a better living area - the dormitory next to the power plant. Now it is still occupied by the 'fellow trance compatriots'. We cannot expel them violently, and we must avoid conflicts with them as much as possible. But now more and more people are awakening in that area. When the awakened people account for the majority, we can expand our main activity area there."

"...It's hard to imagine," Lucrecia said after a moment of silence, "The world has become like this..."

"Get used to it as soon as possible. The current city-state is what this place looks like after it has been magnified a thousand times," Helena said softly. The pope, who was stationed in the lighthouse in her avatar form, turned her head and looked at Vanna and Lucrecia. "As for now... it's your turn. Tell me about the end of the world."

(End of this chapter)