The "Puppet Progenitor" with long silver hair and the robust, imposing "Captain" stood not far away, watching Yu Sheng and the others peering into the distance by the ship's side, especially the little puppet clinging to the ship's edge, its two short legs swinging back and forth, unable to reach the deck, with an oddly nuanced expression."...How did she become such a little thing?" Duncan frowned, asking quietly with a look of confusion.
"I told you last time I came back," Puppet Progenitor Alice mumbled softly, "I don't know the specific situation..."
"The soul and consciousness have changed somewhat... It has merged with the traits of the Dark Angel, seems related to the incident back then."
Alice sighed softly: "This child has probably suffered..."
"But she seems quite carefree now."
"...Seems so."
Hu Li's ears twitched as she lay on the ship's side, looking into the distance. She then turned slightly, glancing at the little puppet hanging on the guardrail beside her.
Erin immediately turned her head: "Silly fox, what are you looking at?"
"You have a really great attitude," Hu Li said enigmatically.
Erin instantly became proud, holding her head high: "Of course, I'm so awesome."
Yu Sheng raised his head to look at the sky, seeing an artificial sky curtain covering everything within his vision, the hemispherical barrier hanging down in the far distance, its edge connected to the "star sea" composed of thin dim light and scattered stars, everything here—including the star sea and the star-shaped structures within it, and the strange ships like the Lost Home—all protected by what seemed to be a light and fragile barrier.
Standing inside the sky curtain, Yu Sheng couldn't see the scene outside the barrier, only vaguely feeling that beyond the sky was utter chaos. Even though in certain moments he felt his gaze pierced through the veil, as if seeing certain things outside the sky, those things seemed beyond his mind's comprehension, leaving no impression on his consciousness.
This is really an incredible place.
Freyia floated in the air, circling the Lost Home's mast several times, then lightly descended, tugging at Yu Sheng's sleeve, pointing toward the direction of the distant Tower.
She seemed to particularly like the artificial constant star hanging at the Tower's top.
"What you see is the core driving sequence of the star-shaped structure," the "Captain's" voice came from the side, "It looks like a harbor, but underneath its shell lies a mathematical device based on information restructuring technology, and beneath the core driving sequence are many other structures you cannot see... all built bit by bit over the years."
Yu Sheng turned back to look at the robust figure, hesitated slightly, then said: "I saw the shadow of the Lost Home in an illusion before, but back then I only saw it cruising in darkness without these grand... 'auxiliary structures' around it."
"The Lost Home is special," the Captain said with a smile, "Its information structure transcends the Universe's restructuring process, which allows its projection to cross endless time and space, even encapsulated within the Quiet Sea Barrier, observable by Universe's internal observers."
Yu Sheng scratched his head; what the Captain said sounded profound and enigmatic, he felt as though he understood it, yet not quite.
Erin's reaction was much simpler—she had no reaction at all.
For Erin, information beyond basic arithmetic might as well not exist.
Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "I still have a bunch of questions..."
The Captain chuckled: "Naturally, I have quite a few questions as well. Let's go, we have many things to exchange and discuss this time—really many, after all... so much time has passed."
Yu Sheng blinked, seeing Captain Duncan turn around and walk toward the stern deck, he immediately followed.
Led by the Captain, the group left the mid deck and walked onto a connecting gangplank, which led them to a wide silver-white boulevard, part of the immense star-shaped structure.
The straight road stretched forward, the star-shaped structure at the end of the view seemed like an artificial land floating on a glowing sea, with the Sun Tower at its center emitting radiant light, beneath the Tower, the silhouettes of many buildings could be faintly seen.
Yu Sheng felt a momentary daze, taking only a few steps on the wide silver path and then, in the blink of an eye, stepping onto the main section of the star-shaped structure, as if the long journey in between had been directly "erased."
Before he had time to inquire out of curiosity, he found himself near the Tower, the buildings previously seen from afar now right in front of him—
There was unexpectedly a small town here, and the appearance of many buildings in the town felt particularly familiar to Yu Sheng.
Very soon he discovered where that familiar feeling came from — he saw the antique shop standing on the street corner.
This "small town" was exactly the same as a part of the Puppet City built by Erin.
"Alice likes this place, so I recreated the lower district of Plande from memory," the Captain explained as he led Yu Sheng and the others toward the antique shop. "Everything is a byproduct of the operation of the engine array — come in, it's been a long time since this place had any visitors."
The Captain pushed open the door to the antique shop, and before stepping in, Yu Sheng turned to look around — what he saw was a quiet and peaceful town street, with bright clean shop windows and distant buildings that were quaint and elegant.
If it weren't for the visible flowing light of the artificial skyline and the Sun Tower holding up an artificial star overhead, anyone coming here for the first time would hardly imagine this was the world's end. From a certain perspective, the land beneath their feet was already beyond the observable universe; it was an "unordered zone" that couldn't be defined by rules and laws.
Yu Sheng even saw the "residents" here on the street.
They were Alice automatons — tending to stores, pruning flowerbeds, strolling down the streets, occasionally casting curious glances at the strangers appearing at the antique shop's door.
Erin, holding Hu Li's tail, widened her eyes at the "sisters" in the distance, exclaiming in surprise, "Wow —"
"The main residents of this area are the automatons created by Alice," the Captain glanced down at the astonished Erin, chuckling as he explained, "There are many residential areas within the primary drive sequence, Tirian's sailors and Lucrecia's toy battalion are living somewhere else now."
He then lifted his head, adding for Yu Sheng, "They are my son and daughter, both out at the moment — there's some issue with the information sequencer over there."
Yu Sheng nodded regardless of understanding, inwardly reflecting on how the ancient saints aboard the Lost Home seemed to live such varied lives at the world's end, contrary to popular imagination.
As they talked, the group stepped into the antique shop's doors, the crisp sound of a bell accompanying the opening and closing of the door. Shelves filled with all kinds of marvelous items and a tidy counter caught their eyes, alongside a staircase leading to the second floor, narrow and somewhat steep.
"I'll go make you some tea~"
The silver-haired Alice automaton said, weaving past shelves brimming with antiques to boil water for tea, while the Captain dragged over a few chairs from the wall, inviting Yu Sheng and the others to sit by the counter, as an ordinary person would when entertaining guests.
"Where shall we begin..." The tall and robust "creator" smiled, his gaze settling on Yu Sheng, "What do you want to ask most?"
"Let's talk about Dark Angels first," Yu Sheng promptly began, having held back a flood of questions along the way with no chance to ask, now finally seated for a proper inquiry, "Let's start with where do they come from, what are they doing, what's their current situation, and most importantly — has the world really gone haywire?"
"There is indeed an issue, but it hasn't surfaced recently— the problem existed from the very beginning, the appearance of the Dark Angels and our collision with them was inevitable from the start."
Captain Duncan spoke slowly, standing up to take a strange little device from the shelf behind the counter — a glass sphere mounted on a brass base, inside of which a fragment of ash drifted slowly.
He placed the device on the counter, looking into Yu Sheng's eyes: "You must know our world was rebuilt from the ruins after a Great Annihilation, during which countless worlds collided and perished. Few survivors lingered in the temporary refuge known as the Endless Sea; I was fortunate enough to gather sufficient materials from the ash around the Endless Sea and with one brief rekindling, pieced together the remnants of those worlds into the observable universe we have now."
"I know about this." Yu Sheng nodded, his gaze involuntarily drifting to the small device, momentarily seeing the ash inside the glass sphere gradually dispersing outward.
"Have you ever wondered, just how widespread was that Great Annihilation back then?" On the other side of the slowly dispersing ash mist, the Captain's deep eyes seemed like two glimmering stardusts, "Or put another way, what percentage of the whole shattered remnant from the annihilation does our new world occupy?"
With a light pop, the small glass sphere on the brass base shattered; the ash confined inside instantly scattered, transforming into a pale mist, within which brief flickers of sparks flashed and quickly turned into cold smoke.
"Among those sparks was the Endless Sea — the predecessor of the whole observable universe."
Yu Sheng heard the Captain's voice coming from the other side of the mist, those two clusters of starlight swaying within, indistinguishable in distance.
"Now everything has cooled down, yet the dispersal of information takes time, the fragments of various universe relics persist like ever-evaporating solitary islands, and the final remnant — primarily clusters of information — get trapped within the universe's remaining mass, continually being consumed, evolved, collapsed, converted.
"Picture this scene — the sun has extinguished, the world turned desolate in its last fierce blaze, the last remaining sparks having died long ago in the distant past, now only endless darkness surrounds you, with the ash beneath your feet steadily growing colder.
"No combustible material remains, no source of heat exists, many survivors like yourself bury themselves in the ash heaps, merely hoping the ash might slightly slow the dissipation of their own heat—the final far journeys have failed, others who've tried to find fuel have frozen one by one into fragile tombstones in the dark, outlines of which you can barely perceive in the shadows.
"But just then — a flame ignites upon the plain.
"Not even a flame, rather a robust, youthful sun rising from the plain.
"Its dazzling light slightly alleviates your already numbed, dying limbs, granting you a little strength to crawl toward the flames..."