Chapter 149 The Node Sea

When the gentle sound of waves faded from her consciousness, Vanna remained stunned for a long, long time.

As a member of the Vanishing, and as an individual who had experienced subspace reshaping, her cognition was firmly anchored on "one side" where the waves still existed. Almost instantly, she realized what had happened, then rushed out of her cabin like the wind, heading to the deck where the captain was.

"Captain!" Vanna arrived before Duncan, her usually steady demeanor now looking somewhat flustered. "The sound of waves in my mind has faded. Something might have happened with the Storm Goddess..."

"I know," Duncan nodded gently. "The rotting process has deepened."

Vanna stood blankly before Duncan, listening to this undeniable answer, remaining motionless for a long time. Then she turned and looked at the uniform "gray-white" passage ahead of the Vanishing, subconsciously calling out the goddess's name in her heart, just like she did during every prayer.

She still couldn't hear the familiar sound of waves. In her "spiritual perception," there were only faint murmurs and chaotic whispers. In the past, these were just "noise" during prayer, but now, they had become her only "comfort."

In the corner of her eye, some shadows suddenly appeared in the uniform and boundless gray-white depths ahead of the Vanishing and the Brilliant Star. Some overlapping black things appeared ahead of the course, and a flat, mirror-like "sea" was spreading there.

A vague voice, as if spanning time and space, entered the minds of everyone on board. It seemed to be Alice, but with severe distortion: "Transition complete... detaching from the channel."

The next second, the gray-white channel around the Vanishing and the Brilliant Star shattered silently, and the two ships crashed into a "node sea" constructed of solid matter. They sailed into that mirror-like, calm "sea surface" and "glided" rapidly across the surface.

The massive ship bodies passed across the water without stirring up even the slightest ripple.

Duncan came to the edge of the deck, looking down at the "phenomenon" outside the ship with a grave expression. Then, without a word, he raised his head and looked at the large and small black shadows standing on the "sea surface."

They gradually became clearer—those things that looked like mountains rising from the sea were actually countless clusters of black crystals of astonishing scale.

Countless huge black crystals stood on the calm sea surface like islands large and small. The crystals continued to split during the spreading process, eventually turning into clusters of crystal structures like forests of blades. In the ubiquitous chaotic light, the edges of those crystal structures showed a vaguely translucent texture, making their edges seem illusory, with a dreamlike strangeness.

This was a scenery completely different from the sea where the Storm Goddess slumbered.

Shirley also ran to the deck. She stared at the scenery on the sea with wide eyes, and after a long time, she couldn't help but let out a drawn-out sigh: "Woooah..."

"We have entered the node sea," Duncan breathed a long sigh, casually saying as he regained control of the Vanishing, "Next, we just need to find the location of Pathfinder Two. It should be deep within those crystal clusters."

As soon as he finished speaking, Maurice, who had also come to the deck not far away, pointed in a certain direction: "I can feel it. In this direction."

The Vanishing and the Brilliant Star slowly sailed into the depths of this "sea of crystal clusters."

Alice left the bridge and ran to the deck, looking at this place with surprise. She saw the huge, blade-like black crystals slowly receding outside the ship's side. Deep within some of the crystals, there was even a luster as if living things were flowing. This place, which she had personally navigated to, was strange and unbelievable to her.

Although she had forgotten everything about the New Hope, she instinctively knew that this was not what the New Hope should look like, not what was on that ship.

This place was like her "Alice Manor," the way the spaceship had been reshaped after the Great Annihilation.

Just then, a voice suddenly sounded in her mind: "You've come."

Alice paused, immediately turning her head and shouting loudly towards Duncan: "Captain! Someone is talking to me!"

Alice felt the voice in her mind seem to freeze for a moment, then said with some helplessness: "I am Pathfinder Two."

Alice immediately turned her head again: "Captain! It says it's called Pathfinder Two!"

"I know," Duncan walked over, pressing Alice's hair with a slightly subtle expression. "Tell Pathfinder Two that we are sailing towards it."

"Oh," Alice nodded, then thought hard for a moment, but then looked up at Duncan with a strange expression, her eyes filled with confusion. "Captain, it's ignoring me."

Duncan: "..." He turned around expressionlessly, controlling the Vanishing to continue through the narrow and winding channel formed by countless crystal peaks.

After an unknown amount of time, the scene in front of the Vanishing suddenly opened up—after passing through a "gate" formed by interlocking giant crystal pillars, an extremely wide sea suddenly appeared in everyone's view.

In the very center of this open sea, Pathfinder Two stood there quietly, undisguised and without suspense, waiting for its guests.

Duncan glanced at the neatly arranged black "matrix," and took a light breath: "Switch to the small boat."

The Vanishing stopped some distance away from Pathfinder Two, and then everyone transferred to the small boat, cautiously approaching the central array from the mirror-like sea surface.

A white boat folded out of paper also sailed from the direction of the Brilliant Star. Lucrezia stood at the bow, with the rabbit Rabbi and the clockwork doll Lunie also on board.

The two small boats converged about a hundred meters away from the host array. Lucrezia on the paper boat turned her head: "Don't you think he 'looks' very strange?"

Duncan looked at the front with a solemn expression, and after a long time, he said in a deep voice: "Perhaps, looking strange is the most normal thing."

The two small boats arrived in front of Pathfinder Two. Now, the true appearance of this 'God of Wisdom' had finally emerged from the mist and was truly presented to outsiders for the first time.

It was composed of many "servers" of different sizes, resembling stone tablets. The largest rectangular structure seemed to be its "central hub," with an estimated height of more than ten meters. At the top of that dark rectangular body was a red light like a single eye, as if overlooking the surroundings—it reminded Duncan of the dark red "core" of the Abyss Lord.

Behind this large rectangular body serving as the central hub were twenty-two "small" units several meters high. Lights flashed on the surface of those units, and countless dazzling indicator lights constantly blinked and changed, and a low and continuous buzzing sound came from inside all the rectangular bodies.

Between this series of rectangular bodies were the countless nerves and blood vessels that maintained and connected the entire array.

Flesh-like tubular tissues extended from each server "cabinet," merging with the dark shells, even turning some of the shells into skin-like structures. Blood vessels and nerve cords crisscrossed, spreading like a spider web at the bottom of the entire host array. At many of the junctions of the tubular tissues, fleshy swellings and tissue proliferation could be seen. Exposed "organs" like hearts beat constantly at those nodes... There were also brain-like biological tissues attached to the nerve nodes, wriggling slowly.

As the small boat approached, a mass of flesh tissue at the bottom of Pathfinder Two's central host was the first to react. Its surface suddenly wriggled and grew, and then an eyeball rolled out from inside, held up by a long eyestalk, and came before Alice.

"Yaah—" Alice was startled on the spot, and slapped the eyeball back with her palm.

The eyeball suddenly contracted back into the flesh tissue, and the blood vessels and neural network between the server arrays instantly wriggled and undulated.

The next second, the buzzing sound from those dark server hosts suddenly increased, and the red light above the central host rapidly flashed a few times. A muffled synthesized voice came from nowhere: "Pathfinder Three, why did you hit me?"

Alice was stunned, and scratched her head a little embarrassedly: "Ah, I was startled and slapped you without thinking too much..."

Duncan, on the other hand, had been looking at the clearly distorted "server matrix" in front of him with a solemn expression since just now. After a long time, he said in a deep voice: "I guess you weren't originally like this, right?"

After hearing Duncan's words, the red light above the central host slowly flickered several times, and then a low voice entered his ears—

"Yes, so now you should know why machines in this world have 'possession' phenomena."

Duncan's eyes instantly changed slightly.

He stared at the crisscrossing flesh tissues in Pathfinder Two's host matrix, watching the eyes that constantly appeared and disappeared between the blood vessels and nerve cords, and finally couldn't suppress the strangeness in his expression.

"When did this change begin?" he said in a deep voice.

"When the first cry of a baby appeared on the Boundless Sea," the red light slowly flickered, "When Pathfinder One's nanite swarms completed the first round of reshaping of all things, the changes in us began—you should have seen One, and know what it looks like now, so there's no need to be too surprised by my current state."

Then the towering black "stone tablet" was silent for a few seconds before continuing gloomily: "Just treat it as some kind of 'adaptive adjustment.' Compared to others, my condition is not too bad—look, at least I can still communicate with you directly here."
Subsequently, the tall black "stone tablet" was silent for a few seconds before continuing gloomily: "Just treat it as some kind of 'adaptive adjustment.' Compared to others, my condition is not too bad—look, at least I can still communicate with you directly here."