Deep Sea Embers - Chapter 569

[Chapter 567 Foreign Objects and Cleaners]

It was a small bag of garbage – a black garbage bag, with a tight knot at the mouth. A small, scratched hole could be seen on the side of the bag, and a crushed person could be seen in the mouth. Flat paper cup.

Duncan stared blankly at the small bag of familiar garbage. For a moment, only confusion and endless questions were left in his mind – he had indeed guessed that the “big hole” that appeared inside Alice’s Mansion might one day change. , when he heard the headless butler mention “foreign object invasion” just now, he also guessed what kind of weird and indescribable things would enter the mansion, but the situation in front of him… he really never thought about it.

That bag of garbage was thrown away by him – not long ago, when he vaguely realized that the barrier between him and his hometown might have been a natural chasm, and after he carefully and conscientiously cleaned his bachelor apartment, he sorted out He picked up the bag of garbage and threw it into the black mist outside the door.

Now it appears inside the “big hole” in Alice Mansion, in the form of an “invading foreign object.”

Duncan took a step forward towards the “intrusion object” with complicated and subtle emotions.

The huge hole left by the disappearance of the room at the end of the corridor is like a weird and terrifying abyss. The ground and walls at the edge of the hole are fragmented, like twisted sharp teeth. The black bag is at the end of the broken ground. Frankly speaking… Duncan even I find this scene a bit funny.

However, the servants in the mansion were extremely nervous. The terrifying headless butler even exclaimed a little out of control when he saw Duncan walking forward: “Guest! Don’t get close there! It’s very dangerous!

” Danger?” Duncan didn’t know what expression to make. He looked back at the butler, the corners of his mouth twitching, “This is just a quiet pile of…waste.” However, the

butler and servants were still facing a powerful enemy. Standing at least ten meters away, those humming whispers were filled with panic and fear. Even though they were all headless, Duncan seemed to be able to feel their dazed and confused people who wanted to pry but kept avoiding them out of fear. sight.

It was as if… what they saw was not a harmless black bag, but something more terrifying and indescribable.

“Guest…guest…” the headless butler suddenly spoke, his voice low and trembling, “Don’t be fooled by the appearance. Now slowly keep your distance from it and move towards me. Be careful not to wake this person up.” The shadow that grows…”

The shadow that grows?

Duncan frowned slightly for an instant, as if confirming the “guess” that flashed through his mind just now – was what these servants saw something else?

He turned back and looked at the black bag on the edge of the broken ground.

At a certain moment, he saw the black plastic bag suddenly… “flicker”.

It was like a monitor screen with poor contact, and as if something like a veil suddenly covered the surface of the thing. Duncan saw the thing flicker for an instant, and in the extremely brief change of light and shadow, it seemed… to become something else. what.

Duncan stared at it quietly, as if expecting more changes to happen to it – and then, a second flicker appeared.

This time, he captured the fleeting image.

He saw a swelling and shrinking shadow covering the floor not far away. The edges of the shadow were shaking and trembling like countless sharp thorns spreading out. Black matter was surging and spreading out from the center of the shadow. There was still something hidden there. Countless eyes, and countless mouthpieces.

However, as long as he looked carefully, the thing would immediately turn into a pile of ordinary “waste” again, and the strange pictures he saw in a trance seemed to be just an illusion that stayed in the shallow layer of the brain.

Duncan watched this scene in silence, and many speculations gradually came to mind. After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly turned to the “butler” and said, “Has there been any ‘foreign object invasion’ here before?” His voice was inexplicably hoarse

.

“Occasionally,” the housekeeper replied quickly, “the mansion is closed, but for some reason, there are always ‘external’ things connected here, and they… often cause a lot of trouble.” “Bring a lot of

trouble Trouble?” Duncan frowned.

“Yes… foreign objects do not belong to the mansion. They are like diseases to this place. The invading substances will cause some parts of the mansion to rot or distort, and it often takes a long time to recover…” Duncan listened quietly, and after thinking for a

moment Asked: “Then how will you deal with these foreign objects?”

“The mansion will ‘digest’ them on its own,” the housekeeper replied, “Just wait patiently. The cleaners should appear soon, and the intrusion should be properly handled. Foreign objects.”

“Cleaner?” Duncan said with doubts in his tone.

“It is a part of the mansion, the oldest part. It is responsible for removing destructive ‘entities’ from the mansion, and then the mansion will slowly return to the state before the invasion of foreign objects… Ah, it appeared, guest , look-“

The housekeeper suddenly raised his arm and pointed to the ground not far away.

A mass of silt-like stuff appeared there at some point, slowly squirming and spreading.

The “silt” is dark in color, but has a metallic texture. Its surface seems to be mixed with countless crystal particles. Along with the slow squirming, it constantly reflects light spots as fine as starlight – it squirms. It moved and spread, slowly approaching the invading “foreign object” as if consciously.

A part of its edge deformed, forming a tentacle-like extended structure. It used this structure to actively touch and test forward, and then slowly “covered” itself on the “growing shadow”.

Duncan did not interrupt the process, he just stared at this scene, not letting go of any details.

The “waste” itself was of no value to him. Why the waste appeared here, the strange phenomenon just observed, and the secrets hidden in the mansion were the key.

For him, the key information was already available when he saw the small bag of garbage appearing in the mansion.

Swallowing silently, the “soft-bodied creature” called the “Cleaner” soon completely covered the small bag of garbage, and in Duncan’s perception, he could faintly feel… something disappeared into the mass. Inside the body of a “soft creature” with a metallic texture and tiny spots of light.

The servants around seemed to finally relax.

However, the next second, Duncan saw that the “soft-bodied creature” that had completed the devouring suddenly turned around slowly. Its edges were undulating, and it looked like a convex structure on the head had stabilized at this moment. Pointing steadily this way.

The corridor suddenly fell into tense and dead silence, and all the servants tensed up and fell silent.

The “Cleaner” squirmed over, and under Duncan’s gaze, it approached slowly and quickly like a living sludge.

I felt neither kindness nor hostility.

Duncan gradually tensed up his nerves, and there was already a faint green flame flowing between his fingers. He was wary of this thing called the “Cleaner”, and was already thinking quickly about what he should do if the other party launched an attack. Solve this “mud” without destroying this “Alice Mansion” and leave this place.

However, the cleaner only stopped about two meters in front of him.

This “mud” stopped in front of Duncan, and the soft structure that diffused around it was shrinking little by little. It seemed to be observing something carefully. I wonder if it was an illusion… Duncan even felt that he was in a ball like a slime

. Emotions of confusion were seen in the “ooze”.

It is rational, and it is trying to observe and understand the uninvited visitor in front of it – but it cannot understand it.

It’s as if the existence of uninvited guests has exceeded some kind of “logic” built into the mansion.

After a while, the cleaner seemed to have ended some kind of “dead loop”. It suddenly shifted its attention to Duncan, turned around as if nothing happened, and slowly squirmed toward a dark corner not far away. .

Duncan blinked and looked at this scene in confusion. After a long time, he turned to look at the butler: “What does this mean? This ‘cleaner’ doesn’t welcome me?” “

This… I haven’t encountered this either,” the butler’s voice said. He was actually quite confused. “This is the first time I have seen a cleaner perform these additional activities after cleaning. Under normal circumstances, it will never stay longer after completing the work…” Duncan frowned and

said Without asking any more questions, he turned around and walked to the edge of the broken corridor, arriving at the place where the cleaners had just performed the “cleaning mission.”

That small bag of “garbage” has completely disappeared. After it underwent strange and mysterious changes, it was decomposed and swallowed by strange and mysterious forces, and no trace remains.

But how did it get here?

Duncan stood on a broken floor tile at the edge of the corridor, looking out into the endless darkness.

For a moment, he even felt that he was about to see his “hut” in the darkness – it might be floating not far away, wrapped in a mist, just like… in this world Those other countless fragments of the old world.

However, he saw nothing. There was only boundless darkness at the end of the corridor, and the large hole inside Alice’s mansion seemed to lead nowhere.

The emotional impulse made him almost step out to find the so-called answer in the darkness, but at the last moment, the power of reason still pulled him back.

He instinctively felt the risk from that endless darkness, and his intuition told him that now was not the time, and he could not return from that darkness safely.

“Guest?”

The headless butler’s voice came from behind, interrupting Duncan’s random thoughts.

Duncan exhaled softly, took a step back, and returned to the relatively safe corridor.

“It’s time for me to leave,” he whispered, “Take me back to the garden.”

In the real world, Duncan suddenly blinked – his senses returned quickly and he was fully awake within two seconds.

Alice was still sitting in front of him.

The real world still only passed for a moment.

(End of chapter)