Chapter 1668: Two-Hundred-Year-Old Buildings
“Even after we go in, this communicator might not be useful,” Nie Xuan said. “Maybe the game platform can still make contact.”
This chaotic space had unknown origins, and what exactly was inside remained unclear, so it was also possible that the game panel might not open.
Xu Huo took the communicator and casually slipped it into his pocket. He followed Nie Xuan into the crack, while the three people Nie Xuan had selected followed behind him. The remaining few, including Yu Qingqing and the others, waited outside.
Standing outside and actually entering were indeed two completely different concepts. The moment he stepped into the chaotic space, Xu Huo felt pressure coming from all directions.
Generally speaking, unless space rays reached a level capable of forming a space barrier, they wouldn’t have an overly obvious effect on people. It was like anything in the air—even the air itself had rays passing through it, yet people couldn’t feel those rays. But after entering this place, the air was filled with a sense of heaviness, as if the gray mist had gained weight, pressing down on them.
Xu Huo and Nie Xuan could distinguish space rays and avoid areas where rays were chaotic or showed signs of collision. They moved in a zigzag pattern, managing to walk a certain distance along the street.
The surveillance monitor, limited by the fog, could only capture a limited view, revealing little content. Xu Huo and the others, because they had to take detours to avoid areas particularly dense with space rays, ended up skirting the edges of the street, catching glimpses of some buildings hidden in the mist.
Based on the building materials analyzed by the instruments, this city was at least two hundred years old.
“Two hundred years? Did the game exist back then?” Nie Xuan couldn’t help but ask.
“It probably did,” Xu Huo thought for a moment. “Last time, in Zone 017, I encountered a player who claimed to have lived for two hundred years. Unfortunately, he was killed by the Eerie Sound Knights.”
Nie Xuan wasn’t really trying to explore whether the game had existed for over two centuries. He casually remarked, “In the game world, different zones have different ways of calculating time. It’s not unusual to find cities that are hundreds or even thousands of years old.”
The group of five basically walked in a single-file line. During their journey, they had already tried the communicator—it was unusable, and they couldn’t contact anyone outside. However, the slightly better news was that the game platform was still accessible, so communication with the outside wasn’t completely cut off.
“Wait, why did the members of ‘Unpredictable’ lose all contact after coming in?” Sha Chuan muttered subconsciously, but as soon as he finished speaking, he felt he had said something stupid. They could contact the outside, so why couldn’t others? Unless the people were already dead.
Due to the limited visibility, they could only see parts of the buildings. Based on some decorative items near the doorways, this building complex seemed to be very tall. Although they hadn’t had a suitable opportunity to go inside, they occasionally caught glimpses of unusually spacious interiors.
“It doesn’t look like ordinary residential buildings. It’s more like a palace,” Wei Xiaoyi said. “But a palace probably wouldn’t be built like this, with streets in the middle and doors facing each other on both sides. It’s more like a residence.”
“With such advanced technology in the game world and players’ abilities, what kind of city couldn’t be built?” Nie Xuan picked up a larger piece from a pile of scattered stones and put it away. “Even now, don’t foreign royal families mobilize players to build special safe zones?”
This could be considered a matter of personal preference and aesthetic taste.
The high-standard safe zones recently built by the military and the Special Defense Department were all modeled after outer zones. In terms of construction, they had achieved the best they could at the moment, prioritizing safety and pushing aesthetics to the back burner.
Foreign safe zones were a different story. There were always some big shots who wanted to assert their presence during such important times—demanding unique national cultural symbols or simply adding some bizarre elements based on personal preferences, giving the entire building a layer of “mystery.”
“People are often abnormally obsessed with the unknown, just like religion. Whether it’s spiritual sustenance or ulterior motives, the more something leans toward the elusive and unreachable, the more it seems to rationalize things, allowing some criticisms to collapse on their own.”
Nie Xuan was dismissive of this.
“Only races lacking cultural depth and spiritual core would try to use religious brainwashing to rally ordinary people.”
“With that said, this place doesn’t seem so mysterious anymore,” Tian Zhengjiang said. “I’m not religious, but walking into a place like this, I can’t help but restrain myself a bit.”
“There’s no need for that,” Nie Xuan warned them to be careful. “Rather than the buildings, you should pay more attention to the potential dangers.”
“What is Mr. Xu looking at?” Wei Xiaoyi suddenly shifted the topic to Xu Huo, because while they were talking, he had already glanced three times at the top of the nearby doorway.
There was a carving there.
Since entering, they had seen many carvings on the buildings, even on the streets. The stone structures were adorned with neatly arranged linear carvings, some in squares, some in triangles, or other patterns formed by these two basic shapes.
The doorway was slightly different. Along the way, they had clearly seen three doorways, mostly featuring floating cloud patterns paired with streamlined decorations, with enlarged square or triangular carvings at the center. But this doorway was different—between two symmetrical triangles was a carving of an eye.
“Items with eye motifs as decorations are quite common in the game,” Nie Xuan remarked.
Xu Huo nodded. Not to mention items, even ordinary decorations often featured eye patterns. The reason was people’s worship of the eye, and the eye was also one of the most intimate organs through which humans interacted with the world. Seeing an eye pattern here wasn’t particularly strange.
However, he felt there was something else on this pattern.
“Does it involve spiritual power?” Nie Xuan asked seriously.
“Somewhat similar.” Since entering this space, Xu Huo hadn’t released his spiritual realm. First, he wasn’t sure about the situation here—the space was this chaotic, and there were traces of habitation, so other forces might be mixed in. Recklessly releasing his spiritual realm wouldn’t be wise.
Second, he had a vague bad feeling, perhaps influenced by the heaviness of the mist.
Glancing again at the high eye pattern, he said, “Let’s keep moving forward.”
After advancing a bit further, they arrived at the spot where the surveillance monitor had been destroyed earlier. However, there were no remnants on the ground—not even a trace left behind.
“We didn’t see the bodies of the ‘Unpredictable’ members either,” Sha Chuan looked around.
“Since the space is chaotic, it’s not surprising that spatial movement or gaps might occur,” Nie Xuan crouched down and touched the ground. Just as he was about to continue forward, Xu Huo suddenly reached out and pressed his shoulder. “Something has set its sights on us.”
(Chapter End)