Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 893 "Revelation"
"This sea area is very strange..." Zhuoligetu murmured, "Old Dog can smell strange smells, and Old Chi draws things he has never seen... Is there something here that can quietly affect our brains?"
"Old Chi!" The Hound turned his head and stared at Chi Hanfeng. "Can you draw something else? We need more information! "
"I... try..." Chi Hanfeng was stunned for a moment and picked up the pencil again, but this time, the tip of the pen did not fall.
"Don't think about drawing anything deliberately, just doodle like you did just now," said the hound.
"No... I can't do it." Chi Hanfeng shook his head. "When I think about this, I find that I have no idea where to start... Unless you can hit me on the head with a stick and make me forget what happened just now."
"You can just close your eyes and scratch on the paper with a pen!" the hound said anxiously.
Chi Hanfeng gritted his teeth and really did as the Hound said. He closed his eyes and started scribbling on the paper with a pencil. He even broke the tip of the pencil because he used too much force.
But this time, all he drew was meaningless doodles, and no useful information could be seen.
"It's useless to be deliberate." Zhuoligetu showed a rationality and calmness that was completely inconsistent with his sturdy figure. "That kind of thing seems to be something that can only be drawn unconsciously."
At this time, the Ghost Owl, who had been silent all this time, suddenly raised his hand and signaled everyone to be quiet: "Wait... wait a minute... I think I heard a sound..."
The submersible suddenly fell into deathly silence.
But everyone held their breath and listened for more than ten seconds, but did not hear any unusual sounds. The hound raised his eyebrows and looked at the ghost owl: "Only you... heard it... right?"
"Can't you hear it?" The ghost owl opened his eyes wide and looked at the hound. Then, as if he had thought of something, he turned and looked at Chi Hanfeng.
"Smell, pattern, sound...it looks like there's more than one clue." The hound murmured, "Ghost Owl, what did you hear?"
"I... I can't explain it clearly..." The ghost owl looked very strange, "It's not Chinese, nor is it English... It's not any language I know... But I just understand it... It's very strange..."
Hound, Chi Hanfeng, and Zhuo Ligetu looked at each other and said in unison: "It's the language of the Alpha civilization!"
"What?" Ghost Owl was startled. "Why do you think so? And...how can I possibly understand the language of the Alpha civilization?"
"Don't worry about it. Tell me what you heard in detail," the Hound asked.
"Escape... Although it is difficult for me to express that sentence word for word... but the general meaning... is that we should escape and leave..." Ghost Owl explained with some difficulty. The feeling of knowing but not being able to express it was like a hundred claws tormenting his heart, making him feel that his brain had been in a completely blank state.
Ghost Owl glanced at the others and immediately said, "Don't look at me like that. I... I don't mean to back down. What I mean is... I really heard such a voice, and I can be sure... that sentence definitely contains this meaning, but I don't know how to express it accurately."
"I didn't say you were going to back out." Chi Hanfeng said, "I just felt it was strange, but I couldn't put my finger on what was strange at the moment."
"Escape, leave... escape..." The hound chewed on the words carefully, suddenly tapped the table lightly, looked up and said: "Leave the bed?"
"Ah?" Ghost Owl was a little confused. "What did you say...leave...leave that bed?"
"Read this sentence once. Don't translate it into Chinese. Just read it in the original English." The Hound said in a deep voice.
"Leave...the...b...e..." The Ghost Owl hadn't finished reading when his expression suddenly changed. "Yes! That's right! That strange language I heard said exactly this to me! Damn it, why didn't I know how to relay it just now? Wait?! Why do you know what I heard? Did you hear it too?"
"No...we didn't hear anything, but this sentence is too familiar..." The hound said, shaking his head slowly.
"familiar?"
"The first time I saw this sentence was on the inner shell of a dismantled submersible. It was engraved on the metal inner wall with some hard object." Hound recalled, "That submersible was once involved in the initial exploration of the underwater city ruins...but no one who was in it survived."
"Then... who carved this line of words? Those explorers who died?" Ghost Owl asked hurriedly.
"That's what we thought at first, but then we thought it should be the black skeleton," said the Hound. "The inner shell of the submersible was taken out. Originally, this inner shell should have been wrapped with several layers of cushioning layers and linings made of high molecular polymers. Even if the explorers on the submersible wanted to carve words on the inner wall of the submersible, they should have carved on this layer instead of the completely wrapped metal inner shell. Moreover, if this line of words was carved before the submersible was fished out, then the security personnel would definitely find this important clue when dismantling the submersible, and they would not have thrown the inner shell into the cargo hold of the Pioneer like garbage."
"That sentence was not engraved by those explorers during their lifetime." Zhuoligetu added.
"If it wasn't carved before he was alive, could it be carved after he died?" Ghost Owl was completely confused. "Also, what is the black skeleton?"
Since Ghost Owl knew nothing about these things, Hound could only briefly introduce him to the God Hunting Group... Oh, there was no God Hunting Group at the time, it was just a temporary hunting team formed by their group to save Ivan... the experience of exploring the underwater city for the first time.
Anyway, even the secrets of the Undead Crew have been told to Ghost Owl, so there is no need to keep this secret. The Hound is not worried at all that Ghost Owl will leak these secrets to others... It is still unclear whether they will have the chance to contact other people.
"Later, when Ke Lan was exploring that nameless deserted island, he discovered that the skeletons of some soldiers from the 776th Special Forces Squad had also turned into black skeletons. In addition, some believers of the heretical sect could also turn themselves into black skeletons through a special sacrificial ceremony. So we can basically be sure that the black skeletons were transformed from humans."
"Then... did the black skeleton carve this sentence on the inner shell of the submersible in order to make you flee... flee from somewhere, or flee from something? But you also said that a battle broke out between you and the black skeleton. Since it wanted to kill you, why did it leave this message for you?"
"It's a gradual process for humans to turn into that kind of thing. At the beginning, it may still retain some human consciousness, but later, it will completely become a monster that only knows how to kill." Zhuoligetu said, "At least that's what we think."
"So what does this sentence mean?"
"You've got the point." The hound pointed at the ghost owl with his index finger. "It's just a pity that we also want to know the answer to this question."
"ah?"
"This is not the first time we have heard this sentence. It is like a lingering nightmare... We have spent a lot of effort to figure out the true meaning of this sentence, but so far, we have not gained anything substantial." The Hound said, and then glanced at the underwater city outside the porthole. "Maybe... this time, we can figure out what it means."
"So, not only did we not get any useful clues, but we also added a bunch of new puzzles?" There was a hint of frustration in the eyes of the Ghost Owl.
"No, whether it's the stone pillar drawn by Lao Chi or the sound you heard, these puzzles have always existed and are not new." The hound patted Ghost Owl's uninjured arm as if to comfort him. "This information is not without value. At least we know that we are in the right place."
"I have one last question... Why can I suddenly understand the language of the Alpha civilization?" Ghost Owl asked, "As far as I know, among the current humans, the only ones who have this ability are your leader Ke Lan and the prophet of the heretic sect who has been shot dead, right?"
"Then maybe you are the third lucky one." The Hound said, and suddenly patted his forehead. He took the paper covered with graffiti, turned it over, and while thinking, he drew one obscure character after another on the paper.
"This is the content on a stone tablet of the Alpha civilization document. I copied this stone tablet myself , so I have a deep impression of the characters on it. This is the first line of text on the stone tablet. See if you can understand it." The hound moved the paper with the characters on it in front of the ghost owl.
"The characters may not be very standard, but I'm trying my best to restore them." The Hound added, "It's a pity that the tablet is broken, otherwise I could just pull out the photos and show them to you."
Ghost Owl lowered his head and stared at the characters on the paper carefully. But after staring for a long time, he just shook his head and said, "I can't understand it."
"Then it seems that you are not the third lucky one." The Hound was a little disappointed, but seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "You can only understand that specific sentence, but you do not have the ability to read the Alpha language... There are many such people in the heretical sects. They can only mechanically 'recite' the 'prayer' given to them by the prophet, but if you ask them what the exact content of the 'prayer' is, they probably can't tell you themselves."
"Moreover, Ke Lan said that the language of the Alpha civilization is not spoken with the mouth." Zhuoligetu interrupted, "In Ke Lan's words, the black-robed cardinals of the heretical sects who recite prayers are just using the syllables of human language to simulate the sound of the Alpha language in their minds. They cannot be considered to be 'speaking ' the Alpha language."
"Then let me try to read out the sentence I just heard?" The ghost owl was about to open his mouth, but was stopped by the hound's eyes.
"I suggest you not to do that." The Hound said, "Although it's just a simulation, it's really 'useful'... After those black cardinals finished their prayers, it was equivalent to completing a sacrificial ceremony. They dedicated their lives to the great god, and then borrowed a time-limited power from the great god - the specific manifestation is that they themselves turn into some kind of monster, or summon some kind of monster to descend upon this world."
"The language of the Alpha civilization has... such an effect?!" Ghost Owl suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.
"It seems that only a specific combination of sentences can have this effect, but none of us knows which sentences are 'specific'... So, when Ke Lan is not around, it's best not to try it randomly... This kind of behavior is called courting death." The Hound warned.
"I understand... I understand..." Ghost Owl responded repeatedly, raising his hand to wipe away the cold sweat oozing from his forehead.
But what he didn't realize was that... below the back of his neck, on the "spinal groove" along the indentation of the spine, the skin had turned red at some point and a tiny granulation of flesh had appeared.
This change happened extremely "naturally" and there was no discomfort. Even the ghost owl itself did not notice it, let alone others.
Those buds squirmed and grew slowly. They seemed to have their own consciousness, and seemed to be a "natural" part of the ghost owl's body... The two completely opposite perceptions merged together and seemed unexpectedly... "harmonious".
"There is one person left, or two people." Chi Hanfeng said, "Old Dog smelled the scent, I accidentally drew the stone pillar, and Ghost Owl heard 'that sentence'... Then there are only Zhuo Ligetu and Valentina left. If this information is considered a kind of 'revelation' - uh, don't mind me using this religious term, I just think this term is more appropriate at the moment - assuming this is a kind of 'revelation', then among the few of us, only Zhuo Ligetu and Valentina have not received the 'revelation'."
"Revelation..." Zhuoligetu murmured, "Some of my people believe in 'Eternal Heaven', and some shamans often say that they have received revelations from 'Eternal Heaven'... But I am an atheist, I don't believe in that stuff. At least, I don't believe in those 'gods' that were fabricated in the Earth Age."
"It's just a metaphor." Chi Hanfeng explained, "Revelation is not necessarily bestowed by gods. It can also be something that people suddenly realize from the heart... This may seem a bit mysterious, but I can't find a better way to put it."
"Let's not talk about that for now. Have you noticed that the forms of revelation are different, and they seem to correspond to different human senses - smell, vision, hearing... Then what will happen next? Touch?" The hound muttered, "Mongol, did you touch anything strange?"
