Devouring World Dragon

Chapter 202 The World of Fifty Thousand Years
"God?"

Before the overwhelming amount of information had even finished overwhelming Roberts, he heard another word from the thin young man in front of him. Seeing the faint look of astonishment on Roberts' face, the young man suddenly asked a question.

"Roberts, do you believe in God?"

The word "god" is still too ethereal for this world. Although Roberts himself is a bounty hunter who deals with supernatural events and has seen many strange creatures, even he doesn't really believe in the existence of a god. This is also what many other strange creatures believe.

Compared to gods who have never existed, such as vampires and wizards, they believe more that their own power is something ancient and mysterious, an objective law that has not yet been discovered by human science.

"Hmm...no, I don't really believe in God."

Roberts hesitated for a moment, then denied it.

"The thoughts of ordinary people."

The young man chuckled dismissively, his laughter tinged with a strange irony. But Roberts had no idea what the other man was laughing at—was he mocking Roberts, or mocking his past self…

"Then you should know one thing: Christians do not acknowledge that the world originated from the Big Bang 12 billion years ago, but rather claim that the world was born 50,000 years ago."

"I have some understanding of it."

Roberts replied that for the vast majority of people, this is undoubtedly absurd. In this age when we've already landed on the moon, only religious fanatics would believe that the world was only born 50,000 years ago.

Then, the young man fell silent for a moment, didn't speak, and then murmured something.

"Yes, fossils underground, stars in the sky, cosmic microwave background radiation, stars that have burned for billions of years, relics of primitive humans, evolved DNA... so many traces of the passage of time, so much evidence, how could all of this have only been born 50,000 years ago? How could this be... It's simply impossible... Yes, this is how it should be... It should be..."

“Roberts, I once believed in this as you did. What a wonderful world it was, logically complete, airtight, and perfectly conforming to mathematical laws. I was once captivated by this beauty of the universe. After I developed Tiramisu, a true form of artificial intelligence, I used it to completely control the flow of information throughout the world and learn countless secrets. But it was precisely because of this that I was able to gather countless data and ultimately deduce something that should have been impossible…”

He looked at Roberts in front of him, clenching his teeth, as if he had to admit a fact he didn't want to believe.

"This world was born from a joke that happened 50,000 years ago."

Roberts frowned.

"Are you kidding me?"

"I don't have to lie to you."

The young man looked at him, his pupils filled with nothing but indifference.

"After I realized there were many strange creatures in this world, I became very interested in their origins. I once suspected they might have been extraterrestrial beings, but later, by comparing them with vampires, werewolves, gargoyles... and even ethereal ancient ghosts and other supernatural creatures, I used all the information I could find, based on their wounds, records in books, interpersonal relationships, and so on, to deduce their past history. In the end, I built a historical model, and the result was..."

"If my model is correct, the traces of those supernatural things that existed in this world are at most a little over 40,000 years ago."

"The oldest one is an unknown magical symbol, and its oldest trace is on a 42,000-year-old man-made stone slab fragment. If I were to use carbon-14 dating, I might think it has existed for millions of years, but if I were to put it into that model, based on the records in books and the testimonies deduced from interpersonal relationships, I am certain that the earliest person to have come into contact with it was some unknown thing from more than 40,000 years ago."

"But that's impossible!"

As he spoke, his face contorted into a ferocious expression, and he gritted his teeth.

“I’ve found vampire fossils from 100 million years ago, magical artifacts from 40 million years ago, the prototype of a stone statue from 7 million years ago, and an alchemical puppet from 200,000 years ago… but my mathematical model keeps telling me that those things that supposedly have tens of millions of years of history should logically have been created less than 50,000 years ago…”

"Am I insane, or is the world insane? This world is full of signs of being altered by some force! Everywhere there are logical contradictions and bizarre, seemingly reasonable things. This world appears reasonable, but inside it is full of lies!"

"What exactly happened 50,000 years ago? I don't know, because I can build a mathematical model using all the information I have now, and then work backward to the past or predict the future, but I can't possibly extrapolate to the point of 50,000 years ago, until one day..."

He took a deep breath for no apparent reason and finally spoke.

"Until one day, I found the information about the key to the world and eventually found Leonardo da Vinci's private diary."

……

Looking at Uberto Bruni in front of him, Roberts felt that the man seemed to have fallen into some kind of madness and hysteria. Although his speech was still fluent, Roberts felt a dangerous aura about him.

He silently waved his hand behind him, signaling Wendy to be prepared and wary of the seemingly crazy young man in front of her.

"You think I'm crazy?"

Suddenly, the young man in front of him grinned, his face full of mockery and pity.

“There’s no need to wave your hand behind my back. I’m calm and I know exactly what I’m saying. The only reason you’re suspicious is because you haven’t seen the evidence yet.”

Roberts somehow discovered her secret little tricks.

But the young man paid no attention to any of that. He glanced at Roberts with a hint of pity, as if looking at a deaf and blind fool, utterly ignorant of the truth of the world. He sat back down in his seat, then casually shrugged and spoke to the group.

"I understand that it is hard for you to suddenly believe that the world was actually born 50,000 years ago, but all I can tell you is that it is indeed a fact in some sense."

"You mentioned Leonardo da Vinci's diary. What's in it?"

Roberts, without batting an eye, asked as if he hadn't done anything at all.

The young man looked at him but didn't say much, only replying.

"Fear, it records his fear."

"He recorded many of his thoughts in his diary. Based on his thoughts and the information I have collected, I have made this conjecture."

"Fifty thousand years ago, a powerful and mysterious life form... You can also call it God, a deity, a creator, whatever you want, in short, it created the universe. Then, at some point, this fifty-thousand-year-old universe inexplicably evolved into our current universe, which is 12 billion years old. I don't understand why, and I may never understand it."

"And in this strange transformation, the world has undergone... a kind of reshaping? It's like reshaping a clay figure into something else, but the traces of the previous clay figure still remain. From my perspective, these many supernatural life forms and phenomena may be remnants of the previous universe."

"Ha, if that's the case, then our God's skills are pretty rough."

As he spoke, the young man inexplicably sneered.

"After that, we don't know what happened, but what we do know is that it seems that there is something hidden in that world key... a relic from the previous universe. It might be that the creator is sleeping in it, or it might be that Satan is sealed inside."

"Da Vinci had contact with the statue and possessed it for a long time. He was intelligent and probably knew the truth better than anyone else, but in his later years, he eventually fell into a deep and inescapable fear, fleeing throughout Italy to escape the strange nightmares that followed the statue."

“I don’t know the specific details, but judging from the burn marks on the corner of that diary, at the end of his life, he should have asked his steward to burn his personal belongings. However, this diary was preserved for some reason, and I don’t know why. After that, I was unexpectedly discovered by the Priory of Sion and was hunted by them, so I had to go on the run.”

"Because you found the method to unlock the world key in that diary?"

Roberts raised an eyebrow.

During the two weeks of being hunted, Roberts gradually realized that the young man in front of him seemed to be the reason why the Priory of Sion was constantly tracking him, because he had mastered the method to unlock the World Key.

"Have you found a way to unlock the world key?"

Unexpectedly, the young man scoffed.

“You’re oversimplifying Leonardo da Vinci. Why would he record this method in his diary? He wouldn’t even tell his own Priory of Sion, so why would he be so careless as to leave this method behind?”

As he spoke, he glanced at Roberts, a rare hint of arrogance appearing on his crazed face.

"Or perhaps you're underestimating me? If Leonardo da Vinci could think of it, why couldn't I? If he could do it, why can't I?"

The words seemed to imply that the young man in front of him had found a way through his own efforts, and clearly, in his eyes, he was no less capable than Leonardo da Vinci from hundreds of years ago.

"Where is the world key now? Have you already opened it?"

Roberts pressed for an answer.

"The World Key? No, you're overthinking it. That thing isn't on Earth right now."

"Not on Earth? What do you mean?"

Roberts couldn't help but be surprised.

"Listen to me first."

The young man shook his head and waved his hand casually.

"Over the centuries, the World Key has been passed down through various hands. In the last century, Hitchcock obtained the World Key. That great war was unprecedented, with the inner and outer worlds joining forces against Naxdx. But few people know that Hitchcock once specially formed an ancient army group, a small but extremely elite force specifically designed to deal with supernatural events."

"After Hitler committed suicide and Germany was defeated, the Priory of Sion and the Freemasons both tried to find the World Key, but to no avail. Later, it was reported that the Ancient Army had gone to Antarctica to establish a refuge. In 1947, the United States sent an aircraft carrier, a battleship, several destroyers, supply ships, and 4000 Marines to Antarctica, claiming it was a 'high-altitude landing' operation to 'search for mineral deposits and other valuable resources in Antarctica'."

At this point, the young man couldn't help but laugh.

"Going to Antarctica to search for minerals? And they even brought an aircraft carrier, a battleship, and more than 4000 soldiers? I'm amazed the Americans came up with that reason. In reality, that mission was to search for NanoX's secret base in Antarctica and also to find the World Key, but unfortunately, it yielded nothing and ended abruptly."

"But actually they weren't mistaken. The ancient army did go to Antarctica, but... they didn't stay long before heading to the moon."

(End of this chapter)