Pirate Kingship.

Chapter 701 The World of the Dead, Eternal Silence

Byron's [World Snake] jumped eighty thousand miles in one leap. The two incarnations kept flashing forward on the surface of the upper and lower reaches of the Styx, faster than the speed of an electromagnetic slingshot turning into lightning.

[Divine Vision] also expanded wantonly above the Styx. Wherever the limit of flash was, there would be the boundary of Divine Vision.

The incarnation who went upstream was the first to reap the rewards and saw the dead soul floating in the river.

To be more precise, this is a residual soul that has been dead for who knows how long. After leaving the body, it has been consumed by time and the Styx and is about to completely dissipate.

Not only had he long since fallen into eternal sleep like the ancient heroes in our collective subconscious, but even his form had become blurred, and he exuded a strong, stale smell.

"This is.?!"

When Byron arrived in front of the other person and barely recognized his appearance, he couldn't help but shrink his pupils.

It is about seven or eight meters long, with a body similar to that of a human, with tattered bat wings on its back and an octopus head on top.

Especially the eight tentacles on the chin, which are still slightly wriggling even though it has been dead for who knows how long, are so recognizable.

"Why does this creature from the upper world look so similar to the sleeping god Kraken?"

When Byron wanted to use his "limited omniscience" to read the information on the remnant soul, he read nothing.

Even just bearing Byron's gaze, it quietly dissipated, like an illusion in a dream that never existed.

This power from dreams seems even more suspicious.

Byron looked up at the direction where the water of the River Styx was flowing upstream, and knew that the water of the River Styx, which symbolized death and cycle and ran through the world, was not flowing fast.

Ordinary undead souls that fall into the tributaries of the Styx in their own material world will disappear before they even merge into the main stream. Even the immortal divinity of the gods cannot last for long.

When there is no corresponding power, it is impossible to sail far away unless there are many divinities that can act as "tickets".

Even though the remnant soul that just dissipated seemed weak, he was probably a big shot who once dominated the world when he was alive.

"And I've already smelled the scent of the source tide. It seems that the world upstream suffered a great flood earlier than our world!

We may not be the first victims of the Great Flood and the Lunar Age."

This discovery made Byron hesitate.

"The reason why the three great human gods split apart and why they were unable to stop the flood after 1500 years of stalemate with the world's will was because of closure.

The independent material world is just a speck of dust in the universe. Isolating a country from the outside world has never had a good end. Humankind must eventually go out.

However, going global also requires methods and approaches. Only the strong side can shout the slogan: "Open the door, free trade".

Once backward countries open their doors without restraint, all their national industries will inevitably be swallowed up by powerful countries.

If the world we encounter is weaker than us, that’s fine. But if it is stronger than us, I’m afraid we will be attacked from all sides.”

In Byron's vision, the infinite world outside this world cannot be regarded as just a flood discharge area.

If possible, it would be best to provide additional resources to our own world, just like the colonies in the Age of Discovery, to support the continued growth of our own world.

That is to say, just like those "vampire stars", by transferring entropy increase, they can keep themselves forever young and even achieve the dimensional upgrading of the entire world!

So now a key question is also placed before Byron:
"The creatures in the upstream world obviously entered the extraordinary world earlier than us. Have they tried to save themselves? Escape? Block? Or dredge?

What happens now?
Moreover, those gods who hold authority over the underworld should also be qualified to travel short distances through the Styx.

I can discover the secret that this river connects to other worlds. Have other underworld gods tried to explore other worlds like me?

Although they do not have the status of the World Serpent and do not have the Four Basic Elements: Water, if they just go downstream to escape, then...
Well, let’s see.”

Byron couldn't determine whether his guess was true or false, so he didn't come to a conclusion directly.

Turning his head to look in the direction of his own world, he did not see any extremely suspicious figure, but unexpectedly discovered that when observing the Styx in his own world at this distance, he could easily see the previous scenes.

This is because the transmission speed of light is limited. As long as you stand far enough away, you can see what happened in the world long enough ago.

It is equivalent to directly observing the history of this world and gaining omniscience in disguise.

Byron even saw his own shadows left on the River Styx.

It's just that the space on the surface of the River Styx is distorted like a "rust belt". Perhaps the distance between the two planets is extremely far, but it is not so exaggerated here.

When Byron turned his head and looked back, he could only see the scene a few months ago at most, and when he looked forward, he could not see any changes.

This distance is nothing to him, but to others, even ordinary gods, it is a chasm.

Referring to the undead who just died, the possibility of a large-scale cross-border conquest of his own world is not very high.

The First Empire on which the Sun Never Sets could try to use this place as a transit station for the "underground railway network" to achieve ultra-long-distance troop deployment.

Byron withdrew his gaze, and his body flashed and turned into a ray of lightning and continued to move forward.

However, they did not find any more dead souls soaking in the river along the way until they saw a tributary of the River Styx appearing in front of them.

This tributary flows out from a gray mist. The rumbling sound caused by the water level difference can be faintly heard, and the unique smell of the source tide becomes stronger.

Determining the current state of the upstream and downstream worlds is crucial to Byron’s next plans.

Now that he was here, he didn't hesitate at all. He found the place connected to the inner world and jumped in.

Pfft!
The world barrier is much weaker than imagined. Byron's world can keep a large group of demigods out.

There was not much resistance here for Byron, an outsider. He just struggled a little and fell into the dark ocean.

Byron used the power of Ouroboros to distort the space and did not rashly come into contact with the lifeless black ocean where no living creature could be found.

But as [Divine Vision] swept over, his expression suddenly changed:
"How come I'm in the material world right away? Where are their edge of the world and the underworld?"

You should know that, under normal circumstances, the mystical structure of a material world should be composed of three layers:
The top layer is the kingdom of God held up by the true gods. Their kingdom has complete rules and can operate independently from the material world. It is also called the upper plane or heaven.
The middle layer is the largest material world, where mortals live. The demigods’ earthly kingdom is also on this layer, symbolizing the “yang side” of the world.
The lowest level is the world of the dead at the edge of the world. This is where the collective subconscious takes root and symbolizes the "dark side" of the world.

Further out is the boundless sea of ​​source.

As for the "triple point", it is a "hole" that mortals cannot see or touch. It is probably located at the junction of the sunny side, the shady side, and the sea of ​​​​source, which is the waterline of a sailboat.

The multiple layers of worlds interact with each other, but are also clearly separated.

For example: Alexander, the former president of the Lighthouse Union, could only enter through the revolving door as a dead person when he joined United Pharmaceutical Company.

Living people without corresponding authority cannot even reach the edge of the world.

This world is obviously different, Byron waved gently.

call--!
The sea water within a few hundred meters was stirred into a ball, with fine rust-colored light and shadows appearing in the middle, exactly the same as the scene in the "Rust Belt".

In Byron's eyes, the whole world has returned to its essence of waves, and he can easily distinguish what is "real" and what is "virtual".

The positive and negative sides of this world seem to have mixed together. The boundary between matter and spirituality has been completely broken. The two neutralize each other, and the activity of the source substance is almost zero.

Byron hesitated for a moment, then made his own judgment:
“If my world is a world of low- and medium-level demons, even the high and mighty gods can be beaten to death.

This place is almost free of demons or even has dead demons.

It feels like the embers that slowly burn out after a fire in the furnace runs out of fuel. Even my power has been weakened to the limit."

This situation was somewhat beyond his expectations.

Byron thought that this might be a world that was struggling for survival like his own, or it might be a world completely ruled by the old gods, full of destruction and bloodlust.

But I never expected that this world seemed to be completely dead?
In this environment, the possibility of any local indigenous people being alive is very slim.

Fortunately, Byron’s spiritual state of “all things return to oneness” can be used in any occasion.

After the limit expansion, it was discovered that the entire world where reality and illusion were mixed had been submerged by sea water, no land could be found, the sea was covered with dark clouds, and it was raining everywhere.

There are no fish in the sea, no intelligent creatures, not even a single water plant or living algae cell.

Only on the shallow seabed are there many ancient buildings that have been submerged for who knows how many years.

Byron turned into a stream of light and fell into a huge underwater city.

The structures of the buildings here are very abnormal, completely contrary to the geometry of their own world, and are abstract from the main body to the details.

The huge spatial structure and dimensions make people feel strongly uncomfortable from the bottom of their hearts.

All the buildings are made of huge, slippery green stones, and the city is filled with dizzyingly tall stone carvings, magnificent stone statues and gorgeous reliefs.

Moreover, both the statues and the reliefs are engraved with sticky tentacles, which makes people feel like they have fallen into a tentacle nest.

However, most of the city had been destroyed, the patterns were becoming blurred, and the extreme madness and chaos were gradually fading away.

This style may be very shocking to others, but Byron only felt that it was very familiar. Combined with the octopus head remnant soul found at the beginning, a somewhat absurd answer is about to emerge:
“This city looks like a replica of the Deep Dive Church’s Luoyan City.

Perhaps the [Sleeping God Kraken] who has been active since the mythological era was once a remnant of this world!
It’s not that no one has done the same thing as me in the past, but that someone has already done it.

But he only managed to escape the flood once, and failed to escape the second time due to the sudden attack by the human god king. "

Byron strode into a "library" filled with slate documents and called upon his sister's power [digital modeling, omniscience] to model the entire dilapidated library.

It was soon learned from the remaining information that this world was originally an ocean-blue planet with 99% of its surface area covered by sea water.

The world is ruled by a race called "Brain Eaters". They are a group of extraordinary underwater species who have established a highly developed marine civilization in this world.

Byron then extracted a series of the strongest emotions and most important messages.

There was a sharp roar in my ears, which gradually turned into human language:

"July 2988 of the Grey Mist Era. Citizens of the Brain Eater Empire, rest assured, nothing has happened in our world."

"December of the Gray Mist Year 2989, citizens, something may be happening in our world, but we should not take action. Waiting and watching is the best option."

"May 2991 of the Grey Mist Era. Citizens, perhaps we should take action, but we can't do anything. The top leaders of the Empire have done their best."

"January 2995 of the Grey Mist Era. Perhaps we could have done something back then, but it's too late now. The world-destroying flood is about to come. I wish you all good luck."

Hearing this, Byron looked strange:
"Is this set of rhetoric a common skill among the top executives? It sounds really familiar."

Then the angry voices of the people echoed in the library:

“The higher-ups deceived us!

I am a soldier of the Royal Capital Garrison Corps. Today I saw with my own eyes that they boarded the mythical submarine [Nautilus] that was transformed from the Kingdom of Hades and escaped for their lives. "

"Sizzle. Sizzle."

Then there were several noises of information media being damaged over a long period of time.

"The patrol team discovered the wreckage of the Nautilus, which was destroyed due to an unknown accident. They confirmed that most of the high-ranking officials of the empire had died, lost their divinity, and turned into twisted monsters.

This legendary submarine is missing the most critical core part.

The gentlemen of the Disaster Management Committee feel that someone may have successfully escaped from this world with the divinity of the entire empire's top leaders."

“I am the last great wizard of the empire, Ghatanothoa. Now 70% of my people have died and become my followers.

Now I can only record everything and trust in the wisdom of future generations.

According to my research, the reason why our world changed from a world without magic to an extraordinary world is that our ancestors evolved from a group of octopuses into extraordinary intelligent creatures.

The root cause is that with the invasion of the Sea of ​​​​Source, all kinds of knowledge in this world suddenly acquired the characteristic of being "alive"!
The most common way of expressing this kind of "being alive" is not by being able to move, walk, or kill people, but by being able to communicate.

They can actively spread all kinds of weird, evil, or horrifying knowledge, and will unconsciously attract weirdos or brain-eaters who possess similar knowledge to meet them.

With this living knowledge, we can leverage the source tide and use various extraordinary abilities."

“Therefore, many great wizards have a consensus that the reason why we can build a great country is not because we, the brain eaters, are constantly pursuing the knowledge in the brains of other creatures, but because knowledge is constantly pursuing us!

It was not until I witnessed the end of the world with my own eyes that I realized that knowledge is not "pursuing" us, but "chasing" us.

Their pursuit is brutal and emotionless, just like our domesticated killer whales catching schools of fish.

The explosion of extraordinary power in the world is not because our ancestors were so powerful, but because they happened to be caught up by the brutal "knowledge"!

The more knowledge our brain-eating demon tribe accumulates, the stronger the suction will be on the "activity" of the source sea, making the end of the world come faster.

Therefore, what we should do most is to destroy all the achievements of civilization and return to the primitive age of eating scales and drinking blood!"

Seeing this, Byron also found resonance in it.

This is what the Eastern Continent Corridor of Truth does.

They keep the supernatural and mortal worlds separate by keeping secrets and observing precepts. Most ordinary people in the human kingdom don't even know that this is a supernatural world.

As long as you know nothing, you won’t encounter inexplicable dangerous things under the rule of “everything returns to one”, and you may live longer than many extraordinary people.

Some people even gave this cognitive boundary a name: "The Fool's Limit!"

It means the cognitive defense line outside the dam of the human mind.

The lower classes ruled in the Lighthouse Federation are proud of their ignorance and ashamed of studying. Growing up happily is their highest pursuit, and the illiteracy rate ranks first among the three continents.

Now, there is such a material world showing up, which means that this "fool's limit" is the same for the world as well.

The mutual attraction between the world and the Sea of ​​​​Source had already occurred tens of millions of years before the beginning of the great flood.

When a world's level of civilization reaches a certain standard, it will come into contact with the Sea of ​​​​Source because of the "wisdom" of humanoid creatures.

The erosion will start little by little from the "triple point" and expand from the spiritual world to the material world.

While bringing disasters, it will also transform the material world without magic into an extraordinary world.

Byron read to the end and finally discovered why the world had become what it is now.

Most of the brain-eaters in the flood turned into monsters. In desperation, the last remaining citizens used the empire's ultimate weapon to destroy the "Triple Point".

It also killed all the mid- and high-sequence clansmen, completely cutting off the connection between this world and the outside world.

At the same time, it breaks the boundaries between life and death, reality and illusion, allowing the dead souls to circulate within the world, and the living and the dead are no longer distinguishable from each other.

The remaining brain-eating demons lingered on for hundreds of years in a doomed future, but eventually they were completely destroyed.

This also explains why there are no dead souls in the River Styx, because they have all been digested internally.

When Byron saw this, he couldn't help but give these octopus heads a thumbs up.

“These guys are even more ruthless than the Creator who blocked the triple point.

According to the second law of thermodynamics, in an 'isolated' system, the entropy of the universe will increase over time, transforming from order to disorder.

When the entropy of the universe reaches its maximum value, all other effective energy in the universe has been converted into heat energy, and the temperature of all matter reaches thermal equilibrium. This state is called heat death.

In such a universe, energy can no longer be transferred, and there can no longer be any movement or orderly life.

All changes ceased."

The situation in this world is the same, except that it changes from thermal energy to extraordinary energy.

As the number of man-eating maniacs increases in this closed system, the 'food' becomes less and less.

When all the "order" from intelligent creatures is exhausted, the whole world falls into the most complete chaos and disorder.

The tragic ending proved the saying:

"In the spontaneous process, concentration tends to diffuse, structure tends to disappear, order tends to disorder, and chaos is the ultimate of the universe!"

It ultimately approaches another extraordinary form of "heat death", which can be called "spiritual death".

In this state of artificial death, even the will of the world and all intelligent creatures perished together.

Byron stood in front of a civilized tombstone and read the final epitaph they wrote for themselves. He felt lost and it took him a long time to calm down.

“My world can never be like theirs.

Although this civilization has disappeared, at least I learned one thing from them: the speed of the coming of the apocalyptic flood is positively correlated with the level of civilization.

As our whale oil industrial revolution develops, I'm afraid the rate of flooding will continue to accelerate, and we'll have to find a place with a lower level of civilization and lower water levels than ours to serve as a flood discharge area.

This dead world, with a higher level of civilization and water level than my world, is obviously useless.

Although the name Brain Eater doesn't sound like a good guy, I, the 'good man' Saint Byron, also have a bottom line, you guys just stay here."

Byron walked out of the library with heavy steps, but his [Divine Vision] inadvertently swept across the muddy seabed in front of him.

There was a liquid slowly flowing beneath the seabed that was gleaming with black and gold light. It was actually the boundless sea of ​​oil that was formed after the death of all living things in this world!

Byron's mouth opened wider and wider, then he swallowed the three words "Rest in Peace" back and murmured in his heart:
“It’s good to be upstream.

As long as I use the 'underground railway network' to build a pipeline, I can pump these legacies to my world.

Thank you for the gift of nature!"

(End of this chapter)