Capítulo 1668: Chapter 1668: Buildings from Two Hundred Years Ago
“Once we go inside, this communicator might not work,” Nie Xuan said. “Perhaps we can connect to the game platform.”
This Chaotic Space is of unknown origin, and it’s unclear what the situation inside is like, so it’s possible the game panel might not open.
Xu Huo took it and casually put it in his pocket, then followed Nie Xuan into the fissure, while the three people Nie Xuan selected followed him closely, with the remaining ones, including Yu Qingqing, waiting outside.
Standing outside and entering it are indeed two different concepts. As soon as he stepped into the Chaotic Space, Xu Huo felt pressure coming from all directions.
Generally speaking, Spatial Rays don’t reach the level of forming a Spatial Barrier; they typically don’t have a noticeable impact on people. Just like anything in the air, even the air itself contains rays that people can’t feel. But after entering here, the air is filled with a heaviness, as if the gray fogs have weight, pressing heavily on people.
Xu Huo and Nie Xuan could discern Spatial Rays and could avoid intersections of rays that were chaotic or showed signs of collision without issue. Bent and twisted, they walked for a short distance along the street.
The surveillance equipment was limited by the fog, capturing limited visuals, and they couldn’t see much content. Xu Huo and the others took some detours to avoid particularly dense areas of Spatial Rays, thus winding up at the edge of the street, glimpsing parts of buildings hidden in the fog.
From the composition of buildings analyzed by instruments, this city was at least two hundred years old.
“Two hundred years? Did the game exist then?” Nie Xuan couldn’t help but ask.
“It probably did,” Xu Huo thought for a moment. “Last time in Zone 017, I met a player who claimed to be two hundred years old, but unfortunately was killed by the Guile Sound Knights.”
Nie Xuan wasn’t genuinely interested in discussing whether the game appeared over two hundred years ago; he casually replied, “In the game world, different zones have different ways of time calculation; it’s not surprising to have cities hundreds or thousands of years old.”
The group of five basically traveled in a single line forward, testing the communicator en route, which was not usable and couldn’t connect with people outside. The slightly better aspect was that the game platform could still be used, so external communication wasn’t entirely severed.
“But why did ‘Capricious’ members go silent upon entering?” Sha Chuan wondered aloud from behind, but realized he’d said something foolish; they could contact the outside, so how could others not? Unless they were dead.
Due to limited visibility, they could only see parts of the buildings. Based on some decorative elements at the entrances, these complexes should be quite tall, although they hadn’t found a suitable opportunity to enter, they occasionally saw extraordinarily spacious areas within.
“It doesn’t look like ordinary residences; it feels more like a palace,” Wei Xiaoyi commented. “But palaces shouldn’t be built like this, with a street in the middle and doorways on both sides. It’s more like a dwelling.”
“With such advanced technology in the game world, and players having abilities, what kind of city couldn’t be built?” Nie Xuan picked up a larger piece from scattered stones and put it away. “Nowadays, doesn’t the royalty overseas also gather players to build special safety zones?”
These are somewhat personal hobbies and aesthetics.
The recently constructed high-standard safety zones by the military and Special Defense Department were modeled after those in external districts, doing everything they could in terms of fortifications now achievable, focusing on safety while placing aesthetics at the bottom of priorities.
Foreign safety zones are different; some big figures often show their presence in these critical times, like requesting national cultural symbols, or simply adding quirky elements according to personal preferences, lending an air of “mystery” to the buildings.
“People are often exceptionally obsessed with the unknown, like religion; whether it’s spiritual solace or ulterior motives, the closer we get to ungraspable, hard-to-reach areas, the more things seem rationalized, possibly dispelling some criticisms automatically.”
Nie Xuan was indifferent to this perspective.
“Only cultures lacking depth and spiritual cores try to gather ordinary people through religious brainwashing.”
“So, saying this, the place doesn’t seem so mysterious,” Tian Zhengjiang remarked. “Though I don’t believe in religion, coming to such places might restrain oneself to some extent.”
“It’s absolutely unnecessary,” Nie Xuan cautioned them to be more careful, “apart from architecture, attention should be paid more to potential dangers.”
“What is Mr. Xu looking at?” Wei Xiaoyi suddenly brought the topic to Xu Huo, because during their conversation, Xu Huo had already looked three times at the archway above beside him.
There was a carving.
Since entering, most of the buildings had carvings, even the streets were no exception. Mainly consisting of stone constructions, there were orderly lined line-patterned carvings, some composed of squares, others of triangles, or composed of patterns formed by these two basic shapes.
The archway was slightly different.
Along the way, he had seen three archways, mostly patterns of clouds paired with streamlined decorations, the central position was enlarged square or triangle carvings. This archway was different, with an eye carving between two symmetrical triangles.
“There are many Props with eye-pattern decorations in the game,” Nie Xuan remarked.
Xu Huo nodded; not only Props, even regular decorations often have eye patterns due to people’s worship of eyes. Eyes are also the most closely connected organs for humans to the world, so seeing eye patterns here wasn’t strange.
But he sensed something else with this pattern.
“Does it involve Psychic Power?” Nie Xuan asked seriously.
“It feels a bit like it.” Since entering this space, Xu Huo hadn’t attempted to externalize his Spiritual World; firstly, he was uncertain of the situation here. With such chaotic space, traces of habitation might blend with other forces; impulsively expanding the Spiritual World wouldn’t be wise.
Secondly, he had a slightly uneasy feeling, possibly affected by the heaviness of the fog.
Taking another glance at the high eye pattern, he said, “Let’s move forward.”
After advancing a bit further, they reached the location where the surveillance was destroyed previously; however, there were no remnants on the ground, not even a trace left.
“I don’t see the bodies of ‘Capricious’ members either,” Sha Chuan remarked as he glanced around.
“Given the chaotic space, spatial shifts or distortions aren’t unusual.” Nie Xuan crouched to feel the ground, but as he was about to proceed, Xu Huo suddenly reached out to stop him by placing a hand on his shoulder, “Something is watching us.”