ASHES OF DEEP SEA

Chapter 257: Chapter 261 Mysterious Symbol

As Nina was about to run up to the second floor to say hello, Duncan appeared at the top of the staircase.

He had heard the noise coming from downstairs.

“Mr. Duncan,” Maurice came up to the stairs, looking up at the “Captain” peering down, “I found the symbol you showed me in a document about the Ancient Crete Kingdom… At least it’s very similar.”

Duncan noticed the slight redness in Maurice’s eyes and his slightly swollen eyelids, clearly, the old scholar had gone to some lengths to find this information, yet his eyes gleamed with excitement, his spirits were exceptionally lifted—this was the kind of vitality that came only when one was immersed in research and had finally achieved something.

Duncan glanced at Nina and Alice and others downstairs, nodded slightly: “You all man the shop.”

Then he looked at Maurice: “Come upstairs to talk.”

The elder, clutching the large book, stepped onto the creaky antique wooden staircase and followed Duncan to the master bedroom on the second floor—this was his first time entering this place.

For the residence of a Subspace Shadow, the bedroom was rather simple, but considering Mr. Duncan’s special “fondness” for “playing the mortal,” this simplicity seemed rather normal.

Maurice carefully controlled his movements, satisfying his curiosity without engaging in any unnecessary prying, while Duncan pulled over two chairs and gestured for the elder to place the large book on the desk by the window.

“Tell me about your findings,” Duncan said after sitting down, “what does that symbol represent?”

“As for its meaning… I’m still clueless at the moment. I’ve just found the most likely source of it,” Maurice steadied himself and opened the valuable-looking document to the page marked with a bookmark, “Did you notice this spot? It’s here.”

Duncan frowned slightly; he saw a drawing, a rather exquisite hand-drawn illustration, which appeared to be part of some large structure, looking like the main entrance of a palace, while that symbol—with a hexagonal frame and shattered cross structure—appeared in the relief above the main entrance, situated in the center of the entire scene.

As for the content of the relief… it seemed to be just some meaningless patterns.

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As Maurice had just mentioned downstairs, this symbol was in an inconspicuous place—it was merely a small decorative part of an illustration, accounting for less than a tenth of the entire picture and not specially marked.

It was quite a feat for Maurice to have found this book among piles of documents and to have discovered such a corner in it.

“I vaguely remembered it, must have seen it a very long time ago, thanks to the blessing of the god of wisdom, this ‘impression’ still worked today, allowing me to find this ‘little toy,’” Maurice explained, “The illustration is a copy, its original appeared in a document regarding the research of the ruins of the Ancient Crete Kingdom, that document is not currently in Preland, but I believe some of my academic friends might be able to help…

“Of course, even without the original, the content recorded in this book is also very valuable. It mentions that the hand-drawn illustration depicts a lost ruin that was once located on the border seas, on an unidentified island that mysteriously disappeared in a dense fog around the year 223 of the New City-State Era. Before it completely vanished, a number of expeditions successfully landed on the island, verified the form and age of the ruins, confirming it should be from the time of the Ancient Crete Kingdom. Judging from the surface decoration and relief of the building, the entire facility should have been some kind of large structure with both academic and religious significance…”

Maurice spoke while pointing to the text next to the illustration on the slightly yellowed pages, and one could see annotations written by the scholar in his youth.

“This type of relief with robust, profound lines and the abundant rhombic elements in the patterns is characteristic of Ancient Crete Kingdom architecture. They revered an architectural style that was thick in lines and exuded a sense of strength; the main parts of their palaces and buildings were mostly rectangular or pyramid in shape, and this structure perfectly matches those characteristics…”

While listening to Maurice’s interpretation, Duncan’s gaze slowly swept across the drawings and text, his attention returning to the hexagonal pattern at the center of the relief above the entrance in the picture, his brow furrowed slightly: “About this symbol, there is no targeted interpretation.”

“… Unfortunately, this document is just a general introduction and does not delve into a detailed interpretation of the various details of the ruins,” Maurice shook his head, “but this is an inevitable situation—the Ancient Crete Kingdom goes back ten thousand years, and the few relics it left are mostly severely damaged. Additionally, with the loss or ‘contamination’ of various records, the knowledge available for subsequent analysis is already fragmented, and it would be difficult to find an article specifically studying a certain pattern on a door of the old kingdom…”

“Academic or religious facility, emblems at the entrance…” Duncan pondered as he stroked his chin, “Why would a group of ‘ascetics’ ten thousand years later carry an amulet from the time of the Ancient Crete Kingdom?”

He turned his head and looked at Maurice, “Do you think it’s possible that there exists a ‘Descendant of Crete’ that has inherited its lineage for ten thousand years?”

“Some have said that a rigorous scholar should not blindly deny any possibility, however minuscule the odds, but personally, I find that truly unlikely,” Maurice said cautiously as he pondered.

“A group resembling ascetics, perhaps very few in number, extremely secretive in their activities, having endured the great chaos after the Ancient Kingdom’s collapse, the era of strife, and the City-State wars, for a whole ten thousand years without a break in their lineage or being discovered… If this possibility were plausible, I would rather believe they are a secret society established in more recent times, who, by chance, discovered some ancient manuscripts or similar relics and adopted a symbol from the Crete period as their own—an even likelier possibility.”

Duncan listened to the old man’s thoughts and hummed noncommittally, his gaze sweeping over the documents again.

On the document, some passages clearly quoted records from original manuscripts, describing fragments left by explorers over a thousand years ago:

“…It stood at the center of the island, the main building, and its surrounding appendages nearly occupied the entire island as if the island itself existed solely for this structure…

“…The main material of the buildings seemed to be stone, yet tougher than stone, with a pale color. Soldiers attempted to chip away a piece of the wall brick with an ice pick and only succeeded with great effort… Sparks exaggeratedly shot out when the ice pick struck the wall brick, and the broken area had a silvery-gray texture.

“The nearby islands were quite desolate, with sparse vegetation and hardly any insects to be seen… No remaining buildings, perhaps there were once, but too insignificant in scale, now devoured by time…

“…On the evening of the third day, as a small boat circled the island for inspection, it found that a collapsed area which had been above water was now submerged without any signs of high tide… Fog started to gather around the sea area, the priest felt an ominous premonition, after praying to the death god Bartok for revelations, he suggested that we immediately distance ourselves from this island.”

Duncan went directly to the end of this quoted passage and saw how the author of the manuscript had recorded:

“After the exploration team withdrew, on the seventh day the dense fog dissipated, another team arrived near the sea area, but could no longer find the nameless island.”

Duncan couldn’t help but feel some regret.

“Swallowed by the dense fog, huh…” he sighed softly, “It sounds like the result of a border collapse.”

“It does seem so—but back then there weren’t mature sigil navigation technologies, nor sufficient observation means, and several anomalous phenomena including border collapses and ‘Fog Devouring’ could easily be confused.”

“Fog Devouring…” Duncan briefly reminisced before finding the corresponding knowledge in his mind—he had been diligently brushing up on this area through books lately, “If it really is the Fog Devouring phenomenon, then this island might reappear briefly in a similar dense fog in the future, but it seems there are no such records passed down.”

“Indeed, but it’s also possible that related records have been scattered and lost.”

Duncan hummed, his fingers unconsciously brushing over the illustration, over the small broken cross marks on it.

“This illustration… There’s no possibility that the copier took creative liberties, is there?” he suddenly asked, feeling uncertain.

“I don’t think so,” Maurice answered immediately, “These are very rigorous documents, the illustrator and the compilers of the original manuscripts are both scholarly authorities known for their meticulousness. When leaving these records, they would rather leave the unclear parts untouched for posterity than make any ‘supplementary adjustments’ without evidence, or that is to say, even if they did make adjustments, they would surely specify the corresponding situations in the notes.”

“Truly verifiable…”

Duncan murmured thoughtfully.

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