Chapter 474 (1/2)
The underground world—if this place could indeed be called as such—was turning into a bizzare spectacle as the party forged on. Hao Ren was 100 % sure that he had not gone bonkers. But if he had been unsure, he would have doubted the fact that he had arrived at his current location through an underground passage. They were trudging through the snowfield in darkness. The place was unnervingly spacious, and snow buffeted them in the face. The sensation was undeniably real.
They were now deep within the twisted dimension created by the vengeful spirit. This was a dimension that lay between the illusion and reality.
Before them now was a cluster of twisted stone towers. Lily dashed forward towards those gargantuan pillars and held her claws up high to light up the area around one of the tower’s surface. “There’s writing on it!”
Hao Ren joined Lily at the tower and noticed that there were indeed neat rows of cuneiform carvings on it. They were clearly some form of words, but they were not Letta runes.
“Doesn’t look like any kind of writing on Earth, and they’re also not Letta runes, or any other known form of writing in the Plane of Dreams.” The MDT ran through its database. “What is this sh*t?”
“It’s pretty common to see marks of something from another world whenever the spirits show up,” Vivian explained. “They’re all similar to this stone tower here. I’ve even seen pyramid-shaped houses and monuments left behind in places where the spirits have appeared. This weird-looking writing was on all of them. Can you translate it?”
“All logical writings can be translated.” The MDT floated towards a few of the towers. “I’ll need more samples.”
Before the MDT went forward to collect more samples of the “spirit’s writing”, something Vivian said piqued Hao Ren’s curiosity. “Why does a spiritual being need this sort of thing? You said they even built houses? Did they need them?”
Vivian curled her lips. “Who knows. The spirits are not something you can communicate with. They’ll appear in a whim and wreck things, leaving a whole load of inexplicable mess. Then, they either get vanquished, or disappear on their own. No one has been able to deal with them. Even the Lord of the Dead tried to conduct some sort of diplomacy with the spirits. He felt that he could bring them to his side, and three times he brought them to the table, three times they wrecked his castle.”
It did not take long for the MDT to collect enough samples. Humming a weird tune as it made its way back to Hao Ren, It went, “This word structure is much simpler than expected. A very common logical structure too.”
Hao Ren pointed towards the pillar closest to him, “What does it says there?”
The MDT scanned the writings on the pillar before taking a sudden dive. Its voice was rather incredulous. “…I think there’s something wrong…”
“Spit it out.”
“…Popol’s Legendary Brew. Year 1911. Made from 12 fine grains. A bottle of fine brew for all times. Looking for distributors in the Nacrossa region. For more information…”
Hao Ren was stunned the moment he heard the first few words and grabbed the MDT towards him. “What the hell?”
“That’s an advertisement.” The MDT’s voice was sincere. “I swear on my cognitive cores that I’m not lying. So you can’t just toss me away or put me together with your devil of a daughter.”
Hao Ren looked bewildered at the stone pillar. He just simply could not believe the writings that they found in this god forsaken place was an advertisement! Even Nangong Wuyue couldn’t help but mumble, “Why nothing that we encounter actually follows a normal script?”
Hao Ren felt that was just a fluke, and pointed towards another stone pillar. “Translate that one!”
“…Circle Hill Road , Circle Hill Market, Starlight Street Southeast Plaza, Clearwater Lake… Circular line… First train XX:XX, Last train XX:XX…. I know this is hard to swallow… but it is a public bus signage.”
Hao Ren was even more bewildered as he stared at the stone pillars. These pillars stood tall within a dimension that had been distorted by the vengeful spirits, sealed beneath a cursed castle for 300 years. The place reeked of sorcery and forbidden knowledge. Simply pull a few cookie cutter scripts from Hollywood and you’ll have a setting fit for a 20-part, fantasy-horror film. But now, the MDT told them that the mysterious runic writings were an advertisement and signage for public transport!
Don’t normal scripts have something like, “Interlopers will be cursed” or “Demon Lord XYZ is sealed here”?!