"I need time!"
After a delay of a few minutes, the spelling result finally came out.
"'Those who look at the Holy City also look at the abyss'... more or less, that's what it means..."
Teni stuttered as he translated it, then scratched his head, "I'm not sure... My grades in Ancient Sarai are not very good, I can barely spell it."
"Then what were you pretending to be?"
"Are you sure?" Ethan asked seriously.
"Are you sure that's what you mean, Your Highness?"
"I dare not say 100%, but at least 80% sure."
Turney affirmed, "After all, there are only a few letters... you can't go wrong."
"That's a warning, isn't it?" Darent looked at the others, "So should we still go ashore?"
"Go ashore." Ethan didn't even look at him, and directly ordered Teni, "Dive, Your Highness, we will go directly to the other side."
With a loud noise, the Pierre emerged on the other side of the Seahorse Fjord, that is, on the coast of the Elsa continent.
A group of people jumped onto the deck, then jumped off, waded ashore, and when they looked up, they could see a ruin standing in front of them.
The fog has dissipated, and the refreshing moonlight shines on the ground, revealing the dilapidated dock, collapsed houses, broken streets... everything is clearly visible.
This is Colossae, the legendary port of Poseidon...
Several people looked at this land, feeling somewhat emotional.
"stop looking."
It was Ethan who woke them up.
"The full moon doesn't always come."
"Hurry up and explore the place first."
Chapter 110 Mechanical Cinema
The investigation of the port of Colossae did not take much time because the people responsible for the exploration did not walk - no matter how crowded the space in the submarine was, two folding bicycles could still fit.
A few hours later, they met as agreed in a run-down neighborhood, directly beneath a clock tower, which was the reference for this appointment.
"We've finished our exploration." Darent got out of the car. "It's a pity, but I didn't find anything."
He is a wooden man with excellent physical defense and high resistance to various evil curses, so he volunteered to take away a bicycle and enjoyed a bumpy ride in the night.
"How big is this place?" Leon asked him.
Without waiting for Darent's answer, Ethan began to calculate: "It takes him about an hour and a half to go there and half an hour to come back. Considering the road conditions, it should be the size of a town... About 10 people, am I right?"
"Heidegger is amazing." Darent gave a thumbs up. "I think so too. 10 people should be just right."
"Is this a town with 10 people?" Li Ang frowned. He looked up at the clock tower next to him. "10 people, can a small town with 10 people develop so prosperously?"
He was mentally prepared before coming, but to be honest, the construction status of Colossae Port still surprised him.
Square archways, high-rise buildings... buildings with more than six floors are everywhere, but they are dilapidated and collapsed due to disrepair, presenting a tragic scene after the apocalypse.
But no one can doubt how prosperous this place once was. Such architectural layout is not common in today's Sara, and can only be replicated in a few large cities including Port Vien.
How could it be so prosperous with only 10 people?
Just building such a city would probably require more than that many people. In Leon's opinion, this is a city with at least a million people. And judging from the lampposts on both sides of the road, there was electricity in Colossae Port at that time!
He expressed his doubts, and everyone, including Ethan, agreed with him, so everyone looked at Darent again - even Aman, who had tried hard to follow, was looking at him.
"Because I haven't finished walking." Darent spread his hands. "Don't worry - I have circled all the places that can be explored, but the places further away are all foggy. What can I do? I can't just abandon you and rush in, right?"
At this time, the second bicycle scout also came back. It was Baliu. She brought back the same information as Darent: most of the entire Colosseum port was swallowed up by the gray fog. The full moon only made the fog retreat a little to the northeast, leaving them with such a city area for exploration. Compared with the entire Colosseum port, the area here is probably insignificant.
"It's 4 o'clock now. We don't have time to check the places again in detail." Ethan glanced at his pocket watch. "You two, did you find any places special just now? Are they worth going in and taking a closer look?"
"I think all the places are special, you know... Riding alone in a ruin like this at this late hour requires courage in addition to shaking your butt... So those shadows and building entrances hidden in the gloom look quite special."
Ethan skipped over someone and said, "Mrs. Cornerell, go ahead."
This name made Baliu blush a little. Indeed, except for serious people like Ethan, her friends usually called her by her name more often in private occasions.
"I've circled three places." She took out a notebook from her bosom, "The terrain map is here... They are here, here, and here..."
"There's one very close." Cybert saw a cute little tower in the middle from a distance, and guessed that this was where they were standing based on the pattern on it. "You mean... this clock tower?"
"Aren't you curious?" Bariu looked at her. "This nearly twenty-story bell tower has not collapsed despite years of wind, rain, insect bites, and fog erosion. Even Wayne has few buildings like this."
It's very curious to say this.
Without saying a word, Ethan assigned a group of people to explore the bell tower, while the others waited below, ready to go in for rescue at any time.
Before they set off, he carefully instructed them: "The scouts didn't find any traces of monsters, but that doesn't mean this ghost place is lifeless. Don't forget the situation in the sea. If there may be monsters from another world in the sea, there may also be monsters on the land covered by the gray fog."
"I know, I know, you're so nagging!"
Darent waved his hands at him, "You didn't even smell the stench. If something happens, I will definitely call you!"
No one else took the investigation seriously, because based on experience in Sara, the more remote the place, the fewer nightmares there are.
The fewer nightmares there are, the fewer nightmare monsters there are. There won't be any big guys that will be attracted by the fluctuations of spirit and mind, so Darent's ease is really reasonable.
There were four people exploring the bell tower, namely Darent, Leon, and the duo of priests.
The last two are brought just in case. This happens to be a dead city with a wide open space where we can do whatever we want. If we really encounter danger, we can use Torres as a bomb. Cybertron will act as a solution to the collective nightmare and is the only insurance for this bomb.
The limited exploration time is forty minutes. After forty minutes, everyone inside must come out regardless of whether there is any gain or not.
The waiting time was boring, so Ethan took the opportunity to pull Baliu and Aman to study the topographic map. Based on Baliu's description, he roughly determined the general situation of the other two buildings.
"There is another place. Because the building is so magnificent, I suspect it may be the residence of a wealthy family." This is what Baliu said, "But it is built in the downtown area. Based on the layout of the building, I have reason to suspect that it is a local administrative agency."
"That would be great." Ethan nodded.
Administrative agencies... they must store a lot of information, right?
No matter how many years have passed, there must be some data written on indestructible media. They should be able to understand some clues before the destruction of Poseidon Port, and may even find out what happened when the gray fog descended.
"Your Majesty, do you have any ideas?" He was also careful not to neglect A'man. After all, it was a favor that the other person was willing to take the risk to help, and this could not be covered up by a desire for revenge.
"...This is different from what I thought." A'man was not in a good mood and just said this from beginning to end.
According to his thinking, this place might be the base camp of the evildoers.
Whether it is the Kingdom of Corrupted Blood or the Kingdom of Mechanical God, what difference does it make to Aman?
His kingdom, even his queen! All of this was taken away in the collision between the two kingdoms of God. He now hated these two concepts from the bottom of his heart. He originally wanted to use Sarah's power to attack here, at least to collect some interest from those bastards first.
But what is found now is a ruin.
This was a bit confusing, because Aman had also been educated. He didn't know other information, but the most famous cities in Aisha Continent were clearly remembered in the inheritance books of their Angelo family.
[Colosse, that is, the Port of Poseidon. It was the place where the Sun King ran a business before he became a god, and it was also the place where she regained her faith and rose. The goddess created incredible wealth and prosperity in the Port of Poseidon. Roads, epidemic prevention, production, weapons... She gave the city everything it deserved. It was also because of her early management that Colosse became the most powerful heart when she regained her position in the later period. It continuously provided population and weapons to the front line, helping her win countless wars, thus establishing its status and making it completely the political, economic, and scientific research center of the new Elsa.]
See... he could recite it in his mind, and that was why he couldn't imagine that such a city with such great potential would be completely sunk into the sea. But since it was still lying on the sea, why didn't the evildoers make use of it?
There are so many buildings, some of which can be repaired and used again. Even if they are collapsed...the cement and steel bars are also worth money.
Ethan saw his confusion, and to be honest, he was also confused about this question.
No matter how you look at it, at least the Mechanical Kingdom has no reason to give up on this place. They could have made this place the new capital of the Kingdom - to be honest, he was prepared before coming here to face a highly developed Mechanical Holy City.
"Maybe it's because there's something here?" Bariu asked tentatively, "Something is hiding here, and they can't get rid of it. It's not that they don't want to... but they are forced to give up?"
"That's not funny." A'man looked over with sharp eyes, "Aren't you worried about your companions?"
"This is our job, King Aman." Baliu didn't indulge him. "Protecting you is also one of our responsibilities. You are too nervous. There is no need to be like this... Please trust the professionals."
A'man sneered: "You are becoming more and more like your husband."
Baliu shook her head and gave up on communicating with him further.
In fact, this hostility is easy to understand: for a man who has just lost his beloved, it is easy to be irritated by seeing other newlyweds being so loving.
She wasn't petty enough to hold a grudge against A'man for this, so she just left him alone for now. He would figure it out soon enough.
In fact, this was indeed the case. A'man himself soon couldn't hold it in anymore and began to actively join in the conversation, guessing with them what kind of weird things could be in this place. Even the Kingdom of God, which had more than one mechanical fortress, was forced to give up.
The answers are nothing more than a few: either a natural disaster or a man-made disaster.
"I took some soil samples for testing when we first landed," Baliu said. "After testing the salinity and alkali content in the soil and comparing it with the soil here, we can basically infer that tsunamis are rare here."
"It wasn't an earthquake," Ethan added. "It wasn't just a few buildings that collapsed in the earthquake... The roads they paved were cracked, but the terrain didn't change. I don't even think there's ever been an earthquake here."
"No, there are some." Baliu looked as if she had just remembered something. "I just rode my bike to the outermost area, which is the boundary surrounded by gray fog. I noticed that there are many traces of the earthquake in that block."
"What kind of earthquake could affect only that area?" Aman couldn't help but said, "According to what you said, how big is the exposed area? If there is a real earthquake, how could it not pass through?"
The three of them fell silent for a moment, and they all thought of the previous hypothesis at the same time - the Mechanical Kingdom left because there was some terrifying existence here.
So could this "traces similar to earthquake residues but not like earthquakes" be caused by this horrible thing?
Looking at the terrifying monsters in the sea, is it possible that there are such things on land as well?
Darent said he didn't smell any bad smell, but that was really impossible. Were they rummaging through the lair of a giant monster?
The fear of the unknown is always the deepest. Even though the three of them are professionals (Aman has been a ranger and bounty hunter after all), they still feel goose bumps all over their bodies.
Fortunately, the people who were investigating the bell tower came out. Darent was the first to come out, shouting, "There's nothing in here! It's just an empty steel frame!"
As they communicated, they described their findings.
The clock tower has a total of eleven floors. Sometimes there are only one floor, and sometimes there are two floors on one floor. When it comes to the latter, the interior space will appear extremely spacious and grand. They shone flashlights around and could see steel columns and gears lying in the dark.
"There is really nothing there." Leon nodded. "There are spider webs almost everywhere. I think insects are the only life here... Going up is the inner room of the bell tower, but I didn't find anything there either. But this building itself is quite strange - it's a bit too extravagant."
Most buildings, no matter how gorgeous they look, are mostly made of cement.
But this bell tower is different, it is mostly made of steel. No wonder Darent called it a "steel empty frame", which is very descriptive.
"This is good news," Torres thought. "It means that people from the Mechanical Kingdom have been here before, and even tried to build here... This clock tower is proof that they have been here."
Others nodded. This kind of building did have an extremely strong and special style.
Ethan also shared with them what he had just discussed, and everyone immediately shifted their attention from "where did the Mechanical Kingdom go" to "why did the Mechanical Kingdom run away".
"There can't be any monsters out there..." Cybert felt a little panicked.
In fact, she was particularly afraid of those giants that were beyond her cognition, monsters that could even drive away floating cities. She couldn't imagine how big they were.
"It may not be a monster." Ethan murmured, "I suggest we continue investigating."
They talked as they walked, and spent twenty minutes on the journey to find the administrative building described by Baliu, but were disappointed to find no clues.
"Who is it?" Torres kicked over a chair angrily.
"You're crazy! How can you leave nothing behind?"
That's why they're disappointed - you can't see any conceivable file carriers here, either they've been destroyed or some psychopath has come here and taken away all the information with great difficulty.
"Continue to the third place." Ethan looked at his watch.
"Hurry as much as you can...it's almost dawn."
As they were on the way, they started arguing again about the topic "If the clock tower was built by the Mechanical Kingdom, then why is there only one building like this in that area?"
The road from there to the administrative building is not short. All you see along the way are ordinary buildings. There are no more iconic-style buildings, which is a bit strange in itself.
If it was the Mechanicians who left the clock tower, why did they build it?
Building this shows that they wanted to transform this place, but why did they only build one?
This doesn't make sense. Even if there is a second or third similar building here, they are so far apart... You can't say that the builders built it on a whim, and thought of building one here today, and then another one the day after tomorrow, right?
The strangeness cast a shadow on the road. Even though this was most likely a ruin or a dead city that posed no threat, everyone gradually imagined a depressing atmosphere and no longer had the heart to chat or joke.
"We're here." Bariu suddenly pointed to the opposite corner in front of us, "That's it."
She was riding a bike, Leon was sitting in her arms, and Darent was squatting behind her with his body leaning back. Upon hearing what was said, a group of people looked forward and saw a huge signboard at first glance.
This is also proof that Poseidon Port once mastered electricity, and is another piece of evidence following the small battery technology - proving that many modern technologies were actually invented in ancient times, or even invented more than once.
So what is the reason why the inheritance of these things is repeatedly interrupted?
Thinking deeply, several people felt a little emotional, but they quickly adjusted their mindsets and began to look at this street corner from the perspective of true professional detectives.
It's weird here.
