Chapter 353 — What the Hell Is This, a Poem?
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Gao Yang's thoughts wandered freely, but halfway through they were abruptly reined back in. He knew the truth could not possibly be that simple. The Eternal Slates were no ordinary storage medium; they also carried the gods' secrets, transcendent powers, battle reports of deicide, and a whole mass of things sufficient to change the course of human history. For a little poem to suddenly appear amid so much incredible information... this could not possibly be a coincidence.
This poem must have some special significance. Perhaps it was hinting at something.
Gao Yang carefully recalled what he had "heard" and "seen." From within that poem, he could vaguely associate a few things. Was this poem telling people not to lose themselves in some brief but peaceful illusion? And between the lines it kept hinting that something would shatter this brief peace—the cradle would overturn, the curtain of night would be broken... If he connected it to the real world, could this be referring to the periodic... magic tide?
Then the brief peace would be the lull between magic tides? And the cradle? Did that refer to the planet humanity currently inhabited?
The poem's author also mentioned shackles and the sanctuary of the mind... What did that mean? The sanctuary of the mind... slumbering in the sanctuary of the mind—could that have something to do with the Evernighters?
But whoever left this poem behind should not have known the Evernighters, because the birth of the Eternal Slates predated even human history...
And the poem also mentioned "daylight." What did daylight mean? Was it another artistic way of describing the magic tide? And if so, why call it daylight?
Gao Yang's thoughts raced on in this state of spiritual transcendence, and as one question after another turned into conjecture, he found that he still showed no sign of emerging from it. Could it be that the information stored in the second Eternal Slate had not yet ended?
No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than he suddenly felt other information appear in his mind. The boundless background noise vanished all at once, and in the endless darkness, light gradually emerged.
The light took shape into a scene. He saw a blue planet tinged with blue-green floating quietly in the infinite starry sky, and at the edge of this image, an arc-shaped atmospheric storm radiating an aura of boundless oppression churned slowly.
It took Gao Yang several seconds of dull-wittedness before he realized that what he was seeing was precisely the planet beneath his own feet, and that the arc-shaped atmospheric storm at the edge of the image... was the "sun" this planet revolved around—that gas giant!
Once he realized this, his first thought was to make out exactly what lay on the surface of that vibrant blue-green planet. How many continents did it have? How vast were its oceans? Where on this planet were the Loren Continent, Ansue, and Typhon? And where might the sea demons be...
Yet he soon discovered that he could not control the viewpoint before him, and he dimly realized that what he was seeing was not the real planet in real time. The information surfacing from the depths of his mind told him that this was merely a simulated image, and what it depicted was the planet as it had been countless tens of thousands—perhaps millions—of years ago...
Then he saw the viewpoint begin to move beyond his control. The blue-green planet in the image gradually drew nearer, and around the planet, shining points of light and matching symbols suddenly materialized one after another.
These were distinct from any common tongue in the world today, yet their meaning flowed into Gao Yang's mind the moment the writing appeared. He saw that those points of light floating around the planet each bore a name: