In the grayish-yellow mist that gradually dissipated, the two walked separately around the continuous building and met on the other side. They found no trace that could be used as an entrance. Even the building itself seemed to be cast in one piece, and had undergone subsequent changes to completely integrate it into one.
Not only the "material" passage, Mirror Tunnel of Angel, Klein's divination, and even True Vision that he avoided Angel and sneaked on top of Gray Fog, could not penetrate the layers of gray to reach the interior of the building.
"There is no way to use Mirror World to get around, and the small-scale 'Petrification' is also invalid. The building itself can be regarded as a Sealed Artifact... I just don't know which Pathway it belongs to. Is it a warrior?"
Angel touched the smooth gray-white building wall and muttered, wanting to create an earthquake under his feet to see if Chernobyl's building complex could be shaken to create some gaps for the two of them to enter.
Klein also stood aside and pondered. Whether he used "Creeping Hunger" or "Staff of the Stars" Teleportation, there was nothing he could do about this building with layers upon layers and unclear interior.
And he remembered that in the scene he saw during the divination "No Darkness Cross", Ancient Sun God opened an illusory gap in the wall and walked out of the building.
With a thought in his mind, he grabbed a few casually at his side, and a slender and lazy figure was pulled out of History Void. She swayed for a few times before standing still. The women's Travel hat on her head tilted to one side, revealing the slightly curly brown hair and light blue eyes below.
Angel's eyes focused and he immediately recognized the other party as Tarot Club's "Magician" Fors Wall, and it was her previous appearance as "Dream City" Travel.
He actually directly summoned the projection of this "Traveler"!
"Do you plan to use Fors as the key to Door Opening to open a 'door' on the outer wall of a closed building that is large enough for several people to enter?"
After being stunned for a short time, Angel came to his senses, curiously approached "Magician" Historical Projection with dull eyes and indifferent expression, and poked her soft cheek.
The latter subconsciously dodged the second poke, and his eyes were fixed on Angel's face that seemed to incorporate all the beauty in the world. He suddenly stepped forward and was poked a third time.
"Historical Projection can only act according to instinct. Unless her body is close to or reaches the Angel position and can hide herself and let her consciousness come to life in the projection, she will not talk to you."
Seeing Angel's slightly childish behavior, Klein raised the corners of his mouth slightly, then made up his mind and pulled the Spirit Body Threads projected by Fors, turning her into his own Marionette.
This made "Traveler"'s expression immediately become vivid. She straightened the Travel hat on her head, came to the gray-white building, stretched out her hand and pressed on the wall.
Immediately, her body blended into the building and disappeared as if passing through liquid.
Success!
Klein and Angel, who were left outside, looked at each other and saw joy in each other's eyes.
After a while, Mirror Substitution from Angel and Historical Projection from Klein, led by Marionette Fors, passed through layers of concrete "sarcophagi" and came to a relatively short building inside.
This concrete building has a thick iron door more than two meters high. It is obviously for human beings rather than giants. The interior is extremely dark, and even Angel's vision cannot penetrate it. There are dark stains on both sides of the iron door, like traces left by the weathering of some kind of liquid.
In the center of the trace, two modern firearms lie quietly on the ground, with the muzzles pointed at Angel and Klein, quietly telling the history of this building.
This is indeed the "Chernobyl" of the previous generation before its civilization was destroyed!
The moment she saw the two guns, Angel truly confirmed her guess, but she immediately frowned again and said:
"Do these two black marks look like they were left by the guards guarding the gate?"
"Indeed... they suddenly turned into this black substance, and their clothes weathered over time, leaving only metal guns?" Klein nodded in agreement, "Let's be careful. If there is any abnormality, we will immediately cut off the connection with the avatar and projection."
With that said, he directed Fors, who had become Marionette, to carry a lantern and enter the heavy iron door. He followed, while Angel was on guard at the rear. His eyes swept over the two black marks from time to time. He always felt that these liquids were inexplicably dangerous.
Soon, they found more similar traces inside the institute, some on the walls, some on the ground, and some directly contaminating tables and chairs.
What made them curious was that these rooms with different facilities and office equipment were well preserved. It didn't look like they had gone through thousands of years at all. They seemed to have been abandoned just a few years ago. Apart from being dusty and empty, they were even more intact than the early remains of Fifth Epoch excavated near Backlund.
"The only things that are abnormal are the researchers, or the black traces they left behind..."
Angel commented in a low voice, his voice echoing in the empty corridor.
Is it because of this anomaly that Chernobyl was abandoned and sealed? Could the "Ancient Sun God" who walked out of it be one of the surviving researchers?
Bypassing a pool of more concentrated traces, as if a whole group of victims had been turned into black "liquid" at the same time, Angel, Klein and "Fors" entered a spacious room that ran through two floors.
There is a huge but completely damaged steel machinery here. The pipes and pressure tanks are separated from each other, as if they were burst by internal forces.
On the table in front of them, there is a stack of yellowed paper with a large number of handwritten words written in the same language as the book covers scattered on the table.
They are all the kind that Klein cannot understand.
He and Fors scratched their hair at the same time, and when they were thinking about how to "decode" this kind of writing that belonged to prehistoric humans, Angel grabbed the yellowed papers and started reading them quickly.
By the way, I almost forgot that there is another Demoness here who, although learning Ancient Feysac is very difficult, can learn several "foreign languages"... Klein suppressed his smile and waited until Angel read all the handwritten manuscripts line by line before he asked:
"Who wrote it? The researcher here, or the 'Sun God'?"
Summarizing the contents written in Russian on the paper in his mind, Angel considered for a moment and replied:
"These seem to have been written by a certain researcher. His name is Grisha, and he witnessed the entire process of Catastrophe that took place in this institute..."
When Klein traveled through time and Angel was not yet born, oil was depleted worldwide and all oil fields suddenly had no oil to recover. However, an oil field near Chernobyl was able to re-exploit petroleum-like substances. This left the surrounding area deserted and the more confidential Chernobyl was reactivated and a research institute was built to study this wonderful black substance.
It looks like oil, but has completely different properties. Not only is it gradually increasing in nearby oil fields, it has even spread beneath the research institute. This makes researchers very excited, hoping to use it as a substitute for oil.
But suddenly one day, all the black substances in the institute changed. Anyone who came into contact with them would turn into the same black liquid in an instant. Because the cause could not be identified, and they were worried that the leakage of black substances would cause a large-scale disaster, the outside world directly blocked the institute, built sarcophagi with layers of concrete, and locked the survivors including Grisha inside, leaving them to fend for themselves.
After the initial chaos, the surviving researchers found a way to deal with "oil". As long as the body does not come into contact with it and isolate it with inorganic substances, it will not be transformed into the same substance. However, after losing contact with the outside world and gradually depleting food and water, more and more survivors have mental problems. They claim to be called by the black matter, actively contact them, and merge with the black matter.
In the end, only Grisha, the author of these notes, was still alive, but he also showed despair in his final records: food ran out, friends and colleagues died one after another, and he also heard voices coming from the ground. This "calling" is getting closer and closer, becoming clearer...
"... The note ended abruptly here. I speculate that the last survivor, like his colleagues, took the initiative to come into contact with the black substance and became a trace imprinted on the ground."
Angel shook off the yellowed paper in his hand and said.
After listening to her translation, Klein lowered his head and thought for a moment, pursed his lips and analyzed:
"The 'calling' of the underground... This reminds me of the underground pollution in the ancient era that even the ancient gods were afraid of. 'Imagination Dragon' Ankewelt even had to build Miracle City to stay away from the ground to avoid it...
"Your time travel is due to the influence of 'City of Calamity', which means that 'Sefirah', either actively or passively, will preserve some human bodies and consciousness, allowing them to survive the Apocalypse when the era changes... Is it possible that these black substances are the 'underground pollution' we are facing in this era?"
Under his reminder, Angel also remembered the "calling" he felt after "Miracle City" Bronze Gate in "The Travels of Grosell", and the underground pollution mentioned by Magic Mirror Arrodes and his own "Mirror Person". His eyes lit up and he said:
"You mean one of the Sefirah, the 'Chaos Sea' who is said to be hidden deep underground?"
Klein nodded, but more doubts kept coming out of his heart.
Why did "Chaos Sea" appear underground in his own era, polluted the oil fields, and caused heavy casualties to the researchers inside Chernobyl?
Is the researcher Grisha who left the note "Ancient Sun God"? It seems more likely that he survived to the end, but he might just be the last one to die, and there is another "traveler"...
If "Chaos Sea" really protected "Ancient Sun God" and allowed him to survive into the new era and leave the institute to become God, does this Sefirah correspond to the five adjacent Pathways of "Secrets Suppliant", "Reader", "Sun", "Storm", and "Spectator" that Sun God is in? After all, the correspondence between "Sefirah Castle" and "City of Calamity" is very obvious.
The most important thing is, is there still any contamination from "Chaos Sea" inside Chernobyl?
Angel and Klein both thought about this problem, looked at each other, and their expressions changed.
Suddenly, a silent cry seemed to come from deep within the institute, a very attractive cry.
The two Marionette turned their heads at the same time and looked in that direction.