"Rayne?"
There was no response.
He sat back down in his chair and began reviewing the next set of images.
These were archaeological discoveries accompanied by annotations, documenting unearthed artifacts from around the world. The notes beside them all followed the standard style of archaeologists.
Two of the artifacts came from an excavation site at some ruin in the New California Republic.
Rayne leaned back in his chair. Perhaps this was merely their research into other people's archaeological findings?
He tried to find the excavation dates.
There was nothing.
The artifacts were all statues and amulets, including stone carvings, ceramic pieces, and metalwork.
Yet there was no obvious pattern to their arrangement. They merely represented countless ancient, lost peoples and cultures throughout human history. Some dated back several thousand years, while others were more than ten thousand years old.
Others were too ancient or obscure for their origins to be verified at all.
The many artifacts had no similar eras or regions, possessed no comparable ritualistic or religious significance, and displayed no shared symbols or writing.
There was absolutely nothing here—
Pei Geduo noticed one connecting element.
He had long learned to pay attention to such details, and his memory was nearly photographic. As he rapidly shifted through countless fragments of memory, he finally saw the key.
Symbols.
Stylized symbols, and many, many eye motifs. Black dots representing eyes, circles and discs, as well as talismans meant to ward off evil.
"The One Who Knows All..."
Pei Geduo murmured to himself, his thoughts battered like rocks beneath the wash of seawater.
Every civilization in history had recorded and contemplated the meaning of eye motifs in its traditional rituals and artwork, but the connections he had found were far too tenuous.
These things had only one faint trait in common: they