Everything that followed probably unfolded as described in Ronald Cohen's dying words.
Unfortunately, the nebula is missing many stars and has large patches of dark spots, causing the entire conscious image to be intermittent and incomplete, requiring the mind to piece together the preceding and following content.
As for things like how the Five Great Sacred Lands on Earth and the altars of Ramla were established, and where the Itza People came from, we only know the facts, but not the reasons behind them.
Nevertheless, it is certain that the Itza People destroyed the altar, which is consistent with Ronald Cohen's account. And after the altar was destroyed, the Mental Power Field covering the earth disappeared.
When people exited the dream, they all stood there dumbfounded, as if they were still dreaming.
Even Qingmu had never dreamed of such a grand and magnificent dream, let alone an ordinary person like Mrs. Larry.
The first to recover from this state was actually Alice, whose Mental Power was the weakest. She frowned, bent over, and opened her mouth as if she was about to vomit.
"How disgusting! So Parasitic Consciousness looks like an insect!" she said.
Mrs. Larry said, "That's not Parasitic Consciousness; it's just a concept of spirit in a higher-dimensional language, transformed into an information encoding method that we can understand. To put it bluntly, it's something the mind fills in."
"So, were those things actually true?"
"I don't know. But we did decipher the high-dimensional script inside the altar, which shows that the human brain has the ability to understand such high-dimensional script. But why does it have to be in a dream? Logically speaking, all the functions of the brain should have corresponding external organs, so we must have lost something in the process of evolution."
"A third eye?" Su Huilan asked.
"Oh yes, yes, quack!" the Crow cawed. "I saw a TV show where the Crow had three eyes. It was about a woman and three dragons, but of course, our main purpose wasn't to see the dragons, but the woman... Oh no, I don't mean me, I mean the bar patrons..."
Hmm... quack quack, none of that matters. What matters is the ending, quack, you have to see the ending, then you'll find out that the Three-Eyed Crow is the real protagonist!
"So you think you have three eyes?" Qingmu laughed.
The Crow said, "Caw, I must be under some kind of spell, my third eye is sealed, otherwise... Guagua..."
"Otherwise, you would have already run away!"
"No!" The Crow lowered its head, its long neck hanging down, its black beak pointing at Qingmu's nose. "I swear to this braised pork knuckle, no matter what happens, I will never leave you! Never!"
"Can you live without me, or without braised pork knuckle?"
"Hmm... this question is a bit difficult! Was it a competition question from last year?"
The clanging and banging of metal Ding Dong coming from the underground cabin; it was unclear what Ivan and the others were doing.
The sky returned to its original state, with the three Sun fixed there as if God had installed new light bulbs on the ceiling.
Situ looked up, a hint of doubt on his face. He turned to Qingmu and asked, "Mr. Qingmu, what do you think?"
Qingmu said, "It seems Ronald Cohen was telling the truth."
Situ nodded and said, "Then we need to figure out how to activate the altar."
"But now the Itza People are blocking the altar, what can we do?" Su Huilan asked.
"I told you long ago that those savages in the Book of Books are no good! Bastards, beasts, demons...! They should be drowned by a great flood, burned to death by a great fire!..." Alice, holding her still slightly dizzy head, was in a somewhat hysterical state.
" Alice!" Mrs. Larry went over to support her. "Relax, child! Don't let hatred consume you. Everything will be alright!"
Alice buried her head in Mrs. Larry's arms and began to sob, "Madam, I want to go home! Waaah..."
Duwa, who had remained silent, clasped his hands together, held the Staff of Wind between his thumbs and forefinger, and uttered a Buddhist chant. A peaceful spirit swept across the deck like a spring breeze.
Alice's crying subsided. Mrs. Larry smiled and nodded to Duwa in gratitude.
Duwa said, "Could we talk to those priests again? Perhaps there's still a chance."
"What kind of turning point could there be? Would they really allow us to activate the altar?" Alice lifted her head from the lady's arms, her emotions having calmed down considerably.
Duwa lowered his head and remained silent.
"It's not impossible," Situ said, gazing at the distant horizon. "Time has passed, and the conflict between the Itza People and humans has been over for so many years. Even the gods have long since abandoned it. Why can't we reconcile them? Is their faith, which they've held onto for thousands of years in such a harsh place, really so unbreakable? We can have a good talk with them. If we can offer their tribe and race a better future, won't they be tempted?"
Alice exclaimed in surprise, "You mean you want to take them back to Earth? We're going to have to coexist with these beasts from now on?"
Su Huilan, however, already understood Situ's meaning and said, "If we can reach an agreement, that would be great. Even if we can't, while their leader is negotiating with us, they'll be leaderless, and we can sneak over and activate the altar."
The plan was unanimously approved.
At this moment, the Ding Dong and banging sounds from the lower deck grew louder and louder, and the shouts of men, "Hey, hey," could be heard, like those of boat trackers on an ancient river.
After a while, the men who went to dismantle the helicopter's weapons returned to the deck. Boris and Anderson led the way, followed by Ivan and Petru. They pushed a makeshift wheelbarrow, which was clearly very heavy. Even with the four of them working together, they struggled to lift it up the steps leading out of the cabin. The wheelbarrow was surrounded by a jumble of metal wires, with a large metal contraption resembling a giant camera mounted in the middle, topped with a cannon barrel over a meter long. A thick ammunition belt was exposed, revealing yellow cartridge cases much thicker than a thumb inside.
Boris excitedly patted the cannon and shouted, "Look, look— M230 autocannon, 30mm caliber, brand new! 500 rounds of M789 high-explosive round, enough to turn an armored squad into a sieve!"
Situ knew the destructive power of this machine gun; an M789 weighed half a pound and had a kill radius of 5 meters, capable of penetrating the thin armor on the top of most tanks.
"But the M230 is powered by an electric motor, right? Have you found the fuel and batteries?" he said.
Petru said, "It's alright. With a little modification, three people can manually rotate the gun chain, although the rate of fire will be a bit slower. I've dismantled a BK-27 before, and it's similar. It works very well on small boats. The only thing to worry about is whether the gun mount is sturdy enough, or if it falls apart after firing a few rounds."
Everyone was drawn to the machine gun.
Anderson saw Alice being helped by Mrs. Larry, looking like she had been crying, and rushed over to ask, "What's wrong, darling?"
"Oh, it's nothing, I just had a dream," Alice said. "Could you help me to the cabin to rest for a while? I'm so tired."
Anderson then helped Alice to the cabin.
Seeing that Mrs. Larry also looked unwell, Petru asked with concern, "Madam, are you alright? Would you like to go and rest for a while?"
Mrs. Larry shook her head and said, "I'm fine. We just confirmed the credibility of Ronald Cohen's last words and discussed our next steps."
Boris, who was standing nearby, excitedly exclaimed, "If that's the case, what's there to discuss? Let's get them!"