Stepping into the refrigerator, after a moment of weightlessness, the hazy psychedelic feeling disappeared, and the scenery in front of me became completely clear and real.
The not-so-long corridor led to a hall, the walls on both sides were wrapped with wooden fences about one meter and two meters high, and on top of them were hung many signs with portraits of people - it might be a bit inappropriate to say people, as some of the things depicted on the pictures couldn't be called human beings at all.
Despite not being able to read the text, Gregorio was able to intuitively guess that at the top, in large letters, was the name, and underneath was a brief biography of the "person".
A library corridor.
The door they came out of was at the other end of the corridor, half-open, and behind it was another hall, with a corner of tall bookshelves visible, and the backstage of the café was completely gone, as if the entrance to the box had closed the moment they entered.
"Chaos Library?" Sylver let Gregorio release him from his prisoner space from the moment he first entered the place, and the teenager frowned, muttering, "Is it the library that opens the Labyrinth of Time this time?"
"Chaos?" whispered Gregorio, repeating the word, derived from the Greek word Khaos, implying chaos, and disorder.
Victor walked at the front of the line and turned back, "The library has always kept a low profile, it doesn't appear easily in people's sight, this time it directly invoked the Labyrinth of Time, it must have met something troublesome."
Marvin is tilting his head to look at the sign on the wall, despite not being able to read the words, the information conveyed by the image is not going to be hindered, in front of him, the suited and octopus-headed Mr. Er ..., with only two small holes collapsed at his nose, and dozens of tentacles sprouting from the position of his upper lip, covering his mouth, is looking sideways at the little off camera.
If you ignored the hunted looks, it was indeed literally quite like a famous scholar.
"That's very Cthulhu." At the end, he commented.
"Wait until you see it in person you won't say that," Sylver said as the trio of cats walked towards the hall at the end of the corridor, gradually hearing the sound of loud people.
It sounded like quite a few people were there.
They stepped into the hall and Gregorio and Marvin were taken aback for a moment when they saw the crowds of people inside.
How could there be so many people in?
I don't know why, but a lot of people who come into the Pure White Realm logically assume that there won't be too many people in a box. Before coming in, Marvin, as a normal seventeen-year-old teenager, loved playing games and reading novels and had read many infinite stream works from x-points to pursue thrills and excitement, such as Thrill Paradise, Joker Game, Hell Cinema, and the already 404'd Gazing into the Abyss.... He had never seen a copy of such a large scale. never seen such a massive copy.
Of course, it was also possible that he had read fewer books and had been left alone.
Facing these more than a thousand people, there was still a steady stream of people coming in from the other corridors connected to the hall. After a brief moment of confusion, Marvin touched Gregorio and whispered, "What is this? Is there going to be a meeting?"
"Looks like it." Gregorio wasn't sure, "Let's find a place to sit first."
The hall did indeed look like a conference room, with dozens of rows of chairs like a stepped classroom, slightly curved to surround the main speaker's position on the raised platform in front.
Just like in the student days when all the assemblies were held, there was no one sitting in the front rows at all, they were all crammed in the back, and the three of them could only sit down in the empty seats at the edge of the center front rows.
Victor, afraid of being stepped on by the unwary, jumped up onto Sylver's knee and crouched down on it to look around. Everyone had a blank look on their faces, whispering discussions with their companions around them, and those who didn't have to look around.
However, the fact that there were so many people also made everyone less nervous. A glass of water might be conspicuous and at risk of being drunk at any moment, but when that glass of water blended into a sea of its kind, it meant another form of safety.
It's not like I'd necessarily be the one chosen if something were to go wrong when there are so many people carrying the load together anyway, is it?
Sylver and Victor had known for a long time that any box with the title of [Labyrinth of Time] wouldn't be too easy and were the most calmly behaved in the entire hall.
Gregorio asked in a low voice, "Do you guys know what this is going to be?"
Sylver: "The library is probably in some kind of trouble, but all of the people here don't seem to be very experienced, and it doesn't make sense for them to leave the powerful pilgrims from the other regions alone and pick newcomers exclusively."
Victor nodded, "So it's more likely that this is a box with multiple regions open at the same time, except that all the people in this one hall are from the outer regions."
To be honest, this explanation from Sylver and Victor didn't help much, instead, it clouded Gregorio and Marvin even more.
Marvin had learned his lesson after being mocked by Sylver for being brainless and not being able to think for himself a few times for asking too many questions. Less talk more work by the brain, if you do not understand, ask your older brother also do not provoke that little kid.
Only fifteen or sixteen years old, but mad as hell, every time the old brother did not say anything it was over to teach him, really annoying.
After about five or six more minutes, there was no one else coming in the corridor, the vast majority of people had found a seat, roughly it looked like there were thousands of them, and almost everyone was talking chaotically.
Just as the chatter was gaining momentum, something suddenly fell from the ceiling.
Yes, it just fell, Gregorio who was observing the environment of the hall saw the whole process of this humanoid creature with an octopus head suddenly piercing through the ceiling, funneling into the hall, and finally landing in front of the main podium.
"Eh! It's what I just saw from the wall!" Marvin immediately said.
The next moment the thing appeared, the entire hall was quiet for a split second and then panicked cries erupted.
After all, it looked really ... too hunting and thrilling.
If you have to use a word to properly describe it, you can only use a very "Cthulhu".
For the unknown, not in line with their cognitive things, human beings always naturally hold a strong hostility and resistance. Many people directly stood up and took a fighting stance, ready to resist the moment this monster struck.
"Gentlemen, please be quiet." The low sound was like the resonance of 10,000 accordion bellows, and it traveled into everyone's ears. The mouth of the octopus brother on the stage did not move, but everyone "heard" its voice.
Hundreds of mouths were ready to shout, all of them closed at the same moment, and those who stood up all quietly sat back in their seats.
In the absolute silence, Gregorio tried to open his mouth but realized that he could not make a sound at all.
It was a control technique that was even more powerful than mind control.
Satisfied with the current atmosphere in the hall, Brother Octopus looked around the room with a gaze that could be described as gentle, but all those whose eyes were swept by it all shuddered.
"Gentlemen, welcome to the Khaos Library, I am the librarian here, S172, and since my name is unintelligible to humans, you may call me Kars for now." The octopus brother said slowly, what looked like a sticky liquid flowing from its two gills attached to its soft scales, but never dripped down.
[All the administrators inside the library have unimaginably strong powers.]] Sylver's voice suddenly rang out from Gregorio's head, [They hold the richest knowledge in the universe in their consciousness, and are themselves the living books in the library.]]
Gregorio was passively silent, and could only nod, asking, [Its control cannot interfere with the Prisoner Connection?]
[I should say cannot interfere with me.] Sylver brought it up lightly in a sentence, [The box is not ordinary this time, pay more attention to it].
"I apologize for hastily conscripting you all here, but the urgency of the situation compels us to do so. 1.72 dimensional clocks ago, an unknown force suddenly attacked the library and looted its collection of books of an abominable nature, and although we have driven the invading force away, we still lost a significant portion of the canonical books as a result.
"Since the library is situated in the center of chaos when the invaders took the books out, the canonical books were scattered as fragments throughout time and space, and as librarians, we were unable to leave the library.
"To retrieve the canonical books, we had to borrow the Labyrinth of Time and open the entrance to invite you all to enter, hoping to use your power to retrieve the lost items."
Brother Octopus paused and added, "The Labyrinth of Time was sealed as one of the forbidden places in the Pure White Earth Realm due to the overflow of space-time energy, and inside, there are many relics and treasures from different dimensions, but likewise, there are also many banished evil monsters roaming around.
"All of you must take care of your safety while searching for the shards of the time, and if you are faced with dangers that you cannot deal with, call upon my name, Kars, in your hearts, and I will do my best to help you all.
"After finding the shard you all will keep it for the time being, before the labyrinth closes I will summon all of you back here and deliver the shard to me at that time.
"Well, this is the situation, every second that passes the more likely the shard is to be lost, time is of the essence, so please act as quickly as possible-
Boom--!
Before Brother Octopus could speak his words, he heard a loud explosion-like sound, and the entire hall trembled madly with it!
But even so, all the frightened people were still unable to make any stressful reactions.
At the moment of the explosion, a pair of huge tattered wings appeared behind Octopus with a crash. With an angry roar, the tentacles on its upper lip frantically grew nearly a hundred meters, piercing through the void, as if it was directly and viciously strangling something in another dimension as if it wanted to strangle it alive!
"They're here again!"
Another low voice resounded in the minds of all, interspersed with words and phrases that could not be comprehended. The octopus Gokarth surged into the air, and with a wave of its winged wings and its sleeve robes, the floor of the conference hall was flooded with a burst of white light.
"Only knowledge and the unknown endure, good luck to you all"
As the words fell, the floor suddenly shattered piece by piece in a jigsaw puzzle version, drawn by marvelous energy into the endless void below. The people on the seats who couldn't move could only watch themselves fall into it, unable to make any noise no matter how frantically they screamed in their hearts.
Victor grabbed Sylver's top with both front paws, and the teenager held the cat tightly in his arms, joining the crowd as they slowly tumbled down into another dimension.
Falling.
Falling.
They fell.
Gradually, a garden-like maze of lush green appeared below, so huge that its edges could not be seen from high in the sky.
The seats disappeared and people scattered, falling at speeds that completely defied Newton's laws of motion, beginning to decelerate of their own accord as they neared the ground, and finally landing as lightly as a falling leaf on the surface of the flowing water.
Gregorio stumbled a bit, and when he stabilized himself, he subconsciously reached out for Sylver, who was about to land on his back on the ground, and a heavy weight pressed down on his hand.
The cat in the teenager's arms jumps down his arm to his shoulder and lands lightly.
Marvin climbed to his feet.
Two thousand whole people, blocked by high walls, were scattered in one corner of the vast maze.
The sky overhead was still the sky, turquoise blue, and the octopus-headed Kars was nowhere to be seen.
With a thousand copies, the Labyrinth of Time had officially begun!