If the black tower represents a program or system, the whispers are data streams, and the symbols are code or instructions… Then what am I? The “迷途之人”? Am I being drawn into this digital nightmare, or is it being drawn into our world through me?
My mind raced, trying to make sense of this impossible hypothesis. It sounds crazy, even to myself. But facing the increasingly bizarre and life-threatening reality we were in, traditional explanations were failing.
Then, I remembered something else 老伯 told me about the 神木 legend. He said the tree and the tablet somehow regulated the flow between realms. If the seal was broken, it meant the boundary between worlds was dissolving, or perhaps, one world was encroaching upon the other.
Could a digital world, a realm of pure data and code, be merging with our physical reality? If so, what would be the consequences? Would our world be overwritten, corrupted, by this alien digital entity?
The symbols began to manifest in a more aggressive way. They would appear on our skin, causing burning sensations like electrical charges. They would flicker in the air, creating shimmering visual disturbances. The whispers were now concrete voices, hissing, laughing, speaking in that strange, ancient language in our ears.