Deep Sea Embers

Duncan stared at the sea in the distance and fell into deep thought. Lucretia, who was standing behind him, kept quiet. This silence lasted for an unknown period of time. Duncan finally broke the calm and said, "Tell me about the border. ."

Lucretia took a step forward with some hesitation in her tone: "You..."

"I can't remember what happened," Duncan said softly, "so I want to hear your thoughts on the border - you have been operating in the border area over the years, and as far as I know, you have even ventured into it a few times. In that thick fog...if we are destined to deal with that thick fog again, then I at least want to know what you know about it."

Lucretia's eyes were a little hesitant and complicated. She looked at Duncan's back steadily, as if she was afraid that this figure would suddenly disappear into the wind again. Before today, her father had also mentioned the border to her. topic, but their discussions in this area would never be in-depth. She would consciously avoid this aspect, but today... the situation seems to be different.

After a few seconds, the "Sea Witch" finally spoke: "...I did enter that thick fog, but I only acted at a very 'shallow' level, six sea miles. This is what I did in the fog. The limit - in theory, it should also be the monitoring limit of the Four Gods Church's ship in that area."

"What's there?" Duncan asked curiously.

Lucretia thought for a while: "The sea surface in most areas is calm, even calmer than other normal sea areas in the Infinite Sea. The water surface is like a mirror, which can clearly reflect the flag on the mast without any waves. , the ripples caused by the ship sailing through the sea will also calm down in a very short period of time. The texture of the entire sea surface is like some kind of... heavy and viscous substance that cannot cause ripples, but in fact it is indeed sea water. The sailing of the ship It will not be affected itself...

"But this is only the case in calm areas. Between these calm sea areas, there are also weird and irregular turbulence zones - they will appear suddenly and without warning, and they are difficult to use even when turbulence has already appeared. Visually, we found that the rapidly flowing seawater still maintained a calm state, passing nearby like some kind of 'cutting line'. After accidentally approaching, the ship would lose control, or even spin rapidly and be taken to the wrong route by the turbulence. , or it will overturn directly.

"And these can only be said to be 'mild situations' in the fog. When it is not so mild... something weird will appear.

"Sometimes, incomprehensible things suddenly appear in the fog, such as huge blocks floating on the sea, or 'mountains' piercing out of the sea like blades, but it is difficult to get close to these things directly from the fog. Emerging entities, because these things are often accompanied by very large-scale... abnormal celestial phenomena, sometimes storms, sometimes huge ring-shaped turbulence, sometimes even a whole piece of seawater disappears out of thin air, forming The fault is like an abyss, with no bottom below, so terrifying..."

Lucretia stopped here, seeming to be recalling some experiences that even her "sea witch" would feel frightened. After sorting out her thoughts for a moment, she continued:

"In these chaotic phenomena, there are occasional gains, such as 'materials' and 'items' of unknown nature, which appear with turbulence or storms and are entities that can be touched, captured, stored, and even brought to Outside the fog, some of these things are very useful, such as eternally burning grease, or crystals that can expel mental pollution. The Explorers Association and the Academy of Truth will spend a lot of money to exchange for these items in order to study their uses, but basically these The things collected from the border phenomena are random and unique, and there is no possibility of stable output...

"And on rarer occasions, these chaotic and dangerous phenomena occur..."

She stopped suddenly, seeming hesitant to continue.

Duncan couldn't help but frowned: "Lucy, what did you see?"

"There was only one time. I'm still not sure whether it was real or a hallucination I had after being extremely exhausted." Lucretia hesitated for a long time and finally said hesitantly, "It was a huge thing that suddenly rose from the sea. The cylinder, the cylinder was dark, surrounded by a huge ring, also dark and no details could be seen. This was the only entity in the fog that I had ever managed to get close to - it was surrounded by only moderate wind and waves, and the Brilliant Star could barely Against it, I came to the foot of the cylinder, even drew the ship close to it, touched its surface with my hands... and then I heard it speak to me."

Lucretia raised her hand and pointed to her head: "That voice roared in my brain. It was a language I didn't recognize, but I could directly understand its meaning. It said one sentence repeatedly: 'Warp drive activated...we are out of danger, warp drive activated...we are out of danger...'"

She raised her head and saw the subtle change in the expression on Duncan's face, and couldn't help but ask: "Do you know what this sentence means?"

Duncan frowned immediately after hearing Lucretia's words. The word "warp drive" set off a huge wave in his heart. What he instantly thought of was the ship that crashed in the Deep Sea Age. The spaceship, "New Hope"!

Lucretia found the wreckage of the ship? ! It falls in the eternal veil?

"Can you still find it? Have you seen it again since?" he asked quickly.

"I'm afraid not," Lucretia noticed the importance of this matter from her father's attitude, but could only shake her head apologetically, "Things that appear in the border fog are random and short-lived, like touchable illusions. , will dissipate without a trace after the time is up, so far, I have not encountered the same entity twice in a row in that fog."

Duncan felt a burst of disappointment in his heart, but he didn't show it too much: "...Besides that sentence, what else did you find?"

Lucretia recalled it carefully and said uncertainly: "In addition, when I touched it, there was an extremely weird... 'touch', which gave me the feeling of 'emptiness' and no temperature. There is no hardness, I know it's weird to say this, but at that time my fingers were completely unable to judge what material they were touching, or even whether they were touching anything. At that moment, my fingers were The 'tactile' function seems to have disappeared, or that thing... only part of its 'properties' remain in the real dimension, so that I cannot fully perceive the missing parts of it..."

She seemed more and more hesitant at the end, as if it was difficult to accurately express her feelings and speculations at the moment. In the end, she could only helplessly spread her hands: "Can you understand what I say?"

Duncan showed a thoughtful expression. After hearing the weird and even unbelievable situations described by Lucretia, what suddenly came to his mind was that he had witnessed the truth of the Great Annihilation. The "cognitive change" produced in those few seconds, or the "epiphany" of the world.

He still clearly remembers the "real" side of the world he saw at that last moment.

Fragmented information has converged into today's deep-sea era. Incompatible fragments of the old world are merging and distorting each other in the collision, turning into unrecognizable things, or blending into the pot of "information soup" at the bottom of the world.

So... what about those things that failed to integrate in the end, or could not be completely annihilated or contaminated by other things because of some of their own "special properties"?

Such a thing must exist. When a cosmic-level collision occurs, the probabilities of all events will be superimposed from infinity to infinitesimal. Anything may happen, and anything may never happen. Then those in infinitesimal The "lucky ones" or "unfortunate ones" who are inevitably left behind after probability should always have a place to go...

Duncan guessed that most of them should be in the subspace - in that dark and chaotic space, there are many things that resemble the remains of the old world, such as torn land, pale Cyclops, and floating in the void. Specious shadows, they should all be fragments that have not been completely annihilated.

But now it seems that some of them fall outside the subspace.

Those "entities" the "Sea Witch" saw in the fog of the frontier... were just that.

Lucretia felt a little uneasy. She saw the expression on Duncan's face changing continuously. It seemed that some kind of logic and cognition that she didn't understand was gradually taking shape in her father's mind. This gave her the same feeling as she had witnessed before. Premonition of "starry sky".

But this time, she didn't actually see the starlight emerging behind her father's body.

"I'm very interested in those 'entities' you saw in the border fog," Duncan said suddenly, interrupting Lucretia's random thoughts, "What about deeper? You just said that you can only go as far as Six nautical miles within the fog, what will happen even deeper?”

"You will completely lose your sense of direction in the civilized world," Lucretia suddenly woke up and hurriedly replied, "In fact, after entering the eternal curtain, all conventional navigation methods have become ineffective, even from the stargazing room. Only a hazy shadow can be seen in the deep starry sky. However, within a range of six nautical miles, the radio can still barely function. A temporary lighthouse or a ceremonial brazier set up at the edge of the fog can also guide the ship back, but once it crosses At the critical point of six nautical miles, contact with the civilized world will be completely interrupted.

"I once went too deep and crossed this critical point. Even though I only crossed a little bit, I was almost permanently lost in the thick fog. It makes no sense to return the same way, because once the ship crosses the boundary, the surrounding space and time are continuous. There seems to be something wrong with sex. If your boat takes one step forward and then one step back, it will never return to its original position..."

Duncan couldn't help but frown as he listened: "Then how did you return?"

"I..." Lucretia opened her mouth, hesitated for a while, and then said softly with a strange expression, "I saw the shadow of the Lost Home."