Deep Sea Embers

As soon as Duncan spoke, "Sailor" immediately knew what the captain wanted to do. After all, ever since he was "awakened" by Lawrence on the White Oak, his biggest nightmare in his life was this: being raped by Captain Duncan. Then a fire burned...

Of course, this nightmare has now come true - he was knocked over by a big fireball from the messenger named "Ai".

Precisely for this reason, after personally experiencing the horror of being surrounded by the spirit flames, as if the soul would be evaporated at any time, the mummy seemed particularly nervous at the moment: "...Will this directly burn the shroud clean? "

"Theoretically no," Duncan said with confidence, "I can control my own flames accurately and use it to understand the 'reality' beneath the surface of various extraordinary objects. I have also used this method to check and I have explored many things and this process is very safe..."

As soon as he finished speaking, before the sailor had time to relax, Shirley next to him suddenly muttered: "Who said that the black book that was obtained from the Annihilation Cult during the frost was read by you? It burned away after just one glance..."

Nina then added: "Even earlier, the golden mask that I got from the Sun Cultists when I was in Puland was also burned..."

"Silantis is also burned..." Lucretia whispered, "This one is closer."

Duncan's expression began to stiffen visibly, and the atmosphere at the scene became a little subtle. However, Alice, who was feeding the pigeons next to him, suddenly reacted this time. When she saw this scene, she immediately raised her hand to help the captain: "My wooden box was not burned. ah!"

After saying that, she thought again and added with a serious face: "Although after being 'seen' by the captain, he became part of the Lost Home..."

"...You don't have to say the last sentence," Duncan tried his best to control his expression with a straight face, squeezed out a few words to Alice through his teeth, and then turned his attention to "Sailor" again. , with a calm look on his face, "...In short, it's very safe."

The sailor looked at the majestic captain in front of him, then at the group of followers beside the captain, as well as the two expressionless popes next to him. After holding back for a long time, he finally nodded to Duncan: "I believe it."

Duncan exhaled softly, stepped forward and patted the mummy on the shoulder, with seriousness and sincerity in his expression: "Don't worry - it may be the only thing left of the Sea Song, I will be cautious."

The sailor nodded blankly after hearing this, and Duncan turned around, came to the low table with a serious expression, and solemnly placed the shroud on the table.

Helena and Frame's eyes couldn't help but follow Duncan's movements. After hesitating for a long time, Frame couldn't help but speak: "This is the only piece of intelligence sent back from outside the border in history. ', if it shows any signs of damage, I hope you can stop it in time."

"I understand." Duncan nodded extremely solemnly, and at the same time, under the gaze of many eyes, he slowly placed his hand on the shroud.

"...Let me talk to you." He said softly, as if talking to himself.

A bit of illusory flame like running water ignited from his fingertips, and then fell silently - the spiritual fire was like water, penetrating into the dirty and broken shroud in the blink of an eye, and slowly spreading through every ravine and fold of it. Diffuse, wander.

Duncan gently closed his eyes and carefully controlled the flames that penetrated the shroud, feeling every bit of information conveyed to him by the flames, trying to establish communication with some empty, distant and broken existence - he had already I've done this many times, so I'm familiar with it.

Vast chaos appeared in his perception. At first, there was nothing in the depths of this chaos.

But suddenly, as if a period of time that had disappeared suddenly appeared in the long river of time, he "saw" a glimmer of light emerging from the depths of chaos.

Duncan's heart moved, and he immediately moved closer to the glimmer of light - and before he could reach the glimmer of light, a vague and weak voice had already reached his ears:

"I am Kalani, the captain of the Sea Song, and this is the record I left on the way back...

"We found 'him' - about half a century after crossing the six-nautical-mile critical line..."

Duncan suddenly "opened" his eyes wide. In his "field of vision", the glimmer of light standing in the chaotic mist suddenly showed a hazy outline. It was vaguely a tall and tall figure wearing the navy uniform of the Church of the Deep Sea. Blurred lady.

She stood quietly in the fog, talking to herself, as if she didn't "see" Duncan at all.

"...time outside the border...is discontinuous. I realized this only after many years of wandering. The six-nautical-mile critical line is not only a physical 'border', it is also the boundary of our world. The scope of order…

"We were separated from the normal timeline in the fog. In the abnormal time flow, I saw many bizarre phantoms. And in the thickest part of the fog, I saw the edges of the world gradually collapsing and falling off...

"...Here, we see the figures of explorers who were lost on the border in the past. They have completely lost their entity and self, and are wandering in the fractured and disorderly flow of time. They are like fog that rises and falls. Sea Song I passed by some of these phantoms, and in the process, I realized that we were becoming just like them...

"My crew members gradually lost themselves. After almost half a century of wandering, almost all the people on the ship had turned into zombies - this was something I only recalled later, and my state at that time was also Not much better than the crew...

"...Only the first mate has been sticking to his post...I don't know how long he has been holding on...

"Then, we heard the call of the waves again in a sudden physical sea area, and that call 'tugged' the Sea Song to an archipelago - I woke up suddenly at that time, surprised that there was such a thing outside the border. A large-scale entity, and then I realized that the 'archipelago' was actually where our Lord slept.

"He is there - the Lord of Storms, the Will of the Deep, the Goddess Gmorna...

“These words I recorded may shock the world, but they are what I saw with my own eyes——

"The Kingdom of God is indeed not located at the 'high place' in the dimensional concept, nor is it located in the 'cornerstone' of the world. The Kingdom of God does not exist. In fact, the gods have always been around us...around the world, in the mist of the border. Outside, they are right here, surrounding the entire world.

"They... and their descendants are part of the 'outer barrier'."

Kalani's phantom stopped, and there seemed to be a gap in memory. Duncan came to the captain's phantom and looked into the unfocused eyes.

"The gods surround the world and are part of the outer barrier?" he asked suddenly. "What about outside the barrier? What is beyond it? Do you see it?"

The phantom did not respond. She was just a simple illusion. After standing in silence for a moment, she spoke to herself, still reciting Captain Kalani's diary:

“…A lot of us stayed there.

"The Storm Goddess sleeps in the center of that ancient archipelago... Those 'islands' are actually the corpses of Leviathan. They surround the sea and surround him... On the largest island stands a temple, which looks like a temple. Like a layered obelisk, it is made of countless dark green or pitch black boulders. There are some mysterious and twisted symbols on the stones. They seem to be words, but I can't identify them...

"I can't describe the... existence that sleeps in the center of the temple. I can't describe our god. He is completely different from the goddess I know. I... saw his body. In an instant, I felt my own My mind seemed to have been torn apart and reassembled thousands of times, but a gentle voice woke me and my crew members up again... That voice turned us into a part of 'him', which prevented us from falling apart or melting. A monster in the fog...

“Then He apologized to us.

“He said He had lost control of Himself—He said He was dead, but He was still trying to delay that death, and now He has a task for us to do.

"He asked me to mark a route, a route from the boundless sea to the outer barrier - in the mist between the six-mile boundary and the outer barrier, only the correct route can lead voyagers to find 'Them' …

"For that, someone has to return."

The apparition of Captain Kalani slowly lowered his head and continued softly.

“Most people are tired, and they choose to find eternal peace in the harbor of the Lord…I don’t blame them, because this is one of the qualities of ‘human nature’.

"In the end, only my first mate and I embarked on the return journey - the Sea Song had been swallowed by the archipelago, but the goddess reconstructed its phantom from the mist before it was swallowed. The first mate and I boarded The phantom set foot on the road home in the direction He guided...

"Now, we're almost home.

"I can feel myself gradually dissipating, and so does the Sea Song... This ship and I are both illusions created by the goddess in the mist, and the real world does not allow such illusions to exist for a long time... This feeling of dissipation , which is a sign that you are about to go home.

"But the first mate is different from me - he is not a phantom that wakes up from the fog. He is always awake. He has been awake from the day he set sail to now. He still really exists in this world and has been faithfully fulfilling orders.

"So, the route was left to him... He would find his way home, and he would find his way back to the islands... no matter how long it took.

"I am Kalani, the captain of the Sea Song. I entrust the Sea Song to my loyal first mate. This is the last log I leave as captain...

"May you bear witness."

In the boundless thick fog of chaos, the shimmering figure regained its appearance of standing silently.

Then the fog cleared and Duncan opened his eyes - he was still in the living room.