Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 236

Chapter 236: Chapter 240: Gorgeous Scenery Ahead

The goat head was not there.

This scene was even more incredible than that absurd, eerie Dreamscape!

Duncan stood at the doorway, dumbfounded for a long while, before he gradually snapped out of it and then immediately drew the sword from his waist, advancing slowly forward with an extremely cautious posture.

Indeed, the goat head was missing; the familiar navigational desk held only sea charts and a few miscellaneous items, while the spot where the goat head had been placed harbored nothing but an empty table surface.

Duncan stared at the empty table surface for a few seconds before slowly shifting his gaze, then looked around.

More disjointed scenes entered his sight.

All the furnishings were mottled and outdated; the walls and pillars had unknowingly been covered with cracks of various depths, and the nearby shelving was missing many items, leaving almost only empty shelves. Where a decorative tapestry once hung on a wall, there was now just a suspicious dark stain, next to a window smudged with dirt, outside of which the dark, chaotic void occasionally revealed some suspicious flickers of light.

It was as if there were some exceedingly swift shadows darting through the air outside the window.

The whole chart room gave off the impression of having been abandoned for a countless number of years, the ravages of time having ruined most of the furnishings here, while some force more perilous than time itself left those varying dark stains on every wall, roof, and floor.

Duncan even couldn't help pinching his thigh again to confirm whether or not he was dreaming.

The clear sensation of pain and the lucid thought simultaneously reminded him that this was not a Dreamscape, but reality–a reality he found exceedingly unfamiliar.

The sensation he first felt when he had stepped onto Homeloss surged up once again, the tension of being surrounded by endless oddities causing Duncan's brows to slowly furrow.

However, compared to the first time he had set foot on this ship, he now took a much shorter time to adjust himself and completely calmed down after several deep breaths.

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After all, he had, by now, experienced many bizarre adventures he could never have imagined in the first half of his life, and the expertise he had accumulated dealing with this strange world, along with the mastery and confidence in his own powers, meant he was no longer the disoriented novice he once was.

Now, the only thing that made him uneasy was the concern that “Homeloss is quite unstable and will eventually encounter problems” seemed to be turning into reality.

An anomaly had occurred on the ship.

Duncan went around the room again, inspecting the now empty shelves, examining the dirtied walls, and the corner where two wooden crates used to sit–most of the items were gone, and save for the navigational desk, the place had nearly become an old, dilapidated empty room.

But there was still one item left in its original place–the oval mirror with the intricately patterned frame.

Duncan approached the mirror cautiously and took a glance inside.

No horrific scenes appeared; the mirror did not reflect a bloody hell or distorted faces, it was just very dirty with blackish smudges spread across its surface, but in the parts with fewer stains, the reflection could still be seen normally.

Duncan did not linger in front of the mirror for long; he returned to the navigational desk and glanced over the sea chart.

In the next second, his gaze suddenly froze.

The sea chart had altered its appearance!

The mist that originally nearly covered the entire chart had almost completely vanished, leaving behind clear and complex routes on the parchment!

Duncan unconsciously leaned in closer, trying to discern the contents of the sea chart, but immediately realized something was amiss.

On the sea chart, paths interwove and sailing routes crossed, but there were no meaningful markers or “locations”; it looked more like a tangle of mindlessly drawn lines, recording a bewildered sleepwalk with no islands, City-States–nothing between the lines.

He couldn't see Prand, Rensa, Cold Harbor, or Light Breeze… Although he was indeed unfamiliar with most of these City-State names, at least he knew these places existed and definitely should have appeared on this mist-cleared sea chart!

Duncan's frown deepened, and after realizing the sea chart lacked any useful land markings, he slowly straightened up and turned his ear to the noise outside the window.

There was no sound outside; neither the sound of wind nor of waves, silent… just like in his bizarre, brief nightmare.

The lines on the sea chart denoted the navigational routes of Homeloss, which would update automatically as the ship drifted. So, the lines marked on this clear, interwoven chart… in which dimension were they charting the course of Homeloss?

Duncan exhaled lightly, and as if he had resolved on something, he grasped his sword and turned towards the cabin door–theoretically, right outside the door was the deck of Homeloss.

He grasped the doorknob, took a deep breath, and then pushed the door open.

The Homeloss was navigating through a dim chaos, and the deck and the structures on the ship were in a state of utter disrepair, long abandoned.

At least, outside the door was indeed the deck of the Homeloss.

Duncan stepped out of the doorway, walking on the uneven and crumbling deck that seemed on the verge of collapse. He heard a sudden, piercing creak that broke the stifling silence.

Duncan carefully moved forward, confirming that the deck only looked dilapidated but was actually stable, before he somewhat boldly proceeded. Then he looked up, assessing the surroundings of the Homeloss.

What met his eyes was an endlessly vast wasteland of chaos, filled with dim shadows. Among these shadows, murky and chaotic streams of light occasionally emerged and then slowly dissipated. At times, strange flashes or light streams would suddenly brighten, illuminating the nothingness in the distance like blind lightning, revealing large, floating entities that seemed to be slowly rotating and writhing.

At the sight of these dim lights and chaotic flashes, Duncan could only think, “Fuck.”

This scene… looked familiar.

It was exactly like the scenery underneath the Homeloss–it was Subspace!

Duncan almost cursed aloud. His lips twitched as he thought how his worst fears always seemed to manifest. He had recently considered how Subspace was too eerie and seemed to beckon to him, thinking of ways to avoid contact with it, but unexpectedly, he found himself adrift in Subspace the moment he closed and opened his eyes–how did he suddenly end up here?!

But after the initial panic, he quickly calmed down and resisted the urge to turn back to the captain's quarters.

He couldn't yet confirm if this was indeed Subspace, feeling only that this place bore a resemblance to the scenes outside the lower sections of the Homeloss, and if it was truly Subspace… then retreating to the captain's quarters would be pointless.

Besides this, he quickly noticed something… suspicious about his own condition.

He stood there, looking up at the (suspected) Subspace landscape, but felt no discomfort, no mental erosion, nor heard any strange noises–according to the “common knowledge” of this world… shouldn't humans go mad just by glimpsing Subspace?

But he felt no discomfort.

Not only did he not feel discomfort, but he could also still clearly sense his body back in Prand, and the “imprints” of Nina, Morris, Fenna, and others left in the real dimension.

Even if this “Ghost Captain” had some special traits and resistance to Subspace, he shouldn't be so… unharmed in this place, should he?

Duncan was puzzled by his current state and even started to suspect whether this place might actually be the legendary Abyss of World's End. Then he steeled his mind and walked towards the railing at the edge of the deck.

On reaching the ship's side, he leaned out to look.

As expected, there was no sea beneath the Homeloss–this ship was as if floating in the cosmos, surrounded by the same void in all directions.

He stood at the edge of the deck, observing the distant, hazy giant shadows and the intermittently brightening chaotic lights, carefully planning how to escape this predicament.

First, to confirm whether this place was really Subspace, and second, to find and ascertain if there was still a connection between this place and the real dimension.

Since he managed to arrive here, there must be some area linked to the real world, but it may not necessarily be in the bedroom where he had awoken–he had checked the bedroom and the chart room and found no traces of a “gateway.”

After pondering for a moment, he formulated a rough idea, then turned away from the ship's side and headed towards the mid-deck entrance to the cabin.

Just then, from the corner of his eye, Duncan suddenly noticed something, causing him to instinctively stop.

He looked up towards the direction his peripheral vision had caught, and a slightly bright electric arc slowly dissipated in the darkness afar. In the gradually weakening light, the faint outlines of something very large and clump-like could be seen slowly drifting over the Homeloss.

Duncan watched intently, and at that moment, another “flash” appeared, like a sinuous and persistent bolt of lightning. This flash crossed the high skies, momentarily brightening a vast swath of the “sky.”

Finally, Duncan discerned a hint of the enormous object's outline–his breath caught.

It was a piece of… land, or rather, a landmass-like shadow. Enormous in scale, it was enormous enough to trigger a fear of the colossal, its irregular outline as if directly torn from a planet by some immense force, then brutally thrown here.

On that inverted ground, one could faintly see mountains, rivers, and other more suspect and unsettling linear outlines, all devoid of color and life–the entire “continent” was a monotonous gray-black, with rivers frozen in the cracks of the earth, making it seem like a crudely-made model, sealed within a stagnant amber of space-time.

This massive celestial fragment slowly moved above the Homeloss, presenting Duncan with a desolate, ancient image of the apocalypse.

Chapter end

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