Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 665

Chapter 665: Chapter 662: Border Intelligence Chapter 665: Chapter 662: Border Intelligence Duncan gazed at the distant sea, lost in thought, while Lucia, standing behind him, maintained a silent vigil. This silence lasted an unknown length of time until Duncan finally took the initiative to break the quiet, “Tell me about the border.”

Lucia took a step forward, her tone tinged with hesitation, “You…”

“I can't remember what happened back then,” Duncan said softly, “so I want to hear your views on the border–you've been active in the border areas for years, to my knowledge. You've even ventured into that dense fog a few times… If we're destined to deal with that fog again, at least I want to know what you understand about it.”

Lucia's gaze wavered with hesitation and complexity as she stared at Duncan's back, as if afraid this figure would suddenly disappear into the wind–before today, her father had also raised the topic of the border with her, but their discussions on the matter were never extensive. She would consciously avoid these issues, but today… the situation seemed different.

After a few seconds, the “Witch of the Sea” finally spoke, “I have indeed entered that fog, but only at a very 'shallow' level, Six Nautical Miles, which is the limit of my navigation within it–theoretically, it should also be the monitoring limit of the ships of the Four Gods Church in that area.”

“What's there?” Duncan asked curiously.

Lucia thought for a moment, “Most areas of the sea are calm, even calmer than the other normal sea regions of the Endless Sea. The water is like a mirror, clearly reflecting the flags atop the masts, without a single wave. Ripples caused by ships passing dissipate extremely quickly, and the entire sea's texture is like some sort of… heavy, viscous substance incapable of rippling, but it is indeed seawater. The sailing itself is not affected…

“But this is only the state of the calm areas. Amidst these peaceful waters, there exists chaotic and irregular currents that appear mysteriously and without warning. They are nearly impossible to detect visually, even as they're occurring, with the rapidly moving water still maintaining a state of calm, sweeping past like a 'cutting line'. If a ship inadvertently gets close, it will lose control, at the least spinning rapidly and being carried onto the wrong course by the currents, or at the worst, capsizing.

“Yet, these are still only the 'milder' situations within the fog. When it's not so mild… some bizarre things would appear.

“Sometimes, incomprehensible things would suddenly emerge in the midst as massive, floating cubes on the sea's surface, or mountains like knife edges piercing straight out of the ocean, but it's hard to approach these entities that emerge from the fog directly, because around these things there would often be accompanying large-scale… abnormal celestial phenomena. Sometimes it's a storm, sometimes a huge ring of currents, sometimes even a large swath of sea water would disappear out of thin air, forming a crevasse as deep as the Abyss, bottomless and utterly terrifying…”

Lucia stopped there, seemingly recalling some experiences that were chilling even for the “Witch of the Sea”. After organizing her thoughts for a moment, she continued:
“In these chaotic phenomena, one can occasionally find gains, such as materials and items of unknown nature. They appear with the currents or storms, tangible entities that can be captured, stored, and even taken out of the fog. Some of these things are useful, like an oil that burns eternally or crystals that can dispel mental contamination. The Explorers' Association and the Academy of Truth would pay a great price for these items to study their uses, but essentially these things collected from the border phenomena are random and unique, without the possibility of stable production…

“And in even rarer cases, amidst these chaotic and dangerous phenomena would appear…”

She suddenly stopped, seeming hesitant to continue.

Duncan frowned involuntarily, “Lucy, what did you see?”

“Only once, and to this day, I am not sure if it was real or a hallucination due to extreme fatigue,” Lucia spoke hesitantly after much deliberation, “It was a huge column that rose suddenly from the sea, the column was pitch-black, surrounded by large ring-shaped objects, equally black and indistinct. This is the only entity from within the fog that I have managed to approach–its surroundings only had less intense waves, and the Brilliant Starship barely combatted them. I reached the foot of the column, even brought the ship close enough to touch its surface… then, I heard it speak to me.”

Lucia lifted her hand and pointed to her head, “That voice boomed in my mind, a language I didn't recognize, but I could directly understand its meaning. It kept repeating one sentence, 'The Curvature Engine activated… we are escaping danger, the Curvature Engine activated… we are escaping danger…'”
She looked up to see a subtle change in expression on Duncan's face and couldn't help but ask, “Do you know what that sentence means?”

At Lucia's mention of the phrase, Duncan's brow furrowed instantly. The term “Curvature Engine” stirred a wave in his heart, leading him to associate it with that spacecraft that had crashed during the Deep Sea Era–“New Hope”!

Had Lucia found the wreckage of that ship? Had it fallen into the Eternal Veil?

“Can you still find it? Have you seen it again since then?” he asked urgently.

“I'm afraid I can't,” Lucresia shook her head apologetically, sensing the importance of this matter from her father's demeanor, “The things that appear in the border fog are random and fleeting, like tangible illusions that dissipate without a trace when the time comes. To this day, I haven't encountered the same entity twice in that fog.”

A wave of disappointment surged in Duncan, but he did not show it much, “Then, aside from what it said, have you found anything else?”

Lucresia recalled carefully and said with uncertainty, “The other thing is the extremely odd… 'touch' that I felt when I touched it. It felt 'hollow,' without temperature or solidity. I know it's strange to say this, but at that moment, my fingers couldn't determine what they were touching or even if they were touching anything at all. It was as if the 'sense of touch' in my fingers vanished for that instant, or perhaps that thing… only had some of its 'properties' left in our dimension, so I couldn't fully perceive its missing parts…”

Her words became more hesitant towards the end, as she seemed to struggle to accurately express her feelings and speculations from that moment. Finally, she could only helplessly spread her hands, “Do you understand what I'm trying to say?”

Duncan, however, looked thoughtful. After hearing Lucresia describe those bizarre and unimaginable circumstances, what suddenly came to his mind was the “cognitive alteration” he experienced for a few seconds after witnessing the truth of the Great Obliteration, or rather an “epiphany” about the world.

He still vividly remembered what he saw in the last moments, the “true” side of the world.

The fragmented information coalesced into the current deep-sea era, incompatible fragments of the old world merged and mutated through collisions, transforming into unrecognizable forms, or blending into the “information broth” underlying the world.

So… what about those things that didn't merge or were unable to be completely obliterated and contaminated because of their “special properties”?

Such things must exist. When a cosmic-level collision occurs, every event probability overlaps from infinity to infinitesimal, anything can happen, and anything might never happen. Hence, those that inevitably remain due to infinitesimal probabilities as “lucky” or rather “unfortunate” ones should have a place to be…

Duncan speculated that most of them were probably in the Subspace – in that dark, chaotic space with many remnants akin to those of the old world: torn lands, pale cyclopes, ambiguous shadows floating in the void – they must all be pieces that were not completely obliterated.

But now it seemed that some of them had fallen outside Subspace.

The “entities” seen by the “Sea Witch” in the border fog… were such things.

Lucresia felt a bit uneasy. As she watched the expressions change on Duncan's face, a logic and cognition that she couldn't comprehend seemed to gradually take shape in her father's mind, giving her a premonition akin to when she first witnessed the “starry sky”.

But this time, she didn't actually see stars emerge behind her father's figure.

“The 'entities' you've seen in the border fog are of great interest to me,” Duncan suddenly spoke, interrupting Lucresia's wandering thoughts, “What about deeper in? You just said you've only been as far as Six Nautical Miles into the fog, what happens if you go deeper?”

You lose all sense of direction of the civilized world,” Lucresia snapped to attention and hurriedly replied, “In fact, once you enter the Eternal Veil, all conventional navigation becomes useless. Even from the Observatory, looking down at the vast starry sky, you would only see a hazy and blurred shadow. Within the Six Nautical Miles, radio can still work to a certain extent, and lighthouses or ritual fire basins temporarily set up at the edge of the fog can guide ships back. But once you cross that threshold of Six Nautical Miles, all contact with the civilized world would be completely severed.

“I once ventured too deep, past that critical point. Although it was just by a little, I nearly got forever lost in that thick fog. Trying to retrace my steps was meaningless because once a ship crosses the boundary, the spatial continuity seems to be compromised. If you move forward a step and then step back, you won't return to the same place…”

Listening, Duncan couldn't help but frown, “So how did you find your way back?”

“I…” Lucresia opened her mouth, hesitated for a good while, then spoke softly with a somewhat strange expression, “I saw the shadow of Homeloss.”

Chapter end

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