Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 706

Chapter 706: Chapter 703: Puppets Have Their Own Ways of Entertainment () Chapter 706: Chapter 703: Puppets Have Their Own Ways of Entertainment () This was a hidden sea area that appeared on no official charts and also lay far from any legal shipping route–civilization's lights could not illuminate this sea blanketed in thin mists, and no sane ocean-going captain would willingly venture here. The grand curtain of fog that surrounded the entire world stood before us, and even though the sunlight still brightened the ocean, those who sailed here could not find a shred of solace in its rays.

People had given this chilling place a name–the Boundary.

A ship, almost in ruins and by all logic should have already sunk to the ocean floor, was slowly navigating through the fog, as silently as a specter heading towards the faraway barrier cliff, the “Wall of Fog.”

Greenish flames, like silent phantoms, rose and burned all around the shattered vessel. The semi-transparent Spectral Flames forcefully “held” the ship that should have been torn apart together. Its torn hull exposed a terrifying gash; the huge and complex machinery inside, like the innards of some great beast, lay bare, bathed in those greenish flames. And those ghostly fires spread from the vessel outwards, flowing, pervading the nearby sea surface. Wherever the flames passed, the thin fog that enveloped the area slowly dissipated.

A Spirtual Flame soared, and Duncan's figure emerged on the deck–his form spectral and translucent.

Using the “artificial beacon” left on this ship, he had arrived here, but this time, unlike before, he hadn't transported his “true self,” opting instead to project a mere illusion here–most of his attention remained on the Homeloss.

The various ships had yet to converge; he had to come here first to check the situation.

The grand fog finally stood before his eyes.

Duncan walked across the deck, stepping over the ruptured crevices and the twisted rolls of metal debris caused by the explosion, and he made his way to the bow, quietly gazing at the far-off, supremely magnificent “extraordinary sight.”

It was a barrier that touched both the heavens and the depths, a dense fog so thick it almost seemed solid, connecting both the sky and the sea, standing as the end of the world within his view. More colossal clouds, like waterfalls, broke off from the top of the curtain and poured silently onto the ocean's surface, turning into ever-spreading mists covering the entire Boundary.

In front of this grand barrier, the ship crafted by the Heretics under his feet, the Homeloss, and even the Church Arks, seemed as insignificant as dust.

“This is the end of the world…” Duncan stood quietly at the bow, muttering to himself as if in a soliloquy, “I've finally seen it with my own eyes.”

He recalled the “Boundary Collapse” that he had experienced not long after arriving in this world, the crumbling fog he had seen suddenly in the normal waters–at that time, he had found the sight supremely magnificent, and the awe-inspiring pressure was still clearly etched in his heart to this day.

But, after truly arriving here and seeing this “Boundary's” limitless veil with his own eyes, he realized how insignificant the “collapse” that occurred within the “Shelter” was in comparison.

…But could this vast and grand, true “Boundary” also have its day of “collapse”?

With this thought, which would panic anyone if spoken aloud, Duncan quietly gazed at the landscape before him for a while and then lightly waved his hand through the air.

The flames spiraled at his fingertips and outlined an oval shape in the air, within which a scene as if through a mirror appeared. The next second, Agatha's figure emerged in this conjured mirror: “I'm here.”

“Any changes in the Spirit Realm here?” Duncan asked casually.

“Just a moment, I'll go down and look,” Agatha in the mirror nodded and then her figure dissolved into the air.

Duncan calmly waited a moment, and Agatha's image again appeared in the mirror–though her hair seemed more disheveled.

“The Spirit Realm is darker and more chaotic, with formless shadows skimming the sea surface–compared to the 'civilized world inside,' those shadows seem much less friendly,” Agatha reported while straightening her hair and then paused, adding, “…extremely unfriendly, downright violent.”

“Got into a fight?” Duncan frowned, a bit worried.

“I beat up whoever came close,” Agatha flexed her arm, a hint of glee in her smile–having shed the burden of memories of the “Tomb Guardian” and having spent time on the Homeloss, it seemed she had also adapted well to the… team's atmosphere, “Not hard to deal with, just weirder. Also…”
“Also?”

“The Spirit Realm also has a 'Veil,'” Agatha raised her hand, pointing at the distant curtain-like barrier that touched the sky, “just like the reflection of this Veil, it looms darkly ahead, and it looks… even more dangerous and eerie. Within that black Veil, there are many amorphous silhouettes undulating and recombining, giving me a rather unpleasant feeling.”

Hearing Agatha's description, Duncan furrowed his brow slightly.

“So, you're saying that the plan to 'dive' directly through the Eternal Veil from the depths of the Spirit Realm is not feasible,” he mused, “This 'border' seems to encircle the entire world from all dimensions, and there doesn't appear to be any safe 'shortcut'…”

“It's as expected,” Agatha nodded, “After all, if our world is a 'Shelter,' then the walls of this Shelter must be sufficiently tight to provide us a safe living environment amidst the chaos following the collision of worlds.”

She paused to think for a moment, then continued, “In the model recently perfected by Mr. Morris, the border's 'Veil' structure is supposed to block both reality and the Spirit Realm, and might even extend into the Mysterious Deep Sea, not just from a spatial standpoint… From a temporal perspective, there should also be something akin to the 'Eternal Veil' to ensure the integrity of the entire 'Shelter'…”

“A 'border' on the temporal dimension… The Tomb Guardian mentioned it to me in Vision 004,” Duncan said, shaking his head, “Morris must have also drawn inspiration from it.”

“Yes, he has always been trying to construct a 'World Model' that can explain the entire Endless Sea, and even the entire Deep Sea era. The truth we recently discovered deep within The Dream of the Nameless and the information you've just brought from the Tomb of the Nameless King have led to significant progress in his recent work,” Agatha nodded slightly, her tone tinged with admiration, “He has begun trying to explain our world from both temporal and spatial aspects… He is, to my knowledge, the only scholar who has reached such a step.”

“To be more precise, the only scholar to have done so and still be alive,” Duncan said with some emotion, “His research recently has been causing some… extra commotion on board, and so has Nina when she's reading.”

“Scholars inevitably need to wrestle with the knowledge they are studying,” Agatha appeared unfazed, “Miss Nina's situation has improved a lot. She has recently learned to remain calm in the face of things that spring out of her books… It probably has something to do with that time she accidentally burned the design that took her three days and nights to draw.”

At Agatha's words, the corners of Duncan's mouth twitched involuntarily.

Despite having lived in this world for so long, he still couldn't help but feel the urge to make sarcastic comments whenever he heard such bizarre things.

But regardless, the noise created by Nina and Morris in their struggle with knowledge was preferable to what was currently happening on board with two automata playing their swapping games.

In the captain's quarters of the Homeloss, Duncan, who was exchanging information about the borders with Lucrescia, blinked and, somewhat helplessly, lifted his head.

A figure in a black and white maid's dress staggered into the captain's quarters, following behind it, the large winding key clicking and clacking in rotation. Seeing Duncan in the room, her face slowly broke into a smile, “Captain… what… what's for… for dinner?”

Duncan managed to restrain himself for two seconds before losing his composure, “Alice, why on earth is your head on Luny's body?”

A flicker of surprise crossed Alice's face, “Ah, how… how did… did you find… find out?”

“I'm not blind! And I'm not stupid!” Duncan slapped his forehead, then heard a persistent “thud thud thud” of something hitting the wall from outside the captain's quarters. With a sense of resignation, he rose from behind the navigational chart table, stepped to the doorway, and saw Alice's body with Luny's head toppling against the wall outside, while continually bumping her head and directing, “Hit it… a bit to the left… hey, left, you've got it backwards! That's your right! Ah, hit again… more to the left oh hit… Old Master?”

With a stoic expression, Duncan looked at the momentarily stunned Luny (the head), and behind him, an equally expressionless Lucrescia also emerged.

The two of them just stared blankly at the Luny+Alice hybrid as Alice's body continued to move forward, only to smack right into the doorframe.

“Stop walking!” Luny (the head) quickly warned, “The Old Master and the Lady have come out!”

No sooner had she finished speaking than she instinctively began to maneuver her body inside the captain's quarters to step out, resulting in a loud “thud” from within the room.

Duncan looked down to see a head with silver hair roll to his feet, as Alice blinked innocently, “Captain… help… help… help me…”

Meanwhile, the Luny+Alice composite followed suit, taking a misstep and falling at Lucrescia's hemline, Luny's head dropping with a thud and rolling about in a panicked plea for help, “Lady! I've fallen too!!”

In that moment, chaos was indescribable, and it took Duncan a good while to piece together the state of the two automata, before finally echoing Lucrescia in unison, “Switch back this instant!”

Chapter end

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