Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Your Fearsome Name Is Known to All

“No offense meant.”

The figure spoke. Almost the instant he spoke, Shirley suddenly heard a booming sound from nowhere. It was an unreal roar. It did not belong to this dream, nor to this memory. It exploded right inside her skull, and as it boomed, the distant crackle of flames and the frantic shouts of the crowd vanished at once.

The whole world fell into absolute silence.

The next second, Shirley realized her body had changed. She was back to being seventeen. She was no longer wearing the familiar nightgown from her memory, but her usual black dress. The arm that the Abyssal Hound had devoured was somehow whole again. A pitch?black chain stretched out from that arm. At the far end of the chain, Dog lay curled in the corner of the room as if asleep, quietly sprawled there, the bloody glow in its eye sockets flickering faintly.

Shirley jolted upright and stared, shocked and tense, at the figure sitting on the bed.

She did not know who this figure was, but she knew one thing: some powerful being had broken straight through the curse of the Abyssal Deep and invaded her dream.

Even she, the “master of this dream”, had not sensed him ahead of time. That meant the intruder was so powerful that she had no way to resist him at all.

“Y-you… who are you?!”

Duncan slowly stood up. In this realm of consciousness, he appeared in his original form as “Captain Duncan”. His towering height pressed down on the room, and Shirley instinctively backed up half a step.

“You have never seen me like this. That reaction is normal,” Duncan said in a low voice. “I noticed you were having a nightmare, so I came to take a look.”

“Noticed… came to take a look…” Shirley blinked in confusion, then slowly came back to herself. “Wait, you are…”

“Let me introduce myself properly. I am Duncan,” the gloomy, imposing man said with a small smile. “Duncan Abnomar.”

He spoke his real name because he was not worried that Shirley would dare spread this around. Even if she did lose her head, that very sensible Abyssal Hound would make sure she kept the matter buried in her heart forever.

“Duncan… Mr. Duncan? You’re Mr. Duncan?!” Shirley stared, eyes wide in shock. A faint, panicked throb spread through her heart. But then confusion followed. “But… aren’t you called Duncan Strain? What is ‘Abnomar’?”

Duncan was silent for a moment: “…?”

This young lady’s reaction left him at a loss. He stared at her for two seconds before finally speaking, his expression odd: “You… have never heard that name?”

Shirley thought for a moment, then shook her head honestly. “No.”

Then she suddenly realized something and looked frightened. “I… should have heard that name?”

Duncan suddenly realized this girl really had never heard the title of the “moving calamity of the Boundless Sea”. Her reaction could not be faked. It seemed that no matter how fearsome Captain Duncan’s reputation was, there were always some people whose knowledge was just that limited. The thought left him a bit deflated, and he could not help asking: “…Are you illiterate?”

To his surprise, Shirley actually lowered her head and said nothing.

“Forget it. It’s not important,” Duncan said. Seeing her reaction, he ended the topic at once. His gaze slowly swept over the small room. Outside, the noise of streets and the sea of fire had already faded, as if a farce had been cut off halfway. Only a dim, dark?red glow still spread beyond the window. Duncan’s eyes came back to Shirley. His face was calm. “This is something you went through back then, isn’t it?”

Shirley still kept her head lowered. “…Mm.”

“…I did not come here to pry, but I sensed your secret while I was entering this place,” Duncan said, very sincere. “I’m sorry.”

Shirley froze. She had never imagined that a being as terrifying as an Eldritch God would apologize to her. The chaos in her head tightened into waves of cold sweat. She hurriedly stumbled back two steps. “N-no, it’s fine. How could you apologize to me…”

“Whatever the case, peeking into a lady’s dreams is not polite—even when it’s a ‘little’ lady like you,” Duncan said with a faint smile. Then his gaze fell on the Abyssal Hound. “When will it wake up?”

“I don’t know…” Shirley looked a little lost. She looked at Dog, still sleeping. “This nightmare has never changed like this before, I—”

She had only said half the sentence when she heard a faint clatter of bones from inside Dog. The hound, fast asleep a second before, gave a small shake of its head. The red light in its hollow eye sockets brightened, and the next moment the terrifying giant hound suddenly leaped to its feet.

Maybe the nightmare from just now still affected her. Shirley instinctively stepped back half a pace. But she quickly came to her senses and walked over to Dog.

“Shirley…” Dog finally woke up. It suddenly noticed the room around them. A second later, its gaze fell sharply on Shirley’s arm. There was a hint of panic in its voice. “I…”

“It’s fine. Just a nightmare,” Shirley said with a smile. She stepped forward and hugged Dog’s huge, ugly skull. “You had a nightmare too.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Dog kept whispering the words. The chain linking it and Shirley clinked softly. “Does it hurt? Does it hurt a lot…”

Shirley turned her head aside, a little embarrassed. “Don’t be so dramatic… Someone else is watching…”

“Someone else?” Dog froze for a moment. Only then did it notice there was another person in the room. It saw Duncan clearly, saw the captain’s uniform on him and that gloomy, severe face. More importantly, in its sight it could also see layer upon layer of eerie green flames floating behind Duncan.

“Holy—!” Dog let out a shocked cry. The next second, it reflexively yanked Shirley behind it and used its huge body as a shield between her and Duncan. All the bones across its body rattled and shook, but it still forced itself to stare in Duncan’s direction. “I-it’s the ghost captain?!”

Seeing this reaction, Duncan raised an eyebrow. “Shirley doesn’t recognize this form of mine, but you do?”

“Dog?” Shirley reacted as well. “Dog, you’ve seen him before?”

“Do I even need to? Any Abyssal demon that has seen him has basically already been sent into Subspace by now!” The black smoke inside Dog’s body swelled and sank in panic. “The moving calamity of the Boundless Sea… Why is he in your dream?!”

“The moving calamity of the Boundless Sea?” Shirley was still lost. “Why have I never heard you mention that…”

“Of course you haven’t! There are tons of things I haven’t told you—there are plenty of Calamities in this world. How could I tell you about every single one? And under normal circumstances, who would ever think you’d run into a ghost captain on land?!”

Shirley listened, dazed. She seemed as if she still wanted to ask something, but Duncan suddenly broke the silence. He quietly fixed his gaze on the Abyssal Hound that was acting like it was facing its greatest enemy. “I always thought only people in the Mortal Realm were this afraid of me. I did not expect to have this kind of reputation among Abyssal demons as well.”

Dog edged back half a step, keeping a fully defensive stance as it spoke. “You’re underestimating yourself. Your fearsome name is known from the Deep Sea of the Abyssal Deep all the way to the Mortal Realm. Even heartless Abyssal demons know, by instinct alone, to avoid your Vanished… Honestly, it’s only because Abyssal demons don’t have hearts. Otherwise, even the dreadfiends that crawl over the ashen wasteland would be tattooing you on their backs for courage…”

Duncan thought about it and suspected the creature was actually trying to flatter him—in the way it thought of as flattery.

At the same time, Shirley also heard Dog muttering in a low voice—but the muttering came only through the mental link formed by the chain, and only she could hear it. “Shirley, in a bit I’ll find a way to hold this shadow off. You try your best to wake up. The other side should be only a Psychic Projection. I can tie him up for a while. As long as you can get out of this dream, he won’t be able to chase you…”

Shirley did not react at first—or rather, her thoughts were not on the same wavelength as Dog’s at all. “Uh… and then what?”

Dog’s tone grew urgent. “Then you hurry to the next room and ask that Big Shot for help—tell him you’re being hounded by the Vanished. Be sincere. You can even volunteer to become his retainer in exchange for protection. At this point we can’t worry about whether it’s dangerous or not. Compared to being torn apart by the Vanished and dragged into Subspace, becoming the retainer of some Subspace Eldritch God at least barely counts as ‘alive’…”

Shirley did not react at all.

“Shirley?” Dog grew even more anxious. “Shirley, don’t zone out! Take advantage of the disturbance in this dream and find a way to wake up! Getting a big boss to deal with a big boss is our only—”

Before Dog could finish, Shirley finally answered him through the mental link:

“Dog… Those two big bosses you’re talking about sound like the same person…”

Dog was stunned: “…?”

The exchange in the mental link took only an instant.

The Abyssal Hound lifted its head, looking a little dazed.

In its sight, the ghost captain who commanded the fire of spirit form simply watched them quietly and showed a smile as cold and dark as Subspace.