Chapter 232

Chapter 232: Tyrian’s Memories.

After listening to Vanna’s account, Tyrian fell silent for a short while.

Without seeing it with his own eyes, he still could not work out from these few words what plans that Ghost who had returned from Subspace now had, or how he had gone through such changes. But one thing was certain – the “Captain Duncan” Vanna described was definitely not the mad Monster the Sea Mist had encountered on the Frost Sea half a century ago.

Nor did he much resemble the great explorer, the Father from a century ago that Tyrian remembered.

“Captain Tyrian,” after the reception room had been quiet for a long time, Vanna finally spoke, breaking Tyrian’s thoughts. “What do you think?”

“I… can hardly believe this really happened, but since it has, we have to accept it for now,” Tyrian said, his brow slowly furrowing as he thought. “From what you described, he did seem to be clear-headed, sane, and still human. But his power… that curse-like flame… it has become stronger as well.”

Vanna nodded: “I don’t know if that emerald flame was the curse or not, but it was indeed very powerful.”

“That flame was connected to Subspace,” Tyrian said. “He gained that strange power after he fell into Subspace, so calling it the curse is not wrong.”

“…So if that flame is even stronger than what you saw half a century ago, that means Captain Duncan’s connection to Subspace has grown deeper than before,” the old Bishop Valentine mused. “So he has not broken free of Subspace’s influence, but sunk into it even further – yet at the same time, he somehow recovered?”

“…That didn’t fit what we knew about Subspace.” Tyrian shook his head.

“Followers of Rahm often say one thing,” Valentine said. “The only thing we know about Subspace is that we never know enough about it. For thousands of years, aside from the Vanished, nothing from the Mortal Realm has ever entered Subspace and then returned to this world. And apart from a few indirect observations and the mad scribblings left by the insane scholars of the ancient kingdom of Critt, no one knows what truly exists inside Subspace… Any ‘laws’ we think we have summed up about that place are in fact meaningless.”

At this point, the learned old man paused and sighed slowly: “We cannot even be sure that Subspace is actually a ‘place’ at all –

“Sixteen hundred years ago, the mad scholar Belmin was devoured by something invisible in front of a crowd after reading an ancient scroll. Before he vanished, he shouted, ‘Subspace is the shadow on the back of the world.’ That one sentence drove one hundred and forty-two witnesses insane. Yet, taking the madness of those one hundred and forty-two people as sacrificial victims, that single piece of information became the greatest step we have taken in millennia toward understanding Subspace.

“Even now, scholars are still trying to build a theoretical model of Subspace from Belmin’s last cry… And your Father not only actually went into that place, he even came back to our world with his mind intact.”

“Yes. Year after year they study, and year after year people die. The dead are quickly replaced, and the studying continues… So I actually had a lot of respect for those death-defying scholars of the Truth Academy – purely in a good way,” Tyrian sighed and shook his head, then his voice grew a little lower. “So now my ‘Father’ may have become a valuable specimen? A specimen that truly went into Subspace, and can still be reasoned with?”

“That’s only wishful thinking,” Valentine spread his hands. “We cannot expect ‘Captain Duncan’ to cooperate with mortal research. And even though he is rational now, we cannot rashly assume that his reason is still on the side of humans. If he is a lucid Intruder from Subspace, that would be far more terrifying than those mindless chaotic projections.”

For a moment Tyrian said nothing, as if he had fallen into deep memories and thought. After an unknown time, he suddenly spoke: “Before his last expedition, there was a period when he seemed anxious and unsettled… No, to be precise, it felt as if he had been anxious about something for a long time, and had been making many… chilling preparations for it.”

Valentine immediately exchanged a look with Vanna, and both of their faces grew serious.

This might have been the first time in a century that anyone had heard these crucial secrets from the mouth of Captain Duncan’s descendant!

Vanna could not help asking: “What was he anxious about? What was he preparing for?”

“The world’s Doomsday.” Tyrian raised his head and spoke calmly.

Valentine frowned slightly: “Doomsday?”

“I know it sounds a bit cliché, like the crazy talk of those doomsday prophets who pop up every year. But this really was the thing that kept the greatest explorer in the world a hundred years ago awake day and night.”

Tyrian let out a soft sigh and went on.

“From the day Lucretia and I took over command of the Sea Mist and the Radiant Star, he would bring it up from time to time.

“He seemed to think our world had some kind of… countdown, or some limit of time. On the surface, the mortal world looked calm and peaceful, but he believed that countdown was already close to the End. Once the time came, everything would quickly fall into collapse and termination, and no one would be able to change or stop it. And he believed… our era was the last tick of that countdown.”

Valentine frowned: “To be honest, I don’t think our world counts as ‘calm’…”

“But in my Father’s words, he called the present mortal world ‘the last pastoral age’.”

Vanna thought for a moment and asked: “So he fell into Subspace while trying to find a way to stop this ‘countdown’?”

“No. He wanted to search for Anomaly 000 – he believed Anomaly 000 could end the world’s distortion and jam that countdown. For that purpose, he passed through the ‘Eternal Veil’ at the end of the world.”

Valentine was startled: “He passed through the Eternal Veil?!”

“Yes… But I could only confirm that he did enter that fog. I don’t know if he truly managed to ‘pierce through’ it,” Tyrian said. “Back then he refused the escort of all the guard ships. All I knew for sure was that he came back from there alive – already tainted with madness. As for falling into Subspace… that happened afterward.”

Valentine and Vanna fell silent at the same time. After a while, Vanna took the initiative to break the silence: “Then did he find that so-called Anomaly 000? You know, in theory…”

“In theory there is no Anomaly or Vision numbered zero, I know. And he did come back with nothing,” Tyrian said calmly. “So I have always thought that when he decided to search for Anomaly 000, he was already not quite sane.”

Vanna thought for a moment and asked: “Then do you know why your Father first came to believe the world had a ‘countdown’? When did he get that idea? Did he come into contact with something, or… discover something?”

Tyrian thought carefully for a while, then said, a little unsure: “I… am not very certain. It was too long ago. But I vaguely remember that he once received a few people aboard the Vanished and talked with them all night. The first time he mentioned the world’s Doomsday to us was after that day.”

“He received a few people?” Valentine immediately grew serious. “What kind of people were they? What was the situation then?”

“They all wore coarse gray-white robes and were barefoot. As I remember… they were very thin, the kind of thinness that looks like the result of long ascetic practice, as if they had gone through a very long journey. They appeared on the Vanished during its voyage, as if they had already arranged with Father to come aboard as guests,” Tyrian said slowly. “After they talked all night, Father said the guests had left. But I never saw them leave the ship. It was as if they vanished into thin air.”

Valentine’s expression turned a bit odd: “Enders? That sounds very much like…”

“Your Excellency Bishop, do you think that after living a hundred years I wouldn’t recognize a Ender?” Tyrian shook his head lightly. “I suspected the same thing, but those people were definitely not the Enders we know. They were rational and friendly, and there was no trace of madness on them.”

“Rational and friendly?” Valentine blinked and said thoughtfully, “I have indeed never heard of any rational Ender… Did those people have any other traits?”

This time Tyrian thought back for much longer. After several minutes he suddenly raised his head: “One of them spoke a few words to me. I don’t clearly remember exactly what, just ordinary greetings. But I remember they called themselves ‘humble seekers of the Way’, and also…”

Tyrian paused and looked around: “Do you have a pen?”

“Yes.” Vanna quickly took some paper and a pen from the side. “Here.”

Tyrian took them, lowered his head, and drew a pattern on the coffee table. Valentine and Vanna both leaned over curiously.

They saw a hexagonal emblem. At its center was a broken, cross-shaped pattern. When Tyrian drew that cross, his lines clearly hesitated, as if his memory of it had already grown blurry.

“It was roughly like this. One of them wore a charm amulet with this emblem on it. That charm amulet seemed very important. He would not let me touch it, only said it was their guidance and protection on the path they sought.”

Vanna frowned and studied the pattern for a long time, then looked back at Valentine: “You have seen more things. Do you recognize this?”

“…Never,” Valentine also studied it for a long time, then shook his head hesitantly. “It doesn’t look like any known religious symbol, nor like anything the classical city-states used.”

“Is that so…”

Vanna muttered softly, her eyes still fixed on the sheet of paper.

The strange pattern on the paper was reflected in her eyes.

Reflected there along with it was also a tiny cluster of faint, ghostly green flame, almost impossible to see with the naked eye.