Chapter 241

Chapter 241: The Other Side

The whole continent hung upside down, slowly moving over his head. Its huge, gloomy shadow covered four-fifths of his view. The pressure from that sight was shocking. Even Duncan felt almost suffocated and could not help wanting to look away.

But he forced himself not to. Instead, he made himself keep his head raised and studied that upside-down fragment of a star even more closely.

He did not know what this place was, how he had come here, or how he was supposed to get back. That was exactly why he had to watch every strange thing and gather every bit of information that might help.

Did that hanging celestial wreck actually exist? Or was it only a terrible illusion? Was it the corpse of some broken world, or just something twisted out as a projection by the warped time and space of Subspace?

The upside-down land drifted along a slanted path, moving closer and closer to the Vanished. Duncan suddenly grew tense. He noticed that the ship beneath his feet seemed to be moving right along the edge of that “continent”. The two might actually collide!

But just as the continent drew nearer and the stern of the Vanished was about to brush a broken mountain on its edge, Duncan suddenly felt the deck under his feet tremble.

Right after that, he seemed to hear faint cries coming from nowhere. Harsh creaks rose from every part of the old, damaged ghost ship. The sounds broke the stillness on the Vanished. In the next second, the huge hull under his feet began to turn ever so slightly. With a distance that was narrow and then narrower still, the upper works of the Vanished slid past the broken peak.

Duncan stared in shock at the ship’s movements and listened as those ghostly cries and creaks slowly faded back into silence. Then, all of a sudden, something seemed to flicker at the edge of his vision. He jerked his head up and looked at the broken mountain at the edge of the upside-down continent—

By now the Vanished had slowly moved past the mountain’s middle line. The ship’s worn masts almost brushed the dark, shadowy peak. Now Duncan could see what lay behind the mountain.

He saw a cliff, jagged as if it had been torn apart by brute force. A huge humanoid being leaned against that cliff. “He” was almost as tall as the whole mountain. His limbs were long, thin, and pale. His head was swollen and misshapen. A single giant eye was set in his pitted face. That eye was half open, half shut. Filthy fluid seeped from it and hung in midair, frozen like drops of amber.

This one-eyed giant had clearly been dead for countless years, yet the body that remained still seemed to radiate some soul-gripping pressure and power. There were no clear wounds on “him”. It looked as if he had died from sheer exhaustion. Even in death, his hands still braced hard against the cliff behind him, his fingers driven deep into the rock.

The colorless black continent and the pale, one-eyed giant dead on the cliff at its edge, all in this dark, chaotic Subspace and lit by that long streak of “lightning”—this stark black-and-white scene burned itself deep into Duncan’s mind.

After that, the flash that had lasted so long finally began to fade. It had cut across the center of the continent and now slowly shrank from that center. In Duncan’s sight, the upside-down land gradually fell back into darkness.

But he still kept his head raised. He knew the continent had not fully moved away yet. Its last far edge was still drifting slowly above the Vanished. He almost felt he could hear a deep rumble as that vast weight rolled over his head. He knew it was only his imagination, yet that phantom roar kept echoing in his mind, like the last sigh of a dead world left behind in Subspace.

At last Duncan lowered his gaze and slowly looked around at the vast chaos beyond the ship’s rail.

From time to time, streams of light and shadow rose and faded. Bright flashes now and then tore through the dark. In this murky void, those flashes and flows sometimes lit up things—lumps of every size, nameless shadows.

Duncan drew in a slow breath and looked down at the ship under his feet—the Vanished, so different from the one he knew, ruined in every part.

He closed his eyes a little and tried to communicate with this ship, just as he had with the intact Vanished in the Mortal Realm, to understand this ghost ship drifting in Subspace.

But in the next second, he snapped his eyes open.

He could not feel the ship. It was not that he could not talk to it. He could not sense its existence at all!

The moment his awareness spread out, he “felt” the ship beneath him vanish. There was no deck, no masts, no cabins. He even felt as if he were drifting alone in this vast chaos. The huge emptiness and the distorted sense of things that followed shattered his focus at once.

Duncan stared in surprise at the ship’s structure around him, then lifted a foot and stamped on the deck, as if he could not believe that the ship carrying him might only be a phantom.

Or… was he the one who was a phantom?

For a moment, Duncan’s mind filled with tangled thoughts. Then he shook his head and walked toward the door that led down below the deck.

He decided to keep going with his plan of exploration.

No matter what was going on with this ship, no matter why it seemed “nonexistent” to his senses, it was at least holding him up now. It did not show any wish to throw off or reject its “captain”. That gave Duncan the drive and confidence to keep exploring.

He went down the steps and entered the open hold below the deck.

He opened several cabins in a row. Inside each one was the same old, broken scene. Suspicious black stains mottled the walls and ceiling. Every room was empty. Some of these had clearly been storerooms stuffed full of things in his memory, but now they held only damaged walls and support pillars.

He even went and found the cabin where Alice had lived. Of course, it was just as empty. For some reason, that actually made him feel relieved.

Rather than meet familiar people or things here, he much preferred that they did not appear in this creepy, terrifying place.

After leaving Alice’s room, Duncan went straight through the crew quarters and the dining area, heading deeper into the ship.

When he crossed the middle deck of storerooms, he paused for a couple of minutes before the stairs that led farther down.

On the Vanished in the Mortal Realm, he had explored those areas before. He knew that below lay the cabin of light-and-shadow Inversion and, deeper still, the “broken bilge”. But during that exploration, he had carried a special consecrated lantern.

That consecrated lantern had helped him expand his senses and reveal in advance the twisted, warped corners of the cabins that were dangerous.

But here, he had not found that lantern.

After only a short hesitation, Duncan still chose to go on.

Things here had changed so much from the Mortal Realm that even if he found the consecrated lantern, it might not work in the cabins below. Besides, the lantern’s main power was to extend his senses. But in his senses this ship did not exist at all. What good would it do to push that sense out several times farther?

Duncan simply raised the sword in his hand and slid his fingers lightly through the air above the blade. A faint green flame flared along the edge, giving him a little light.

Using the sword as a lamp, he went down the steps and walked forward slowly.

A broad, dark cabin came into view.

This was the cabin of light-and-shadow Inversion. In the Mortal Realm, oil lamps had burned everywhere in this room, but the light from the lamps and the darkness in the corners followed the rules of an Inversion of light. The places with more light had been darker, while the corners with no lamps had shone brighter.

Duncan looked around.

Here there was no light-and-shadow Inversion. There was only a flat, chaotic dimness. The spirit form flame burning on his sword did not trigger any strange Inversion effect. It simply lit up the area in a normal way.

Duncan couldn’t help muttering under his breath: “…This place is a lot more normal.”

Then he walked carefully across the empty space and kept going until another staircase came into view.

This staircase led down to the bilge of the Vanished, the place that had been broken into pieces.

Standing before the stairs, Duncan drew in a soft breath and stepped down.

A door appeared at the foot of the stairs.

Duncan lifted his head without thinking and looked at the doorframe. He still remembered the words that had once been written there, saying that this was the last door at the bottom of the ship.

There was nothing on the frame now.

There was no warning left for those who came after, no message to guide the way. It was only an ordinary wooden door, standing slightly open as if welcoming visitors to step inside.

Duncan was not very surprised. He only drew back his gaze in silence, gripped his burning sword with one hand, and slowly pushed the door open with the other.

On the other side of the door lay another dim place, an old, damaged cabin.

But it was whole.

Duncan stepped inside and at once noticed the intact walls all around. Though the place was worn and shabby, there was not a single gap in the hull here, and of course nothing could be seen beyond it.

The bilge in the Mortal Realm had been shattered into pieces, but here it was whole?

A strange feeling rose in Duncan’s heart as he kept walking. After only a few steps, he suddenly stopped.

In the hazy depths of the cabin ahead, an old, heavy door stood alone.

Duncan felt his heart suddenly speed up, then hurried forward. The door’s shape came clearly into view.

It was exactly the same as the door in the bilge of the Vanished in the Mortal Realm!

Duncan came up to the door and noticed at once that it stood slightly open—a narrow gap leading inward.

Through that gap he could just make out what lay beyond.

It was a shattered cabin. Faint light floated inside it.

Duncan turned his head sharply and looked at where he stood.

An ancient, damaged cabin, dim and full of dust, abandoned for who knew how long—just like what he had seen through the crack of that door when he and Alice had once explored the Vanished’s bilge.

At last Duncan confirmed the guess he had held from the very beginning—

This place was on the other side of the door.