Chapter 286

Chapter 286: transformation

“This will be your room from now on. All the basic daily necessities are here. If you need anything else, you can tell Alice. She will help arrange it for you, as long as she doesn’t forget.

“The room next door is a small storeroom. You can use it freely. It’s fine for prayer or meditation. You are a devout believer, so you should need something like that.

“Do not go to the lower decks. Do not get curious about the locked cabins. Sometimes strange creaks or the sound of ropes rubbing on the floor will come from deep inside this ship. You don’t need to make a fuss. Just leave it alone. If something is really wrong, I will handle it myself.

“When you live on this ship, remember the crew code.

“Do you have anything else you want to ask?”

Vanna stood at the door of the room assigned to her. She looked at the plain and normal furniture in the cabin and still felt a little dazed.

An ordinary bed, an ordinary table and chairs, an ordinary cabinet. Everything was very clean. She saw no suspicious shadows, no bloodstains hidden in the corners, and no blasphemous symbols written on the ceiling or floor. If she did not think about the fact that this place was inside the Vanished, then this was simply a very ordinary cabin.

But if she had to say it, there really were some unusual things here.

There was a special “crew code” on this ship. There was a forbidden “secret place” deep in the cabins. The whole ship was alive. Even the ropes and buckets on deck sometimes made unsettling sounds. These strange details more or less matched her imagination of the Vanished.

But compared to everything she had imagined, these bits of eeriness already seemed gentle and harmless.

“…I remember everything,” Vanna nodded slowly and said to Duncan, who had personally brought her to the room. “For now I don’t have any more questions.”

“Good,” Duncan said calmly. “Put your luggage away. Dinner is about to start. You can skip the barbecue on deck after dinner if you are not interested. That is just Shirley and Nina fooling around. But you must attend dinner. That is the necessary step for a new member joining the crew.”

“Yes.”

Vanna quietly put away her luggage. After a short hesitation, she also left her heavy two?handed sword in the room for now.

No matter what, walking into the dining room with a two?handed greatsword would be far too strange.

She followed Duncan toward the dining room and stayed silent the whole way.

But her heavy, worried look did not escape Duncan’s eyes.

“If you want to ask something, you can ask at any time,” Duncan slowed his steps and turned his head slightly to look at Vanna beside him. “There are actually not many strict rules on this ship. On a long ocean voyage, the worst thing is a crew member hiding things in their heart. The unease and confusion in your heart will be magnified by the Boundless Sea. You never know when they might turn into an uninvited guest.”

Vanna’s heart tightened. She hesitated for a moment and finally spoke: “It’s actually nothing. It’s just that things developed differently from what I imagined. Right now I feel a bit… at a loss.”

“Oh, that is understandable. I can even roughly guess what kind of image of the Vanished you had before,” Duncan said casually. “Having the first day be a lively welcome party instead of a dark, bloody sacrificial ritual feels quite unbelievable, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not as exaggerated as a sacrificial ritual… but the scene I first imagined really wasn’t as peaceful as this.” Vanna seemed to smile a little. In any case, she was a bit more relaxed now.

“That is one of the reasons your Pope sent you onto this ship,” Duncan said slowly. “She needs to know what the real Vanished is like. And I… also need you as a bridge to rebuild contact with the civilized world.”

They reached the dining room.

Under the swaying whale oil lamp, the long table was already covered with dishes. A large tureen of steaming fish soup sat at the most eye?catching spot on the table. The crew stood on both sides of the long table, waiting for their captain. From somewhere deep in the ship came a low, gentle creaking sound, as if this ancient exploration vessel were humming a song as the veil of night fell.

Vanna took her seat at the empty place prepared for her and looked at the food before her, sending waves of fragrance into the air under the warm light.

Alice stood up, filled a bowl with hot soup, and placed it in front of the new crew member.

“Please drink,” the doll girl said politely.

Vanna looked at the bowl in front of her. From her earlier talk with Morris, she already knew the “truth” of this special food and the unique symbolic meaning of this dinner. Now, looking at the pieces of fish swaying slightly in the thick soup, she felt her vision blur for a second, but the blur faded at once.

“Is this my fate?” she could not help muttering.

“No,” Alice shook her head, her face full of simple seriousness. “This is your fish soup.”

Vanna was left speechless, then a smile slowly appeared at the corners of her mouth.

It smelled pretty good.

…

In the great Cathedral of the city?state of Pland, Helena stood quietly in front of the holy statue of the storm Goddess and gazed at the candles burning at the statue’s feet.

The candleholders, covered in complex and delicate patterns, burned quietly. But in Helena’s sight, the flames at their tops slowly rose, then shook, split, spread, and flowed outward.

In the blink of an eye, the hall vanished. The statue vanished. The candleholders vanished. In Helena’s vision, only countless flames remained. Big or small, near or far, high or low, the candles filled the space around her, leaping and burning in a dark, chaotic, boundless void like stars.

Each little flame represented a Saint. They represented the strength the Deep Sea Church had relied on from its peak until now.

Helena raised her head, and the countless flames in her vision moved quickly with her. Many flames drifted far away. Only one bright flame came to her, burning quietly in the darkness.

The Pope gazed at this flame and waited patiently.

In her sight, the flame finally began to tremble. The shaking grew stronger and stronger. Then, in one instant, it suddenly burned fiercely. The flame shot up several times higher, and a pale green light burst out within the fire.

The whole process lasted only two or three seconds.

The flame then calmed down again. It gave off a faint green glow and burned in the darkness, bright and silent.

“…She really completed the transformation,” Helena could not help murmuring softly. She raised her hand without thinking, as if she wanted to touch that quietly burning flame with her fingertip.

But she stopped at the last step.

The countless candle flames in the darkness faded at once. The scene of the cathedral returned to normal.

Helena looked up at the veiled statue of the Goddess that quietly looked down over the hall.

Faint light and shadow flowed across the surface of the statue. The hard stone shell, carved from rock, seemed to gain the softness of living flesh. From under the thick veil, a pale, unreal breath slowly seeped out.

The statue lowered its head. Semi?transparent, spirit?like tendrils gathered out of that pale mist and slid out from the edges of the veil, hanging slowly down in front of Helena.

The tendrils curled and pulsed, waiting for Helena to speak.

“Your messenger has already boarded the ship and was completely transformed two minutes ago. Now she is a part of the Vanished,” Helena said calmly and respectfully as she looked at the tendrils. “But as before, she has still kept her humanity and sanity, and she still maintains her psychic link with the believers.”

The tendrils swayed slightly and gave off a low, strange rustling sound, mixed with the soft sound of waves.

“Yes, I will watch her condition often,” Helena said. “But if her mind really does have problems… for example, if she shows signs of corruption from Subspace, then…”

Two of the ghostly tendrils moved more strongly. In the strange rustling sound, there were strings of mutters no human could make or understand.

“I understand,” Helena let out a soft breath and lowered her head. “I will do my best to pull her back. If things truly cannot be saved, I will also try to let her return to your kingdom with as much of her humanity kept as possible.”

The tendrils swayed gently, whispering in a soothing tone. Then these ghostly limbs turned once more into pale, thin mist and slowly rose into the air.

The mist returned under the veil of the Goddess, and the statue shifted a little and went back to its former pose, calmly looking down at the mortal world.

…

The veil of night hung low. The cold radiance of the World’s Wound already shone high in the night sky.

Pack ice covered the sea. Among the rippling waves, sharp, treacherous edges of ice lurked. The towering bow of an ironclad warship cut through the waves on its night voyage, moving proudly through the endless sea of floating ice.

Large and small chunks of ice seemed to fear the might of the ironclad warship. Before the Sea Mist came near, they had already moved aside. Under the cold light of the World’s Wound, a narrow path seemed to open on the sea, and the steel giant moved forward along this path.

Tyrian stood at the bow, staring at the dark, icy sea ahead, his brow deeply furrowed.

“We have already entered the Frost Sea, Captain,” the voice of First Mate Aiden came through the night wind. “Around this time tomorrow, we should be back at the home port.”

Tyrian did not look back. “Any new news from Frostholm?”

“The spies report that the authority in Frostholm has moved that submersible to Dagger Island near the city?state. There is an old ocean observatory there, and it is now being used as the research site for the ‘eighth Number Three submersible,’” Aiden answered. “It seems they still haven’t opened the submersible’s hatch. Maybe they are being careful, or maybe they are waiting for higher?level orders.”

“All right. At least those useless people still have the most basic level of caution,” Tyrian let out a quiet breath, but his brow did not relax at all. “Aside from that, any new information?”

“The city of Frostholm is still calm for now. The authority seems to have sealed the news about the submersible. But whether they seal it or not doesn’t matter much. Almost no one today knows about the Abyssal Trench Project from half a century ago,” Aiden said, shaking his head. “Compared to that, there is another matter that looks unrelated to the submersible, but seems worth attention.”

“Another matter?”

“Yes. It’s about… rumors that the dead are returning.”