Chapter 307

Chapter 307: The Chunk of Flesh

On the small metal badge, Cristo Barbelli’s name and the title of captain of the Obsidian were stamped into the surface.

The badge made the atmosphere in the cabin turn quiet and eerie all at once. In the wide, silent space, only the thump-thump of the heart could be heard.

“His name was Cristo?” After a long time, Alice finally broke the silence. She scratched her hair, looking puzzled. “But the ‘person’ we saw behind that blue door also said his name was Cristo, right?”

“If this ship came from Frostholm and the Deep Sea, then everything on board could be twisted replicas. Any pile of Twisted Entities here could be Cristo, or anyone else who had been on the Obsidian at the time,” Duncan said lightly, his gaze falling on the middle-aged man on the floor, who lay with his eyes wide and his hand over his mouth. “The key is this… this corpse is obviously very special.”

“You suspect he is the original?” Vanna caught on quickly. She stared at Duncan in shock. “But… the whole ship is obviously a twisted copy. How could the original be here?”

“…Everything we know about Frostholm and the Deep Sea comes from Tyrian’s limited memories. And even what Tyrian knew was only some early-stage information from the Abyssal Trench Project. The project never truly revealed the secrets below one thousand meters under the sea,” Duncan shook his head. “We know very little about the seabed around Frostholm. Our conclusions about how these replicas work could easily be wrong. Maybe the originals are hidden inside the replica shells. Maybe every single replica is a piece cut from the original. It’s even possible that beneath the Deep Sea, there is no real difference between replica and original at all.”

As Vanna listened, she couldn’t help glancing at Alice beside her.

But Alice didn’t think about any of that. She only stared curiously at “Cristo Barbelli” on the floor. After pondering for a while, she suddenly asked: “Why is he covering his mouth?”

“People often act like that when they’re afraid,” Morris said casually. “Nothing strange about it.”

But before he finished speaking, Duncan’s voice suddenly cut in: “No, it is strange… He wasn’t doing it because of fear.”

Morris looked at Duncan in surprise. He saw Duncan crouch down beside the twisted, frightening corpse, even leaning close to its face as if he wanted to study something.

Thump, thump, thump.

Cristo Barbelli’s heart kept beating. As Duncan leaned closer, it seemed to beat even faster and stronger than before.

Duncan noticed the change in the heart, but most of his attention stayed on the captain’s face. After studying it carefully, he suddenly found something.

“There’s something in his mouth.”

“There’s something in his mouth?” Morris was startled. Then he saw Duncan reach out, trying to pry the corpse’s hand away from its mouth.

The resistance in that hand surprised Duncan.

The corpse was still covering its own mouth with all its strength, as if even after so many years of death, it was still consciously resisting something.

Duncan did not use much force at first, and he actually failed to pull the hand away. He knew that if he really tried, he could easily crush the will of the dead. But before he used more force, a thought came to him and he suddenly stopped.

“Mr. Barbelli, if you were guarding some secret, you can let go now,” Duncan looked into those wide, furious eyes and spoke in a calm voice. “You can leave what comes next to me.”

The hand loosened.

Underneath was a mouth with clenched teeth – but a second later, those jaws relaxed too.

Vanna and Morris exchanged shocked looks. Then they saw Duncan reach out again and feel around inside Cristo’s slightly open mouth.

A soft and slightly disgusting sensation met his hand. Duncan frowned, pushed down the discomfort in his heart, and pulled out the lump he had found in the dead man’s mouth.

It was a chunk only as big as a thumb, dull in color, with faint blue threads running through it. It was very soft to the touch. When Duncan squeezed it, it felt… like some kind of meat.

Meat that had been bitten off from some larger being.

“What is that?” Alice was the first to lean over in curiosity. She clung to Duncan’s arm and stared at the unmoving, blackish-blue chunk of flesh in his hand. Then her face twisted in disgust. “Ugh… I don’t like it…”

Duncan glanced at Alice in surprise. This doll, who was cheerful all day long, rarely showed such quick and clear disgust toward anything.

Right after Alice spoke, Vanna also frowned: “I sense a very disturbing aura from it. It reminds me of certain corruptions that float up from the deep layers of the world into the Mortal Realm.”

“My instincts tell me it’s best not to stare at it too long,” Morris added quickly. “This is probably a warning from the God of Wisdom. Don’t you feel anything when you hold it?”

“Feel? No,” Duncan squeezed the flesh in his hand. “The texture is a bit gross, but I don’t feel the kind of extreme reaction you’re describing.”

“Oh, that’s normal. Your rank is different from ours,” Morris said, not surprised at all. Then he went on: “But one thing is certain. What you’re holding definitely doesn’t belong in the Mortal Realm. It should be the most important clue on this ghost ship…”

He stopped halfway through his sentence.

Because everyone heard it: the beating of that heart in the air was fading fast.

Duncan lowered his head and looked into Cristo’s chest, which had been opened by corrosion and distortion. The heart that had been beating so strongly just moments before was now turning gray-white. In a few seconds, its thumping weakened almost to nothing. Then, under his gaze, the heart suddenly burst into flame and turned to ash in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, a low, hoarse voice that sounded strangely familiar rang in everyone’s ears. The voice had no clear source. It sounded almost like the whole ship was sighing: “Ah, so that’s how it was…”

Vanna reacted first: “It’s the voice from behind the blue door!”

Duncan looked down at the remains on the floor and saw the “captain Cristo” melting like wax. The corpse, which should have been washed away by the sea six years ago, seemed to be making up for those lost years of decay all at once, turning into jagged bone fragments almost in an instant.

He made his decision at once and turned back the way they had come: “We’re going back the way we came.”

Their speed on the way back was much faster than when they had been exploring.

The group moved quickly through the wide, dead, eerie cabin, back through the twisted sloping passage. It didn’t take long for them to return to the “captain’s room” with the blue door.

The door was half open. Behind it, the living tissue that called itself “Cristo Barbelli” still clung quietly to the wooden boards.

Vanna stepped forward. Almost at once, the mass of tissue seemed to sense the movement around it. Its surface began to writhe as it spoke in a hoarse, low voice: “Ah, you are back.”

“…Captain Cristo,” Vanna steadied herself and tried to keep her voice calm. “We have a few things…”

But before she could finish, “Cristo” cut her off: “I already know, lady – I remembered.”

Even though she had a faint guess in her heart, Vanna still couldn’t help asking: “You… remembered?”

“If you mean my own death, then yes, I remembered, though only part of it,” Cristo said in a low voice. “I died, didn’t I? Of course I died… The Obsidian has sunk. We met a storm and icebergs. We went down, kept sinking into endless darkness. There was no way I survived.”

Duncan stayed quiet for a few seconds, then suddenly stepped forward: “Do you know what happened in the depths of this ship?”

“The depths?” Cristo’s voice sounded puzzled.

“Do you remember the details of your death?” Duncan asked again. “Did you fight something? After you sank into the Deep Sea, did anything else happen on the ship?”

Cristo fell silent, as if deep in thought. After a moment, the living tissue spoke again with a hint of regret: “Sorry, I don’t remember those details. I only remember… the ship was sinking, sinking all the time. It was a very, very long process. Everyone died. I should have died too, but I kept drifting in the dark. It was cold around me and very dim. It felt like I was looking for something in the dark. I don’t know how long that confusion lasted – and when I had memories again, I was already knocking on this door.”

Duncan exchanged a look with the others.

“Captain Cristo” had no reason to lie.

This captain had only realized that he was already dead. He did not remember what had happened in the deepest parts of the Obsidian. He didn’t know that “another him” had died in the eerie space at the bottom of the ship, and he knew nothing about the chunk of mysterious flesh.

The trail seemed to have broken.

But Duncan lowered his head and looked at his palm – the dark chunk of flesh still lay quietly there.

He had already gained something very important.