Chapter 326

Chapter 326: Close Siblings

Lucretia did not know for a moment how to respond to her elder brother. In the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, he suddenly contacted her across thousands of miles with an Arcane Scrying Orb, just to make this kind of joke.

But very soon, this “Sea Witch” faintly sensed that something was wrong.

Her straight-laced elder brother would never do something like this under normal circumstances. Unlike her, who always moved around alone, her brother had an entire fleet to manage. Also, the room behind him was clearly not on the Sea Mist, yet it looked a bit… familiar?

Through the scrying crystal, Tyrian noticed the change in Lucretia’s expression.

He had specially gone back to the home port to bring the scrying crystal onto the Vanished for this very moment.

“You definitely won’t believe this.” The pirate captain let out a breath and stepped two paces to the side with a smile, letting the scene of the cabin fall right in front of the scrying crystal and the lenses. “I am in my own room—my ‘own room’.”

Lucretia heard the deliberate emphasis in his words and looked at the image in the scrying crystal. At first she seemed confused, then thoughtful. Finally, shock and tension filled her eyes. She lost the calm she had at the beginning and suddenly stood up: “You…”

“As you can see.” Tyrian came back in front of the scrying crystal and spread his hands with a wry smile. “A lot of unexpected things happened in between. The final result is… I came here.”

Lucretia stared blankly at the scrying crystal for a full six or seven seconds. Then she frowned a little and slowly sat back down in her chair.

“I will help you take good care of the Sea Mist Fleet,” she said calmly. “And your twenty-seven bank accounts in Cold Harbor, Morka, Mormenzo, and Zarbustro, as well as the sixty-two treasure caches in the northern seas.”

This time it was Tyrian who jumped up in front of the scrying crystal.

“How do you know…” The pirate lord stared at his younger sister in the scrying crystal in near horror, but the next second he reacted. “You left a mark on the Sea Mist?”

“I do not need such a stupid method,” Lucretia said calmly. “Your way of hiding things was never very clever. From childhood until now, did any of the snacks you hid ever last until the end?”

Tyrian’s expression stiffened for a moment. Then he sighed helplessly: “I thought those hiding places for the treasure were all pretty secret. After all, nothing has ever happened to them for so long…”

“Anyone who owns a fleet as large as the Sea Mist Fleet—no matter if he puts his treasure in the city center, that is still ‘a pirate hoard no one can touch’.”

“I can’t outtalk you.” Tyrian waved a hand, skipping over this slightly awkward topic. “It seems you are not very worried about my safety.”

“I was worried at first, but if you really were in trouble, you would not be in the mood to joke with me,” Lucretia said, still looking indifferent. “So, what exactly happened? Why are you on the Vanished? Father, he…”

“He found my secret Harbor. Maybe you were right—I was never good at hiding things.” Tyrian sighed again. “There have been some problems around Frostholm. Something under the Deep Sea is stirring and drew Father’s attention. Now he has come here in person to investigate and approached me directly.”

Lucretia frowned: “So you have already seen him. I mean face to face.”

Tyrian spread his hands: “Do you even need to ask? I am already on the ship.”

Lucretia fell silent. She seemed to be hesitating about something. After a long time, she finally asked out of nowhere: “…How is Father now?”

“He is now… better than we ever imagined.” Tyrian carefully chose his words, trying not to let his answer be too affected by the absurd things he had experienced on the Vanished. “He really regained his humanity—and he has become even gentler than the man we remember. He talked a lot with me. About the Sea Mist Fleet, about the Frost Sea, about you and me. He also told me some things… related to Subspace. Of course, only in broad strokes.”

“You even talked with him about Subspace?!” Lucretia’s mouth clearly twitched. “Are you sure you are still normal?”

“I was not the one who brought it up on purpose.” Tyrian shrugged. “I just asked a casual question. I asked why the lower deck was locked. Then he told me that the entire lower structure of the Vanished is soaking in Subspace. The main reason the door is locked is to stop people from accidentally falling in.”

Lucretia drew in a quiet breath. Even Tyrian could clearly see her pupils trembling.

“Shock, tension, a sense that it is unbelievable, mixed with the thrill of seeing a whole new world, right?” Tyrian said with a bitter smile. “I understand how you feel. I already went through it once.”

Lucretia did not speak again. She seemed to fall into deep thought.

For less than a second, she even seriously wondered whether her elder brother had already been tainted by Subspace corruption, and whether the person now sitting in front of the scrying crystal was already a madman.

No one knew how long passed before she finally broke the silence again: “What is Father… doing now?”

“I don’t know. He went back to the captain’s cabin. The others on the ship said he is going to use some special methods to investigate the city-state of Frostholm. I did not ask about the details.”

“There are other people on the ship?” Lucretia asked in surprise.

Tyrian opened his mouth. He seemed about to answer, but a sudden knock on the door cut him off. Then he got up and left the front of the scrying crystal. From the sounds coming from off-screen, Lucretia only heard a few vague voices.

It seemed someone had come to deliver something to the room.

A moment later, Tyrian came back into view. There was now a plate in front of him, holding a freshly baked apple pie.

Lucretia’s startled cry came from the scrying crystal at once: “You even have apple pie over there?!”

“The ship now also has hot water and fresh supplies from Pland,” Tyrian said casually. “I know it is hard to picture. In fact, Father even mentioned that he plans to install a steam core on the ship. Then the hot water supply can be twenty-four hours, and we can add a Generator Array…”

As he spoke, he spread his hands again: “The good news is that, from the look of it, Father will no longer mind my modifications to the Sea Mist.”

Lucretia: “…?”

…

The bitter night wind swept along the coast. A faint streak of green flame flashed across the sky and fell in an instant into a deserted corner near the Harbor before anyone could notice it.

Out of the fire stepped a tall, broad figure. His entire body had been burned beyond recognition, a terrifying sight.

Feeling the cold night wind against him, Duncan drew in a deep breath on the soil of Frostholm.

Strictly speaking, this body’s physical structure no longer had the ability to breathe. But he could still feel the air flow into his chest, then leave again, steady and powerful.

“Frostholm…” Duncan lifted his gaze and looked at the part of the city lit up in the distance. Then he shook his head, walked slowly to the shore, and found a still pool of water. By the light spilled from the World’s Wound, he looked at the face now reflected there.

“With this appearance, the constables and guardians really would pin me to the ground the instant I show up.”

The water reflected a hulking, frightening figure. He was full of grim authority, yet also the sort of sight that would send someone running to call the police at first glance.

It was hard to imagine that the original master of this body had still held on to his last bit of clarity by sheer will in his final seconds.

“Belazov, hm… may your soul rest in peace.” Duncan looked at the reflection in the pool and said a last farewell to the former owner of this body. Then he raised his head and looked not far away.

AI was standing on a nearby chunk of broken stone. It spread its wings and let out a loud coo.

Duncan waved his hand, and the dove instantly turned into a stream of flame and vanished into the night sky in the blink of an eye.

Through the link built deep in his mind, he could tell that it had instantly returned to the Vanished.

Just as in the earlier tests—once a round-trip beacon had been set up, AI could use a kind of “teleportation” to cross vast distances in a blink and appear right at any beacon.

Duncan lowered his head and looked at the body he was now using.

The “avatar form” he used when walking through the Spirit Realm was exactly the kind of round-trip beacon that AI could use as a fixed point.

As he confirmed this, he also remembered the temporary body he had taken on his first night in Frostholm.

That body had been extremely weak and able to sense Anomalies. Soon after leaving the coffin, it began to fall apart on its own. At the time, he had no chance to run more tests. But thinking back now, that body had indeed never given him any feedback about “setting up a beacon.”

“One of the traits of a replica, maybe…” Duncan muttered thoughtfully. “Because it is not a complete Mortal body, it cannot carry power?”

While he was still thinking, a crackling burst of flame suddenly cut off his train of thought. Right after that, a door of ghostly green flame appeared out of thin air on the shore beside him.

AI had returned from the Vanished.

Duncan turned to look at the fiery door floating in the air. Three figures were slowly appearing within the glow of the flames.

These were the “helpers” he had asked AI to bring from the Vanished.