Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Spirit Realm Drag Racing

ghostly green flame burned fiercely across his body. Flesh and bone turned into a translucent spirit form in the blaze. In this flowing fire, Duncan gripped the helm of the Vanished, and his senses seemed to spread along the flames, reaching out until they covered the entire ship.

So it turned out the ship did not need a crew at all.

The Vanished could raise her sails by herself. As long as the captain held the helm, she could set off at any time.

When the eerie green flames had first flared up, Duncan had panicked for a moment. But in the past few days of exploration he had already seen more than one supernatural phenomenon on this ship. Those experiences forced him to calm down, and in those most critical seconds he did not let go of the wheel in his hands.

Now he finally felt sure that this flame was some kind of power that did not harm him. Whether his body could return to normal later or not, at least for now, this power of the flame was helping him control the ghost ship under his feet.

The cheering roar that had been surging through his mind faded like a receding tide. Duncan felt clearer-headed than ever. The Vanished sent him all kinds of indescribable sensations, like an extension of his own limbs. He still did not have the knowledge and experience a proper captain should have, but at least now he had the ability to control this ship alone.

The gauzy, mist-like spirit-form sails swelled on the masts. Numerous auxiliary jibs and side sails began to adjust their angles on their own. The airflow above the sea was in complete chaos, yet those spirit-form sails seemed to draw a unified driving force out of the formless, confused wind. The massive Vanished ended her aimless drifting and began to steady under the push of her sails.

Duncan tried turning the wheel in his hands. The solid feedback of force flowed into his mind. He felt the huge hull under his feet finally begin to turn, trying to move away from the endless bank of mist ahead.

But the turn still did not seem fast enough. That boundless wall of dense fog kept creeping closer. From the brass speaking tube beside the wheel came Goathead’s sharp cry: “Attention, we are approaching the limit of the Mortal Realm… We are about to fall into the Spirit Realm! Captain, we need—”

“I’m working on it!” Duncan shouted, cutting Goathead off. “Instead of squawking down there, why don’t you think of something useful to do!”

Goathead fell silent at once. Just when Duncan thought it had finally quieted down, the tube suddenly carried its hoarse, shrill, downright creepy scream again: “Come on! Come on! Come on!”

Duncan: “…?”

In that moment, everything around him suddenly felt unreal. He had accepted the strange things that had happened to him, accepted the supernatural power on this ship, even accepted that he was being slow-cooked over a low green flame. But he had never imagined that Goathead, which had seemed so eerily dangerous from the very start, would suddenly act like this… That cursed thing had always been unsettling, but right now it was just too bizarre.

But the rolling fog that kept closing in gave Duncan no time to think or complain. The Vanished had already begun to swing around at high speed—judging by her massive hull, this turning speed was practically a drift. Yet the distant fog bank seemed to be consciously chasing its prey. Thin shrouds of mist spread from its edges, and the haze expanded so fast that in almost an instant it covered all the space around the Vanished.

The moment thin mist rose from the sea’s surface, Duncan clearly felt something strange change in the surroundings. The daylight suddenly dimmed. The once-blue seawater somehow filled with countless thin black threads. Those black threads floated up from beneath the surface like tangled strands of hair and, at a speed visible to the naked eye, stained the entire sea pitch black.

Shapes seemed to loom everywhere in the thin fog.

“We’ve fallen into the Spirit Realm!” Goathead’s noisy, eerie cheer finally stopped. Its shout now sounded as if it came from an extremely distant place, laced with countless low, fine whispers, as if many malicious voices were circling around Duncan. “But the Vanished has not completely dropped yet—Captain, hold the helm. Before we sink into the abyssal Deep Sea, the Vanished still has power to hold her course. We can still get out!”

“That depends on me knowing where to steer!” Duncan growled under his breath. His voice mixed with the crackle of burning green flame, as if it came from hell itself. “I’ve lost my sense of direction!”

“Instinct, Captain, instinct!” Goathead shouted through the tube. “Your instinct is more accurate than the marks on the enchanted sea chart!”

Duncan: “…”

A wave of helplessness surged up in him, but Duncan no longer had the strength to argue with a cursed Goathead. Since the thing said to trust his instinct, he would just charge ahead with it—

Following the faint feeling that lingered from before the mist rose, he gripped the wheel hard and turned it with all his strength toward the direction he believed in.

The Vanished howled from top to bottom in a series of eerie wails. Her massive hull traced a startling arc across the now completely black sea. Gale winds roared, mist swirled, and in the dim light and fog, something at the edge of Duncan’s vision seemed to slowly emerge.

A second later he realized it was a ship—a white vessel a size smaller than the Vanished, with a black smokestack rising from the middle of her hull.

At the end of the Vanished’s beautiful arc, that ship which had suddenly appeared from the fog was heading straight toward them—or rather, the Vanished was heading straight toward her.

Only one howl echoed in Duncan’s heart: “Damn it, drag racing in the Spirit Realm just went wrong!”

He had explored this bizarre world for so long without seeing another living person. Why did a ship have to pop up now, of all times? What were the odds of this kind of two-way collision course?

…

Gales howled. Huge waves towered. The Boundless Sea was unleashing its terrifying might to the fullest. Before this natural power that could tear even an supernatural apart, the White Oak was squeezing the last bit of strength from her steam turbines to fight against death.

The gray-haired captain, Lawrence Creed, stood in the wheelhouse. The sturdy walls and glass windows of the bridge gave him no sense of safety at all. He gripped the helm with both hands, and the White Oak’s dying groans and convulsions seemed to surge straight into his mind through the gears and linkages behind the wheel.

Through the wide windows he clearly saw incredible waves rising outside the hull. But more terrifying than those waves was the strange dense fog rising and spreading over the distant sea, and the faint black lightning flickering inside it.

The White Oak was the most advanced steamship in the world, but no matter how advanced a machine was, it could only ensure surging power in “normal” seas. Now, however, the ship and her captain were facing the collapsing border of the Mortal Realm and the bone-deep chill spreading up from the bottom of the world, from the foul palaces of those evil Gods.

“Captain! The priest can’t hold on much longer!”

The first mate’s shrill shout came from the side. Lawrence heard a murky, hoarse echo in the man’s voice. He then looked toward the front of the bridge. On the prayer stand, the censer was sending up an ominous purple-black flame. The respectable and loyal clergyman in the deep-blue robe sat before the censer, his whole body shaking. Blood covered his mouth and nose, and madness and clarity alternated constantly in his eyes.

Lawrence’s heart sank.

He knew that respectable priest was still standing on the side of humankind, using his last bit of devout faith and his pure, holy soul to resist the call from the depths of the world. But this endurance was already at its limit. The purple-black smoke rising from the censer was proof that the corruption had already broken through the prayers.

Once the priest collapsed, every sober mind on this ship might turn into a door leading to the Abyssal Deep Sea, or even to Subspace.

“Captain!”

The first mate’s voice came again from the side, but Lawrence cut him off. The middle-aged captain’s face was filled with resolve: “Temporarily shut down the Holy beacon. We sink into the Spirit Realm!”

The first mate froze, dumbfounded. This man, who had spent half his life making a living at sea, seemed unable to believe his ears: “Captain?!”

“We sink into the Spirit Realm—this way we can at least avoid the fiercest wave of the Border Collapse for ten minutes, and the priest will have a chance to recover,” Lawrence repeated the order in a tone that allowed no doubt, adding only a brief explanation. “Carry out my command.”

The first mate opened his mouth, as if wanting to say more, but then he gritted his teeth: “You’re the captain!”

The crew began to carry out the captain’s orders at once. Lawrence, still steering personally, took a deep breath. Deep in the hold, the Holy beacon was slowly going dark. He could feel the invisible protective field around the White Oak rapidly weakening. Without the sacred relic’s protection, the ship was sinking bit by bit into the layer between the Mortal Realm and the Abyssal Deep Sea—the “Spirit Realm” in between.

Thin mist appeared on the surrounding sea, and the water slowly turned black.

It was very dangerous, but in history there had been ships that returned from a Spirit Realm state to the Mortal Realm. As a member of the Explorer Association, he had read countless books on this subject and all kinds of “survival guides” written by survivors.

How much worse could it get? All he needed to do was let the White Oak hide from one wave of the storm at the edge of the Spirit Realm, then use the surging power of her advanced steam turbines to pull off a risky “Spirit Realm drift”. If luck still favored him, he could lead his crew back to the Mortal Realm.

Then he would hurry to hand that damned “Anomaly 099” in the cargo hold over to the Governor of the city-state of Pland, and for the rest of his life he would never again wade into the authority’s muddy waters.

It could not get any worse.

Lawrence comforted himself like this.

Then he saw, on the suddenly darkened sea in the distance, a three-masted sailing ship a full size larger than the White Oak abruptly appear. With a certain unstoppable momentum, it carved a breathtaking arc and came crashing straight toward them…

Captain Lawrence stared blankly ahead.

“…Fuck.”