Chapter 624

Chapter 624: .

In fact, when Lucretia sent the message, Duncan was already on his way back to Lightwind Harbor—and he was almost at the city-state.

After confirming that even sending the Vanished far away could not stop the Nameless One’s dream from growing, he had made his choice. While he was acting on the “other side” in Dreamwalking, his body that remained in the Mortal Realm had at once chosen to sail back.

A dark, chaotic sky hung over the sea. Dense black “hair” spread across the surface, giving the whole ocean the look of ink that had soaked deep into the water. Faint, hazy illusions flashed again and again across the distant and nearby waves, while the bizarre sights of the Spirit Realm rose and fell at the edges of his vision.

The Vanished’s sails billowed. The ship swept across the sea of the Spirit Realm like a swift gust of wind. The illusions that kept surfacing on the water fled from the huge vessel. Those that could not dodge in time were caught in the streams of pale green flame that leaked from the ship’s sides and were torn into scraps.

Duncan gripped the wheel and stood at the helm platform on the stern deck. He focused on handling the great ship while listening to the messages Lucretia, Morris, and the others sent from Lightwind Harbor.

Agatha’s phantom stood beside him. In the dim, blurred backdrop of the Spirit Realm, she looked like a Wraith with a form that kept shifting.

Morris’s voice came from the other end of the mental link: “…The forest spreading out from the Nameless One’s dream has covered the whole city. It has already started to damage the city’s systems on a physical level. It is no longer an illusion, but real matter. Dense plants have cut off and sealed many blocks. Large numbers of people are trapped…

“Some buildings have been completely swallowed. Whole houses have been replaced by towering trees, and everyone inside is now missing. We don’t know if they are alive or dead…

“Vanna just went out to observe the streets. She confirmed those plants are real and that they are truly destroying the city. What is even stranger is that these ‘products of the dream’ that have broken into the Mortal Realm are not showing any supernatural traits…

“In addition, we tried to use Psychic Resonance to contact the Storm Cathedral and the Academy Ark. The Church has already discovered the Anomaly in Lightwind Harbor. They have sent out the nearest border fleet…”

Duncan listened in silence to the reports from Lightwind Harbor. His face stayed dark and serious.

The Vanished sped up again. With a speed far beyond that of normal ships, it flew over the sea of the Spirit Realm. From deep within the great ghost ship came a muffled creaking, as if it were answering its captain’s command.

The Nameless One’s dream was growing. But this time, the speed of change clearly went beyond everyone’s expectations. Rather than the natural next step of a vast dream expanding, Duncan felt it looked more like… signs of it slowly entering a runaway state.

“Captain,” Agatha’s voice came from his side, “I have a bad feeling. The way things are going, it makes me think of Frostholm.”

Duncan did not answer. He only frowned a little. Without noticing it, he once again remembered what he had seen in the hold of the Vanished.

The massive spine of an Elder God. The Vanished, which had been rebuilt in Subspace and brought back with Saslokar’s divine authority. And… the puzzle of the ship’s original “keel”.

Slowly, all these clues seemed to line up. They pointed at the mutation now taking place in Lightwind Harbor. They pointed at the Nameless One’s dream that was pushing deeper and deeper into the Mortal Realm.

Duncan suddenly faintly understood something.

Everything was connected. Long, long ago, this ship had already been part of the great whirlpool they were now trapped in.

The beginning of that whirlpool might even be traced back a century, to the day Duncan Abnomar decided to build this giant vessel.

“…We must find Atlantis,” Duncan suddenly said in a low voice.

Agatha did not react for a moment: “Captain?”

“The state of the Nameless One’s dream is tied closely to ‘Atlantis’,” Duncan said. His thoughts were growing clearer as he spoke, and his voice sped up. “From the clues we have, I guess Atlantis is sleeping in the subconscious of all elves. Something must have disturbed this sleeping World Tree and sent her state into a sudden decline. We must find Atlantis.”

“Find her? Where?” Agatha sounded lost. “We have already gone to the border of the Nameless One’s dream, but Atlantis exists there without form in that endless darkness. And according to that silent Goathead, ‘she’ now refuses contact and refuses to wake…”

“But that may not be the only way,” Duncan shook his head. Then he called another name in his heart: “Lucy.”

Lucretia’s voice sounded at once in his mind: “I’m here.”

“Do you still remember when the Vanished was first being built?”

“I… I was very young back then,” Lucretia clearly had not expected Father to bring this up. She sounded a bit flustered. “My memories are very vague. At that time the lords didn’t really let me near the shipyard. Brother may remember more. He was already seven or eight, and he often sneaked off to the place where they were building the ship…”

“Tyrian,” Duncan called without hesitation to another name he had left a mark on. “I have a question for you.”

His mind stayed quiet for two or three seconds. Then a burst of chaotic noise rushed through his thoughts. A crowd of stray ideas had slipped through the barrier of consciousness and leaked out, turning into that noise. After that came Tyrian’s panicked, startled voice: “Father? What happened? Why are you…”

“I heard from Lucy that when the Vanished was being built, you often sneaked over there?”

Even across the distance and the barrier of their minds, Duncan could sense the sudden panic on the other end of the mental link.

Tyrian sounded completely stunned: “I didn’t! Don’t listen to Lucy’s nonsense, she…”

Before he could finish, Lucretia cut in at once: “Brother, just admit it. Lightwind Harbor is in trouble. Dad has a serious question for you.”

Vanna’s voice followed right after: “Mr. Tyrian, this is a very serious matter.”

Tyrian fell silent at once. After a moment, he spoke again. He sounded even more confused than before: “…Why is everyone here?”

“Yes, everyone is here,” Shirley piped up. “Dog is here too.”

“Quiet. This isn’t a place to chat,” Duncan said. Watching this group, who had opened a temporary “channel” in his mind through spirit flame Marks and already started to gossip there, he had no choice but to stop them. “Tyrian, do you remember the time when the Vanished was being built? Do you remember where its ‘keel’ came from?”

Tyrian finally heard the seriousness in Duncan’s tone.

Duncan’s mind went quiet.

After a while, Tyrian’s voice came again: “…Honestly, I don’t remember very clearly either. You wouldn’t tell a child only a few years old any deep shipbuilding knowledge. But I still remember that the ship’s ‘keel’ was something you ‘dragged back’ from a bank of fog near the border after one of your sea expeditions…”

“You dragged it back from fog near the border?”

“Yes. It was one of the ‘spoils’ of that trip. You often found things on your expeditions, and those ‘trophies’ earned you a lot of respect and envy from other explorers. But even among all those spoils, that ‘huge piece of wood’ you dragged back from near the border was the most special one. It was so huge that it even went beyond the towing limit of your ship at the time. You had to call in two smaller ships to assist from the sides, and even then it took almost two months to drag it near Pland…

“You chose Pland not just because our family was living there then, but also because that city-state had the largest shipyard in the world at the time.

“Yes. After that, you announced that you were going to build a ship—the greatest and most astonishing exploration ship in the world—using that ‘timber’ you found in the border fog.

“That ship took a full seven years to build. Even with enough manpower and materials, with the largest and most advanced shipbuilding facilities in the world, and with many shipbuilding experts drawn by your amazing plan and gathering in Pland, it still took seven years before it was finished. And only after it was launched and completed its first voyage, and then went through several more years of adjustments and improvements, did it become that ship the whole world watched—‘the Vanished’.

“My understanding of that ship also slowly formed during that time. Even the story of where that ‘keel’ came from was something I only heard halfway through the construction, from other people. Before that, you rarely told me anything about it.”

Duncan listened in silence to Tyrian’s story in his mind. His expression stayed stern for a long time.

This was indeed the first time he had heard any of this. As the Vanished’s current captain, he had only now learned the story of how the ship was built.

But knowing it now was not too late.

After a brief silence, Duncan asked again: “About that keel… what else do you know?”

Tyrian went silent. It seemed he had fallen into his memories.

Duncan did not know how much time passed. At last Tyrian spoke again: “I remember the artificers who helped build the ship once told me that keel was extremely hard to work. It was not like any known kind of wood. Its toughness was unbelievable. And as a ‘strange thing’ that came from near the ‘border’, it also had some disturbing ‘unnatural’ traits. For example, it made strange sounds in the middle of the night. The cuts and marks left on its surface would slowly heal.

“Because of those odd traits, the plan to build the Vanished almost stalled at the first step. No one could shape that raw timber into the form of a keel…

“But later, the artificers found something strange.

“Workers with elf blood could cut that ‘timber’ very easily.”

Duncan spoke at once: “Elves?”

“Yes. After they had wasted almost two months working on that great log, an elven artificer discovered this by accident. In elven hands, that keel that had nearly driven everyone mad with how tough it was became as easy to work as soft wood. So later the Pland shipyard transferred all artificers of elven origin to the Vanished project, and they even recruited extra people from nearby city-states…”

Duncan listened carefully. When Tyrian finished, Duncan stayed quiet for a few seconds, then asked: “Besides that, is there anything else?”

“Let me think…” Tyrian said. He thought for a while before speaking again, sounding unsure. “There is one more thing, but I don’t remember it very clearly. It was when the Vanished was almost finished. By then I was allowed to stay at your side and help with some unimportant work. Once you took me to the dry dock. You had been drinking and seemed in very high spirits. You pointed at the Vanished and said to me…

“‘Tyrian, that is actually just a small branch.’

“To this day, I still don’t know what you meant by that.”

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