Chapter 629

Chapter 629: Countless Threads

“I don’t think you should call my trip every Friday to the Frostholm Grand Cathedral to collect my cemetery guard wages a ‘Subspace invasion’. That is not very precise…”

On the Vanished, which was sailing through the shallow layers of the Spirit Realm, Duncan checked the large wooden chest that Ai had just teleported from Pland while he spoke to Vanna in his heart.

“It is exactly because I want to be precise that I call it that,” Vanna replied. Her tone was so serious that Duncan could not tell whether the inquisitor was joking. She paused, then sounded even more earnest. “And honestly, I have never understood why you insist on personally using your avatar form to collect that ‘wage’. You know, that ‘Agatha’ in Frostholm is willing to assign a special team of guards for you. Mr. Tyrian has also wanted to arrange a better place for your avatar form over there. But you still insist on warding those graveyards yourself…”

Duncan stopped what he was doing. In a brief silence, he thought of that cold northern city-state – that place where it was always snowing. He remembered the winter graveyard, the quiet streets, a young lady named Annie, and the old caretaker.

“…I like that place,” Duncan said slowly in his heart. “Doing some things an ordinary person would do, in a place I like – that is my hobby.”

Vanna fell quiet for a moment, as if his words had touched her and sent her into thought. Light, quick footsteps came from not far away. Duncan looked up and saw Alice happily walking over from the other end of the deck – she was always that cheerful.

“Captain! Are we almost at Lightwind Harbor? I saw the ship start to ‘rise’…”

The doll suddenly noticed the large chest sitting on the deck.

“What is this?” she asked in surprise as she hurried over, circling the chest and peeking at the things inside. “Is it for me to sleep in… no, that doesn’t look right. What are these?”

“These are very important things, the construction records from when the Vanished was first built,” Duncan said casually, reaching in to pick up the block of wood. “But this is the most important part.”

Alice leaned closer, curious: “What is it?”

Duncan stayed silent for a long time. Only when he saw Alice’s curious and puzzled gaze did he finally speak in a low voice: “Maybe… an ‘interface’.”

He lifted his head and looked out at the distant sea.

The chaos and darkness in the sky were slowly fading. The black “hairs” in the sea were thinning at a speed the naked eye could see. The hazy, ghostly shapes on the water first turned into thin mist, then quickly paled and melted away in the strengthening sunlight. The Vanished was slowing down. Under Goathead’s control, it was rising from the Spirit Realm back toward the Mortal Realm.

“The Vanished has already drawn near Lightwind Harbor. How is the situation in the city now?”

Morris’s voice answered at once: “It is still chaotic, but some guards and constables have made it into the districts. The emergency officials are organizing the residents to save themselves. For now, it doesn’t look like things will get worse – but no one can guarantee how tonight will be.”

Duncan answered with a quiet “mm”, then turned his attention back to the sea.

The Vanished completed its rise. Bright sunlight from the Mortal Realm shone on the deck and masts. Beyond the rail, the sea swelled gently in the breeze, whitecaps flashing with scattered light.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing.

Duncan blinked. Something felt wrong.

Alice also blinked. Even this solid-headed doll felt something was wrong.

A hazy shadow squirmed up from the deck and slowly stood, staring into the distance. After quite a while, Agatha finally broke the silence on the deck: “Where is Lightwind Harbor?!”

Where was Lightwind Harbor?! Where had that huge Lightwind Harbor gone?!

Duncan stared out at the distance for a long time, then turned his head to look in other directions. He swept his gaze around the sea and finally found something familiar.

A huge, irregular luminous geometric body was floating quietly on the distant water.

It was the fallen relic that had been “anchored” near Lightwind Harbor. But aside from that enormous luminous geometric body, there was nothing on the nearby sea.

Duncan called out at once through the mental link: “First Mate, confirm our position.”

Goathead answered immediately: “Aye, captain, I have already noticed it… There’s nothing wrong with the Vanished’s position. The enchanted sea chart shows we are right next to Lightwind Harbor, and that ‘luminous geometric body’ can be used as a reference point… but Lightwind Harbor is gone.”

A sea breeze blew across the deck. The bright southern sunlight reflecting off the water was almost too dazzling to look at.

Far away, a mark formed from the fire of spirit form burned somewhere no eyes could see. Duncan heard Nina’s voice rise from the depths of his mind: “Uncle Duncan, have you arrived?”

“I have,” Duncan took a slow breath, thinking of how to explain the situation. “But Lightwind Harbor is gone.”

Nina: “…Huh?”

Some time later.

The Vanished reached the waters where the huge luminous geometric body floated, and within its range they finally found a trace that proved Lightwind Harbor had once existed.

Duncan found the research station built to study the “stone sphere” at the center of the geometric body. It still remained in the Mortal Realm, but the station itself was completely empty.

Judging from the traces left behind, the scholars stationed there had disappeared at least before dawn. The stoves for cooking breakfast showed no signs of use. Several divine blessing oil lamps that needed to be lit only during the night were still burning, their fuel almost exhausted. This meant that after sunrise, no one had been there to put them out.

After a round of investigation, the Vanished left the luminous core of the geometric body and returned to the patch of sea where Lightwind Harbor should have been, wandering slowly back and forth over the spot.

“The research facilities around the stone sphere are still there. Maybe the ‘sunlight’ that luminous geometric body gives off weakened the power of the Nameless One’s dream. But the staff inside are all gone… It seems that ‘sunlight’ could not completely block Atlantis’s strength.”

In the captain’s cabin of the Vanished, Duncan was analyzing the situation. Not far from him, inside the oval scrying mirror, Agatha also wore a solemn, thoughtful expression.

“This looks very similar to the disappearances in Lightwind Harbor whenever the Nameless One’s dream broke out,” Agatha said as she thought aloud. “But this time, the power of the dream has grown to an unbelievable level. Even an entire city-state with material form has vanished.”

Alice stood beside Duncan. The doll, who usually had such a wide and careless heart, finally looked nervous, even a little afraid. She grabbed Duncan’s arm without thinking and spoke in a hesitant voice: “Then… then everyone who stayed in the city…”

“They are all safe for now. I can still contact them,” Duncan comforted the doll. “Going by the pattern the Nameless One’s dream showed before, as long as the dream disperses, anything that vanished because of it should return to normal.”

Hearing the captain’s words, Alice still felt that something was wrong, but she relaxed a little.

But Duncan knew he had not said everything.

The biggest question now was whether this time the Nameless One’s dream would fade away like before – and whether this might be Atlantis’s “final dream”.

The message Ted Riel had sent from the depths of the Nameless One’s dream was very bad.

Atlantis had gone mad. She had changed from an ancient obsession half-asleep in a muddled daze into a powerful being with clear ability to act but no control. That being’s goal was clear: to take root and grow once more in the Mortal Realm.

Now that she was awake and insane, would Atlantis still, like in the previous times, unconsciously let the Nameless One’s dream come to a quiet end? Or… was the current “disappearance” of Lightwind Harbor the first step for her to enter the Mortal Realm?

Time was running out.

Duncan thought quickly. He placed the keel sample he had found in Pland on the chart table before him, and at the same time considered how to use this piece of wood to establish contact with Atlantis, how to truly reach the deepest part of the Nameless One’s dream, and how to discover what truth was hidden in the Veil at the core of that dream.

The Sea Mist and the Radiant Star had already mutated under the curse. The original keel of the Vanished had disappeared into Subspace. The leftover “twig” timbers from back then had been burned to ash in the shipyard fire. The piece before him was probably the last remaining “Atlantis wood” in the world. There was likely only one chance.

Just as some ideas began to form in Duncan’s mind, Alice suddenly cried out beside him: “Threads!”

Duncan turned in surprise: “Threads? You see threads in here?”

“Threads… threads everywhere!” Alice’s eyes were wide. She waved her hands in the air as she spoke quickly. “They just floated out. They’re all over the air… rising up from under the deck!”

“Under the deck?” Duncan froze for a second, then reacted at once. He grabbed Alice’s arm and pulled the doll toward the door. “Come with me!”

Alice did not understand at first. She ran after the captain, shouting as she went: “Hey… hey? Captain, where are you taking me? Slow down, slow down, let me hold my head…”

Alice’s cries cut off the moment she stepped out of the captain’s cabin.

She stood on the deck, staring wide-eyed at the endless sea outside.

The Sun was slowly sinking. In the magnificent glow spreading across the sky, she saw something she had never seen before: countless hair-fine threads rising and drifting up from the whole stretch of sea.

Those threads were not floating up from “under the deck” of the Vanished.

They were floating up from the sea where Lightwind Harbor had once been.