Chapter 630

Chapter 630: Academy Ark

There were countless threads there, rising from the surface of the sea like masses of growing hair. They drifted upward into the air as if weightless—and more and more of them were still appearing.

Alice stared wide-eyed at the scene, both confused and shocked. Then a ghostly green flame flashed across her eyes. The same flame flickered in Duncan’s eyes, and the “threads” that only the doll could see appeared in his sight as well.

“Are these… the people of Lightwind Harbor?” Alice muttered after a long pause, finally breaking the silence. “Their bodies are gone, but all the threads are still here?”

Duncan did not answer. He only watched the dense, floating threads with a serious face. He could not count them with a single glance, but he could faintly feel that there were too many of them. Even if he assumed each person had five threads extending from them, the number here far exceeded the elven population of Lightwind Harbor. It was as if… all the soul-threads of the elves in the world had gathered here.

Their sheer number made the continuous mass of threads look hazy. They drifted in the wind without a fixed shape, hanging over the sea above Lightwind Harbor like a mist that refused to disperse. It even carried a kind of dreamlike… beauty.

And a horrifying strangeness.

By now, Alice had already recovered from her initial fright. She watched the clumps of threads over the sea with curiosity, looking like a cat that had suddenly seen a pile of yarn balls—unable to hold back, yet still hesitant. She remembered what the captain usually told her, so she carefully pulled her hands back, trying hard not to touch any of the nearby threads. But her eyes darted everywhere, wanting to grab them yet not daring to.

This of course did not escape Duncan’s eyes.

“Captain, I’ll just touch one, just a little. I won’t grab anything… I just want to check their ‘state’…” Alice spoke quickly and carefully the moment she noticed Duncan looking her way. She raised her hand and pinched her fingers together, showing how small her “little touch” would be.

Duncan nodded silently and watched the doll’s hands very closely.

He certainly trusted Alice—but he did not trust Alice to be reliable.

Once the doll had permission, she instantly looked happy. She then carefully reached out and touched the nearest invisible thread.

A second later, she let out a low cry and quickly let go.

Duncan asked at once: “What’s wrong?”

“…Weird thing.” Alice stared at the thread in a bit of a daze and muttered in puzzlement.

Duncan frowned when he heard that: “Weird thing?”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s not like any of the ‘threads’ I touched before,” Alice said hesitantly, as if trying hard to turn what she felt into words. “I felt something… very, very huge, hiding at the other end of the thread. But that thing was blurry, and it seemed to be changing all the time…”

As she spoke, she lifted her hand and pointed toward the deepest part of that veil-like mass of threads.

“It feels like it’s hiding in there, but I still can’t see it.”

Duncan frowned and looked at that hazy “white mist.” He did not see the “weird thing” Alice described, but he knew what it was.

Atlantis had already begun to condense a mental entity within the racial consciousness of the elves.

After a slight hesitation, he also reached toward one faint thread in his field of view and touched it carefully.

He felt nothing at all—but that did not surprise him.

After all, his ability to “see” the invisible threads right now was only something he had “borrowed” from Alice through the link of the flame. It was natural that he could not use it very well.

“Goathead,” Duncan called inwardly after a brief pause. “Can you feel anything?”

“No,” Goathead’s voice came at once, sounding a bit lost and flustered. “Sorry, Captain, I…”

“It’s fine. This isn’t your fault.”

Duncan cut him off. At the same time, he stepped to the edge of the deck and stretched his hand out over the side.

A wisp of ghostly green spirit-form flame gathered in his palm, then fell into the sea like water. The flame spread silently across the surface and flowed toward the floating invisible threads.

However, in the next second, the flame passed cleanly through every thread. Duncan felt no “feedback” at all, as if… those threads existed in a dimension that could not be disturbed.

He frowned at the sight, but was not very surprised. He only murmured thoughtfully: “…So it really isn’t that easy.”

Just then, a long, mellow steam whistle from the distant sea suddenly broke his thoughts.

Duncan immediately looked toward the source of the sound.

He saw a towering silhouette appear on the far-off sea along with the whistle. It was as if a veil between sky and water had suddenly been lifted, and a colossal mass, about a quarter the size of a city-state, simply “popped” out of nowhere and began moving this way, slowing down as it came.

Then he gradually made out the huge vessel’s shape. Its edges were sheer like cliffs. White high walls ringed its base. On the higher ground within those walls stood buildings of many heights: clock towers, spires, and tall blocks. Those buildings, with their white outer walls and blue roofs, did not look very religious. Instead, they reminded him of the famous city university at the center of Lightwind Harbor—the two shared a faintly similar style.

Around that giant structure, Duncan also saw the silhouettes of other ships. Every one of them was a modern, advanced main battleship, yet in front of that enormous ark-ship, they looked very small. At first, he almost overlooked them.

At that moment, white mist began to rise from above the huge “moving city-state.” The academy buildings on its back spewed massive jets of steam from their rooftops. Soon after, the mellow whistle crossed the distant sea again and reached Duncan’s ears a second time.

The second whistle was some kind of signal, with a faintly friendly tone.

Duncan already realized what it was.

It was Truth Academy’s pilgrimage ark and its escort fleet!

He had seen the Deep Sea Church’s pilgrimage ark before, and that huge “moving city-state” had left a deep mark on him. He knew that the churches of the Four Gods each had their own giant ark, and their sizes were all roughly the same. The massive thing now rising on the distant sea matched the scale of the “Storm Cathedral ark-ship” he had seen in Pland, and the style of the buildings on its upper decks revealed which side it belonged to.

“Captain!!” Goathead’s voice suddenly rang out in his mind, breaking Duncan’s thoughts. The first mate sounded clearly shocked and a little tense. “It’s a church pilgrimage ark!”

“I see it,” Duncan answered calmly. “Why are you so nervous?”

“That’s a church pilgrimage ark!” Goathead clearly could not understand how the captain could stay so calm. “That thing is hard to deal with—that ship really has a deity’s direct protection…”

“Why would I need to deal with it?” Duncan replied casually. “It’s not like I’ve gone to war with the churches of the Four Gods.”

But Goathead still sounded very nervous: “But Lightwind Harbor is gone! That big Lightwind Harbor is just gone!”

Duncan felt baffled: “I wasn’t the one who erased it.”

Goathead fell silent: “…”

The poor first mate seemed to be completely stuck by the logic and did not know how to continue. Only a jumble of confused thoughts came through. Duncan ignored him, turned, and walked toward the helm on the aft deck, taking direct control of the Vanished.

The huge ghost ship “came to life” at once. The spirit-form sails swelled into being from emptiness, and then the great sailing warship turned with startling grace, heading straight for the distant “pilgrimage ark” that looked like a small city-state.

Duncan did not hesitate at all.

Goathead was startled by the captain’s decisiveness: “Captain?”

“We’re going over to say hello and exchange information. They clearly aren’t just passing by—Truth Academy’s pilgrimage ark must have come because of Lightwind Harbor’s distress signal,” Duncan said offhandedly as he steered the Vanished forward. “I know what’s making you nervous. Over the past century the Vanished indeed had some unpleasant history with the four churches, but you have to look at how things have changed.”

“We’ve already had a lot of dealings with several city-states and their churches. Personally, I think this kind of active, positive contact has worked very well. Remember what Lucretia mentioned? The churches of the Four Gods sent notices to the city-states, ordering every city and every Cathedral to cooperate fully with the Vanished fleet. That means they’ve already noticed the Vanished’s zeal in protecting the civilized world…”

Goathead was left stunned by Duncan’s words, but he still reacted quickly and reminded him worriedly: “But… what if? We’ve never had direct contact with Truth Academy’s pilgrimage ark, and Lightwind Harbor is still in this state. That fleet’s purpose isn’t clear, and if we just sail over like this and there really is some misunderstanding…”

Duncan said nothing. He only smiled and shook his head.

Spirit flame burned over his body, making his form shine like cast light, half-transparent. The Vanished cut through the waves in the “mist” woven from countless threads and sailed toward the distant Academy Ark. Under the rippling surface lay the Vanished’s hazy reflection—now slowly wrapped in ghost-green flame. Strands of fire flowed like water through the broken waves, dyeing the whole stretch of sea with a layer of dim green light.

“If there’s no misunderstanding, then there’s no misunderstanding. If there is a misunderstanding, then it isn’t a misunderstanding—so, in short, there won’t be a misunderstanding.”