Chapter 635

Chapter 635: .

This time, the wind in the desert seemed more violent than ever before.

Chaotic gusts swept again and again across the dunes scattered with jagged rocks. Dust rose into the air and swirled dozens of meters high. In the distance, a huge yellow-brown “wall” was slowly rising into the sky. A greater storm was brewing inside that wall, as if it were gathering power strong enough to sweep across the whole world.

Yet all this restless wind and sand stopped sharply just a few meters away from Vanna and the giant. The dust that had been lifted circled around them, like the view from the eye of a storm.

Vanna noticed the change in the surroundings at once. She stared in shock at the roiling dust in the distance, especially that faraway sandstorm that was rising from the ground like a wall to the sky. She had never seen such a sight before, and for the first time she felt uneasy: “What is that?”

The old giant in the tattered robe lowered his head slightly and looked gently into Vanna’s eyes. “It is a storm, traveler. A storm you yourself will raise.”

“A storm I will raise?” Vanna froze, staring at the giant in confusion. “When did I ever…”

“Not yet. But soon. Time has started flowing again, traveler. It is flowing in every direction. Do you feel it? This world is changing. After such a long stillness, this stone that was buried and bound under dust is finally about to start rolling again.”

Vanna listened, stunned, as the giant suddenly began to speak these vague, puzzling words. She drew her own guesses from them, but before she could ask, the giant waved his hand at her: “Don’t ask too much, traveler. This place is finally heading toward its end. The more you learn about it at this moment, the more tightly you will be bound to it. I do not want you to become the next soul wandering this desert.”

At last, Vanna saw something different in his words and in those eyes that burned with dim yellow fire.

This “deity who had lost his memory” had come to say goodbye.

“Come with me, traveler,” the giant beckoned to her. “Walk with me one last time, and let us put a period at the end of this journey.”

Vanna paused for a heartbeat, then quickly followed the giant’s steps and asked as she walked: “Where are you taking me? What exactly is happening here?”

“We are going back to that ‘big pit’,” the giant slowed his pace and lowered his head a little. “I have started to remember some things. What I have been looking for is there… and maybe what you want is there too.”

In a sudden swirl of wind and sand, the figures of Vanna and the giant vanished together into the depths of the desert.

…

The Sun had almost completely fallen below the horizon.

Upon the vast, boundless sea, only the huge luminous geometric body still floated quietly on the surface. The endless sunlight it shed spilled out gently and ran along the small waves into the farthest distance.

Lightwind Harbor, which had once been bathed in this sunlight, had already vanished from the sea. In the place where Lightwind Harbor used to lie, an astonishing vision now stood tall. Countless strands of invisible things, as fine as hair, rose from the sea and tangled between sky and water, forming the projection of a tree even larger than the city itself.

This giant tree, half real and half unreal, was still growing. It seemed to still be drawing nourishment from the vanished Lightwind Harbor. Every second, it moved a little more from illusion toward reality. Each breeze that passed, each wave that rolled, made its trunk a bit clearer and its grand canopy a bit more solid. Now, standing in the sunlight that filled the sea, it towered over everything and blocked out the sky. Even the grand ark of the Cathedral floating on the distant sea looked like a “small boat” beside it.

The fleet of Truth Academy had already been ordered to withdraw from Atlantis’s projected range. The ark and its escorting warships were now circling on the sea outside the tree’s shadow.

But within the range of the great tree’s projection, on the sea under that towering canopy, a sailing warship wrapped in blazing ghostly fire was heading straight toward the “trunk”.

Its half transparent spirit form sails had already been raised. Invisible force filled them and pushed the Vanished forward, driving it toward the distant World Tree that rose like a mountain to the sky. In the flames, the huge ghost ship groaned in a deep, unsettling way, as if it were under heavy pressure, as if it were resisting a power that rejected it.

When the Vanished sailed to within twelve nautical miles of the trunk, the expected “rejection” appeared.

The waves rose higher and higher, building into a storm. Wave after wave surged from Atlantis’s direction and crashed hard against the bow of the Vanished, at times washing over the deck. Howling wind and thunderous booms came from the direction of the great tree. Each roar sounded as if it would shatter this ghost ship that kept pressing forward through the storm.

Within that ceaseless onrush of power, there was almost a solid feeling of resistance and… anger.

Atlantis did not like this ship. She did not like this ghost ship whose keel had been made from her branch and then reborn upon Saslokar’s spine.

She felt confusion, anger, and even fear because of it.

Yet the crashing waves and the World Tree’s roar outside the hull barely affected the stability within the ship.

Duncan walked down the steps, passing through dim, long corridors and slanted, ancient stairways. He crossed storerooms where the light was strangely inverted and passed cabins that made eerie noises, going step by step toward the deepest part of the ship.

In one hand he held the consecrated lantern that shed a faint green flame. In the other he held the “square timber” taken from the city of Pland.

He could feel the wood in his hand giving off a slight heat and tremor. This “sample”, cut from the Vanished’s original keel, seemed to sense something and was growing more and more restless.

Agatha’s voice came from the shadows beside him: “The wind and waves outside are very strong. Atlantis is trying to stop the Vanished from getting close.”

“It’s almost quiet down here,” Duncan just smiled. “Looks like the soundproofing in this part of the ship is pretty good.”

“Alice tied Your Eminence Rune to a pillar with a rope. She said she was afraid the old Mr. would get thrown off the ship. Your Eminence Rune is not in good shape and could not resist… I tried to persuade her, but Alice wouldn’t listen. She said this is basic common sense when going to sea, and that she’s an old sailor on this ship now…”

“…As long as she’s happy,” Duncan kept walking. “What about the ropes, are they happy?”

“…They should be very happy. It’s not often they get the experience of tying the Pope to a ship.”

“That’s good then.”

Duncan said this lightly, then pushed open the last door leading down to the bottom deck.

The broken structure of the Vanished’s lower hull appeared before him.

No matter how fiercely the storm raged on the sea above, this layer of the “bottom deck”, half submerged in subspace, stayed as silent as ever. The shattered hull still floated quietly in the void. Chaotic streams of light from subspace flowed without order through the great cracks in the hull, just as they had a century ago, and just as they did now, a century later.

Duncan walked slowly to the center of this broken deck and stopped beside the largest fissure.

Agatha’s form rose at his side. She spoke with a hint of caution: “Can this really work?”

Duncan lowered his head and gazed at the crack under his feet and the flowing light within it.

“The Vanished’s original keel was made from Atlantis’s branch. Later, Saslokar’s spine replaced that keel and, with the divine authority of the King of Dreams, reshaped the Vanished that subspace had swallowed through a kind of ‘phase inversion’. So in a certain sense, the Vanished is another Atlantis.”

He bent down slowly and set the block of wood on the floor in front of him.

“Memory and dream. Saslokar wandered along the border between the real and the unreal. He created Atlantis in a dream and then rebuilt the Vanished in a dream. He drew everything from his own memories. The only problem was that he did not remember himself. He did not even know that he could dream.”

Duncan lightly tapped his finger on the surface of the wooden block.

A small green flame jumped up from one corner of the wood and, in the blink of an eye, consumed the whole block. In the surging spirit form fire, it took on the same ghostly, transparent texture as Duncan’s body.

“Saslokar was the first of the Dreamless. In the most heretical teachings, the simplest truth is often hidden.”

Duncan straightened, then kicked the flaming block of wood toward the fissure that led into subspace.

It tumbled over the edge of the hull and vanished almost at once into that dark, chaotic space, disappearing into the shifting currents of light.

A strange creaking sound began to rise from far away.

“So the key to entering the deep part of Atlantis’s dream was never to wake Atlantis herself. Atlantis is already awake. She does not need to be awakened.

“The one we must wake is Saslokar, the spine that is soaking in subspace.

“We must let Saslokar and Atlantis talk to each other. After all these long years, we must let this ‘Dreamless’ one realize that he is dreaming.”

The strange creaking noise rose to a peak. Then, all at once, dim emerald flame surged up from the cracks in the broken hull.

The spirit form fire rushed through the whole deck. Wherever the flames passed, the great fissures began to close and fade at a speed visible to the naked eye. The broken hull began to slowly mend, and the Vanished’s lower structure gradually became whole again.

Before the largest crack healed, Duncan caught a glimpse of the scene beneath it from the corner of his eye.

That was the Vanished’s true “ship bottom”, the real lower hold that wrapped around the keel.

A huge, desolate spine of an Elder God floated in subspace, sailing through the chaotic void.

Fresh green branches were winding out from the gaps in that skeleton, spreading along the backbone as the fire flowed over every part of it.

“Now the two keels have become one.”

Duncan spoke softly.

In front of him, the last fissure in the Vanished’s lower deck slowly closed.

He lifted his head and called out in his heart: “Saslokar.”

Goathead’s voice answered at once: “I am here, Captain.”

“Full sail. Top speed. We’re going to find your Little Sapling.”

“Aye, Captain!”