Chapter 660

Chapter 660: Capture and Endgame

The skeletal spider let out a string of chaotic, piercing noises. It was a howl full of intense mental corruption, the roar of a Monster teetering on the edge of a runaway state. The anger in it almost turned solid. Yet that almost solid fury could not affect the ship beneath it, a ship that had just come alive and was now setting out on its way home.

Even badly wounded, even with his senses in chaos, the Saint could still feel the ship under his feet accelerating in a certain direction. He could feel the abnormal trembling coming from the hull. The steam core was completely destroyed, yet the propellers were slowly speeding up. The navigation and linkage systems were gone, yet the ship itself still knew the way home.

The torn hull pieces still floated not far away. Between the shattered fragments, ghostly green flame burned quietly like the Veil. It kept out the icy seawater and also cut off all hope.

The steel behemoth that he had personally blown apart was now sailing toward the Holy Land in the posture of a broken corpse.

Behind the skeletal spider, from that swollen, horrifying giant brain, came a strange pounding sound, like heavy drums. Its blood vessels swelled and writhed violently, as if something glowing was brewing inside. A mad, destructive aura suddenly began to rise.

But just as this Annihilation priest was about to use his own body as raw material and set off a world-shaking self-destruction, he suddenly found he had lost control of his body.

A weird stiffness hit him all at once. He felt every limb and eyestalk turn in an instant into something hard, like stone or ceramic, fused into solid pieces. Then it felt as though an irresistible force descended on those stiff limbs and pulled them outward, fixing them in place.

Terror spread from the depths of his mind. The Saint pushed himself to the limit to move one eyestalk that was still intact and turned that eye in another direction.

There, a beautiful Doll with silver hair and a dark purple court dress stood quietly in the flames. She raised her hand slightly, as if she was controlling invisible threads. In those faint truths refracted by fate, the Saint saw vague, transparent strands twining between the girl’s fingers.

“Anomaly… 099…” A furious and terrified voice came from within his body.

“You need to calm down.” Alice tilted her head a little and looked very seriously at the ugly skeletal spider. “Your threads were all tangled. I helped straighten them out.”

The skeletal spider trembled, then finally lost consciousness. In the very last second before his body completed its Doll transformation, Alice let go of the invisible threads in her hand.

She still remembered that the captain needed this one alive.

Duncan gave Alice a somewhat surprised look, then glanced at the skeletal spider, which had completely lost consciousness. He asked curiously: “It has threads too?”

“Yes.” Alice nodded. “They’re just a bit messier than an ordinary person’s, but you can still sort them out.”

Duncan frowned slightly, a thoughtful look on his face.

Just then, a gust of wind blew into the engine room, carrying with it many bright, colored paper scraps. The paper gathered at the far end of the platform, more than ten meters from Duncan, and formed the figure of Lucretia.

At a glance, Lucretia saw the skeletal spider lying motionless on the platform. Then she noticed the completely ruined steam core and the shattered pillars of the Sorting Engine not far away, as well as the countless flames and fragments frozen in midair as if time and space had stopped.

Duncan stood at the center of it all. He nodded to Lucretia. “It’s all taken care of here.”

“…I heard a huge explosion from the lower decks, and I saw massive flames and torn metal flying from the stern…” Lucretia looked a bit dazed. She stared blankly at the unbelievable scene in the engine room for a long moment before she went on. “…Did you restore its power?”

“It will return on its own to its home port, though it may take some time.” Duncan waved his hand and looked around at the wreckage with some regret. “What a pity. I was quite interested in that Sorting Engine, and now it’s been blown to pieces.”

As he spoke, he shook his head, then raised his hand and pointed at the Saint lying on the platform.

“Take it away. This thing is badly injured. I want it to recover in the shortest time possible. It doesn’t have to be fully healed. I just need its mind and vital signs stable. I need it to open the door to the Abyssal Deep in the Deep Sea.”

“…Oh, all right, Dad.” Lucretia finally snapped out of her daze. She hurried a few steps forward and raised the Conductor’s Baton in her hand. With a faint look of distaste, she lightly tapped one of the skeletal spider’s legs with the tip.

A shadow suddenly burst from the tip of the Conductor’s Baton. It was like something sealed inside the staff. Duncan only saw its vague, ferocious outline flash through the air. Then the shadow swelled and solidified into a huge, horrifying mouth that looked like an abstract sketch. It swallowed the skeletal spider in one bite, made a hard gulping motion in the air, and then quickly sank back into the Conductor’s Baton.

Lucretia put the Conductor’s Baton away with a face full of disgust.

“…Your spells are all very handy,” Duncan said, watching Lucretia’s actions with a slightly strange expression. There was a trace of emotion in his tone. “The way you ‘summoned’ me this time was quite good too.”

“I hope it met your expectations.” Lucretia’s face brightened with a smile. “After I listened to you talk about the avatar form you use and the rules of the beacon that lets you Teleport between Avatars, I kept thinking about this problem. I’m glad it was useful in the end.”

Duncan nodded slightly.

He had come to this ship in his true body. At first, he had considered sending only a portion of his power as a projection. But after he learned the situation aboard, it was clear that Teleporting his powerful true body here was a more reliable choice.

However, this kind of teleportation needed a beacon, something AI could use for navigation. The mirror ritual he usually used was not enough, and the temporary bodies of the Annihilators could not withstand it. There were indeed other “things” on this ship that could be turned into beacons, but the only ones left were the innocent sacrificial victims locked in cages by the cultists.

After all, outside the Vanished, a “beacon” was a body to be possessed.

Turning the ship’s innocent sacrificial victims into beacons clearly went against Duncan’s principles.

Thankfully, Lucretia had used her wits to solve the problem. She had made an artificial beacon in advance, something that could hold Duncan’s power when it descended.

She carried that beacon, used Rabby to control the cultists running the summoning ritual, and teleported to the ship ahead of time. Then she used the power of the artificial beacon to summon Duncan’s true body as well. From the look of it now, this whole Chain-Summoning process worked very well.

Duncan lowered his head and looked at his own hands.

The body he wore now was attached to the artificial beacon that Lucretia had made. That beacon sat inside him and was running in perfect condition.

“This beacon test went very smoothly.” Duncan raised his head and said to Lucretia, “If it can stay stable for a long time, you should carry one around from now on. Once you run into danger, I can come to your side at once. It’s more convenient than the mirror ritual.”

Lucretia froze for a second, as if she had not expected that. Then a slow smile curved her lips.

“Then I’ll send one to Big Brother too…”

“Frostholm already has one of my avatar forms.” Duncan gave her a sidelong glance. “He even went to the cemetery to visit me this morning. He doesn’t need your artificial beacon.”

Lucretia immediately looked a bit disappointed. “…Oh.”

“…Stop thinking about making trouble for your brother all the time.”

“Oh.”

Duncan shook his head helplessly.

“How are the sacrificial victims on the ship?”

“Rabby and I have already found them.” When it came to business, Lucretia quickly adjusted her expression. “The good news is, the place where they were held is in the bottom hold of the front half of the ship. The explosion in the engine room did not reach that far before you suppressed it, so no one died in the blast or the fire. The bad news is… their condition is very bad. Very, very bad. Some of them were already dead in their cells before we got there. Long sea voyages are boring, and those cultists used torturing the sacrificial victims as a way to pass the time. They even killed sacrificial victims who had lost their value as ‘blood food’ just for fun…”

She stopped and carefully watched Duncan’s face, which had grown dark as night.

“…But don’t worry. I will do everything I can to save those who are still alive. Even if they are on the verge of death, I can pull them back. It’s just that I can’t say anything about their mental state. That will need a more professional psychiatrist.”

“Mm.” Duncan nodded lightly. The grim look on his face eased a little. He exhaled, thought for a moment, and then asked, “Have you found the ‘Dream-Skull’?”

“We’re still looking.” Lucretia answered at once. “It is a precious but dangerous sealed object. It should be hidden in the best-defended and most secret place on the whole ship. I have already sent out my toy soldiers and shadow servants. They are searching every cabin from top to bottom. They should find it soon.”

Alice had been standing nearby, listening curiously for a long time. She finally caught up with the thread of the talk and suddenly spoke up with a worried tone: “What if it already got blown up…”

“It shouldn’t have.” Lucretia shook her head. “The Dream-Skull is a sealed object with a tendency toward animation and corruption. You can’t put something like that too close to the steam core, or it might drive the machines mad. Even that bunch of cultists should know at least that much.”

“Mm…” Duncan nodded slightly as he listened to Lucretia’s analysis. Then his tone turned a bit odd. “But honestly, what to do with it once we get it back is another problem… I don’t know if keeping it next to Goathead will be good for him.”

Lucretia thought for a moment. “…The First Mate has a broad heart. I think it will be fine.”

“Forget it. We’ll talk about it after we find it.” Duncan waved his hand. “For now, take me to see how those sacrificial victims are doing.”