Chapter 661

Chapter 661: The Home Port’s Bearing

The cages were in a cabin that had been specially reinforced. The narrow, damp, stuffy space was divided by iron bars into more than a dozen large and small cages. The sacrificial victims had been imprisoned inside them.

Going into a place like this never brought any good feeling. Even Lucretia frowned slightly when she stepped into this prison.

By the time Duncan arrived, the victims who had originally been locked in the cages had already been moved to an open space at the far end of the cabin. The environment there was a bit better, and it was right next to a vent. It looked like a place where the warden stopped for short rests.

The air was filled with a foul smell, the stench of blood and rotting flesh. Dirty bloodstains marked the cages on both sides, some of them clearly very fresh. Various “tools” for bleeding, skinning, and piercing hung on the walls and pillars between the cages, giving off an unpleasant aura.

Duncan walked past these iron cages and instruments of torture. Led by Lucretia, he went straight to the end of the cabin to look at the survivors.

His arrival caused a commotion. A tall figure wreathed in spirit form flames stepped into the cabin, looking like an Evil Spirit that had broken into the Mortal Realm. The surviving sacrificial victims cried out at once and tried to shrink back. Yet they were too weak, unable even to stand and run. After a brief struggle, they could only lean against each other and squeeze into the corner, staring in fear at the “Evil Spirit” standing in the ghostly flames.

Duncan could only feel helpless about it. Of course he knew that he looked rather frightening right now. But he had “descended” onto this ship by relying on the artificial beacon that Lucretia had made. To stay in tune with the beacon, he had to maintain this spirit form body.

Soon, though, he noticed that not everyone had backed away in panic. One thin, small figure still remained where she was.

It was a girl who looked about seven or eight. Her clothes were torn, and her body was covered in wounds. Her face was smeared with blood. She sat quietly on the floor, looking up at Duncan and Lucretia. There was no clear emotion in her eyes.

Duncan felt a bit curious. He bent down in front of the child and looked into her eyes. “You’re not afraid?”

But the child did not react at all. Her gaze did not change either. She only stared blankly at Duncan, the ghostly green flames reflected in her confused eyes.

“I already asked.” Lucretia walked up beside them and spoke softly behind Duncan. “The cultists carried out a sacrificial rite on her parents right in front of this child. She has been like this ever since. That was a long time ago. She has been on this ship for a year.”

The Sea Witch paused, then went on: “…Children are special and rare ritual materials, especially for Annihilators. They keep children for their most important rituals.”

Duncan did not speak. His back was to Lucretia, so she could not see his expression after he heard this. Only ghostly green flame spread slowly through the depths of the cabin and began to crackle.

After a few seconds, Duncan reached out. His unreal spirit form hand rested on the child’s head, and he gently ruffled her hair.

“You will get better.”

Then Duncan straightened and glanced back. “Lucy, did you bring any candy?”

Lucretia blinked, then shook her head with a hint of guilt. “…No. I only brought some potions I use every day… Ah, I have some biscuits. Biscuits Lunie baked.”

As she spoke, she quickly pulled a few biscuits from her clothes. After looking up at her father, she stepped forward and put the biscuits into the child’s hands.

The little girl finally showed some reaction. She lowered her head to look at the food, then began to stuff it into her mouth by instinct. She ate quietly and quickly.

“Eating” was one of the few instincts she still had after “living” on this ship for a year.

After a while, two more withered, skinny figures crawled from the corner. Almost wriggling like worms, they crept over to Duncan and kissed the floor where he had just stepped.

Duncan lifted his head. Under his gaze, he looked at all the eyes in the dark corners, eyes filled with fear, confusion, or numbness. After a long time, he suddenly asked in a low voice: “Are there any cultists still alive on this ship?”

“They have all been killed.” Lucretia answered at once. “By your standards, aside from that Saint, no other Annihilator needed to be kept alive.”

“Good.” Duncan nodded slowly, then gave another order. “Send your servants to get food and water. Let these people recover a bit of strength first.”

Lucretia bowed her head. “All right.”

Then Duncan and Lucretia left that deeply unpleasant cabin. A moment later, they stood on the deck.

The “living” ship was still sailing in a straight line toward the Holy Land, moving across the sea in a horrifying, broken posture.

The entire rear half of the ship was almost torn to pieces. Huge cracks ran across the deck and hull. The explosion had left the shattered wreckage blooming outward in a terrifying pattern. Countless scattered fragments still hung where they had been at the moment of the blast, frozen in place relative to the ship. ghostly green flame burned quietly between all the fragments and fractures. It seemed to have fixed the whole ship in the instant of its destruction, branding that ruin onto it forever.

Vision 001 was slowly climbing toward its high point in the sky. Yet layers of fog had appeared on the nearby sea. The mist spread up from the ship and then gathered and wove together overhead. sunlight filtered through the mist in a weak and hazy way.

“…The aura of the Spirit Realm is rising. The ‘changes’ on this ship seem to have attracted the shadows wandering near the edge of the Mortal Realm.” Lucretia looked at the strange fog on the sea around them, a slight frown on her face. “This is a ‘wild sea region’ far from the main routes. The space around here is not as stable as it is near the city-states.”

“Will they cause trouble?”

“No.” Lucretia thought for a moment and shook her head. “Your power rules this ship. Those shadows won’t dare come too close. But the ordinary people aboard do need to be moved as soon as possible. Their mental state is already very bad. In a Spirit Realm environment, they might undergo a transformation.”

“Later I’ll have AI open a gate and help you Teleport them to Lightwind Harbor.” Duncan nodded. Then he suddenly asked, “Besides that, can you tell where this ship is heading?”

“The Stargazing Room was destroyed in the explosion, so we can’t pinpoint our exact position.” Lucretia answered. “But based on Rabby’s rough sense in the Spirit Realm, it should be heading toward the southeastern ‘border’.”

Duncan turned his head at once. “The border?”

“Yes.” Lucretia nodded. “I was as surprised as you. But in this direction, there are no other city-states or small islands. This ship is also ‘returning home’ in a straight line at your command. So its only possible destination… is the Veil at the border.”

The “home port” of this ship was actually in the direction of the border?

Could there be some unexplored island near the mist known as the Eternal Veil? Or… was this ship’s destination simply that very mist?

Lucretia seemed to see the shock and doubt in Duncan’s heart. She spoke up on her own. “The Church of the Four Gods has always kept several standing fleets patrolling the borders of the civilized world. Near the Veil, every island has been charted, and every foothold is under the Church’s control. So the only explanation is that this ship’s destination lies inside the mist, a place outside the Church’s sight.”

Duncan frowned deeply. It still felt unbelievable. “…They opened a secret route right under the Church’s nose?”

“Crossing the border and slipping through the Church’s blockade or around the Ark fleets’ patrol routes is not that hard.” Lucretia explained. “The border is so long. The Church can’t keep every inch of the Veil under its gaze. The patrol fleets were never meant to stop every illegal ship passing by. From the very beginning, their main purpose has been to watch the changes in the border fog. Between those fleets, there is enough time and space for several ‘secret routes’ to exist. If I wanted to, I could reach the Eternal Veil without anyone noticing.”

She paused for a moment, and her tone grew especially serious.

“So compared to the existence of a ‘secret route’, the truly unbelievable thing is that this ship’s ‘home port’ might be inside that mist.”

Duncan understood what Lucretia meant.

In the vast seas of the border, it was not difficult to avoid the Church’s eyes. The truly hard part was to survive in that fog after doing so.

The giant wall of fog called the Eternal Veil was the end of the civilized world. Ever since the age of the Deep Sea, “stay away from that thick fog” had always been an iron rule in every adventurer’s heart.

As Lucretia talked with him about this now, there was another layer of complex feeling in her voice. A hundred years ago, the trouble with the Vanished had happened after Duncan Abnomar insisted on crossing that very wall of fog.

What was inside that fog? Did it have an end? Was there a wider world beyond it? What had the Vanished found in the depths of that fog a hundred years ago?

These questions had long weighed on the hearts of Duncan Abnomar’s two children. Even now, even after “Duncan” and the Vanished had both “returned” to this world, those questions still hung over Lucretia like a dark cloud.

In a way, that cloud even hung over the whole world.

A heavy and complex look slowly appeared in Duncan’s eyes. He turned, walked to the very front of the bow deck, placed both hands on the rail, and stared at the distant sea where thin mist spread over the water.

Now, this ship was sailing at full speed toward that cloud.