Chapter 686

Chapter 686: Accidents and Coincidence.

With a loud bang, the ugly, shriveled mummified corpse shot up from the deck and crashed into a pile of junk not far away like a cannonball.

The sailors on the deck jumped at the noise. Lawrence, who had been watching from a platform nearby, jumped down at once and led a group of men running toward where the “sailor” had fallen. In the middle of the scattered debris, the shriveled corpse in a sailor’s smock was struggling hard. He finally managed to pull his head out of a crate he had smashed through. Seeing the seafarers crowding around him, he shook his head in a daze and mumbled: “I… I saw…”

The first mate, Gus, grabbed the mummified corpse and hauled him out as he asked: “What did you see?”

“I saw my great-grandmother…”

The first mate kicked the mummified corpse straight back into the junk: “You’re a damned anomaly. Where would you get a great-grandmother?!”

Lawrence was sure at once that Anomaly 077 was fine. He turned away and walked over to the “man overboard” they had just hauled up.

An elf in southern-style clothes was half lying on the deck, leaning against the winch used to pull cargo. His expression was dull and blank. He was soaked from head to toe and looked miserable, but there were no obvious wounds on his body.

But when Lawrence came closer, the elf’s reaction was clearly not normal. He only turned his head a little, very slowly, as if he was still not fully awake. His dull gaze swept around him once, then turned away again.

Ted Riel was still sunk in a fog, not knowing where he was.

Ever since he had instinctively swatted away that ugly, shriveled mummified corpse, he had stayed like this. His head felt stuffed with a thick, sticky paste of confusion. Strange noises echoed deep in his mind. Shadows shook nonstop at the edge of his vision, disturbing his judgement and his thoughts.

He knew he had already left Subspace. The sea wind and the sound of waves around him were clearly from the Mortal Realm. But that terrible “journey through the dark” had left a long, burning scar in his sanity. The scar was slowly spreading, turning into a dreadful aftereffect of having seen Subspace, and it kept numbing his nerves.

He was already very lucky. Almost no one survived after seeing Subspace, let alone went through one of those terrible “transits” and still came back to the Mortal Realm with a human mind. But he had no time to feel any joy at surviving. The last bit of reason he still had urged him to wake up as soon as possible, to pin his mind firmly to the Mortal Realm. The deadly corruption and shadows had not fully faded. They were attacking from gaps that humans could not sense or understand, trying to drag him back into that dark, chaotic place…

A buzzing, rumbling sound came from the side. It sounded like thunder heard through a thick Veil. Someone walked toward him, a strong old man with graying hair. The man seemed to be talking. His mouth opened and closed, but the sounds that came out could not be understood by human ears.

“Wake up, wake up.” Lawrence reached out and patted the stranger elf’s face, trying to rouse this poor soul who had somehow been drifting on the sea. “What is your name?”

A hazy shadow appeared at his side. Martha’s shadow whispered a warning: “Be careful, Lawrence. The way this person appeared is very suspicious. He drifted here from the sea after the Sun went out. We still don’t know what he really is…”

“Don’t worry, Martha. Even if he’s something that floated out of Subspace, he can’t be stranger than we are,” Lawrence said offhand. But he still stayed careful and put one hand on the pistol at his waist. Thin threads of dim green flame jumped in the cylinder. “When he came out from the edge of the darkness just now, did you see it clearly? How did he show up?”

“There was no prophetic omen,” Martha’s shadow answered quietly. She watched the suspicious elf, who had his eyes open but did not look truly awake. “From the moment the Sun went out, I’ve been watching the area from the Spirit Realm. He just appeared all of a sudden. A fellow like this rose from nowhere in the dark.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen something like this…”

Lawrence muttered to himself. He looked up without thinking and glanced past the rail at the choppy waves around the White Oak. A small patch of sea was lit by the light the White Oak was giving off, and in that patch the ocean still looked like it had before the Sun went out. But beyond that narrow area lay an invisible border. Outside it, the Boundless Sea was dark and eerie, as if the whole world had become nothing but emptiness.

And this suspicious elf had suddenly come out of that invisible border.

At that moment, the “drifter” leaning against the winch suddenly moved his eyes.

Lawrence snapped his head back and stared straight at him.

The elf opened his mouth, but what reached Lawrence’s ears was a string of hoarse noise that humans could not understand, or even make: “@##?%…?”

Lawrence: “…?!”

The instant he heard those sounds, a warning flared in his heart. The experience he had gained from drifting on the Boundless Sea for most of his life made the old captain step back two paces at once. His revolver was in his hand so fast it was barely visible to the eye.

Almost at the same time, the sailors on watch around them reacted as well. All kinds of weapons swung up together and aimed at the drifter. Even the “sailor” who had just climbed out of the junk pile managed to pull a curved blade out from somewhere and wave it around at the side.

The drifter on the deck stared wide-eyed, clearly confused for a moment. He spread his hands to show he had no weapon, then spoke again. The same hoarse, piercing noise burst out, a sound that seemed like it could grind an ordinary person’s mind to pieces: “%&**%?!!”

Then he stopped short.

Ted Riel finally realized that what he was making was not human language at all. It was not even a language.

It was a vibration even he himself could not understand, a sound without meaning.

It was an echo of Subspace.

He reacted at once. In the next second he noticed the world in front of him starting to twist. Shadows rose and shrank on the bodies of the seafarers gathered around him, who had looked like ordinary, innocent people. Behind the white?haired old captain, countless hostile eyes appeared. The nearby deck slowly softened and turned to something like thick mud. An invisible Veil was slowly opening. The corruption of Subspace was about to…

Yet just as Ted Riel was about to carry out a sacrificial rite on himself to stop the Subspace rift from opening any further, a ghost?green flame suddenly caught his eye.

A pale spirit?form fire rose on Lawrence’s body. Then the flame, like a living thing, jumped and spread out. It flared up on every nearby sailor, burning on them and turning them into ghost?like shapes. Then it rushed along the deck, along the ropes, the bridge, the smokestack…

The mummified corpse who had been waving his curved blade at the side and joining the fun let out a scream the moment the spirit flame surged up. He hopped away as if he had been burned, but soon came swaggering back, pretending nothing had happened. He carefully touched a small flame on the deck with his blade, lit a tiny fire seed on the tip, raised it over his head, and pretended that he too was part of the burning fire.

The gate of Subspace was banished before it could open. Ted Riel felt all the noise and all the shadows inside him scorched and driven away by that invisible fire. The flame cut off Subspace’s last hold on him. The feel of the Mortal Realm had never been so clear and steady.

He stared up in shock at the old captain, whose whole body was wrapped in faint green flames, and felt a little dazed.

[Why does this fire look so familiar?]

“What was that just now?” Lawrence was a little dazed too. He muttered as he kept a wary eye on the elf across from him, who looked suspicious but not like a cultist or some filthy demon. He was not sure what he should do next. “Some kind of spell?”

“…Who are you people?” Ted Riel suddenly spoke. This time, he made sounds that humans could understand. “Where is this place?”

“You can talk?!” Lawrence was startled. But when he heard the elf speak in human language, he could not help but let out a breath. He still had no idea what had happened, but the danger in his heart faded a little. “…This is the White Oak. I am her captain.”

“The White Oak?” Ted Riel frowned slightly. He seemed to vaguely remember hearing that name before. But his mind was still in a haze after all the blows and the deep exhaustion, so he could not recall the details of the ship for a moment. “What is your relationship with the Vanished? What is your relationship with Captain Duncan?”

“Captain Duncan?” Lawrence froze. This was the first time he had heard anyone outside say that name so calmly. But he soon reacted and nodded. “He is my boss.”

Ted Riel: “…?”

…

“Ted Riel is missing?!”

Inside the witch’s mansion in Lightwind Harbor, Duncan had just returned to the city. He was shocked when he heard the news Lucretia brought.

“Yes. The message just came from the Academy,” Lucretia said with a nod. She had gone out a few minutes earlier. “Fifteen minutes ago, Ted Riel left the research station next to the glowing geometric body. He left through a teleportation gate, but after that he did not appear at the planned arrival point in Lightwind Harbor.”

“Only fifteen minutes?” Shirley leaned in from the side. “That doesn’t sound that long. We can just go look for him…”

“Moving through a teleportation gate… if the person does not arrive the instant the gate opens, then something has already gone wrong,” Lucretia said as she glanced at Shirley. “This is most likely a spell runaway caused by the Sun going out.”