Chapter 745

Chapter 745.

Agatha of the city-state of Frostholm had arrived. Carried by the familiar Ashen Wind, the priestess who now also served as the city-state’s Archbishop appeared before Duncan and Alice and bowed her head to him: “Good evening. I am glad to see you come in person to handle this matter.”

Duncan lifted his head and glanced toward the sea: “Strictly speaking, it is still dusk.”

“dusk will last for a long time yet, but people still have to live by a ‘normal’ daily rhythm,” Agatha said. She gave Alice a small nod. “Long time no see, Miss Alice.”

“Uh… ah! Long time no see!” Alice answered after a short pause. She scratched her hair in embarrassment. “There is an Agatha on the ship too, so I did not react right away.”

Hearing this, a faint smile appeared at the corner of Agatha’s mouth. Though her eyes were covered with a black cloth, it still felt as if a warm gaze fell on Alice. “On the ship… how is she doing lately?”

“She is doing great! Every day she makes Shirley do homework through the mirror, or she slips out to scare people when the fog rolls in, even though she says she is just going out for a walk,” Alice said quickly, her face bright with joy. “Everyone likes her. Only Shirley is a bit afraid of her.”

Agatha quietly listened to the doll’s descriptions. At first she looked a bit surprised, but her expression slowly turned into a gentle smile. After a while, she gave a soft nod and murmured: “So that is how it is. It sounds wonderful.”

At this moment, Tyrian finally found a chance and stepped forward: “Have the Nightwatch matters already been arranged properly at the Cathedral?”

“I came only after finishing those arrangements. Do not worry, we have plenty of people,” Agatha said offhand. Then she could not help frowning slightly and stepped back a bit without drawing attention. “Governor, is your stomach troubling you?”

Tyrian froze for a moment, then understood what she meant. Even as the “Steel Vice Admiral”, he felt a bit embarrassed. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he recovered quickly and lifted a hand to point at the paper bag in Father’s hand: “Do you want to try a potato cake?”

Agatha had no idea why the topic had suddenly jumped to this. She gave the thing in Duncan’s hand a puzzled look. Duncan raised the bag at once: “Alice made them herself. It is Lightwind Harbor style.”

“That will not be necessary,” Agatha said. At the words “Lightwind Harbor” she stepped back half a pace, but then she seemed to realize this was a bit impolite and added: “This body has no life left in it. I can no longer enjoy the world’s delicacies. Thank you for your kindness.”

Duncan glanced at Agatha’s body, covered in cracks and broken apart like a ruined doll. He knew she was telling the truth. He could only shrug in regret, then stuffed the whole bag of potato cakes straight into Tyrian’s arms: “Then you take them all. Eat them slowly when you go back.”

Tyrian took Father’s gift with a slightly blank look. His eyes swept quietly over the people present: one corpse, one Undying, one doll, and one who was his Dad, and also a corpse.

The Steel Vice Admiral finally realized, a bit late, that he was the only one here with a decent amount of living human in him. He was the unlucky one.

Duncan did not pay attention to the subtle change in Tyrian’s expression. After he finally handed off the bag in his hand, he clapped his palms lightly and turned to look at the gorgeous planet still floating quietly in the air above the beach.

“This is only a beginning,” he said to Agatha. “In the days to come, more and more fragments of the Sun will fall onto the Boundless Sea. Inside them will be all kinds of Lost Stars as their cores. In the long Long Night that follows, these fragments of the Sun may become the only protection for many city-states.”

At his words, Agatha’s expression turned serious at once: “So the Sun’s disintegration is already unavoidable. Is that it?”

“Yes. It sounds terrible, but it truly cannot be avoided, and the process will only speed up,” Duncan said with a small nod. “Next I will contact the Popes of the Four Gods and remind them to watch for the fallen glowing orbs on the Boundless Sea and recover them in time.”

Tyrian and Agatha fell silent at the same time.

In the days that followed, no one knew how many more sunrises this world would see. The long Long Night was about to descend. Faced with that fact, even Tyrian felt a little suffocated.

Along with that feeling of suffocation, other thoughts rose quickly in Tyrian’s mind.

Lost in thought, he lifted his head and looked at Duncan: “Just now, you said these fallen fragments might be the only protection for many city-states?”

“Vanna has already received a revelation from the storm Goddess, and I have also gotten information from the Abyssal Lord. From Lightwind Harbor’s experience, these fragments of the Sun really can provide a ‘sheltering’ power similar to Vision 001, though only over a small area,” Duncan said with a slight nod. “They cannot calm wide stretches of sea, but at least they can protect a single city-state.”

Tyrian’s expression grew heavier bit by bit. After a while, he spoke in a low, almost to himself: “Will it be enough?”

His quiet murmur reached everyone’s ears. Alice looked a little puzzled, while Aiden and Agatha clearly understood what Tyrian meant by “enough”. Their expressions shifted at once and turned solemn.

Duncan slowly nodded.

“I understand you,” he said in a low voice. “To be honest, no one knows how many fragments there will be by then, and no one knows if they will be enough. But if there is no strong restraint, then even if there are enough fragments, they will still never be ‘enough’.”

“The Church will step in. Our patrol fleets cover every route,” Agatha said after a brief pause for thought. “If the Church’s fleets are not enough, Frostholm’s navy is also reliable.”

“That is the most optimistic case. To be honest, I am not used to facing the future with too optimistic a mindset, especially when human nature is being tested,” Tyrian said, shaking his head. “What if even the Church is split? When the veil of night descends, every test will be magnified without limit. Even the most loyal and upright people have their own stance.”

After that, they all fell silent, and the air around them grew heavy for a moment.

Alice still watched the scene in confusion. She looked at Tyrian and Agatha, then up at the captain, and finally could not help asking: “What are you talking about?”

Duncan did not answer. He only lifted his hand and gently pressed it on Alice’s hair.

Aiden spoke from the side: “We are worried that, by then, there will not be enough fragments of the Sun to shelter every city-state in the Sanctuary World, or that some people will try to seize more sunlight. After all, this is about survival.”

With such a blunt explanation, Alice finally understood what they were discussing.

The doll’s eyes widened, and she looked a little lost. This was something she had never thought about before, a problem she had never faced.

Tyrian lowered his head and gave the paper bag in his hand a complicated look: “When that time comes, a northerner might really never again eat potato cakes from Lightwind Harbor.”

Duncan shook his head and said softly to Alice: “Do not think about it. This is not something you need to worry about. This world has always had terrible parts. It did not start today.”

When she heard the captain’s words, Alice suddenly seemed to think of something and looked up at once: “Then, when that time comes, you will step in, right? Like you did in Pland and Frostholm.”

Duncan did not answer, but Agatha quickly reacted: “Yes. The Vanished Fleet. If we add your strength on top of that, it will be much easier to keep the city-states in line and maintain basic order after the veil of night. At least it will stop the very worst from happening.”

Duncan still did not answer. He only stayed silent, neither agreeing nor denying.

His reaction made Tyrian realize something: “You are not planning to step in?”

“No, I am thinking about something else,” Duncan said, shaking his head slightly.

He turned around and fixed his gaze quietly on the Lost Star floating in midair. No one knew what he was thinking in that silence, and even Tyrian did not dare speak at this moment. Only after a long time did Duncan pull his gaze back and break the silence in a soft voice: “If the day truly comes when things are at their very worst, I may have to do something that only I can do. That will probably mean going very far away, and maybe being gone for a very long time.”

In that moment, Tyrian seemed to faintly sense something. Some premonition, born from instinct, made the edges of his vision blur and tremble with light and shadow. For an instant, he felt as if Father’s figure was already standing in a place so distant he could never reach it. Though they were close enough to touch right now, some invisible Veil seemed to be drawing shut between them, as if it meant to separate them into two different times and spaces.

That invisible Veil seemed filled with starlight.

But the feeling vanished in an instant. Tyrian felt his thoughts break off for half a beat, and when he tried to recall what he had just sensed, only endless emptiness remained.

Duncan turned his head. On his bandage-covered face, the only part left bare, his eyes, held a calm light.

“There is no need to worry too much. Even in the very worst case, flame will once again light up this world. Hard times are always only temporary.”

Father’s words seemed to carry another meaning.

But Tyrian had no chance to ask more. A surge of spirit form flame suddenly appeared on the beach and slowly traced out a whirlpool.

Father was getting ready to leave.

“I still have many things to do,” Duncan said as he waved to Tyrian, Aiden, and Agatha. He walked toward the flame while he spoke: “Put more of your effort into facing the coming veil of night and do not overthink the rest. And do not worry about the graveyard district.”

The flame rose and then shot into the sky like a backward-falling meteor, quickly vanishing from Tyrian and Agatha’s sight.