Deep Sea Embers

This sight was even more astonishing than that absurd and surreal dream!

Duncan stood at the doorway, dumbfounded for a while before finally regaining his composure. He promptly drew his sword from his waist and cautiously advanced.

True enough, the goat head had vanished. The familiar navigation table only had a sea chart and a few assorted items on it, while the spot where the goat head should have been was merely an empty table.

Duncan stared at the empty table for a few seconds before slowly looking around.

His eyes met more incongruous scenes.

All the furnishings were aged and worn, with cracks of varying depths appearing on the walls and pillars. Numerous items were absent from the shelves, leaving them almost bare. A dark, dubious stain had replaced a decorative tapestry that once hung on one wall, beside a grimy window. The view outside was dim and disordered, with faint, evasive flashes of light occasionally visible.

It was as if swift-moving shadows were rapidly darting through the air outside the window.

The entire chart room felt as though it had been deserted for innumerable years. Time had damaged most of the furnishings, while some unknown, even more hazardous force had left irregular, dark stains on the walls, ceiling, and floor.

Duncan couldn’t help but pinch his thigh again, attempting to verify whether he was dreaming or not.

The sharp pain and clear thoughts reassured him that this was not a dream but a reality – a reality that felt foreign.

The sensation of stepping foot on the Vanished for the first time resurfaced, as the tension of being surrounded by boundless peculiarity caused Duncan’s brow to furrow.

However, compared to his initial experience on the ship, it took him only a brief moment to adjust and regain his composure after taking a few deep breaths.

After all, he now had numerous bizarre encounters he never could have imagined in his previous life. His cumulative experience dealing with this strange world and the proficiency and confidence in his own abilities meant he was no longer the disoriented beginner he had once been.

The only thing causing him unease now was the concern that the Vanished being unstable and destined for issues seemed to be materializing.

Something had transpired on the ship.

Duncan walked around the room again, inspecting the now vacant shelves, the grimy walls, and the corner where two wooden crates used to be. Most items had disappeared, and aside from the navigation table, the room had become an old, decrepit empty space.

But one thing remained in its original position – the oval mirror with an ornate floral-patterned frame.

Duncan approached the mirror and cautiously peered into it.

Nothing horrifying materialized. The mirror didn’t reflect a gory inferno or twisted faces, it was merely filthy. Dark stains covered the surface, but in areas with less dirt, reflections were still discernible.

Duncan didn’t linger in front of the mirror for long. He returned to the navigation table and examined the sea chart.

The next moment, his gaze abruptly froze.

The sea chart had altered! The fog that had almost entirely obscured the map had disappeared, unveiling precise and intricate navigation routes on the parchment!

Duncan instinctively leaned in closer to make out the contents of the map, but he immediately realized something was amiss.

The paths on the map intersected, with overlapping navigation routes, but there were no meaningful labels or locations. It seemed like a disorganized tangle of lines drawn haphazardly, documenting a confused sleepwalk. Among the lines, there were no islands or city-states – nothing.

He couldn’t find Pland, Lansa, Cold Harbor, or Wind Harbor… Although he was admittedly unfamiliar with most of the names of these city-states, he at least knew they existed and should definitely be present on this sea chart now that the fog had cleared!

Duncan’s brow furrowed deeper as he realized there were no reference points on the sea chart. He slowly straightened up, tilting his ears to listen for sounds outside the window.

There was no sound beyond the window, no wind or waves, silent… just like his peculiar, brief nightmare.

The lines on the sea chart indicated the Vanished’s trajectory, which would update itself as the ship drifted. So the lines marked on this fog-free, intersecting sea chart… were the records of the Vanished’s voyage in which dimension?

Duncan took a gentle breath, and as if making a decision, he held his sword and turned to walk towards the captain’s cabin door – in theory, the deck of the Vanished was just beyond the door.

He gripped the handle, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

The Vanished was sailing in a dark chaos, and the deck and structures on the ship were in ruins, long abandoned.

At least, the deck of the Vanished was indeed outside the door.

Duncan stepped out of the door, treading on the pitted and damaged deck that seemed on the brink of collapse, hearing the harsh creaking sound that suddenly shattered the stifling silence.

Duncan cautiously advanced, making sure the deck was only seemingly broken but not truly at risk of collapsing, and then he walked a bit more boldly. He then raised his head to assess the situation surrounding the Vanished.

What he saw was a vast and infinite chaotic space filled with desolation, dim shadows everywhere, and among those shadows, dark and indistinct light and shadow turbulence would occasionally emerge and gradually fade away. From time to time, peculiar flashes or light streams would suddenly brighten, illuminating the void in the distance like blind lightning. In that fleeting moment of brightness, one could vaguely see something enormous floating in the void, as if slowly rotating and contorting.

Upon witnessing those dark shadows and turbulent flashes, the only thought in Duncan’s mind was “holy crap.”

This scene… seemed familiar.

It was the same as the view beneath the Vanished – it was subspace!

Duncan almost cursed out loud, his mouth twitching twice, thinking that the thing he dreaded the most was bound to happen. He had recently considered avoiding contact with the mysterious and seemingly alluring subspace, but he never anticipated that he would suddenly experience subspace drift with the blink of an eye – how did he end up here?!

However, after the initial panic, he quickly composed himself and restrained the urge to return to the captain’s cabin.

He couldn’t yet determine if this place was truly subspace; he only felt that it resembled the view outside the bottom of the Vanished. And if this place were indeed subspace… then retreating back into the captain’s cabin would be futile.

In addition to this point, he also quickly noticed something… peculiar about his own situation.

He stood here, observing the scenery of subspace (suspected), without experiencing any discomfort, nor did he feel his spirit being eroded, or hearing any strange noises – but according to the “common sense” of this world… shouldn’t humans go mad just by glimpsing subspace, let alone entering it?

But he hadn’t felt any discomfort.

Not only did he not feel any discomfort, but he could still clearly perceive his body in Pland, as well as the “imprints” of Nina, Morris, and Vanna, who remained in the real dimension.

Even if he, the “ghost captain,” had some unique properties and some resistance to subspace, he shouldn’t have been so… unaffected here, should he?

Duncan was baffled by his current state and even began to question whether this place was really the legendary “Abyss of World’s End.” He then steadied himself and walked towards the railing at the edge of the deck.

As expected, there was no water beneath the Vanished – the ship seemed to be floating in the universe, enveloped by the same void on all sides.

Standing at the edge of the deck, he gazed at the distant, indistinct, colossal shadows and the occasional bursts of light, carefully contemplating how to escape this predicament.

First, he needed to determine if this place was genuinely subspace, and secondly, find and establish if there was still a connection between this place and the real dimension.

Since he had arrived here, it meant that there must be a place to “reconnect” with the real world, but this place might not be in the bedroom where he woke up – he had already examined the bedroom and the chart room, and found no signs of a “passage.”

After a moment of thought, he had a rough idea and turned away from the ship’s side, heading towards the cabin entrance in the middle of the deck.

Just then, something caught Duncan’s attention, and he instinctively stopped.

He looked up in the direction of the faint light, and a slightly brighter arc of electricity was slowly dissipating in the darkness. In the gradually dimming light, it seemed as if something enormous was slowly drifting above the Vanished.

Duncan watched intently as another “flash” appeared at that moment, like a winding and relentless lightning bolt, illuminating a vast expanse of “sky” in an instant.

Duncan finally saw the massive object’s outline – his breath caught in his throat.

It was a piece… of land, or a land-like fragment of shadow, of immense proportions, large enough to invoke a fear of gigantic objects. Its irregular outline resembled something ripped from a planet by some immense force, then violently hurled here.

On that suspended land, one could faintly discern mountains, rivers, and some more dubious, disquieting lines and shapes, all lacking color and life – the entire “continent” was a monochrome gray-black, with rivers frozen in the gorges of the earth, making it resemble a coarse, colorless model, sealed in unchanging amber.

This vast celestial wreckage slowly moved above the Vanished, presenting Duncan with a desolate, ancient vision of an apocalypse.