Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 134: Chapter 138 Brilliant Starship

“In a world where just one Homeloss exists, could things possibly get any worse?”

In the divination room lit by dim candlelight, Lucricia sat quietly on a high-backed chair with a velvet cushion. She gazed at the crystal ball resting on the table, yet her mind inexplicably drifted back to events long past, on an afternoon a century ago…

That figure, now slightly blurred in her memory, stood on the deck, against the gradually sinking sun on the horizon. His tall frame appeared as a flickering, phantom flame in the sunset, and in a deep, suppressed tone she had never heard before, he told her,

“Our world is but a cluster of dying embers…”

By now, she certainly knew that her father had already succumbed to madness by then and that he would soon completely abandon his humanity to willingly embrace the “blessing” of Subspace. Yet, she still occasionally wondered, what if she had spoken more with her father that day, earnestly asked about the meaning of his words, or what he had seen on the edge of the world; would things have turned out differently?

Perhaps her father’s madness was inevitable, perhaps the creation of Homeloss was a predetermined fact engraved in the river of time—immutable. But at least, she would have known how it all happened, known where to seek the truth—instead of now, aimlessly wandering the borders in this cursed ship where even the Church inspectors dared not tread.

“Lucricia, are you still listening?”

Tirian’s voice suddenly emerged from the crystal ball, startling the young lady who had been somewhat lost in thought at the table. Lucricia shook her head, casting aside the chaotic thoughts swirling in her mind.

“Brother,” she said solemnly, looking into the crystal ball at Tirian, her tone becoming serious, “do you remember the last words Father said before he sailed to the borderlands? That time he didn’t let us follow…”

“Of course, I remember,” Tirian nodded, “he said he had found a clue to anomaly 000 and was going to find ‘a cure for this world.’ He refused not only the two of us but also a few other escorting ships—after he and Homeloss returned, both he and that ship had changed.”

“Yes, all the crew on Homeloss stopped speaking, as if struck by a Curse of Silence. Father was still sane enough to communicate with us then. He said he had not found anomaly 000, then claimed that even if anomaly 000 existed, it was not the origin point causing the world’s distortion, that the supposed cure never existed from the start—until the day he told us on the sunset deck that ‘the world is a bundle of embers,’ he had never revealed anything related to that trip to the borders…”

Tirian inside the crystal ball fell silent, and after an unknown length of time, it was Lucricia who spoke again, “After that, I made contact with the Church fleets patrolling near the borders, including the Fire Transmitter, deep-sea clerics, scholars from the Academy of Truth, and even those gloomy death cultists. I asked around about anomaly 000 but they all claimed such a numbered anomaly or phenomenon could not exist…”

“I asked around too,” Tirian’s voice deepened, “I received the same replies… there are no anomalies or phenomena numbered zero in the world, not because there are none currently, but because there is no corresponding ‘slot’—

“The list originally leaked from the Tomb of the Nameless King had already detailed all numbers. Every undiscovered or unformed anomaly and phenomenon has its own slot to fill, even ‘mycelium bottles’ and ‘fungus islands’ that evolved over the course of history had their slots planned in advance, but at the start of the entire list, there was simply no zero position…

“That’s why I say, Father was probably not in his right mind even before he left for the borders; he couldn’t have been unaware of this information.”

At this point, Tirian suddenly halted, then raised his head to look at Lucricia in the crystal ball, his expression becoming particularly serious, “Why bring up this topic suddenly? We haven’t spoken about this for half a century—what are you planning to do?”

“….Don’t worry, I won’t dive headfirst into that grand wall of fog like Father,” Lucricia, rarely expressive, managed a slight smile this time, “I am looking for clues left by Father, certainly not to tread his old path.”

Tirian was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded, “….That’s good.”

Lucricia then fell silent; the siblings, separated by vast distances and having rarely met in person over the past century, each harbored their own thoughts. It was only when the distant, faint sound of a whistle from Sea Mist reached through the crystal ball that Lucricia finally broke the silence, “Are you really going to Prandt? Because of that Governor’s ‘invitation’?”

“The ‘invitation’ doesn’t matter, I don’t care about the safety issues of that City-State, but that Governor mentioned in the letter that Homeloss has reappeared in the real world, convincingly so; I must check it out,” Tirian spoke earnestly, “That ship hasn’t reappeared in nearly half a century, its sudden appearance is indeed suspicious.”

After pondering for a moment, Lucricia asked, “Half a century ago, you encountered Homeloss once when you were in Frost… was it really Homeloss you saw at that time?”

“….Absolutely, though unbelievable, it was indeed Homeloss,” Tirian’s voice was deep, “I could never confuse the positions of its masts or the distribution of its rigging.”

“And… the man standing on the ship then, was it really ‘Father’?”

Tirian slightly lowered his head, his face hidden in the shadows, “…It’s him, although I wish it weren’t.”

Luny looked at her brother through the crystal ball and hesitated for a moment before speaking softly, “Be very careful, if it really is him, you’ll be in great danger.”

“I know,” Tirian sighed softly, “he has now become a frenzied ghost completely warped by subspace. I wouldn’t take him lightly…”

Luny shook her head expressionlessly, “No, what I mean is, if it really is father, seeing you’ve turned the Sea Mist into a big pile of iron, he’d strike with even more force than half a century ago.”

Tirian was stunned for a moment and then his eyes widened, “What do you mean by that? This is an efficient modernization! What’s wrong with steam boilers and rapid-fire cannons! And you have the nerve to criticize me— I at least kept parts of it intact, while your ship doesn’t have a single piece of the deck from the Brilliant Starship anymore…”

The crystal ball went dark.

Luny exhaled softly and stood up from her chair.

Her brother was still spirited, his curiosity about modern things thrived momentarily upon stimulation, which was good.

In the endless eternity, the most dreaded thing was mental decay, the rotting of the soul.

A series of light footsteps accompanied by the friction sound of mechanical gears and spring mechanisms came from the darkness. Luny followed the sound and saw a clockwork magic doll with a feminine appearance walking towards her — it resembled her by sixty percent but was overtly adorned with rivets and mechanical joints. The main material of its shell, crafted from fine steel and ceramics, was fashioned into a maid’s dress, which looked somewhat eerie and terrifying under the dim light.

As the doll approached, the ticking from its spring mechanism continued, and when it reached Luny, it handed her a cup of tea. Its articulated mouth clicked as it spoke in a slightly stiff and monotonous female voice, “Mistress, please enjoy your tea.”

“Thank you,” Luny took the teacup and asked casually, “Luny, where are we now?”

The magic doll named Luny responded, “The Brilliant Starship has just passed ‘Foghorn Island’ and is now sailing on the edge of the Eternal Veil. Would you like to enjoy the view outside?”

“…Open the dome,” Luny took a sip of the tea and placed the teacup back onto Luny’s tray, “it’s daylight, and I should catch some sun.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Luny bowed slightly and backed away.

As the clockwork doll finished speaking, the entire “Divination Room” suddenly shook slightly!

The creaking of mechanical devices intensified, and the buzzing and rustling sounds of gigantic springs and magic units, mingled like a concerto, filled the air. Amid countless gears and slides, the walls of the room began to retract and unfold, and the originally dimly lit room was instantly brightened by sunlight—under the sunlight, the entire room bloomed slowly like a mechanical flower, eventually unfolding into a stage-like appearance.

This was the upper deck of the Brilliant Starship. The “Sea Witch” Luny’s room bloomed at the forefront of the deck into a towering stage, and around this blooming mechanical flower, the entirety of the Brilliant Starship could be seen—

The ship had been split in two.

The front half of the ship had been drastically transformed, adorned with countless runes and magical contraptions, making it look less like a ship and more like a huge magical mechanism. Various exotic materials gathered from border regions or the sea had reconstructed the ship’s deck structure, lending a bizarre, hallucinogenic color to everything in sight, almost as if an unending magic ritual was ongoing among those intricate arrays and crystals;

Meanwhile, the ship’s rear half presented a stark contrast—there, half of the ship’s body appeared ghostly with a translucent form, shrouded by a veil thin as mist, wherein fleeting phantasmal lights floated, faintly revealing that section’s structure still maintaining the original appearance of the ship—

A sail warship built a century ago, vaguely resembling the style of the Homeloss.