Ashes Of Deep Sea-Chapter 235 - 239 Falling Objects

Chapter 235: Chapter 239 Falling Objects

The speed of the Brilliant Starship gradually slowed down, finally anchoring to a cautious stop hundreds of meters from the faintly glowing semi-transparent “cliff.”

However, the hundreds of meters of distance were so insignificant compared to the scale of the gigantic object that visually, Luny still felt as if the Brilliant Starship was right up against the “cliff.” The towering geometric body looked mountainous, almost oppressively looming, as if it could suffocate anyone standing here if they were just an ordinary person.

“…It’s truly spectacular,” the Magic Doll couldn’t help but look up in awe, “and very beautiful.”

Indeed, the object was both spectacular and beautiful. If one ignored its eeriness, it could even be considered a magnificent sight, inspiring the greatest creativity in a talented artist or a multitude of poems from a poet—

It appeared like a peak sculpted from pale golden, clear amber, or a particularly orderly geometric iceberg floating in the water, emanating a misty light haze, surrounded by thin mists that gently shifted along its surfaces, outlining a dreamlike aura.

Various signs indicated that this object was indeed like a “dreamscape”—it had no physical substance, even though it was definitely there, but it seemed just like a massive shadow.

...

“Mistress,” Luny couldn’t help turning back, “What do you think this is?”

“…I don’t know, I only know it fell from the sky,” Lucricia openly admitted her ignorance, recalling the first time the Brilliant Starship tracked this object—just the day before yesterday, in the waning hours of the daytime, the ship sailing along observed a huge and hazy glowing body suddenly falling from the sky, tearing through the clouds and disappearing deep within the bordering seas, and since then, she and her ship had been tracking it.

Other than the obvious fact that it had “fallen from the sky,” she knew nothing about this ghostly extraterrestrial visitor.

Lucricia scrutinized the bottom of the huge geometric body and confirmed another thing:

The object was very light, extraordinarily so. It floated on the surface of the sea, its lower half barely sinking into the water, but even that slight submersion indicated that this seemingly “phantom” object did possess some mass and was more than merely a shadow.

Having some mass implied it could be confined by physical materials… With the power of the Brilliant Starship, could they possibly tow this thing away?

Could they take it back to the civilized world for a proper professional team to study? The Explorers’ Association would likely be happy to assist…

But theory was one thing; how could they practically manage it? How could they move a vast, penetrable phantom? Or was there… a physical core within the depths of this luminous geometric body that was the source of its mass?

Lucricia rapidly contemplated these thoughts, while Luny’s voice then rose beside her, “Shall we scout inside it?”

“Proceed with caution,” Lucricia said, raising her hand and biting her finger, a drop of blood oozing from the fingertip, slowly drifting forward, and suddenly “bursting” into an exaggerated smoke cloud mid-way.

As the smoke cleared, another “Lucricia” appeared in the cockpit—but merely a ghostly apparition, dressed in a pale, tattered gown, its face rigid and haunted, hovering eerily with a translucent quality.

Lucricia nodded at the apparition, which silently turned and flew towards the “mountain” hundreds of meters away.

Luny watched nervously as the ghostly apparition swiftly crossed the mist-covered sea and silently vanished inside the “mountain.”

Nothing happened.

“Mistress?” Luny looked back at her owner, “What’s inside?”

“Light and warmth, very warm but not burning hot, bright but not blinding… inside, there are no winds or waves, and the sea below seems even calmer than ‘outside’,” Lucricia slowly relayed the sensed information from her ghostly double, “It seems, at least the shallow parts of the ‘mountain’ are safe. I’m speeding up towards the interior.”

Luny nodded, and although just a Magic Doll, having a “soul” closer to a human’s than any other crew member on board, the tension naturally rose. She reached behind to wind her key twice, the action soothing the slight trembling of her parts due to nerves, then after a long wait, she suddenly noticed a change in her mistress’s expression.

Lucricia frowned slightly, looking forward.

“I’ve reached the deepest part,” the “sea witch” stated, “There’s a core.”

“A core? What kind of core?”

“It’s a huge stone sphere,” Lucricia said with a somewhat strange expression, “or at least it appears to be stonelike, grey-white, with many regular grooves on its surface, about ten meters in diameter, floating above the sea…”

While speaking, Lucricia frowned and concentrated as though issuing commands to the ghostly apparition that had entered deep into the luminous geometric body, then continued, “It can be touched, it’s solid.”

“It’s solid…” Luny paused, quickly grasping her mistress’s implication from years of experience together, “You mean… to drag it back?”

“The Elves scholars at Light Breeze Harbor should be interested in this object,” Lucricia calmly said, “The patterns on the surface of the stone sphere have a clear regularity and conceal a complex geometrical structure; I suppose… someone skilled in mathematics might be able to discern something from it.”

“How shall we ‘drag’ this thing back?” Luny looked perplexedly at her mistress, “With a sturdy rope or chain? We do have spare anchor ropes on board, but they may not be long enough—the projection of the glowing body is too large, and the distance from here to its core probably exceeds the limit of the anchor ropes…”

Lucricia stared silently at the glowing “mountain” for half a minute, then seemed to make a decision: “We’ll go inside and pull it.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve gotten curious.”

“Well, you are serious.”

Duncan slept in the captain’s quarters on Homeloss and had a brief, bizarre dream.

It was incredible; his body hardly needed sleep, let alone dream. In fact, since he had arrived on this ship, he had never experienced “dreaming”—while in Prand’s body, he did have some tangled, trivial dreams, but none were as clear and vivid as this strange, brief dream.

In the dream, he saw a meteor, a meteor that appeared suddenly during the day.

He stood at the bow of Homeloss, where the ship was dead silent. He could neither hear the goat head’s chatter in his mind nor the usual noise Alice made on deck fighting with buckets and mops, and even the Endless Sea was silent, with no waves or wind.

The entire world seemed to have fallen into dead silence, and in this silence, a huge luminous body fell from the sky—equally silent.

One by one, the luminous bodies fell, dropping onto the calm surface of the Endless Sea. Despite being incredibly large objects, they did not stir any movement, as if a phantom fell upon another phantom. Eventually, the falling luminous bodies turned into a strange, terrifying meteor shower—numerous light bodies gradually covered the entire sea surface, surrounding Homeloss in a sea of brightness.

However, as countless light bodies fell, the sky gradually dimmed, and at the end of the dream, the meteor shower gradually ceased, and the sky had turned pitch black.

At the end of the dream, Duncan looked up and saw only a dark, mottled red void in the sky, resembling the dying ember of a fire in the darkness, ominously overseeing the earthly realm like a dying eye.

Duncan jolted awake, the deep impression of the absurd dream still vividly lingering in his mind.

He was astonished that he had dreamt on the ship, and even more astonished by the bizarre scenes he witnessed in the dream—

The silent world, silent meteors, the dead darkness of the sky, and the ominous void overseeing the worldly realm like an eye… Why had he dreamt of such strange scenes? What did this dream signify?!

Duncan slowly calmed his breathing and sat up on the bed, rubbing his forehead with some irritation.

On the mysterious Endless Sea, aboard Homeloss, he dared not believe the dream was merely a dream—something must have influenced him, or his “intuition” sensed something, causing him to see that scene in his dream.

In his agitated contemplation, he slightly furrowed his brow.

Could it be related to the “world countdown” he had just learned about? Connected to the “truth” about the apocalypse touched by the mad “Captain Duncan” a hundred years ago?

Had this newfound information prompted associations, or had the memories lingering in this body suddenly become restless? Was his contact with Terrian and Lucreshia related to this dream?

Duncan lightly tapped his forehead and reached for the bottle of liquor on the side cabinet, intending to calm his mood with alcohol, but as he reached out, his gaze swept past the wall clock nearby, and he stopped his movement.

The hands of the clock were frozen.

Frozen at the moment one minute before sunrise.

Outside the window, it was dim, showing neither the glow of dawn nor the cold brilliance of the Creation of the World.

The flame of the oil lamp in the bedroom was the only “active entity” still burning calmly, but its light was faintly pale, casting an eerie glow throughout the room.

Duncan’s gaze coldly swept over all this, taking in every unusual phenomenon.

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The situation was clearly not right… Was he still in a dream?

He quickly dismissed this possibility—he could distinguish whether he was dreaming when his consciousness was clear.

Frowning, Duncan restrained the urge to push open the window to check the situation outside the ship, and instead rose and walked toward the wooden door of the bedroom.

He would first go to the chart room to see if the goat head knew what was happening.

He pushed open the door leading to the chart room and looked toward the navigation table that held the sea charts and the goat head.

The goat head was not there.