Chapter 1 Surviving Glimmer

The faint glow remaining after the sun extinguished hung high in the sky, unable to illuminate the sea, instead making the whole world appear even darker and more terrifying.

The White Oak sailed through this deep darkness.

Lights had been lit on the ship, the glow of oil lamps and electric lighting mingling and spreading, illuminating a small patch of the sea nearby, the tiny waves rising and falling in the faint light, appearing to have a viscous, ominous texture.

"The White Oak is in good shape," Laurence gripped the helm, responding to the voice in his mind. "Apart from the sailors being a little nervous, there are no problems on board. But we're surrounded by darkness and have lost contact with other ships on the shipping lane. Navigation has also failed. The observatory can only see pitch black."

Duncan's voice echoed directly in his mind: "Can you contact Coldport, the closest city-state to you? You should have left that city not long ago."

"I can't." Laurence glanced back at the communications station not far away, seeing all the lights on the machine were red. "All communications are down. The priest tried to contact Coldport's cathedral using psionic resonance, but received no response. The psionic resonance with Prand is barely maintained."

"Prand is fine, Frostwind is fine. The situation is that, apart from the three city-states of Frostwind, Prand, and Light Breeze Harbor, all other city-states are unreachable. It's as if they all disappeared after the sun went out."

Listening to Captain Duncan's description, Laurence's expression gradually tightened. He swallowed hard, as if afraid to continue imagining.

Then he looked down at the instrument panel next to the helm, quickly confirming the parameters.

"We are sailing towards Prand at full speed. This is a very busy route. Theoretically, we should soon see a transit port, an island belonging to the Lonsa city-state. We will check the situation there and report to you as soon as possible."

Laurence was saying this quickly in his mind, but before he could finish, the sound of hurried footsteps interrupted him.

A crew member ran into the bridge in a panic. "Captain! Captain! Come quick! That sailor has discovered something terrible!"

"Anomaly 077?"

Laurence's expression instantly became serious, then he turned to the first mate beside him.

"Gus, take the helm. I'll go see what's going on!"

First Mate Gus immediately stepped forward. "Aye, Captain!"

Laurence quickly left the bridge, hurried through the stairs and corridors led by the crew member, and arrived on the deck at the stern of the White Oak, and as soon as he arrived, he saw the --

-- thin, busy figure working at the edge of the stern deck.

Anomaly 077, the eerie living corpse, was busy beside a huge iron bucket, muttering non-stop. Laurence walked closer and finally made out what the corpse was constantly muttering: "It's over, it's over, we're done for this time, no one can leave, no one can go back, the whole world is doomed, I might as well just sleep and die."

"This guy is, as always, bursting with negative energy."

Laurence didn't want to listen to Anomaly 077's continued muttering, so he quickly stepped forward and interrupted him loudly. "What are you doing?"

The corpse suddenly startled, as if waking from a dream, and quickly bowed and scraped. "Captain! Captain, you're here..."

"Oh, good, the captain is here, so everything will be alright..."

"Enough, enough." Laurence waved his hand and asked again,

"What exactly are you doing?"

"You have to see this, this, you have to see this." The corpse said hurriedly, then ran to the iron bucket and stirred it twice with a large iron tongs, a viscous sound of oil coming from inside.

Only then did Laurence realize that the iron bucket was full of oil, and Anomaly 077 was using the iron tongs to stir a rag in the bucket of oil. Then the corpse took out a lighter he had begged from some crew member and lit the rag.

Under Laurence's frowning gaze, Anomaly 077 vigorously threw the burning rag into the sea. The fireball landed on the sea surface, quickly drifting behind the White Oak with the waves.

Anomaly 077 muttered, "This is how sailors used to roughly estimate speed, before you fancy machines were invented, they all did it this way."

"Not very accurate, but useful."

"I know, I've learned about this." Laurence interrupted him, "But what exactly do you want me to see?"

The sailor waved his hands vigorously and pointed into the distance. "Keep watching, it's almost there, watch that fire drifting into the distance."

Laurence frowned, turning to stare at the flame floating on the sea surface. It was drifting quickly behind the White Oak, which was only natural, because the White Oak was sailing forward at full speed, so there was nothing strange about this phenomenon.

Until the flame suddenly stopped in the distance?

Laurence's eyes narrowed instantly. The fire, which theoretically should have kept drifting into the distance until it was finally swallowed by the waves or beyond the limit of the naked eye, stopped in the distance.

Roughly estimated, that position was only a few hundred meters away from the White Oak.

Laurence stared intently in that direction, watching the flame stop a few hundred meters behind the stern of the White Oak. It was as if the flame was sailing at the same speed as the White Oak. After a long time, the flame finally gradually weakened and extinguished at the edge of the dark sea.

The sailor used the iron tongs again to pick up a rag, soaked it in oil, lit it, and threw it into the water. The second fireball entered the water, drifted quickly backward, and then stopped at the same distance. Anomaly 077 finally dropped the iron tongs in his hand. He turned to look at Laurence, his thin, terrifying face seemingly trying to squeeze out a worried expression. "Captain, look... how can science explain this?"

This time, Laurence did not, as usual, mock this --

-- Anomaly, being so obsessed with explaining things with science. He just stood quietly at the edge of the deck, and after an unknown amount of time, he said, as if to himself, "Do you see it?"

Anomaly 077 next to him was stunned. "Huh? Who are you talking to?"

Laurence did not answer. In his mind, Duncan's deep, dignified voice came. "I see it. By sharing your vision, I can see it clearly."

"How... how do you view this phenomenon?" Laurence asked cautiously. "The laws of physics are becoming unfamiliar. It is very likely a spatial domain distortion, or a deeper reason. In short, after the sun went out, the boundless sea is rapidly changing – and the White Oak and a small area around it are still normal."

Laurence thought for a moment, then hesitated to speak. "It's your power at work, perhaps, but I also need some time to figure out the reason behind this."

Listening to the voice in his mind and looking at the dark, chaotic sea in the distance, Laurence fell into contemplation.

However, at this moment, a strange, low sound, seemingly coming from the sky and echoing throughout the world, suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

It was a strange, slow buzzing sound, like a giant beast breathing heavily, or some immense device starting up slowly. It sounded weak and distant, yet it seemed to fill the whole world, echoing in everyone's ears.

Laurence looked up in astonishment at the extinguished sun. The double rune rings around the sun were flickering uncertainly, and as the rune rings flickered, the dark sphere at the center of Anomaly 001 gradually emerged with wisps of radiance.

The wisps of light were initially faint and reddish, like blood threads, but then they began to spread throughout the sphere and quickly became brighter...

Giant glowing geometries floated on the sea surface, evenly releasing --

-- sunlight illuminating Light Breeze Harbor not far away, and the ship Splendid Star, currently docked near the floating pier... On the science platform at the top of the Splendid Star, Lucrezia was staring intently at the large circular crystal lens in front of her.

Pale blue light floated around the crystal lens, while the center of the lens presented a set of fluctuating, alternating bright and dark colors. The clockwork automaton Luni stood near Lucrezia, reporting to her mistress while using her precise and skillful hands to adjust the dazzling array of observation equipment: "Since just now, the sunlight released by the glowing geometry has contained these strange signals. They are invisible to the naked eye, but can be captured by the ship's observation lenses, appearing as these alternating bright and dark undulations."

Lucrezia looked up at the front of the room. This science platform was enclosed, but there was a special window at the end of the room. Sunlight from the glowing geometry was introduced into the room through the window, then processed by a series of complex lens devices, and finally split into a spectrum, which was projected onto a specific observation device. The entire device was designed and built by her own hands.

This was a large device she had built specifically to study the glowing geometry, and now it was working. Lucrezia looked away and glanced at the recording instrument on the nearby table, which was constantly spitting out paper tape.

The long paper tape recorded the spectral changes captured by the lens system, the jumping black lines showing a clear and distinct periodicity.

"These light signals are regular..." she said softly. "Yes," the automaton Luni nodded. "Each set of signals has a transmission period of twelve seconds, repeated three times, then an interval of thirteen seconds, before appearing again." Was this sent by that stone ball?

"Unable to determine. There are Truth Keepers from the Academy monitoring near the stone ball, but they have not detected any changes in the sphere itself. These light signals seem to appear out of thin air from the luminous area around the sphere."

The automaton Luni paused halfway through speaking. "...! Mistress, the light signals have stopped."

Lucrezia looked in astonishment at the undulating crystal lens in front of her.

Those alternating bright and dark colors --

-- had disappeared.

She froze for a moment, and then, as if suddenly realizing something, her figure suddenly disintegrated, turning into scattered, dancing colored paper pieces, and spiraled out of the window.

The colored paper pieces danced in the air above the deck, quickly re-forming into shape. Lucrezia stood on the upper deck of the Splendid Star, squinting, looking up at the sky. Through the pale golden sunlight that permeated the sea, she saw an exceptionally bright luminous body.

It was hanging high in the sky. The sun had been relit.