Chapter 273 A Special "State"

After crossing the six-sea-mile boundary, the world around the Vanishing Sail and the Radiant Star entered a strange... "state."

The sea and Mist City disappeared, and the eerie light permeating the sky evenly covered the world outside the ship's rails. All "boundaries" seemed to have become ineffective. The originally distinct myriad things seemed to have turned into a uniform, top-to-bottom... "background color" in the blink of an eye. The two ghost ships seemed to be "floating" in this uniform background color, as if out of thin air.

"...This is different from what the church records," Vanna said subconsciously, looking at the scene outside the ship's rail. "According to the records, even after crossing the six-sea-mile boundary by a distance, there should still be a sea surface and sky... I remember Miss Lucretia mentioned this as well."

Duncan pondered, silently looking at the "sailor" who was gripping the helm with a nervous expression. After a moment, he broke the silence: "Perhaps this is the phenomenon that should occur when Anomaly 077 is 'normally effective'—we are sailing in a special 'channel' that protects us from the temporal turbulence outside the boundary."

"How long will we sail in this 'channel'?" Alice asked curiously from the side.

Duncan thought for a moment and shook his head, "I don't even know that."

So Alice turned her curious gaze to the sailor at the helm.

Already nervous, Anomaly 077 became even more anxious when he noticed the doll's clear gaze. He shrank his neck and said, "Don't look at me, I don't know either—I just steer the ship..."

As he spoke, he tried to put on a serious face, grasping the helm and slightly adjusting his course, but in reality, he didn't know where to "steer." He just shook the helm in place to show that he was busy—anyway, in this bizarre situation, the ship's specific "course" was obviously unrelated to the helm...

Duncan saw through it but didn't say anything. After sensing the state of the Vanishing Sail and confirming that everything was normal, he ignored the sailor's situation and looked up at the Radiant Star floating near the Vanishing Sail, calling out in his mind, "Lucy, how is it on your side?"

"Everything is normal on the ship—except that Rabbi is so scared that he's hiding in a box and won't come out," Lucretia's voice responded immediately. "He keeps shouting that we are 'crashing'... 'crashing' towards the end of the world. I'm a little concerned about this."

"Crashing towards the end of the world?" Duncan frowned upon hearing this, quickly thinking about the meaning of the mad rabbit's words. Then he looked to the other side, his gaze passing over the deck and towards the seemingly infinitely empty, uniform "gray-white" outside the ship's rail.

"What he's referring to... might be that 'outer barrier'," Duncan said softly in thought, recalling his recent conversation with Lei Nora, recalling the utterly pure and terrifying "nothingness" beyond the end of the world that the Frost Queen mentioned. He suddenly seemed to understand, "...For fish, the gaseous world is indeed an incomprehensible nothingness and doomsday."

On the bridge of the Radiant Star, Lucretia listened to her father's words and seemed to understand something. Then she turned her head and looked at the slightly trembling box on the ground near the helm—half of Rabbi's ear drooped out of the box, shivering.

The witch frowned, "...As a nightmare that brings terror to others, are you really that scared?"

"Rabbi... Rabbi is not a nightmare that brings terror, Rabbi is... is terror itself..." Rabbi muttered in the box, as if trying to cheer himself up, but his voice changed halfway, "It's really scary, mistress! We're falling, falling so fast! Can't you feel it—it's getting colder, darker, narrower, like drilling headfirst into a thin tube from a bottomless abyss, about to suffocate, about to freeze, about to be crushed to death, imagine it, imagine that scene..."

Lucretia walked over with a blank expression, kicked the box lid open, and picked up the rabbit with one hand, swinging it around and slamming it against the nearby wall.

The toy rabbit "splattered" against the wall and finally stopped moving.

"So you're the one with the rich vocabulary and imagination?" Lucretia glared fiercely at the rabbit doll sliding down the wall, flattened little by little, and subconsciously rubbed the goosebumps on her arm. "You're not allowed to describe your pile of associations anymore—keep your thoughts to yourself, or next time I won't just slam you against the wall."

The toy rabbit, lying on the ground, flattened, puffed back up with a "poof-bang." It staggered to its feet with a wobble and said "oh" obediently, then walked back to the box not far away.

But it was dragged back by Lucretia, who grabbed its ear halfway there.

"Stop slacking off, find something to do," the witch said in an unquestionable tone. "Take a few tin men and keep an eye on the boundary line at the stern of the ship. The ship's spiritual body seems a little unstable here... Don't let those soulless shadows run out of it. I don't have the extra energy to deal with this kind of trouble right now. Go."

"Oh, okay, mistress..." Rabbi agreed with his head drooping and walked out of the bridge with his short legs.

After the rabbit left, Lunie came over from the side, "Were you a little too harsh on Rabbi just now... It's just a little scared."

"It's too scared—I need to find something to distract it," Lucretia breathed a sigh of relief and waved her hand, "It's a shadow from the depths of the spirit world and can sense many 'changes' that humans can't. What is empty in my eyes is probably very 'lively' in its perception..."

At this point, she suddenly paused and looked at the clockwork doll in front of her with some doubt, "But then again... Didn't you feel it? When I made your mimetic soul, I also used 'components' from the spirit world."

Lunie froze for a moment, thought seriously, and shook her head, "I didn't feel anything."

Lucretia's expression was slightly subtle as she looked Lunie up and down—she didn't know if it was an illusion, but she always felt that Lunie had been exuding a clear and pure... "temperament" ever since she started playing with the living doll named "Alice" on the Vanishing Sail, and this feeling was especially obvious after the two dolls learned to exchange heads...

But she secretly tested Lunie's intelligence last time, and it didn't seem to have changed—she hadn't dared to mention this to her father yet.

"Mistress?" The clockwork doll noticed the gaze on her and tilted her head in confusion.

"...It's nothing." Lucretia waved her hand, temporarily throwing the strange associations in her head aside. Just then, the corner of her eye suddenly caught something.

Outside the porthole, in the uniform and pure "gray-white background color," some visible纹路 and shadows had appeared at some point.

"What is that?" Lunie also saw the abstract lines and patterns appearing on the "outer wall of the channel" and opened her eyes wide in surprise.

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, those abstract "outlines," as if stripped from a specific individual, suddenly changed in the gray-white background color—

The black lines trembled, quickly contracting and twisting into orderly outlines. The shadows suddenly expanded, becoming the colors filling the outlines. A ship—a ship that seemed to be "printed" on the outer wall of the channel, a flattened ship, suddenly emerged from the gray-white background color and gradually entered the course of the Vanishing Sail and the Radiant Star.

This scene was like a stray person suddenly "breaking into" the channel, and the abstract and distorted shadow of the ship quickly obtained a logical... "form" after entering the "sight" of the Vanishing Sail and the Radiant Star.

Lucretia was stunned for a moment, then came to the porthole like a gust of wind, staring intently at the ship that suddenly appeared in the channel.

She suddenly recognized the vague markings on the ship.

"It's the Sea Song!"

It was the Sea Song—sailing on a long journey, wandering in the broken stream of time.

It drifted from a broken stream of time, entering the course of the Vanishing Sail and the Radiant Star in this brief "convergence window."

The stern deck of the Vanishing Sail suddenly became quiet.

Everyone couldn't help but look up, looking at the ship floating in "mid-air" outside the ship's rail, looking at its gradually clear flag and the increasingly obvious name on the ship—the Sea Song was sailing in its own stream of time. It seemed to have completely failed to notice the Radiant Star nearby, as if the temporal misalignment blocked its "sight." It passed the side of the Radiant Star from an almost colliding distance and then came to the side of the Vanishing Sail.

It adjusted its posture there, and then... sent out a series of light signals.

Anomaly 077 suddenly clenched the helm in his hand.

He widened his eyes, staring at the flashing lights on the side of the Sea Song. He silently counted the intervals and lights, as if counting his long-lost heartbeat—

"Short-bright-dark-short-bright-dark-long-bright..."

He didn't continue counting. While the Sea Song's light signals were still flashing, he had already closed his eyes and then shouted with all his might—

"Captain! The ship ahead is asking for our intentions!"

The sailor's hoarse voice echoed on the Vanishing Sail.

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, his expression full of solemnity and gravity.

"Respond with lights," he said softly, "Pay our respects to them."

(End of Chapter)