Duncan had barely spoken when "Sailor" knew what the captain was up to. After all, ever since Lawrence "awakened" him on the White Oak, the biggest nightmare of his "life" had been this: being burned to a crisp by Captain Duncan's whims...

Of course, that nightmare had already come true—he had been blasted over here by a fireball from that messenger named "Ayi."

Precisely because of this, after personally experiencing the horror of being surrounded by that ethereal flame, feeling as if his soul could be evaporated at any moment, the mummy was particularly nervous: "...Will this burn the wrapping clean off?"

"Theoretically, no," Duncan said confidently. "I can precisely control my flames and use them to understand the 'truth' beneath the surface of various extraordinary items. I've used this method to examine and explore many things in the past, and the process is very safe..."

He had barely finished speaking when Sailor hadn't even had a chance to relax. Sherry suddenly muttered, "Who says? The black leather book we got from the Annihilation Cultists back in Frost was burned away with just a glance from you..."

Nina chimed in, "And even earlier, the golden mask we got from the Sun Cultists in Prand was burned too..."

"Shirantis was burned too..." Lucretia mumbled softly, "That's the most recent."

Duncan's expression visibly stiffened, and the atmosphere became a little awkward. But Alice, who was feeding pigeons nearby, suddenly realized what was happening. Seeing this, she immediately raised her hand to help the captain out of the situation: "My wooden box wasn't burned!"

After thinking for a moment, she added seriously, "Although it became part of the Ghost Ship after the captain 'looked' at it..."

"...You could have left out that last sentence," Duncan squeezed out the words from between his teeth to Alice, doing his best to control his expression, then turned his gaze back to "Sailor," maintaining a nonchalant expression. "...In any case, it's very safe."

Sailor looked at the dignified captain in front of him, then at the group of followers around the captain, and the two emotionless popes nearby. After holding back for a long time, he finally nodded to Duncan: "I believe you."

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief and patted the mummy on the shoulder, his expression serious and sincere: "Don't worry—it might be the only relic of the Sea Song. I'll be careful."

Sailor nodded blankly after hearing this. Duncan turned around and went to the low table with a solemn expression, placing the shroud solemnly on the table.

Helena and Frem's gazes moved involuntarily with Duncan's actions. After hesitating for a long time, Frem couldn't help but speak: "This is the only 'intelligence' ever returned from beyond the border. If it shows any signs of damage, I hope you can stop in time."

"I understand." Duncan nodded extremely solemnly. Under the gaze of many eyes, he slowly placed his hand above the shroud.

"...Let me talk to you," he whispered to himself.

A stream of illusory flame, like flowing water, ignited from his fingertips and fell silently—Ling Huo Ruo Shui (Ethereal Fire Like Water), instantly seeping into the dirty, tattered shroud, slowly spreading and flowing through every groove and fold.

Duncan gently closed his eyes, controlling the flames that had penetrated the shroud with extreme caution, feeling every bit of information that the flames transmitted to him, trying to establish communication with a certain empty, distant, and fragmented existence—he had done this many times before, so he was familiar with the process.

Vast chaos appeared in his perception. At first, there was nothing in the depths of this chaos.

But suddenly, as if a lost period of time suddenly appeared in the river of time, he "saw" a ray of light emerge from the depths of the chaos.

Duncan's heart stirred, and he immediately approached the ray of light—and before he could reach the light, a vague and weak voice had already entered his ears:

"I am Kalani, captain of the Sea Song. This is the record I left on the way back...

"We found 'Him'—about half a century after crossing the six-mile boundary..."

Duncan suddenly "opened" his eyes wide. In his "vision," the ray of light standing in the chaotic mist suddenly presented a hazy outline. It was vaguely a woman in a Deep Sea Church naval uniform, tall and slender, with a blurred face.

She stood quietly in the mist, speaking to herself as if she hadn't "seen" Duncan at all.

"...Time beyond the border...is discontinuous. I didn't realize this until many years after we were lost. The six-mile boundary line is not just a physical 'border,' but also the range of order in our world...

"We left the normal timeline in the mist. In the abnormal flow of time, I saw many strange and bizarre phantoms. And in the place where the mist was the thickest, I saw the edge of the world gradually collapsing and falling off...

"...Here, we saw the figures of explorers who had been lost in the border in the past. They had completely lost their entities and selves, wandering aimlessly in the fragmented and disordered flow of time, like mist that gathers and disperses. The Sea Song crossed paths with some of these phantoms. In the process, I realized that we were also becoming like them...

"My crew members gradually lost themselves. About half a century after we were lost, almost everyone on board had become a walking corpse—I only remembered this later, and at that time, my state was not much better than my crew members...

"...Only the first mate has been steadfastly holding his post...I don't know how long he insisted...

"Then, in a suddenly appearing solid sea area, we heard the call of the waves again. That call 'attracted' the Sea Song to a group of islands—I suddenly woke up at that time, surprised that such a large area of ​​entity would appear outside the border, and then I realized that the 'islands' were actually where our Lord slept.

"He is there—the Master of Storms, the Will of the Deep Sea, the Goddess Gomona...

"The words I have recorded may shock the world, but they are what I have seen with my own eyes—

"The divine kingdom is indeed not located at a 'high' point in the dimension concept, nor is it located in the 'cornerstone' of the world. The divine kingdom does not exist. The gods have always been around us...around the world, outside the mist of the border. They are here, surrounding the entire world.

"They...and their children, are part of the 'outer barrier'."

Kalani's phantom stopped, and there seemed to be a blank in her memory here. Duncan came to the phantom of this captain and looked into her unfocused eyes.

"The gods surround the world, and are part of the outer barrier?" he suddenly asked, "Then what's outside the barrier? What's further out? Did you see it?"

The phantom did not respond. She was just a pure illusion—after standing silently for a moment, she spoke on her own, still repeating Captain Kalani's log:

"...Many of us stayed there.

"The Storm Goddess sleeps in the center of that ancient archipelago...Those 'islands' are actually the corpses of Leviathans. They surround the sea, jointly embracing Him...On the largest island stands a temple, shaped like layered obelisks, built of countless dark green or pitch-black boulders. There are also some mysterious and twisted symbols on the stones. They seem to be words, but I can't recognize them...

"I cannot describe the...existence that sleeps in the center of the temple. I cannot describe our god. He is completely different from the goddess in my cognition. I...saw His body. In an instant, I felt as if my mind was torn apart and reorganized millions of times, but a gentle voice awakened me and my crew...That voice transformed us into a part of 'Him,' which prevented us from falling apart, from turning into monsters in the mist...

"Then, He apologized to us.

"He said He could no longer control Himself—He said He was already dead, but He was still trying to delay the process of death, and now, He needed us to complete a task.

"He asked me to mark a route, a route from the boundless sea to the outer barrier—in this mist between the six-mile boundary and the outer barrier, only the correct route can lead seafarers to find 'Them'...

"For this, someone must return."

Captain Kalani's phantom slowly lowered her head and continued softly.

"Most people are tired, and they chose to gain eternal peace in the Lord's harbor...I don't blame them, because this is one of the characteristics of 'humanity.'

"In the end, only my first mate and I embarked on the road back—the Sea Song had been swallowed by that archipelago, but the goddess reshaped the phantom of it before it was swallowed from the mist. My first mate and I boarded that phantom and embarked on the road home along the direction He pointed out...

"Now, we're almost home.

"I can feel myself gradually dissipating, and so is the Sea Song...Both the ship and I are illusions shaped by the goddess in the mist, and the real world does not allow such illusions to exist for long...This feeling of dissipation is a sign that we are about to go home.

"But the first mate is different from me—he is not a phantom awakened from the mist. He is always awake, awake from the day he set sail until now. He still exists in this world, faithfully fulfilling his orders.

"So, the route is entrusted to him...He will find the way home, and he will also find the way back to that archipelago...No matter how long it takes.

"I am Kalani, captain of the Sea Song. I entrust the Sea Song to my loyal first mate. This is the last log I left as captain...

"May you witness it."

In the boundless chaotic mist, the figure emitting a faint light returned to its silent standing posture.

Then the mist dissipated, and Duncan opened his eyes—he was still in the living room.

(End of this chapter)