Chapter 145 A Sudden Understanding

In the last thread connecting her to the paper boat, Lucrezia strained to control its descent towards the *Vanished*, which was flying above the forest.

The *Vanished* also noticed the small, wobbling, and soon-to-crash vessel in the sky. It suddenly accelerated in mid-air, its massive hull as light as the wind in its incorporeal state, arriving below Lucrezia and the others almost in the blink of an eye.

The torn paper boat, like an out-of-control cloud, crashed crookedly onto the deck of the *Vanished* after several dangerous course corrections.

Shirley and Agou practically rolled out of the paper boat, tumbling several times on the deck before finally stabilizing themselves. Then, a tall figure appeared before them—Duncan bent down, reached out, and pulled up the dizzy Shirley, then grabbed Nina, who was also rolling over.

Shirley seemed a little dazed. After standing up, she shook her head vigorously, and her eyes gradually refocused. She saw the surrounding situation and was completely relieved. "Finally survived… I thought I was going to die this time…"

"Uncle Duncan!" Nina cheered happily and threw herself at Duncan.

Duncan smiled, patted Nina's hair, hugged her gently, and looked up into the distance.

Morris stood steadily on the deck, one hand supporting himself with a cane, the other holding a delicate mechanical device like a gyroscope, looking at them with a smile. Lucrezia floated down lightly from a nearby mast—when the paper boat was about to hit the deck, she flew out of the paper boat a step ahead of time.

And then got hung on the mast.

"Looks like you're all in good condition," Duncan said with a nod and a smile. "But seriously, flying towards the burning sky in a folded paper boat is a bit of a risk."

A hint of embarrassment appeared on Lucrezia's face as she walked towards them. "...This spell does have room for improvement."

Nina immediately tugged at Duncan's arm and pointed to the light curtain in the sky that seemed to separate two worlds. "Uncle, look up there—"

Duncan nodded gently. "I see it."

A layer of magnificent light, as if cast from sunlight, covered the sky between the two worlds, like a low-hanging "shell," enveloping the sandy continent.

The *Vanished*'s altitude gradually increased and had now reached the limit above the forest. The magnificent sunlight barrier was almost brushing the top of the *Vanished*'s highest mast. A faint ripple spread from the top of the mast, looking gentle and harmless.

"Vanna might be trapped over there," Morris said as he walked over, his face grave. "This barrier is the power of the 'Creeping Sun Disc.' The constructor of the barrier was aiming for the 'Sun' that Vanna mentioned. We just crashed into this barrier…"

Duncan nodded. "I know—this barrier is trying to keep me out."

"So what do we do now?" Nina asked curiously, looking up. "Can we just smash through it?"

Duncan looked at her helplessly. "Shirley is a bad influence on you—girls shouldn't always be thinking about smashing things. Don't always think of such crude methods."

As he spoke, he looked up at the magnificent "sunlight curtain" floating above the *Vanished*.

The next moment, a slight creaking sound came from deep within the *Vanished*. Then, the ghost ship, burning with fierce spiritual fire, suddenly increased its altitude and charged straight towards the sea of undulating, burning light.

A gravity flip occurred—in the instant the flip occurred, the *Vanished* rolled violently in the light curtain to cope with the changing gravity direction after crossing the critical point between the two worlds.

When Shirley climbed up from the deck again, dizzy, she found that the *Vanished* was already sailing on the surface of the scorching and undulating light curtain. Below the light curtain was a vaguely visible desert land, and the familiar forest, as well as the nearly ruined Xilantis, were hanging upside down above her head.

The "sunlight curtain" separating the two worlds reacted almost immediately. Just like when the paper boat approached it, the scorching sunlight instantly turned into surging flames, which began to surge wave after wave towards the uninvited guest sailing on the surface of the light curtain—the flames were like mountains, rushing forward, roaring and boiling!

However, every ray of light and flame that approached the *Vanished* was almost instantly dyed with a faint green color, turning into docile spirit fire, surrounding the *Vanished*.

The next moment, these ghostly green flames began to spread on the barrier, like pollution gradually spreading out, covering a larger and larger area, and the spreading speed became faster and faster.

This seemingly magnificent barrier was being corroded and melted through at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Nina widened her eyes, watching the golden light curtain outside the ship's side turn into a spreading sea of ghostly green fire in almost the blink of an eye, and couldn't help but exclaim softly, "Ooh—"

Duncan didn't speak. He was still just quietly watching this "boundary line" between the two worlds, a thoughtful look gradually appearing on his face.

He was still recalling the phenomena he had observed at the moment of the gravity flip.

The direction of gravity changed instantaneously—there was no "equilibrium point" with zero gravity between the two worlds. He had not felt a "gradual change" process of gravity gradually weakening and changing direction as he approached this boundary line.

This further illustrates that the "collision" of the two worlds is not a simple physical process, not two celestial bodies making contact on a physical level—they are already so close, yet the gravity of the two lands is still clearly independent of each other, as if…

They were incompatible.

While presenting this state of "incompatibility," the bizarre phenomenon of "erosion" occurred simultaneously in both the forest and desert worlds. All things became distorted, and unspeakable things spawned from the shadows. Xilantis even began to collapse and spontaneously combust before the inverted desert approached, which gave people the feeling…

It was like "spiritual pollution" on a world level.

Two completely uninterpretable, untenable, and incompatible worlds were distorted simultaneously in the process of approaching each other.

Duncan looked up at Xilantis, which was collapsing completely in the flames in the sky. The World Tree was completely disfigured, and in its collapse, the elven homeland world was gradually presenting a state of being completely eroded by darkness and dissolving and disintegrating in chaos.

The unique racial characteristics of the elves constructed this peculiar dimension called "Dream of the Nameless." Xilantis was trapped here in an eternal nightmare, and the scene before him was the deepest part of the nightmare.

At this moment, it was before the opening of the Deep Sea Embers era, and the Great Annihilation was taking place.

The essence of the Great Annihilation… was the collision of two worlds.

Duncan suddenly frowned.

Two worlds? Were there really only two worlds?

He suddenly thought of the "warrior" who had turned into living metal, the world of swords and magic that had disintegrated in the twilight, his hometown's "moon," the endless fog outside his apartment, the conflicting historical records that now remained in various city-states, the countless bizarre legends recorded in the scrolls of the Dark Ages, the ancient civilizations that could not be verified, the inexplicable historical relics that did not belong to any known civilization, and the… intense pollution carried by those relics.

Some historical relics, their very existence seemed to be "toxic" to this world. They would distort and pollute everything around them just by being placed there.

And there were other things that were not even allowed to appear in reality. There was no way to contain or neutralize them. Immediate destruction was the only safe way to deal with them. They were fearfully called by the world…"Blasphemy Prototypes."

Duncan stood quietly on the deck of the *Vanished*, in the narrow gap between two worlds that were destroying each other, before this end of all things, he finally understood the truth of the Great Annihilation.

Lucrezia suddenly felt something.

It seemed like an invisible wind was stirring on the deck, and a suffocatingly heavy pressure was forming beside her.

In a panic, she looked in the direction from which the heavy pressure was coming.

A dazzling starlight was standing quietly not far from her, and the starlight outlined a hazy human figure—this starlight seemed to be standing in front of her, but it also seemed to be standing at an infinite distance at the same time. It didn't look very tall, but it gave people a strange feeling of endless hugeness and never being able to accurately see its boundaries.

Lucrezia remembered that she had seen this starlight before, when she had reunited with her father for the first time not long ago. In a dangerous instant, in a fleeting glance, she had seen a little of the "truth" behind her father's shell.

But this time the situation was different.

All optical laws and visual perception seemed to fail in front of that starlight. Lucrezia was shocked to find that her sight was twisting in the starlight, and all kinds of "logics" that she could not understand were brewing in the starlight. She tried to look away, but found that she couldn't—

Her gaze seemed to have become a part of that starlight.

However, the next second, just when she thought her reason was about to be completely swallowed and assimilated by the starlight giant, all the starlight faded away.

A broad hand blocked her eyes.

Lucrezia was stunned for a moment before she realized—it was her father's hand.

She grabbed the hand in a daze, pushed it away carefully, and looked at the place where the dazzling starlight had been.

The starlight had collapsed back into Duncan's appearance.

"Don't be afraid," she heard her father say to her gently. "I'm still here."

"What happened just now?" Lucrezia blinked, and she finally felt relieved after hearing Duncan's voice. However, the "burn marks" left by the dazzling starlight seemed to be still deeply imprinted in her mind. "Just now, you…"

"It's nothing," Duncan said softly. "I just suddenly understood some things."

(End of chapter)