Chapter 1 The Bizarre Scene at the Bottom of the Ship

Duncan and Alice stood at the end of the stairs leading to the hold, witnessing a bizarre and terrifying scene – the entire bottom of the Vanishing Sail was in a state of fragmentation, and beyond the broken cabins, there was clearly a void permeated with endless dim light.

Was this the true "hold structure" of the Vanishing Sail? And what was beyond the fragmented cabins?

Could such a sight exist beneath the sea level of the Endless Sea?

Duncan cautiously took two steps forward, entering the fragmented cabin. He stood on the largest piece of wooden debris, looking back in the direction he had come.

The "last door" still stood quietly in place, fixed to a floating piece of wood. Behind the door was a dark staircase, sloping upwards – yet around the door, there were no walls to be seen, only a void.

The door was floating alone in this space.

Duncan carefully went behind the door and found nothing there. Through the open door, he could directly see the fragmented cabin on the other side.

"Captain…" Alice's nervous voice came over. The doll looked around fearfully, her gaze finally settling on Duncan. "This… this is normal, right?"

Duncan was actually less sure than the doll. After all, she could blindly trust the captain, but where was he, the "captain," supposed to find confidence at this moment? However, looking at Alice's nervous appearance, and recalling the "crew rules" that the goat-headed man had mentioned, Duncan forcibly suppressed his unease, maintaining his usual serious and steady demeanor.

"No need to worry," he said calmly. "The Vanishing Sail is a ship beyond your imagination."

"Indeed, it's indeed beyond imagination…" Alice said in amazement. Duncan's steady performance obviously reassured her a little. She began to curiously examine the broken hulls and the chaotic light and shadows outside the hull. "Captain, it doesn't look like there's any water out there?"

Duncan thought for a moment, then looked at Alice with curiosity. "Do you think this is below the sea level of the Endless Sea?"

Alice was taken aback. "Ah? Why are you asking me?"

Duncan said calmly, "Because you have experience."

"Wasn't I thrown into the sea by you…" Alice blurted out subconsciously, but swallowed the rest of the sentence and began to answer honestly, "I don't think so… there must be water in the sea, no matter how strange the Endless Sea is, there must be water below the sea level, but this outside looks like… it looks like…"

"A void filled with chaotic light streams," Duncan shook his head and slowly walked forward. He came to the edge of the wooden debris under his feet, looking down at the flowing light and shadows outside the cabin. "The bottom of the Vanishing Sail… is not within the Endless Sea."

Alice was stunned. "Ah? Then where is it?"

Duncan didn't speak, appearing unfathomable – in reality, it was because he didn't know either.

But he still had a vague guess: perhaps this ship was sailing in several different dimensions at the same time?! On the surface, the Vanishing Sail was sailing on the Endless Sea of the real world, but in fact, different parts of the ship belonged to different dimensions altogether?!

This also explained why the deeper one went into the Vanishing Sail, the more bizarre and eerie the surrounding cabins seemed. Perhaps the eeriness wasn't in the cabins themselves…

Then, if the dim and chaotic space outside the cabin wasn't the Endless Sea, what was it? It didn't look like the spirit world, nor did it look like the dark space seen during the spirit world traversal… could it be a "deeper" place? An abyss? A sub-space?

Filled with countless guesses and assumptions, Duncan slowly reached for the pirate sword at his waist. Then, holding the lantern in one hand and the sword in the other, he slowly probed the edge of the debris under his feet – he was very cautious at this moment. Although the gaps between these fragments seemed easy to jump across, he didn't dare to step rashly, but instead wanted to test with the sword first.

Who knew if something would suddenly emerge from these cracks and swallow anyone who crossed them rashly.

The next second, his eyes widened slightly in surprise.

He saw the tip of the sword disappear, and on the edge of the debris on the opposite side of the crack, a section of the sword tip suddenly appeared.

Duncan frowned and tested in different directions, and similar phenomena occurred again.

He finally slowly understood.

These areas that seemed like cracks were actually still continuous in space! The seemingly fragmented cabin structure was actually still complete!

He straightened up, looking around at the cracks and the flowing light and shadows outside the cracks, and had some understanding in his heart: these "fractured" scenes were just an optical result, but did not affect the continuity of space. The hull of the Vanishing Sail had not broken here, but for some reason, the "image" outside the hull appeared inside the hull.

But what caused this? Was it spatial overlap? Or an incorrect projection from a higher dimension to a lower dimension?

Duncan subconsciously mobilized all the reliable or unreliable knowledge in his mind, trying to explain the bizarre phenomenon here, while Alice looked at the captain with confusion as he made strange gestures at the edge of the crack, sometimes shining the lantern everywhere, sometimes poking around with the sword. After watching for a long time, she finally couldn't help but say, "Captain… are you using a special appeasement ritual to… appease the cabin?"

Duncan turned his back to Alice and silently put away the sword, forcing himself to say, "...Yes."

"Oh! Amazing!" Alice's eyes lit up immediately. "Then are you going to perform an appeasement ritual for all the fragments here?"

"...That's enough," Duncan continued to force himself to say with a straight face, and then quickly diverted her attention before this curious doll continued to speak, "Let's move forward."

As he spoke, he cautiously took a step forward, holding the lantern – at the moment he stepped out, he almost tensed all the muscles and nerves in his body, ready to prevent any unexpected situation from happening when crossing the crack, but nothing happened.

Just like the previous test with the sword, he directly "skipped" the process of crossing the crack, and walked directly onto the opposite fragment as if walking in a normal cabin.

Alice watched in amazement as the captain walked in front, traversing freely as if ignoring the cracks under his feet, and followed suit, but she still became nervous when crossing the cracks, and finally couldn't help but speed up and jump forward…

Then, as expected, she crashed into Duncan in front of her.

Duncan felt a sudden gust of wind behind him, followed by something solid hitting his back, and he instinctively turned around and raised his hand –

The next second, he looked expressionlessly at the headless doll frantically flailing behind him, while Alice's head was rolling dozens of meters away, stammering, "Sor… sor… sorry…"

"You stay here obediently, I'll pick you up," Duncan sighed, while reflecting in his heart why he brought this useless doll down, and quickly caught up with Alice's head, which was rolling further and further away, and picked it up familiarly. "Have you considered putting a screw on your neck…"

Alice's head didn't seem to hear Duncan's latter complaint. She just suddenly widened her eyes, looking in a certain direction, "The… the… there's… there's a… a door…"

Duncan frowned and turned his head to look in the direction that Alice's head was desperately pointing with her eyes.

A dark wooden door stood quietly on the fragment at the end.

A door… there was another door, there was indeed another door!

When he saw the hint on the door at the end of the stairs earlier, Duncan thought that this classic situation might happen, but when he saw that there was indeed an extra door in this "hold space" at this time, his heart couldn't help but skip a beat!

At this time, Alice's body also stumbled over. Duncan handed the doll's head back to her while looking at the door. "Was there such a door over there just now?"

Alice put her head back on her neck with a "pop," and looked in that direction while moving her cervical spine. "It doesn't seem like it, it only appeared after we walked over."

Duncan noncommittally hummed and walked carefully towards the door, holding the lantern.

In fact, in this strange cabin, he no longer needed the lantern for lighting. Although the chaotic light seeping in from the cracks outside was dim, it was enough to maintain the basic brightness of the entire space, but he still held the lantern in his hand at all times – this was necessary caution.

Although the goat-headed man hadn't reminded him of this, Duncan had decided that as long as he was in the cabins below the waterline, he would never turn off the light.

The newly appeared door looked unremarkable. The black door panel was not much different from the "last door" at the end of the stairs before, and it also had a similar style and material to most of the cabins on the Vanishing Sail.

Duncan raised his head and saw a line of letters cast in what looked like molten copper above the door frame:

"This Door Leads to the Vanishing Sail."