Chapter 1 A Sanctuary

The captain's cabin of the White Oak had been temporarily converted into a sanctuary.

The scent of incense wafted through the room, and amulets depicting storm runes were hung on all the doors and windows. Priests had also placed bronze boundary markers in the four corners of the room, with strips of cloth soaked in holy oil tied to the top of each marker. Finally, a copy of the *Storm Codex* from the cathedral was brought into the room to serve as the "pillar" of the entire sanctuary.

After all these arrangements were completed, Captain Lawrence and Inquisitor Vanna entered the captain's cabin together.

"I hope you don't mind our 'remodeling' of this place," Vanna said calmly, maintaining the composure and proper politeness expected of a high-ranking cleric. "It's all for safety."

"Of course, it's all for safety—what I need most right now is a sense of security," Captain Lawrence immediately nodded in understanding. He looked around at the sacred objects in the room and breathed a slight sigh of relief. "With these things here, ordinary twisted and corrupted entities would probably die just from looking in here..."

"You can rest assured that you can talk to me about the Lost Ship here," Vanna nodded. "Let's start from the beginning. Where did you encounter that ship, and how?"

Captain Lawrence steadied himself and began to recount that most terrifying day in his memory in detail: "It was like this..."

Captain Lawrence spoke in great detail. In the presence of a professional inquisitor, he even accurately recounted what he had eaten for breakfast that day and what time the sailors on board had their meals—those details that he couldn't quite remember, he looked up in the captain's log and the sailors' diaries for that day.

Experienced captains knew this: before many abnormal phenomena occurred, there were often seemingly ordinary signs. People at the time might find it difficult to realize the connection between these things, but professional personnel reviewing the events afterward could summarize the experience from those subtle clues and use them to warn future generations.

Every captain on the Boundless Sea had the habit of keeping a nautical log—at the same time, reading one's own log was the only safe "reading method" on the Boundless Sea besides reading the church classics.

Vanna listened to the thrilling encounter, her heroic eyebrows furrowing slightly.

The situation was more serious and more bizarre than she had imagined.

She had originally thought that Captain Lawrence's so-called "encounter" was just a brief meeting, or at most a passing by the ghost ship. That was why the terrifying captain had only taken the cargo from the ship and had not harmed anyone—but she hadn't expected it to be a head-on collision.

The entire White Oak had crashed into the Lost Ship's hold, and the entire ship from top to bottom had been swept by the green ghost flames.

According to Captain Lawrence, the White Oak had even begun to transform into the Lost Ship from top to bottom! He could clearly see his body turning into a spiritual form!

The ship's holy emblem beacon was turned off at the time, the ballast sacred objects did not respond, the protective materials added to the hull were useless, the priests could only protect themselves, and the entire ship was in the depths of the spirit world, unable to call for help from the outside world—it could be said that the White Oak was already the captain's prey at that time, and there was no possibility of "lucky escape."

The only reason Captain Lawrence was still standing here today was because the Lost Ship had unhesitatingly abandoned this trophy.

"Inquisitor," after finally finishing his story, Captain Lawrence saw that Vanna had not responded for a long time and couldn't help but say, "What do you think the Lost Ship was trying to do at the time? Did it really just want to take away Anomaly 099?"

Vanna glanced at him: "Isn't that what you've always thought?"

"I... I've always thought so, but now I'm not so sure," Lawrence sighed. "Especially since you just said that the ghost captain recently extended his power to the Prand City-State... I just feel like things aren't that simple."

"No one can guess what the ghost captain is thinking," Vanna shook her head. "All we can do now is conduct the most thorough inspection of the White Oak to prevent this ship from carrying any 'invasive objects.' You and your crew will have to endure some hardship these days. Before the investigation is over, you cannot contact anyone other than church officials... including family visits."

Captain Lawrence lowered his head: "I understand."

Then he paused for a moment and asked, "Then... about the theft of Anomaly 099..."

Vanna knew what the captain was worried about.

The eerie and terrifying sea phenomena were a threat hanging over civilization, but before considering these long-term and vast threats, this captain was first and foremost an ordinary person who needed to support his family—he had lost Anomaly 099, and that responsibility was too heavy for an ordinary person to bear.

"Don't worry, the church will explain this matter to the city-state authorities and the Explorers' Association," she said in a calm voice. "The appearance of the Lost Ship was an irresistible force, and the loss of Anomaly 099 is not your responsibility—even if it was a cathedral ship responsible for escorting it, the result would probably be the same."

The expression on Captain Lawrence's face visibly relaxed a bit.

Vanna had one more sentence in her heart that she didn't say: In the end, "anomalies" themselves were wandering on the edge of containment and loss of control. Every year, new anomalies lost control, and city-state residents lost their lives under the influence of strange objects. The church had been fighting these out-of-control anomalies for thousands of years. In the face of this long and vast dynamic balance, the loss of an anomaly was not unimaginable—even if the anomaly's number was within the first hundred.

But she, as an inquisitor, couldn't say such things.

"Also..." Just then, Captain Lawrence suddenly hesitated and broke the silence again, "I would like to inquire about what special features Anomaly 099 has."

Speaking of this, he paused and quickly added, "Of course, I received a document when I undertook the escort mission, but it mainly involved the containment methods of Anomaly 099 and the emergency disposal methods after the initial loss of control. It did not involve the origin and background of this anomaly or the situation after it was completely out of control... You know, it is, after all, an anomaly within the first hundred. The more ordinary people around it know about it, the more likely it is to lose control. I still understand this rule."

"But now that Anomaly 099 has been taken away by the Lost Ship, according to the regulations, it should be considered completely out of control, so..."

"You can tell you," Vanna nodded before Captain Lawrence finished speaking. "Anomaly 099 has already left the control of civilized society. According to the regulations, its relevant information will be announced to the Adventurers' Association and the transcendent teams of various city-states in the hope of capturing and re-sealing it in the future. You are a member of the Adventurers' Association and the last person to come into contact with Anomaly 099, so you should know this information."

Speaking of this, she paused to think for a moment before slowly saying while sorting out the information she knew: "Anomaly 099, the Doll Coffin, appears as a gorgeous wooden box like a coffin. Inside it is a doll in a sleeping state. The doll has silver hair and a purple dress, and its body shape is similar to that of an ordinary human being;

"This anomaly was first discovered in the Northern Cold Sea. The appearance of the doll inside is extremely close to that of Queen Ray Nora of Frost, who was beheaded by the rebels half a century ago, but there is no evidence to prove that there is a real connection between the two;

"This anomaly does not have a tendency to think and has no mind, but it is very likely to actively perceive the outside world under the drive of instinct and exert influence on the outside world;

"You should be very clear about the containment method of Anomaly 099, so I won't repeat it. As for its dangers...

"First of all, the Doll Coffin has a 'settling' tendency. Once it stays in a certain area for a long time, it will regard the area as its territory, and then it will be difficult to transfer it again. It will gradually expand its influence in its settlement, and its containment strength will also be drastically weakened, making it easier and easier to lose control—this is also a common feature of a considerable number of anomalies. Therefore, Anomaly 099 needs to be frequently transferred to prevent it from growing excessively.

"Secondly, in the event of the Doll Coffin losing control, all humanoid units within a certain range, including humans, elves, Senkin people, and Jipplo people, will be used as inspection targets. This range is at least hundreds of meters and up to nearly a thousand meters, and it will grow with the 'settling' time of Anomaly 099. The specific inspection criteria are not yet clear, but it is only known that the selected target will immediately lose their freedom of action as if being manipulated by puppet strings, and will unconsciously kneel down and lower their heads in the direction of the Doll Coffin, just like the city-state citizens worship the Queen. Once this action is completed... the victim will be beheaded immediately.

"This beheading cannot be avoided, cannot be protected against, and cannot be exempted. Applying any blessings or wearing armor on the victim is meaningless. The only effective condition is 'being selected by the doll.' After the action is completed, the victim will directly become beheaded, and after the beheading is completed, the doll will be temporarily quiet for four to six hours, and then begin to search for the next target until no one survives within the range, or the coffin is re-sealed.

"The Doll Coffin has mobile characteristics in the out-of-control state, with extremely fast speed and great strength, and it will escape capture in various unbelievable ways. In addition, the coffin itself is extremely strong, so the harm after its loss of control will be further increased.

"In the several incidents of the Doll Coffin losing control, only one saint survived, but that saint happened to have the bloodline of the Northern Frost City-State, so it cannot be determined whether the saint's power resisted the curse, or whether his bloodline happened to meet the 'exemption' conditions of the Doll Coffin."

Listening to the young inquisitor's calm and composed narration, Captain Lawrence felt his hair stand on end little by little.

His first thought was: It's果然 not easy to earn the money of the city-state authorities!

No wonder the reward for escorting Anomaly 099 was almost five times that of escorting ordinary anomalies—this kind of fatal damage that completely ignored protection, evasion, and only required the "doll to stare at you" to activate, placed on an inescapable ocean vessel, was simply a terrifying thing that would inevitably lead to the death of the entire crew as long as it lost control!

Only a group of captains from the Explorers' Association who specialize in dealing with "extreme survival" would take on this kind of job.

At the same time, he heard Inquisitor Vanna's voice continue to come: "...Regarding the Doll Coffin's so bizarre and terrifying ability, the church specifically named its ability when documenting Anomaly 099. This name is named after the instrument of execution used by the rebels to execute the Frost Queen a century ago:

"Alice Guillotine."