Chapter 1

Cold, damp, the stench of rotting flesh, the grinding of chains on the ground.

A multitude of strange sensations flooded Duncan's mind, but he couldn't manage to open his eyes for a moment—at that moment, he felt his soul was divided into two parts, one still on the Sea of the Lost, yet the other was stuffed into a completely unfamiliar body. This body was like an old, broken machine, difficult to control, and the mixed, chaotic perceptions crashed through his nervous system, mixed with a certain dullness and numbness. He tried to open his eyes, move his fingers, but couldn't feel the existence of those corresponding body parts at all.

This uncomfortable sensation lasted for several seconds before the indescribable numbness and dullness in his nervous system gradually faded. Duncan felt his "body" awakening from a long hibernation, slowly regaining the ability to move.

He finally opened his eyes and saw the situation around him.

What met his eyes was a dimly lit, cave-like space. Burning torches were stuck on the distant stone walls, and the flickering firelight illuminated the terrifying scene around him. Duncan saw many people—or rather, many dead bodies—thrown haphazardly among the damp, waterlogged mud and rocks. Most were in tattered clothes, though a few still had complete garments on their bodies.

Condensation dripped from the cave ceiling, and in the distance, he could faintly hear the sound of sewage flowing, as if from an underground river or drain. The sound of the chains grinding seemed to come from deep within a tunnel connected to the cave, and it was gradually receding.

Duncan blinked, trying to figure out what was happening. He looked down at his right hand, and what he saw was a completely unfamiliar and emaciated hand, and ragged clothes on his arm. The brass compass he had been holding in his hand was long gone.

He then looked up at his side. He remembered catching a glimpse of a shadow following him as he traversed the starlight and light webs. The outline of that shadow looked like some kind of bird, but, of course, he found nothing.

The bird-like shadow didn't seem to have come to the real world with him.

Duncan slowly clenched his fist, forcibly suppressing the nervousness in his heart, and then tried rubbing his fingers together.

An extremely faint green flame emerged from his fingertip.

It had to be said that this small flame looked much weaker than Duncan was used to, but he still felt a little relieved. As the flame burned, his still somewhat confused spirit also perked up slightly, and he felt more clearly than before a kind of… spiritual tearing and connection.

He clearly perceived that the other part of his spirit was not here. He sensed the existence of the Sea of the Lost, sensed himself sitting at the desk, holding the brass compass.

The feeling was very strange, but Duncan immediately vaguely realized what the situation was:

His spirit had undergone… some kind of projection, or extension. That projected part of his mind crossed an unknown distance and had now entered another unfamiliar body.

And in this projection state, he could still clearly feel the existence of his "main body."

This must be related to that brass compass! Could this be the ability of that "anomalous item"?

Some guesses popped up in Duncan's mind, but he didn't let his wild thoughts take up too much time. After confirming that his main body was still safe and sound, and that his spirit was still under control, now that he had only temporarily entered a remote, unnamed body, he was slightly relieved and prepared to first confirm what the situation was with his "new body."

First of all, one thing was certain: the surrounding environment was definitely not on a ship.

This was land—the land he had been drifting at sea for so many days without finding!

Secondly, this gloomy cave didn't seem like a good place. The corpses scattered around didn't look like a normal "burial" scene. Why was the body he now occupied trapped in such a hell on earth?

Duncan took a deep breath and pushed himself up to sit up—his body had been leaning against a large rock, in a position that could hardly be called comfortable.

And with this breath and movement, Duncan suddenly felt a huge strangeness in his body—he felt the air he breathed into his body immediately vented out, and a kind of empty and strange feeling came from his chest, causing the movement of getting up to become deformed.

Duncan looked down in surprise and saw a large hole.

The big hole was in the position of his heart, and the contents had naturally disappeared. A cool wind blew through it, mixed with the breath Duncan had just taken in that hadn't completely dissipated, and eventually dissipated into the damp air.

Duncan even saw the scene behind him clearly from a certain angle.

"... What the hell?!"

Even with his thick nerves, even with some increase in "experience" on the Sea of the Lost, Duncan still felt a cold sweat break out at this moment. He felt goosebumps erupting endlessly, and every hair stood on end!

And after this sudden shock, he immediately realized that he was still standing here, even still able to curse.

With his heart gone and a big hole in his chest, he didn't even feel any pain from this body!

"This is… a corpse?"

After a moment, Duncan came to his senses. He further understood his situation and quickly calmed down.

Occupying the body of a corpse and getting up to move might not be something to be surprised about. After all, he had a ghost ship that could sail on its own and a wooden goat first mate that could make people's brains boil with its nagging. Recently, he had also met a cursed doll that could split into two and was good at riding the wind and waves on the boundless sea. Which of these wasn't more terrifying than "the dead are talking"?

At least he had only lost his heart now. Alice's head was often not on her neck...

With these messy thoughts running through his mind, Duncan regained his composure with surprising speed. Then, he confirmed the activity of his current body, and slightly adapted to the movement deformation caused by the strangeness in his chest, before stepping towards the corpses thrown in the cave.

"As expected..."

Duncan looked at the first corpse, and wasn't surprised to see the horrifying hole in the other person's chest.

It was a gaunt-faced middle-aged man in tattered clothes, looking like a beggar on the street. He had been dead for a long time, but the wide-eyed look still conveyed his struggle and despair at the moment of his death.

Duncan continued to walk forward, seeing one corpse after another that had lost its heart. They lay miserably on the cold stones, with only two exceptions—those two had hideous wounds on their heads, as if they had been violently hit against the rocks and died on the spot.

Duncan couldn't help but have some associations—perhaps these were two people who had committed suicide rather than face the pain of having their hearts gouged out.

To be honest, the things in this cave were a bit too stimulating for ordinary people. Even Duncan felt a little overwhelmed after this inspection, so that after checking the condition of all the corpses, he had to find a relatively clean stone in a more distant place to sit down, organizing his state little by little, and deducing the truth of all this as he calmed down.

Obviously, this was a shocking murder—but from the overly cold and unified killing method, it seemed to be more than just murder, revealing some kind of evil… ritualistic feeling.

Duncan summoned the spirit flame again, feeling the connection between himself and his "main body." He knew that he could cut off this "projection state" at any time and return to the safe Sea of the Lost.

But he felt it was necessary to figure out what had happened here.

Even if only to grasp some information about the land.

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the draft in his chest, and stood up from the big rock where he was temporarily resting. He looked at the tunnel deep in the cave, remembering that the sound of the chains grinding had come from there.

This underground space wasn't just filled with corpses. There were other people active. Those who could move freely in this terrible place… should be able to give him some answers.

Rushing over to check the situation was certainly not safe, but Duncan didn't care—

Anyway, he was carefree now (literally: had a wide heart because his heart was missing).