Chapter 1 Gentle Waves

The gentle sea waves were rising and falling slowly, and the Vanishing Line was sailing steadily on the boundless sea. After many days of sailing, this ancient ghost ship still had not found any bird islets or navigation marks that could serve as route markers.

The long drifting journey seemed to have no end, but its captain still had many things to attend to.

Duncan returned to the captain's cabin again. The golden sun mask was still lying quietly on the table, but before that, he had some other things to think about.

Alice's matter could be arranged later, and the follow-up tests and research on "Anomaly 099" were not urgent. The Frost Rebellion half a century ago was not something to be investigated now. But apart from these things, there was one thing that was closely related to him.

Duncan raised his head and looked at the mirror hanging on the wall.

The green flames that once floated on the mirror surface had long since dissipated. The distant scenes that once appeared in the mirror had also disappeared without a trace. But Duncan could still vaguely feel that the faint and blurred "connection" had not disappeared with the disappearance of the reflection in the mirror—it still existed, and it was remotely pointing towards the magnificent cathedral in the center of Pland City-State.

This connection gave him a feeling somewhat similar to the "connection" between himself and the "Antique Shopkeeper" and the "White Oak," but it was even weaker and more ethereal. If he had to say it... it was like some kind of derivative, a "secondary channel" extending from a clear and definite connection.

Duncan closed his eyes slightly, and on the table beside him, Ai's brass compass quietly opened a crack, with a faint green flame burning quietly inside.

Duncan returned again to that dark space filled with countless starlight and light streams.

But this time, he did not perform a "spirit walk," but maintained a liminal state of entering the spirit world, carefully observing the flow of light in this dark space and the scattered starlight.

He first saw the brightest "star," which pointed to the antique shop, representing his other body, which was cleaning the warehouse and taking inventory of the goods.

He then saw a hazy, shapeless cloud of light, much larger than ordinary stars, representing the "White Oak," a steamship that had once collided head-on with the Vanishing Line and been completely burned by his spiritual fire.

Finally, he distinguished the "star" that was vaguely connected to him among the hazy starlight that looked almost indistinguishable.

Duncan curiously approached, wanting to observe this cluster of starlight carefully.

But as soon as he approached, he felt a subtle repulsion emanating from the cluster of starlight.

The power of this repulsion was not very strong; it seemed to be just a pure, firm will protecting itself. Duncan felt that if he forcibly extended his spiritual fire, he should be able to burn away this subconscious protection.

But he immediately stopped and kept his distance from the starlight.

The owner behind this starlight should be the Inquisitor named Vanna, a Storm Saint, a powerful extraordinary being.

Too reckless contact might first alarm the owner of the starlight, and in a worse situation, it might even alarm the "god" standing behind that saint.

Without a thorough understanding of the gods in this world, Duncan was not prepared to take this risk.

Moreover, from another perspective, this faint sense of repulsion might also be reminding him that these starlights had their own differences.

When he first occupied the body of that "sacrifice," he did not feel any repulsion. Nor did he feel any repulsion when he occupied the body of the newly deceased cultist "Ron." So why was there this repulsion around Vanna's starlight now?

Was it because she was still "alive"? Was it because the mental power of living people would spontaneously resist indescribable erosion? Or was it because of... so-called faith and divine grace?

Duncan retreated a little, pondering the meaning of the starlight in this dark space, and tentatively reached out to another cluster of starlight closest to him.

He stopped at the last moment before touching that cluster of starlight.

No repulsion.

Then he tried many times around, and none of the stars rejected his approach—

—And in some of the stars, he also vaguely felt some new..."elements."

He felt the vitality, even the instinctive trembling and shrinking of those stars—the instinctive retreat of life in the face of irresistible shadows of death.

Duncan returned to the dark area where starlight could not reach, and looked down at his hands.

Some green flames wandered in the darkness, outlining illusory light and shadows between his fingers.

It seemed that with the increasing number of spirit walks, his control and perception of the flames were also becoming more precise and sensitive. He could now even sense the existence of vitality in those stars!

Duncan frowned slightly, looking into the distance of the endless darkness, the scattered starlight densely extending in the dark chaos, even a little spectacular to look at.

Out of caution, he had never explored the distance of this dark space, but just looking at the scale of the starlight, he could imagine how many light spots there were here.

At first, he thought that the starlight here represented all the "corpses" that had just died and met the conditions, because the first two "possessions" were on corpses. But now he felt the existence of vitality in some starlight, which meant that his initial guess was wrong.

These starlights include not only the dead but also the living. He just happened to occupy two corpses at the beginning.

The "Inquisitor" named Vanna was also among these starlights. She was, of course, undoubtedly a living person.

...Could it be that the countless stars here represent all the living and dead in the world?

Duncan frowned slightly in the darkness. This guess appeared so naturally in his heart and seemed so reasonable, but he soon shook his head, thinking that he could not draw conclusions so quickly.

Although there were many starlights here, and although the population of this world was far less than that of Earth, the starlight within sight should not be comparable to the world population. And the living were fine, but how should the number of the dead be defined?

Were all the dead from ancient times to be counted? Or only those with corpses remaining? Would it count as long as there were corpses remaining? Or would it only count if the death time did not exceed a certain period?

What's more, clusters of light like the "White Oak" had appeared here... A ship could show a corresponding projection here. How could this be explained?

Therefore, it was too early to rashly identify the starlight here as the "dead and the living" in the world—at least he would need enough evidence to draw a conclusion.

But no matter how the starlight here was connected to the real world, one thing was clear: most of the starlight would not show repulsion to Duncan's approach. Only the light of Vanna, the "Saint," showed this self-protective reaction.

Perhaps this was the power of the god she worshiped at work.

Duncan became a little curious about the power of "faith" in this world.

But no matter how strong the protective barrier that Vanna had established through faith, it clearly had loopholes—this barrier had not prevented the captain of the Vanishing Line from establishing a deep-seated "secret connection" with her.

So only one question remained: when and how was this connection established?

Duncan pondered seriously in the darkness, thinking about what intersection he had with the Inquisitor he had never met, and why such a connection would appear out of thin air. After excluding one guess after another, an extremely bold idea suddenly appeared in his mind: Could it be that it was the "sacrifice" he first possessed!

Duncan recalled the first time he set foot on the land of Pland City-State, recalling that solar sacrifice.

He disrupted the venue as a sacrifice, and then left the "body" he had possessed at the scene. Not long after that, Inquisitor Vanna led a team to raid the cultist stronghold, captured the cultists who remained at the scene, and must have participated in the aftermath of the "remnants" at the scene.

If he had to say it, the only "intersection" between him and the Inquisitor might have occurred at that time.

Just a body he had possessed, just a common location where they had both appeared.

"...This is... how we got connected!" The more Duncan thought about it, the more likely he felt it was. He couldn't help but look at his hands in astonishment. After a long while, his astonished expression turned into an extremely strange wry smile. What kind of spacetime companion infection route was this?