Chapter 1 The Unbelievable Scene

The goat head was not there.

This was even more unbelievable than that absurd and bizarre dream!

Duncan stood at the door for a long time, finally regaining his senses. He drew the sword from his waist and cautiously moved forward, fully alert.

The goat head was indeed gone. The familiar nautical chart table held only a sea chart and a few miscellaneous items. The spot where the goat head had been placed was now just an empty tabletop.

Duncan stared at the empty tabletop for a few seconds before slowly looking around.

More incongruous scenes came into view.

All the furnishings were mottled and old. Cracks of varying depths covered the walls and pillars. Many items were missing from the nearby shelves, leaving them almost bare. A wall that had once held a decorative tapestry now bore only a patch of suspicious black stains. Beside the stains was a window, covered in grime, and outside, everything was dim and chaotic. He could vaguely see some suspicious flickers of light rapidly flashing past.

It was as if some swiftly moving shadows were darting through the air outside the window.

The entire chartroom felt as if it had been abandoned for years. Time had destroyed most of the furnishings, and some rough force, more dangerous than time itself, had left those dark, uneven stains on all the walls, the roof, and the floor.

Duncan couldn't resist pinching his thigh again, wanting to confirm once more that he wasn't dreaming.

The sea chart had also changed!

He gripped the doorknob, took a deep breath, and then threw the door open.

Duncan instinctively leaned closer, wanting to confirm the contents of the chart, but immediately realized something was wrong.

Duncan took a heavy breath, then, as if steeling himself, turned and walked towards the captain's cabin door with his sword in hand—theoretically, the deck of the *Vanishing Sea* lay beyond.

The next second, his gaze suddenly froze.

Ran Qing went behind the mirror and cautiously glanced outside.

Duncan almost cursed aloud. He twitched his lips, thinking that the worst fears always came true. He had recently been pondering that the subspace stuff was too evil and seemed to be calling to him, and that he needed to find a way to avoid contact with it, but he never expected that with one blink of his eyes, the bookshelf had won a trip to subspace—how did he suddenly end up here?!

There was no movement outside the window, no wind or waves, just silence…like his bizarre and brief strange dream.

Duncan carefully stepped forward, and after confirming that the deck only looked dilapidated and wasn't in danger of collapsing, he became slightly bolder. Then he raised his head, confirming the situation around the *Vanishing Sea*.

But he didn't feel the slightest discomfort.

Something strange had happened to this ship.

It was exactly like the scene at the bottom of the *Vanishing Sea*—it was subspace!

After a moment of thought, he had a rough idea. He turned away from the railing and walked towards the entrance to the cabin in the middle of the deck.

As expected, there was no seawater on the *Vanishing Sea*—the ship seemed to be floating in the universe, surrounded by the same emptiness on all sides.

Just then, something caught Duncan's eye, and he stopped in his tracks.

The moment he saw these bright lights and flashing turbulence, Duncan could only mutter "fuck."

Duncan finally made out a hint of the behemoth's outline—his breath caught in his throat.

The lines on the chart marked the *Vanishing Sea*'s sailing trajectory, which would update itself as the ship drifted. Looking at the lines marked on the chart, with the mist cleared and the trajectories crisscrossing…was this another dimension's record of the *Vanishing Sea*'s voyage?

Even if this "ghost captain" had some ordinary aspects and some resistance to subspace, shouldn't he be safe and sound in this place?

What met his eyes was a chaotic space that was barren and vast beyond measure, filled with dim shadows. Among these shadows, bright, blurry lights and turbulent currents would suddenly appear from time to time, only to gradually dissipate. He often saw strange flashes or streams of light suddenly dimming, like blind lightning briefly illuminating the

emptiness in the distance, so that in that flash, he could vaguely see some huge things floating in the emptiness, as if rapidly rotating and transforming.

Beneath this inverted land, one could even vaguely see mountains, rivers, and some even more suspicious and unsettling outlines, all of which had lost their color and vitality—this entire "continent" was only a monotonous gray-white. The rivers were frozen in the grooves of the land, making it look like a crude model lacking color and detail, sealed in a stagnant amber of time.

The trajectories on the chart were crisscrossed and the routes intertwined, yet he couldn't see any meaningful markings or "locations." It was more like a pile of chaotic lines drawn consciously, recording a muddled sleepwalk. And among these lines, there were no islands, no city-states…nothing at all.

Duncan didn't stay in front of the mirror for too long. He returned to the chart table, his eyes sweeping across the sea chart.

Clear pain and a clear mind both reminded him that it wasn't a dream, but reality, a reality he was very familiar with.

Since he could come here, it meant that there must be a place where it "overlapped" with the real world, but that place wasn't necessarily in the bedroom where he woke up. He hadn't checked the bedroom or the chartroom yet, and hadn't found any traces of a "passage."

But after the initial panic, he quickly calmed down and restrained the impulse to turn around and return to the captain's cabin.

This was a…land, or rather a fragment of land. Its size was enormous, so enormous that it could trigger megalophobia. Its irregular outline was as if it had been torn directly from a planet by some immense force, then brutally thrown here.

He stood at the edge of the deck, gazing at the distant, hazy giant shadows and the occasionally lit-up turbulent currents, roughly planning how to escape the predicament.

The *Vanishing Sea* sailed in a deserted chaos, and as far as the eye could see, the deck and the ship's structures were dilapidated and had long been abandoned.

First, confirm whether that place was really subspace. Second, find and determine whether there was still a connection between there and the real dimension.

He couldn't see Prand, he couldn't see Lensar, he couldn't see Therme and Sea Breeze…Although he wasn't familiar with most of the names of those city-states, at least he knew that those city-states existed, and they should definitely appear on this chart with the mist cleared!

Duncan was puzzled by his current state, and even began to doubt whether that place was really the legendary "Abyss of the End of the World." Then he steadied himself and walked towards the railing at the edge of the deck.

That huge piece of stellar wreckage was slowly moving above the *Vanishing Sea*, showing Duncan a desolate, ancient doomsday image. He stood there, looking up at the subspace (presumably) scenery, but didn't feel any discomfort, nor did he feel his mind being eroded, or hear any strange sounds—but according to the "common sense" of this world…humans shouldn't even be able to glance at subspace without going crazy on the spot?

But not one thing remained in its original place—this oval mirror with an elaborate patterned frame.

Apart from that, he also quickly discovered something suspicious about his condition.

Duncan watched intently, and at that moment, another "flash" appeared, like a winding and persistent lightning bolt. The flash traversed the high altitude, instantly illuminating a vast expanse of "sky."

After all, he had now experienced many bizarre things he had never imagined in the first half of his life. The experience he had accumulated dealing with that strange world, as well as his mastery and confidence in his own power, made him no longer the dizzy novice he once was.

No terrible sight appeared. The mirror did not reflect a bloody hell, nor did it reflect distorted and deformed faces. It was just very dirty, with whitish stains all over the surface, but in the areas with fewer stains, one could still see a reflection.

He raised his head and looked in the direction he had just seen out of the corner of his eye. A slightly dim arc of electricity was rapidly dissipating in the darkness in the distance. In the gradually strengthening light, he could vaguely see something very large and clumpy slowly passing over the *Vanishing Sea*.

Duncan stepped out of the door, stepping onto the potholed and dilapidated deck that seemed to be on the verge of

collapsing, hearing a piercing creak suddenly erupt, breaking the suffocating silence.

But compared to the first time he had set foot on this ship, he adjusted his condition in a very short time and completely relaxed after a few deep breaths.

The feeling of first stepping onto the *Vanishing Sea* surged up again. The heavy feeling of being surrounded by endless strangeness made Duncan's brows gradually furrow.

Not only did he not feel any discomfort, but he could still clearly perceive his body in Prand, and perceive the "marks" left in the real dimension by Nina, Morris, Vanna, and others.

He came to the ship's side and leaned out to look.

The scene…looked a bit familiar.

The mist that had originally covered almost the entire chart had almost completely disappeared. After the mist cleared, what was presented on the parchment were simple traces.

Duncan walked around the room again, checking the empty shelves, examining the walls with only dirt left, and the corners of the walls where two wooden boxes had originally been placed. Most of the things were gone. Apart from the nautical chart table still being here, it had almost become an old and dilapidated empty room.

He was still unsure whether that place was really subspace. He just felt that it had similarities to the scenery outside the bottom of the *Vanishing Sea*, and if it was definitely subspace…then there was no point in hiding back in the captain's cabin.

The only thing he felt uneasy about now was that the worry that "the *Vanishing Sea* is quite unstable and problems will arise sooner or later" seemed to be becoming a reality. Duncan's brows furrowed even tighter. After realizing that there were no reference landmarks on the chart, he slowly straightened up, tilted his ear, and listened to the movements outside the window.