Chapter 8: The Sun

A lifelike doll, so exquisitely crafted that for a moment even Duncan almost couldn't tell it apart from a real person—she lay quietly in that luxurious wooden box, like a lady sleeping in a coffin, waiting for someone to awaken her.

Duncan truly felt that she would wake up the next second.

But it was only an illusion; the doll lay still in the box, unresponsive to the surroundings.

Duncan observed this eerie... "thing" with wariness and caution—a doll in itself was not strange, but its too-lifelike appearance and the coffin-like wooden box instinctively made him sense danger. Considering the mysterious appearance of this box on the Homeloss, no wonder he was on alert.

After a long observation, Duncan finally assured himself that the glamorous Gothic doll inside the box wouldn't suddenly jump out and surprise him. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief before frowning and turning to Goat Head, "What do you make of this situation?"

"This must be the important cargo previously escorted by that ship," Goat Head immediately replied, although it had indicated before that it didn't recognize the strange wooden box that suddenly appeared on the deck. Its experience with maritime matters was evidently more extensive than that of Duncan, this impostor captain, "The exterior of the box has symbols pointing towards deities, and there are bolts around it for securing chains. This might suggest it was once in some sealed state—transporting sealed entities across the Endless Sea is extremely risky, and that ship seemed quite significant."

"Sealing?" Duncan's eyelids twitched involuntarily, soon followed by a glance at the lid of the box that had been fully opened by him. The lid was already broken when it arrived on the Homeloss, which was why he could easily move it. Even though he didn't understand anything about seals, he believed the seal must have been broken, "So this thing is dangerous?"

"It is very dangerous for those fragile ordinary people, but I do not believe it poses any threat to you—the kinds of 'anomalies' that can be sealed away by someone with special skills cannot resist the might of Captain Duncan."

Duncan was silent, his expression grave, yet his thoughts were in turmoil.

The flattery from Goat Head sounded appealing—if he truly were Captain Duncan, perhaps he would have believed it. But he wasn't, which made him all the more anxious inside.

Because Goat Head's words had made it clear that the doll lying in the coffin was a "dangerous good"! It just didn't pose a threat to the real captain, that's all!

Although he was now masquerading as Captain Duncan, and seemed to have taken over the latter's body and some power, Zhou Ming was quite self-aware—he didn't believe that made him the same as the "real Captain Duncan."

His understanding of this world, this ship, and even his current body was still too little.

Additionally, he had keenly noticed a new peculiar term in Goat Head's words—"anomaly."

Anything out of the ordinary is an anomaly, which seems like an ordinary word, but the emphasis in Goat Head's speech made him vaguely realize this word might have a special meaning here.

Perhaps, in this world, the word "anomaly" signified not just something "beyond the norm," but a certain category of things? Like... a doll lying in a coffin, for example.

Unfortunately, he had no proper reason to inquire about what should be "common knowledge" here.

After reflecting that he still needed to cautiously gather information and accumulate knowledge, Duncan, his brow furrowed, gave the doll one last look as if he had made a certain decision, "I should throw it back into the sea."

When he said this, there was a hint of hesitation, especially while looking at the doll, this emotion became particularly evident.

Of course, it wasn't simply because "the doll is pretty." Instead, it was because... "she" really looked too much like a living person asleep in a coffin that when he thought about throwing her back into the sea, Duncan even felt as if he was discarding a living person overboard.

But this hesitation ultimately reinforced his determination.

For he had long known that many strange and bizarre entities existed in this world—even though so far, his encounter in this world was limited to just the Homeloss. But even on this ship alone, he had seen a talking goat head, a self-sailing mast, an eternally lit ship lantern, that strange and dangerous ocean, the ominous Spirit Realm, and the endless sea fog...

And just now, he had collided with a mechanical ship in this eerie sea, transporting a sealed entity that mysteriously ended up on the deck of the Homeloss.

As a rational and cautious man, he must not keep something that likely contained strange and dangerous powers nearby just because the doll looked pretty.

Regretfully, Duncan eventually firmly covered the "coffin" again, and out of concern, he fetched nails and a hammer from the cabin and earnestly added a round of iron nails to the coffin.

Lastly, he pushed the "coffin" with the doll inside to the edge of the deck.

Goat Head's voice reached his ears, "You are free to dispose of your trophy as you please, but I still humbly offer a suggestion. There is no need to be so cautious. It has been a long time since the Homeloss added any trophies..."

"Shut up," Duncan cut off the goat-headed man's babble with a curt command.

The goat-headed man fell silent as Duncan kicked the so-called "spirit coffin" forcefully, sending it plummeting straight into the sea.

The heavy wooden box dropped vertically from the edge of the deck, crashing into the sea, which had returned to its normal color, with a dull thud before rising back to the surface and gradually drifting toward the stern of the Homeloss.

Duncan watched the box floating away with the waves until it was completely obscured by the ship's stern, then he let out a slight sigh of relief. He then looked up into the distance, and saw that the fog above the sea had completely dissipated, leaving the azure Endless Sea undulating gently around the Homeloss.

The ship had completely exited the "Spirit Realm" and returned to the real dimension.

On the nearby sea surface, there was no sign of the mechanical ship that had briefly intersected with the Homeloss.

Duncan's brow furrowed slightly as he swiftly calculated the time elapsed since the two ships crossed paths and their respective speeds.

According to the current situation on the sea, that ship should not have vanished from sight so quickly.

"...Is this also because of this bizarre sea, or is it related to the so-called 'Spirit Realm navigation'?"

Doubts surfaced in Duncan's mind, but soon his attention was drawn to something else—

He saw a streak of golden light suddenly break through the depths of the gloomy clouds that had never scattered in the sky above the sea.

Bright golden sunlight began to fill the sky, and the thick, curtain-like clouds seemed to be swept away by invisible hands, gradually dispersing. The gloomy sea surface, dark for who knows how long, was slowly being illuminated by sunlight—Duncan stood at the bow of the Homeloss, his eyes wide as he watched the clouds dissipate, feeling an inexplicable stirring at this moment.

Ever since he learned of the existence of "this side," ever since his first exploration of this strange ship, the relentless clouds had always shrouded the entire ocean, so much so that he had almost come to believe this world simply had no sun, that this world was perpetually enshrouded in dense clouds.

He had been separated from the sunlight for too long, even on the "other side" of the "door," in Zhou Ming's bachelor apartment, the heavy mist outside the window had long blocked out the sun.

But now, the Endless Sea had cleared up.

After a long absence from sunlight, he finally felt in "this side" of the world the sensation of seeing daylight again.

Duncan took a deep breath subconsciously, stretching out his hands toward the direction where the sunlight shone. The heavy clouds responded as if in empathy, rapidly dissipating and fading away, leaving the massive orb shrouded by countless twisted streams of golden light to come into view at the most dazzling moment of the Sky Light.

All expressions on Duncan's face froze the moment he spread his hands to embrace the sunlight.

He stared with wide eyes into the sky, the sunlight was blinding, but not in a way he was familiar with. He could clearly see the object hanging in the sky, see its orb shell with countless dense, intricate patterns, see the brilliant light flowing out from around it, and see the two concentric ring structures that were slowly rotating around the central orb against the backdrop of intersecting light streams.

Duncan squinted his eyes, barely making out that the two rings seemed to be connected by numerous fine and complex runes, as if some supreme power had inscribed an eternal bond in the heavens, imprisoning the "sun" in the sky.

Duncan hadn't managed to embrace the sunlight he had longed for.

This world had no sunlight at all.

"What is that?" he spoke softly, his voice low and somewhat icy.

"Why, that is the sun, Captain," the goat-headed man's voice was as calm as ever.

(Dang it!

These days, I will try to maintain double updates... until my stock of manuscripts is depleted or my energy fails to keep up, haha.)