Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 234: Chapter 238: The Pursuit of the Brilliant Starship

There are three hours left before the sun will rise from the distant sea level, replacing the eerie night with the relatively safe and stable daylight—if the sun indeed rises normally.

Duncan glanced at the mechanical clock hanging not far away, its hands moving steadily.

“Do you plan to wait for the sunrise?” a goat-headed voice suddenly asked, “There are still three hours.”

“…Waiting around for three hours is less interesting than sitting here looking at a mostly pale sea chart,” Duncan shook his head, stood up to stretch his shoulders, and slowly walked toward his bedroom, “I’ll go rest for a while. If I’m not out before sunrise, you can just call me.”

“At your service.”

Duncan nodded, pushed the door and returned to his bedroom, carelessly tossing the paper with the mystical emblem on it onto the desk, heading toward the bed not far away.

His body didn’t need much rest, but every once in a while, he would still take a short nap before dawn—not to relieve any fatigue, but purely for the sake of “getting up and then greeting the sunrise.”

This allowed him to maintain a sense of “being alive” on the Homeloss, ensuring he didn’t gradually lose his humanity aboard this Ghost Ship—even though he wasn’t sure whether there was any danger of that, he had consciously maintained this habit of “living a human life on board” ever since he realized that the state of Homeloss was not as stable as he had imagined.

So Duncan lay down, closed his eyes, and listened to the whispers of the wind and waves coming from the sea, feeling the slight, constant swaying of the large ship beneath him, gradually relaxing his body.

…

On the Brilliant Starship, in the captain’s bedroom adorned with a feminine touch, Lucrescia, wearing a silk nightgown, suddenly sat up from the bed.

Her hair was a bit messy, her expression carrying a hint of fatigue and irritability, and as she got up, she held a gigantic half-human-size rabbit doll with a comical yet subtly eerie design.

The doll, cobbled together from pink and blue fabric, had a face with a scar that ran across it and a sawtooth-shaped mouth daubed with blood-like, eerily bright red color. As Lucrescia got up, the rabbit doll shifted slightly, then turned its head, its button eyes looking at its mistress, and a little girl’s voice came from the cotton-filled body: “Mistress, I thought you had fallen asleep…”

Lucrescia glanced at the clock next to her, her tone a bit irritated: “I suppose I did sleep for a few minutes but then was startled awake by a strange dream… What time is it now?”

“Two hours before sunrise,” the rabbit doll said as it hopped down from its mistress’s arms to the ground, bouncing over to a nearby cabinet. It opened the cabinet door with what seemed like floppy plush palms and took out a treasured bottle of wine from the captain’s collection. After pouring a small glass, it presented it to Lucrescia, “You can still sleep for a while—this will help calm your spirit.”

Lucrescia downed the wine but stood up nonetheless: “No need, lying down any further would only increase my restlessness… Let’s tidy up.”

“Of course, Mistress.”

The rabbit doll, with its little girl’s voice, crisply responded, took the wine glass from its mistress, and then began to hop and bounce around the bed, adeptly making it.

Meanwhile, Lucrescia snapped her fingers carelessly, and the room’s lights came on. She took a deep breath, dragged her feet to the dressing table, and tapped a drawer beneath the mirror with her fingernail—it popped open in response.

A carved wooden toy sailor leaped out, dressed in a classic naval uniform and holding a small baton. First, he saluted Lucrescia, and then he stood on top of the drawer waving the baton, issuing shrill commands.

A troop of toy soldiers ran out of the drawer, quickly formed ranks for a roll call, then grabbed combs, hand mirrors, drinking glasses, toothbrushes, and rushed to Lucrescia’s side or behind her on the chair’s back, beginning their mistress’s morning grooming.

Lucrescia sat listlessly in front of the dressing table, allowing the dolls to fuss around her, combating the tired pressure from a sleepless night and rampant thoughts while sporadically contemplating matters concerning the Homeloss. After a while, she took a deep breath, forcing her mind to clear up.

Just then, a faint golden glow suddenly penetrated the gap in the nearby curtains, catching the “Sea Witch’s” eye.

Lucrescia initially didn’t react to the glimmer of light, but after only two or three seconds, her gaze sharpened, and she abruptly looked at the mechanical clock.

There was still one hour until sunrise.

This wasn’t the time for the sun to come up!

She suddenly stood.

The toy sailors briefly descended into chaos then quickly resumed their organization, efficiently tidying up, while the rabbit doll that had finished making the bed noticed its mistress’s movements and hopped over: “Mistress, it seems to have gotten light outside!”

“`

“It’s not daylight yet,” Lucresa said quickly as she strode towards the window, “Where are we now?”

“Still advancing along last night’s planned route,” the rabbit doll replied hastily, “We’re getting close to where that ‘big fella’ was spotted falling!”

The very instant after the rabbit doll’s words ended, Lucresa yanked open the thick curtains and then pushed open the window, reinforced with fine metallic mesh.

A thin, hazy fog hovered over the sea outside the window, a common sight in the border regions, yet within the depths of that sheer haze, a vast expanse of faint golden light diffusely spread out was silently floating on the sea’s surface, its distance from the Brilliant Starship momentarily indecipherable.

A giant, luminous object floating on the sea.

Lucresa stared intently in that direction and then took a deep breath. Her body suddenly transformed into a pile of scattering colored paper—paper that whirled out the window, flew across the deck, through the staircase, and into the central upper-level cockpit.

Inside the cockpit, Luny, a wind-up Magic Doll dressed in a maid’s attire, was at the helm. She sensed her mistress’s approach the moment the colored paper began to whirl in and let go of the steering wheel. In the next second, Lucresa’s figure had already materialized from the colored paper and reached out to take the ship’s wheel.

“Mistress, I was just about to send someone to call you,” Luny stepped aside and said, “That gold light suddenly appeared out of the fog; it should be the ‘fallen object’ we’re tracking.”

“Increase to full speed, all hands on standby, and prepare to dive into the Spirit Realm at the stern at any moment,” Lucresa ordered hastily, “Are the Spirit Dust and witch oil reserves sufficient?”

Luny replied promptly, “Reserves are ample, your command has been conveyed.”

Lucresa nodded, and then under the captain’s order, the Brilliant Starship awoke in full force.

Scores of wind-up sailors, Magic Dolls, and Porcelain Soldiers rushed to their posts. The ship’s uniquely crafted bright wheels on either side began to turn faster, the seemingly outmoded engine units gradually unleashed a power surpassing that of modern propellers, raising the ship’s speed swiftly. At the ship’s aft, the Ghost Ship-like “original hull” became even more ethereal and ambiguous, while dark, hair-like stripes began to diffuse from the stern into the surrounding sea. From afar, it looked as if a dark wake extended behind the Brilliant Starship.

Under Lucresa’s direct control, the ship exhibited a state that was a mix of magic and mechanics, a blend of beauty, elegance, and horrific ugliness!

As the Brilliant Starship’s speed further increased, that massive golden Luminous Geometric Body floating between the thin mist and the sea surface also became more clearly visible to Lucresa.

What also became apparent was the true scale of its massive size.

Even Luny, the wind-up Magic Doll, couldn’t help but widen her eyes and let out a low exclamation, “My God… Mistress, what is that?”

Lucresa didn’t speak, simply staring ahead, fixating on that large golden phantom that was emerging clearer from the mist, now resembling a small mountain.

It was so large that from a single viewpoint, it was nearly impossible to discern its full outline, and it was so majestic and perfect that it didn’t seem like something that humans could have built.

A gigantic and complex golden geometric body lay quietly floating on the sea, its entirety emitting a gentle, soul-stirring pale golden light. It towered almost three times higher than Brilliant Starship’s tallest mast, with sides that extended like walls of battlements. Its upper half gently sloped outward like a terrifying cliff, and its exterior, devoid of any superfluous protrusions, seemed naturally formed.

And as they drew even closer, Lucresa and Luny began to observe even more details of the colossal object.

“Does it seem to be translucent?” Luny curiously leaned against the expansive observation window, “It looks… like a piece of glowing colored glass?”

“…No, it seems not just as simple as being transparent…” Lucresa shook her head, her gaze unblinking before her as if she had spotted something incongruous at the edge of the vast Luminous Geometric Body. It was at that moment when a small black dot suddenly flew out from the nearby mist and entered her field of vision.

It was a seabird—still existing even out on the Endless Sea, in this borderland filled with odd phenomena.

Rather, it was precisely because they lacked complex intelligence like humans that these “wild animals” managed to live in the bizarre border sea regions better than those brave and strong explorers.

Lucresa’s gaze was drawn to the seabird. She noticed the poor creature seemed to have been confused by the golden light on the sea’s surface and, in a flurry of panic, shot straight towards the softly glowing “mountain.”

However, the next second, the anticipated violent collision and death did not occur—the bird flew straight in, into the slightly inclined “cliff.”

It took a moment, but from the corner of Lucresa’s eyes, she saw that the bird emerged from another direction, seemingly unharmed.

Luny, too, witnessed this scene, the wind-up Magic Doll murmuring in surprise, “…Is it an illusion?”

“`