On the small metal badge was stamped the name "Christo Barberi" and his identity as the captain of the Obsidian.
This badge made the atmosphere on the scene suddenly quiet and eerie - in the quiet open cabin, the only sound left was the beating of the heart.
"His name is Christo?" After a long while, Alice finally broke the silence. She scratched her hair, seeming puzzled. "But the one we saw behind the blue door also said his name was Christo
"If this ship came from the Frost Deep Sea, then everything on the ship could be just a distorted replica. Every distorted thing here could be Christo, or anyone on the Obsidian at the time," Duncan said calmly, his eyes falling on the middle-aged man on the ground with his eyes wide open and his hands covering his mouth. "The key is this... these remains are obviously very special."
"You suspect he is the real one?" Vanna reacted quickly and looked at Duncan in astonishment. "But... this entire ship is obviously a distorted copy. How could the real one be here?"
"… All our knowledge of the Frost Deep is based on Tirian's limited memories, and even what Tirian knows is only part of the information in the early stages of the Abyss Project—and the Abyss Project has never really uncovered the secrets of the seabed below a thousand meters." Duncan shook his head. "We know very little about the situation at the bottom of the Frost Deep, and the rules we have drawn about these 'replicas' are likely to be wrong. Perhaps the original body is hidden in the shell of the fake, or perhaps each fake is the manifestation of the original body after being disassembled. It is even possible that there is no difference between fakes and the original body in the deep sea."
Vanna listened to Duncan's words, but couldn't help but glance at Alice next to her.
Alice didn't think too much about it. She just looked at the "Christo Barberi" on the ground curiously. After thinking for a long time, she suddenly asked: "Why is he covering his mouth?"
"People often react like this when they are frightened," Morris said casually. "It's nothing strange."
But as soon as he finished speaking, Duncan's voice suddenly rang out: "No, it's strange... He's not afraid."
Morris looked at Duncan in surprise, only to see the latter squatting down beside the body that was in a strange and horrible state, even putting his face close to it, observing something carefully.
Plop, plop, plop.
Christo Barberi's heart kept beating, and as Duncan approached, it seemed to beat faster and stronger than before.
Duncan noticed the change in his heart, but he still focused more on Captain Crystal's face. After careful observation, he suddenly discovered something.
"He has something in his mouth."
"There's something in the mouth?" Morris was surprised, and then he saw Duncan reaching out his hand, trying to pry the corpse's hand away from its mouth.
Duncan was surprised by the resistance he felt in his hands.
The body covered its mouth tightly, as if it was still consciously resisting something even after many years of death!
Duncan didn't use too much force at first, and as a result, he failed to successfully pry the other person's hands open - he knew that if he really increased his strength, he should be able to easily crush the obsession of the deceased, but before continuing to use force, he seemed to suddenly think of something and stopped.
"Mr. Barberi, if you are keeping a secret, you can let it go now," Duncan said in a steady voice, looking at the pair of angry eyes. "Leave the follow-up matters to me."
The hand loosened.
Below was a mouth with clenched teeth - but the next second, that mouth also relaxed.
Vanna and Morris looked at each other in surprise, and then they saw Duncan reaching out and groping for something in Crystal's slightly open mouth.
Duncan frowned as he felt a soft and slightly disgusting touch. He suppressed his discomfort and took the lump he had touched out of the dead man's mouth.
It was a thumb-sized lump of dark color with a slight blue streak. It felt very soft to the touch.
···…like some kind of meat.
It's flesh bitten off from some larger individual.
"What is this?" Alice was the first to come over curiously. She held Duncan's arm and looked at the motionless piece of black and blue meat. Then she showed a bit of resistance, "Ew... I don't like this thing...
Duncan looked at Alice in surprise. This cheerful puppet lady rarely expressed her disgust for something so quickly and clearly.
After Alice finished speaking, Vanna quickly frowned as well: "I sense a very disturbing aura from this thing - it reminds me of some kind of pollution that has risen from the depths of the world to the real world."
"My intuition tells me that it's best not to stare at this thing all the time," Morris followed up, "This may be a warning from the God of Wisdom. Don't you feel anything when you hold this thing?"
"Feeling? No," Duncan squeezed the piece of meat in his hand. "It does feel a bit disgusting, but I didn't feel the exaggerated reaction you mentioned."
"Oh, this is normal. After all, your status is different from ours." Morris said without any surprise on his face, "But one thing is certain, the thing in your hand is definitely not something that should exist in the real world. It should be the most important clue to this ghost ship..."
He suddenly stopped in the middle of his words.
Because everyone could hear that the beating sound of the heart that was beating in the air was rapidly weakening.
Duncan lowered his head and stared at Crystal's chest, which was open due to corrosion and distortion. He saw that the heart that had been beating strongly before was now stained with a layer of gray. The throbbing sound weakened to almost disappear within a few seconds. Then, the heart suddenly burned under his gaze and turned to ashes in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, a deep, hoarse, and somewhat familiar voice suddenly reached everyone's ears. The source of the voice could not be identified, and it was as if the entire ship had let out a sigh: "Ah, so that's how it is..."
Vanna was the first to react:
"It's the voice behind that blue door!"
Duncan looked at the remains on the floor and saw that the remains of Captain Crystal were melting like wax. The remains that should have been completely eroded by the sea six years ago seemed to be making up for the past six years.
Like being polished by the moon, it turned into jagged bones in almost the blink of an eye.
He immediately made a decision and turned back in the direction he came from: "Return the same way."
The speed on the return is much faster than the speed on the exploration.
The group quickly passed through the vast, silent, strange cabin, and the chaotic, twisted, inclined ramp, and soon returned to the "captain's room" with a blue door.
The door was ajar, and behind it, the biological organism calling itself "Christo Barberi" was still quietly attached to the wooden board.
Fanna took a step forward, and almost immediately, the biological tissue seemed to sense the movement around it, and its surface began to wriggle, making a hoarse and low sound: "Ah, you are back."
"…Captain Crystal,"
Vanna calmed herself down and tried to calm her tone, "We have some things..."
But before she could continue, Crystal interrupted her: "I already know, ma'am—I remember."
Although she had some vague guesses in her mind, Vanna couldn't help but ask, "You... remember?"
"If you mean my own death, then I remember it, although only part of it," Kristo said in a low voice, "Am I dead? Definitely dead... The Obsidian has sunk. We encountered a storm and an iceberg. We sank and sank into the endless darkness. There is no possibility of my survival."
Duncan was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly took two steps forward and asked, "Do you know what happened in the depths of this ship?"
"Deep inside?" Kristo's voice seemed a little confused.
"Do you remember the details of your death?" Duncan asked again.
Did you fight with anything? Did anything happen to the ship after it sank into the deep sea
Christo fell silent, as if he was thinking. Then a regretful voice came from the biological tissue: "Sorry, I don't remember these details. I only remember... the ship was sinking, and it kept sinking. It was a very, very long process. Everyone died, and I should have died too, but I was always floating in the dark. It was cold around me, and my vision was dim. I seemed to be looking for something in the dark. I don't know how long this chaotic state lasted. When I regained my memory, I was knocking on this door."
Duncan exchanged glances with the others.
Captain Crystal had no reason to lie.
The captain only realized the fact that he was dead, but he did not remember what had happened in the depths of the Obsidian, nor did he know that "another self" had died in the strange space at the bottom of the cabin, nor did he know the origin of the mysterious piece of flesh and blood.
The clue seems to be broken.
But Duncan looked down at his palm—the dark piece of meat was still lying quietly in his palm.
He has already made very important gains.
/
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