Duncan stared at the sea in the distance and fell into deep thought. Lucrecia, who was standing behind him, remained silent. The silence lasted for an unknown amount of time before Duncan finally took the initiative to break the silence: "Tell me about the border situation."
Lucrecia took a step forward, her tone somewhat hesitant: "You..."
"I can't remember what happened back then," Duncan said softly, "so I want to hear your opinion on the border. You've been active in the border area over the years, and as far as I know, you've even ventured into the thick fog a few times... If we are destined to deal with the thick fog again, then I at least want to know what you know about it."
Lucrecia's eyes were hesitant and complicated. She stared at Duncan's back, as if she was afraid that this figure would suddenly disappear in the wind again. Before today, her father had mentioned the topic of the border to her, but their discussions in this regard never went deep, and she would consciously avoid this aspect. But today... the situation seemed different.
After a few seconds, the "sea witch" finally spoke: "... I did enter that thick fog, but I was only active at a very 'shallow' level, six nautical miles, which is the limit of my movement in the fog - in theory, it should also be the monitoring limit of the Four Gods Church's ships in that area."
"What's there?" Duncan asked curiously.
Lucrecia thought for a moment, "The sea surface in most areas is calm, even calmer than other normal sea areas in the Infinite Sea. The water surface is like a mirror, and the flags on the masts are clearly reflected. There are no waves. The ripples caused by the ship passing through the sea will also calm down in a very short time. The texture of the entire sea surface is like some kind of... heavy and sticky substance that cannot cause ripples, but in fact it is indeed sea water, and the ship's navigation itself will not be affected...
“But this is only the case in calm areas. Between these calm waters, there are strange and irregular turbulence zones. They appear suddenly without any warning, and even when turbulence has already appeared, it is difficult to detect with the naked eye. The rapidly flowing seawater remains calm, passing by like some kind of ‘cutting line’. If you get close to it carelessly, the ship will lose control, and at best, it will spin rapidly and be taken to the wrong route by the turbulence, or even capsize directly.
"And these are just the 'mild cases' in the fog. When it's not so mild...something weird happens.
"Sometimes, incomprehensible things suddenly appear in the fog, such as huge blocks floating on the sea, or 'mountains' piercing straight out of the sea like blades. However, it is difficult for you to directly approach these entities emerging from the fog, because these things are often accompanied by very large-scale... abnormal celestial phenomena. Sometimes it is a storm, sometimes it is a huge ring of turbulence, and sometimes even a whole area of sea water disappears out of thin air, forming a fault like an abyss with no bottom below, which is extremely terrifying..."
Lucrecia paused here, as if recalling some experiences that even a "sea witch" like her would feel terrified. After sorting out her thoughts for a moment, she continued:
"In these chaotic phenomena, there are occasional gains, such as 'materials' and 'items' of unknown nature. They appear with turbulence or storms, and are entities that can be touched, captured, stored, and even taken outside the fog. Some of these things are very useful, such as ever-burning oil, or crystals that can expel spiritual pollution. The Explorers' Association and the Academy of Truth will spend a lot of money to exchange these items in order to study their uses, but basically these things collected from the border anomalies are random and unique, and there is no possibility of stable output...
"And even more rarely, these chaotic and dangerous phenomena appear..."
She stopped suddenly, and seemed hesitant to continue.
Duncan couldn't help but frowned: "Lucy, what did you see?"
"Only once. I am still not sure whether it was real or an illusion after I was extremely tired," Lucrecia hesitated for a long time, and finally said hesitantly, "It was a huge cylinder that suddenly rose from the sea. The cylinder was pitch black, surrounded by a huge ring, which was also pitch black and no details could be seen. This was the only entity in the fog that I had successfully approached. There were only not so strong winds and waves around it, and the Brilliant Star could barely resist it. I came to the foot of the cylinder and even moved the ship closer and touched its surface with my hand... Then, I heard it talking to me."
Lucrecia raised her hand and pointed to her head. "That voice was roaring in my brain. It was a language I didn't recognize, but I could understand its meaning directly. It kept saying one sentence: 'Curvature drive activated... We are out of danger, curvature drive activated... We are out of danger...'"
She looked up and saw that Duncan's expression had changed subtly. She couldn't help but ask, "Do you know what this sentence means?"
Duncan frowned instantly after hearing what Lucrecia mentioned. The word "warp engine" set off a huge wave in his heart. What he instantly thought of was the spaceship that crashed in the deep sea era, the "New Hope"!
Lucrecia found the wreckage of that ship?! It crashed into the Eternal Veil
"Were you able to find it? Did you see it again?" he asked quickly.
"I'm afraid not." Lucrecia realized the importance of this matter from her father's attitude, but could only shake her head apologetically. "The things that appear in the border fog are random and short-lived, like illusions that can be touched. After a certain time, they will disappear without a trace. So far, I have not encountered the same entity twice in a row in that fog."
Duncan felt disappointed, but he didn't show it. "...Apart from that sentence, what else did you find?"
Lucrecia recalled carefully and said uncertainly: "In addition, when I touched it, I felt an extremely strange... 'tactile sensation'. It felt 'empty' to me, without temperature or hardness. I know it's strange to say this, but at that time my fingers were completely unable to determine what material they were touching, or even whether I was touching anything. At that moment, my fingers' 'tactile' function seemed to disappear, or that thing... only a part of its 'attributes' remained in the real dimension, so that I could not fully perceive the disappeared parts of it..."
She seemed to be more and more hesitant as she spoke, as if she had difficulty accurately expressing her feelings and guesses at the moment. In the end, she could only spread her hands helplessly: "Do you understand what I mean?"
Duncan showed a thoughtful expression. After hearing the strange, bizarre and even incredible situations described by Lucretia, what suddenly emerged in his mind was the "cognitive change" or "epiphany" of the world that he had experienced in the brief few seconds after witnessing the truth of the Great Annihilation.
He still clearly remembers the "real" side of the world he saw at that last moment.
Fragmented information converges into today's deep sea era. Incompatible fragments of the old world merge and distort with each other in the mutual collision, turning into unrecognizable things, or integrating into the pot of "information soup" at the bottom of the world.
So... what about those things that ultimately failed to integrate, or because of some "special properties" of their own, could not be completely annihilated or contaminated by other things
Such a thing must exist. When a cosmic collision occurs, the probability of all events will be superimposed from infinity to infinitesimal. Anything can happen, and nothing can ever happen. Then, those "lucky ones" or "unlucky ones" who are inevitably left behind after the infinitesimal probability must have a place to go...
Duncan guessed that most of them should be in the warp - in that dark and chaotic space, there are many things that look like the remnants of the old world, such as torn land, pale Cyclops, and specious shadows floating in the void. They should all be fragments that have not been completely annihilated.
But now it seems that some of them have fallen outside the subspace.
Those "entities" that the "Sea Witch" saw in the Border Mists... were things like this.
Lucrecia felt a little uneasy. She saw the expression on Duncan's face changing continuously. It seemed that some logic and cognition that she did not understand was gradually taking shape in her father's mind. This made her have the same premonition of witnessing the "starry sky" as before.
But this time, she didn't actually see the starlight appear behind her father's body.
"I'm very interested in the 'entities' you saw in the border fog," Duncan suddenly said, interrupting Lucrecia's wild thoughts. "What about deeper? You just said that you can only go six miles into the fog at most. What will happen if you go deeper?"
"We will completely lose our sense of direction to the civilized world," Lucrecia suddenly woke up and quickly replied, "In fact, after entering the Eternal Curtain, all conventional navigation methods have become ineffective. Even if we look down at the deep starry sky from the observatory, we can only see a hazy shadow. However, within a range of six nautical miles, radio can still function. Lighthouses or ritual braziers temporarily set up at the edge of the fog can also guide the ship back home. But once we cross the critical point of six nautical miles, the connection with the civilized world will be completely cut off.
"I once went too deep and crossed this critical point. Although I only crossed it a little bit, I was almost lost forever in the thick fog. There is no point in returning, because once the ship crosses the boundary, the space-time continuity around it seems to have gone wrong. Your ship takes a step forward and then a step back, and it will never return to its original position..."
Duncan listened and couldn't help but frowning: "Then how did you return home?"
"I..." Lucrecia opened her mouth and hesitated for a long time before she said softly with a strange expression, "I saw the shadow of the Lost Homeland."
(End of this chapter)