Chapter 16 Walking in the Spirit World
Chapter 16 Walking in the Spirit World
The doorway closed behind them, blocking the hollow gaze of the goat’s head.
But Duncan could still clearly sense the Lost Country, every nuance of the ghost ship – in a sympathetic, limb-extending sensation, he could “see” a series of the Lost Country’s sails finely adjusting their angle in the sea breeze, and the black steering wheel on the bridge was turning slightly, causing the ship’s stern to slam into the air. The black rudder wheel on the bridge was turning slightly, further stabilizing the Lost Country in the waves.
As he had expected, Goathead had taken over the helm for the time being, and had begun to diligently fulfill his duties as first mate – but Duncan could still take over the ship himself at any time.
The Lost Country was a bit weaker, both in terms of flexibility and speed, than it would have been if he had been at the helm directly, but now that Duncan’s main goal was to further dispel the fog on the charts, and there was no clear goal or course in the first place, he didn’t really care about the implications of that.
After confirming that the goat-head hadn’t moved in any way, and that the gothic mannequin below decks had stayed honestly in the room, Duncan breathed a soft sigh of relief and surveyed the not-so-large room.
This was his private sleeping quarters as the captain of the ship, and it was also the most comfortable and elaborate room on the Lost Country. In addition to a soft bed, there was also a classical closet and a shelf with many strange items on the wall facing the door of the room, while there was a dark brown desk on the opposite side of the room from the bed, except that no books could be seen on the desk, and it only had a few furnishings and writing and drawing tools. There were only a few furnishings on the desk, as well as tools for writing and drawing.
Next to the desk was a window that looked out over the sea, and there were a few hooks on the wall next to the window – the pirate sword Duncan now carried and the flintlock pistol had been hanging from these hooks before.
Duncan made his way to the desk and placed the longsword and flintlock where he could get his hands on them, and opened the desk drawer to examine the gunpowder and lead bullets that were in a wooden box.
A small brass compass sat next to the lead shot and powder pouch, and Duncan picked it up, seeing that the needle under the glass casing was still spinning haphazardly, as if it had been tugged by an invisible, chaotic force field, and that the bottom of the compass was inscribed with a single line of tiny text-
“We are all the Lost Countrymen.”
Duncan casually placed the compass in his hand and played with it, watching the needle spin around like a drunk.
The things here were things he had already examined many times, he had found this room during his initial explorations, and the things here, including the line of messages, must have been left behind by the real Captain Duncan at one time.
After mentally reviewing what he had so far, Duncan only exhaled, casually placing the compass on the table and lifting his right hand to gently rub his fingertips again.
A small green flame ignited at his fingertips, and under the flame’s reflection, half of Duncan’s palm immediately took on a transparent, illusory quality as if it were a spirit body – but under conscious control, the flame did not spread around like before, but hovered above his fingers like a candle flame.
After the flame stabilized, Duncan used his other hand to feel it near the flame, then took a quill from the side and touched the flame with the end of the quill.
Neither heat was felt, nor did the quill ignite, only a slight shade of green spread across the shaft, giving the quill an eerie glow.
Duncan did not “feel” any feedback from the quill, which was completely different from when he touched the charts and rudder with the flame.
Duncan made a mental note of the new experience – the “spiritual fire” had no temperature and would not ignite anything, and it would most likely only connect with the “abnormal” things on the Lost Country. It would most likely only connect with the “abnormal” things on the Lost Country, and would not give any feedback to the ordinary things.
Then if it is from the Lost Country outside the “abnormal” things …… this flame will react?
Duncan pondered, and for a moment, the figure of a certain gothic doll suddenly appeared in his mind – Alice, who seemed to be an “abnormality” from outside the Lost Country?
Would she be affected by the fire of the spirit body?
But he only thought about it for a moment, and then he threw this unimaginative thought aside.
Because even if Alice is not human, even if she is an “Abnormality 099” with a curse, she is also an independent individual who can speak, walk and have her own thoughts, and now she is also a “crew member” of the Lost Country ship, Duncan has already subconsciously treated her as a “human being”. Duncan has subconsciously treated her as a “human being”.
He couldn’t accept using a living person to test his flame – after all, he wasn’t sure what far-reaching effects it would have on the affected “anomaly”, and whether it would be harmful or not.
Duncan tested it a few more times, checking the nature of the flame while determining if there were any transcendent properties behind the various things in the chamber.
Finally, his eyes landed on the small brass compass with the “message” on it.
The brass compass was lying quietly on the table, and the pointer under the glass case was rotating randomly, but I don’t know whether it was an illusion or not, but when Duncan maintained the flame and placed his “unsuspecting” gaze on the pointer, the pointer seemed to have suddenly frozen for a moment. Then it continued to rotate as if nothing had happened.
Duncan: “……”
This thing definitely reacted to his gaze!
Originally, he was a bit wary of this compass, after all, there is a “real Captain Duncan’s” handwriting on it, and he was very worried that the dead Captain Ghost might have left some kind of power or “trap” on this belonging to prevent thieves, so he had not tested it with the flame, but after seeing that the compass reacted to his eyes, he continued to turn it around. He had not tested the compass with the flame, but after seeing the reaction of the compass, he suddenly made up his mind.
Duncan reached out and picked up the compass, the cool touch reaching his fingertips, and after a glance at the needle, which was still spinning wildly, he placed it directly into his right hand, which was used to maintain the spirit flame, and slowly gripped it tightly.
Ghostly green flame like burning grease flowed instantly, spreading in the cracks of his fingers, the surface of the compass quickly lit up a piece of ghostly fire, in the fire seems to have countless phantoms undulating and dissipating, and the next instant, the needle that was rotating haphazardly violently stopped, and straightly pointed to a certain direction on the vast ocean.
Duncan’s heart moved, this instant, he clearly felt the “feedback” from the compass, and confirmed that this is indeed an “abnormal item” that can be dominated by the fire of the spirit body, but before he could carefully perceive the details of this feedback, a sudden emergence of the “gravitational force”. But before he could scrutinize the details of the feedback, a sudden “gravitational force” attacked him!
Duncan only felt his body shaking for a moment, and in the next second, his eyes blurred, the furnishings in the captain’s chamber had somehow been reduced to nothingness, and even the surrounding walls and roofs had also disintegrated in the blink of an eye like snowflakes, and in the flurry of scattered light and shadow, the boundless darkness filled his line of sight.
Duncan stood in the center of the darkness in dismay, alarm bells ringing in his heart, his first reaction was to reach for his musket and sword, which were at his side, but in the next second he realized that the only thing that was left was the brass compass – it was still being held in his hand.
Duncan blinked, and as he watched, uncountable, wispy strands of delicate light suddenly filled the area around the brass compass.
These rays of light spread and intertwined in the darkness, expanding infinitely as if they were weaving a web, and between the intertwining of the rays of light, countless starbursts of light surfaced, some of which drifted sporadically, some of which converged like rivers, and which were actually as brilliant as a river of stars against the backdrop of the web of light that had been intertwined.
Duncan looked at the vision that appeared in front of him with some confusion, he was alert and a little uneasy, but for some reason, he did not feel any sense of crisis, or even ……
Between this dim network of light and star points, he instead felt a long-lost sense of peace of mind and comfort.
In the next second, a strange feeling suddenly came, Duncan’s gaze was involuntarily attracted by a cluster of starlight in the interweaving of the network of light, he looked at that cluster of starlight, only to feel that the starlight was shaking, as if it was about to fall into complete darkness immediately.
Subconsciously, he reached out to the starlight.
A great pull came at that very moment – Duncan felt as if his soul flew, and he involuntarily rushed toward the starlight that was about to fall into darkness, while the dense web of light interwoven by the compass flew backward in his sight, and the river of stars gathered by the starlight around him violently began to spin and writhe!
In the midst of the rapid flyby, he subconsciously looked to his right hand that was holding the compass tightly, but saw that the compass had disappeared at some point, at the same time, in the moment before it was about to touch the dim starlight, the remaining light from the corner of his eye but then he saw that a shadow had suddenly coalesced in the darkness.
That shadow even seemed to always be with him as if it naturally appeared, and along with him, it quickly fell towards the dim light point.
Duncan could only vaguely make out that the shadow appeared to be a bird flying with its wings outstretched, and before he could see the details, his eyes went black.
Heavy touches from the real world came from his limbs, along with the foul odor of some sort of rotting limb and the harsh sound of heavy chains dragging on the ground.
(Mom yeah!)
(End of chapter)