Chapter 616 – Broken Secrets

Chapter 616 Broken Secrets

Looking at the dragon bone that stretched forward in the darkness, Duncan seemed to have been able to determine its origin, as well as to determine the “deal” that took place in the depths of subspace a century ago.

But he always felt that he had missed something, always felt that this should not be the message that the Lost Country wanted to convey to him – at least not all the information.

He raised the lamp in his hand, and the flame of the lamp lit by the spirit fire became a little brighter, and the long light illuminated the surrounding area, making the details of the surface of the dragon bone more and more obvious, and the light of the fire was reflected in the areas of nothingness beyond the dragon bone, and spread out in the darkness of the mists.

The fog was full of shadows, as if many things were hidden.

Agatha’s shadow followed, and she rose up in the mist, standing hazily beside it, “Could this …… spine have come from that great demon god of elven lore, Sasloca?”

“The likelihood is high,” Duncan nodded softly, “And I’m afraid that only a being of the level of a god could possess such a spine.”

“Goatheads ……,” Agatha hesitated, she seemed to be in the midst of a jumble of thoughts, and it took her a long time to organize her thoughts before she found the right words, “I mean all the goatheads, including the ones aboard the Lost Country, the ones in this dreamworld. And those in the hands of the cultists, as well as the ‘goatheads’ who may still be unknown, what exactly do you think their relationship is to Sasloca?”

She paused, then continued, “That muddled goathead said that Sasloca died a long time ago, and that it wasn’t Sasloca, but now it seems that ‘they’ and the elf’s ‘original dream’ are again all inextricably linked, and now we even found this ‘dragon bone’ at the bottom of the Lost Country ship …… You don’t remember the process of getting this dragon bone in subspace in the first place, do you?”

Agatha of course did not know that the present Duncan was not the original “captain” of the Lost Country ship, and naturally thought that Duncan was the one who reached an agreement and signed the contract with Goat Head in subspace a hundred years ago, and the latter often mentioned that he lost a lot of his memories in the process of regaining his humanity, so she rightly thought that this dragon bone was one of the memories that Duncan had lost. One of the lost memories.

Duncan didn’t answer directly, but only nodded gently, and then pondered for a few more seconds before speaking thoughtfully, “Perhaps all goat heads are part of Sasloca.”

Agatha was stunned for a moment, but quickly responded, “So, Miss Lucrecia was correct in calling the ‘goat heads’ in the hands of those Annihilationists ‘fragments of the Ancient Gods’… …And these Ancient God Fragments are in different states and are unable to recognize themselves …… Some of them still remember things related to Sasloka or Silantis, while others seem to have no thoughts or reasoning at all …… “

Duncan was silent, instead looking at the amazingly sized spine in his field of vision lost in thought, and only after a long time did he suddenly speak, “To make the conjecture a little bolder, the ‘goat’s head’ might just be a manifestation of the shards of the ancient gods, and this spine in front of us, is clearly the ‘Ancient God Fragment’ in another form, and it cannot be ruled out that there are other forms of Ancient God Fragments: a tree, a person, a stone, a corpse …… They could all be parts of Sasloca left behind.

“After all, according to the elves’ descriptions in the old myths, Sasloca possesses countless forms – which would explain why the goat’s head of the suspected fragment of the ancient god is small enough to be placed on a nautical table, while the same ‘fragment ‘, this spine however, can hold up the entire Lost Country ship.”

Duncan spoke in a calm tone of voice as he thought of the possibility, which painted a chilling picture – even the former Gatekeeper, Agatha, shuddered as she tried to visualize the state of the Daemon God.

She couldn’t help but speak, “Just what kind of power …… would make a ‘god’ turn into this appearance? To become in this …… fragmented state?”

She only spoke subconsciously, not expecting to be able to get any answers from the captain’s mouth.

After a moment of silence, however, Duncan spoke up, as if talking to himself, and he said slowly-

“…… But the second blueprint failed as well, and so the King of Dreams was torn apart on the second long night of Creation, and a part of Him drifted across the borders of the real world ……”

Agatha froze momentarily, her shadow swaying slightly in the light, the edges of her shadow appearing slightly blurred, and soon, she recalled the origin of these sentences, “This is what is written in that ‘Book of Blasphemy’ …… “

Duncan nodded softly, “Yes, the ‘Creation Myth’ of the Annihilists, the story of the time before the opening of the Age of the Deep, when the King of Dreams created the world with His authority, only to be torn apart in the Long Night.”

“Sasloca is one of the lost kings!” Agatha reacted, “This ‘Great Demon God’ from the ancient legends of the elves is the ‘King of Dreamland’ who tried to remake the world in the Second Long Night?!”

“I had actually made that association, after all, His authority is so similar,” said Duncan, “It’s just that for so long, the ancient legends of the Elves have lacked empirical evidence to support them, and with Sasloca being a unique element of faith for the Elven race, many of His legends and wonders are in contradiction to the other city-states of the Boundless Sea’s records and facts.

“In addition to this there is a very important point – the Elves have the most complete mythological system and historical record of all the races, yet in their own records there is never a ‘Dream King attempting to remake the world in the Second Long Night’ ‘, nor is there any mention of a description of this Archdemon being torn apart at the end of the Long Night – not even a plausible wild history.

“These contradictions have prevented me from identifying the ‘Archdemon God Sasloka’ of Elven lore and the ‘King of Dreams’ of the Second Long Night as the same deity, until now . …I have seen with my own eyes the fragments left behind by this ancient god in tatters.”

Perhaps in shock and thought, Agatha did not speak for a long time, while Duncan slowly walked forward, holding a lamp in his hand and carefully stepped on one of the joints of the “spine of the ancient god”, and then bent down and touched its rough and vicissitudes with his hand, as if it had endured the beatings of countless years, but still tough and reliable bone. This spine brought the Lost Country ship, which had been plunged into the depths of subspace and almost completely swallowed up by subspace, back to the real world, remodeled the ship’s entity, and then carried it for a whole century.

His movements stopped abruptly.

A question that he had never thought of before, which had been neglected for a long time, drilled into his mind uncontrollably – after seeing the “keel” built with the spines of the ancient gods in front of his eyes, and after understanding more clearly and intuitively what kind of astonishing structure was underneath the bottom layer of a huge ship Duncan finally thought of this question…

The original Lost Country ship, what was used as the keel?

He stood up sharply, looking up and around the dark expanse of space.

The skeleton of the ship’s bottom, supported by the keel and ribs, was submerged in an infinite mist, while in the distance, broken and fractured hull plates could be faintly seen along with the support structure further up.

The sheer size and complexity of this structure, built on the spine of an ancient god, is awe-inspiring.

But this was not the original Lost Country ship, not really.

The original Lost Country had long since been swallowed up by subspace, and by the time Goathead had seen it, the ship had been nothing more than a shallow phantom, and an obsession of Duncan Ebnomar himself.

The “Lost Country” that Duncan was familiar with now was the result of that phantom’s reemergence, its original keel replaced with the spine of an ancient god, which allowed it to achieve the “miracle” of returning from subspace.

What about the ship’s original keel?
Duncan is not an expert in the field of shipbuilding, but after living in this world for such a long time, he also understands a lot of general knowledge related to ships, he knows how the sail battleships of a hundred years ago were constructed, and he knows that only a strictly selected, extremely tough and complete piece of wood can support the burden of the “keel”, and the strength and size of this piece of wood is not enough. The strength and dimensions of this piece of wood would determine the maximum size of each sailing ship.

However, the Lost Country far exceeded this size – not a little bit, but double.

The Lost Country was the largest sailing ship this world had ever seen, and after that, there had never been a larger sailing ship, and judging from the structure of the bilge, the keel of the Lost Country was not riveted or fitted together or anything like that.

Duncan frowned slowly.

The keel is the most basic part of a ship, the way it is constructed directly determines the subsequent structure of the entire ship, so this “Ancient God’s Spine” in front of him should only be a replacement of the original keel of the Lost Country, not a large-scale change in its basic structure, so the Lost Country should be the same as other sailing ships in that era, using a separate and complete keel. The Lost Country should have a separate and complete keel like other sailing ships of that era.

But there can’t be a tree that big in a city-state.

And even if there were, there was an upper limit to the strength of the wood itself – at the scale of the Lost Country, it had far exceeded the load-bearing limits of a traditional wooden keel.

Unless, from the very beginning, the keel of this ship was not just any wood, but something …… even more unbelievable.

In the past century, the Lost Country ship served as one of the biggest taboos on the boundless sea, and many things related to it had become taboo topics, and even though this ship had completed its construction in the city-state of Prand, almost no one would discuss its construction process in public.

But now Duncan could imagine what an event it must have been over a hundred years ago, when the construction of this amazing expedition ship had just begun.

The mists flowed slowly in all directions, and the ghostly green glow from the carrying lamps dipped softly into the fog, as if outlining many shadowed silhouettes.

Duncan looked around at the entrenched mists, his brows gradually unfurling.

“It seems this is what you wanted to tell me ……”

(End of chapter)