Chapter 667 – Staring

Chapter 667 – Staring
Although it had been a long time since he had last entered subspace, Duncan remembered clearly that on this side of subspace, there was no goat’s head in the captain’s cabin of the wrecked Lost Country.

The only thing on the navigational table was a chart that showed an eerily suspicious course.

Now, however, a dark goat’s head was sitting quietly on the navigational table, gazing at him in the darkness – and Duncan was certain that the dark goat’s head had made a movement to turn its eyes this way the moment the bedroom door had been opened.

It was alive, and it was responding to external stimuli!

Duncan quickly controlled the expression on his face, and while cautiously focusing on the movements of the goathead that was staring straight at him, he stepped out of the bedroom and slowly approached in the direction of the nautical table, and along with his actions, the goathead on the table was indeed reacting – it was slowly rotating its sight, and its gaze was always landing on Duncan Body.

Duncan frowned suddenly.

The shape of this goat’s head was exactly the same as the goat’s head in the real world, but the position was wrong – the “goat’s head” in the real world was placed on the left hand edge of the table, but the goat’s head in front of him was placed in the center of the table.

Duncan quickly recalled, and soon remembered – before he returned to his bedroom to rest, he had placed the Dreaming Skull in this position.

The Dreaming Skull? This was the Dream Skull he had brought back from the cultists’ ship? Why did it appear in subspace?

His heart instantly flooded with countless chaotic guesses and thoughts, Duncan cautiously came to the nautical table, his hands propped up on the edge of the table, gazing at the table’s “goat’s head”, who also slowly lifted up his eyes, and met Duncan’s gaze with his empty eyes.

The silence and emptiness of the gaze was a bit creepy.

After a few seconds of this silent confrontation, Duncan decided to break the silence – he tensed his face and greeted the other with a serious expression: “Hello, I’m Duncan.”

The creepy goat head on the table spoke up, “Hello, you’re not Duncan.”

At that moment, Duncan barely managed to control his expression!

But fortunately, the usual dealings with the ship a bunch of harmonic door guy hammered out of the thick nerves played a role, he in the critical moment to tense up the expression on his face, just the bottom of his heart shock waves obviously not so easy to calm down – this creepy goat head actually opened his mouth!
And more astonishing than this fellow’s sudden opening was obviously the content of its opening!

While controlling the change of expression on his face, Duncan tried to ask back in a calm tone, “I’m not Duncan, so who am I?”

“You are the Captain.” The goat’s head, suspected to be the Dreaming Skull, said calmly.

Its voice when speaking was almost identical to Duncan’s familiar “First Mate”, but it revealed an eerie gloominess and brevity that made people very uncomfortable.

Duncan adapted to this unaccustomed feeling, while looking at this strange goat head with a somewhat strange gaze, he felt that the other party’s words were very strange, and couldn’t help but follow up with the question: “Isn’t the captain of this ship Duncan?”

“You are the captain,” the goat-head met Duncan’s gaze, “and you are not Duncan.”

That seemed to be all it said, and no matter how much it pressed, no matter how much it changed the way it asked the question, no matter how much it changed the angle of the question, its response was always the same – the person it was talking to at the moment was the captain of the ship, but it wasn’t “Duncan”.

After a few exchanges, Duncan ceased his probing in this regard, and wore a thoughtful expression.

He was the captain of the ship, but he wasn’t Duncan – of course he knew he wasn’t Duncan.

He was Zhou Ming, a wandering soul, and the great explorer named Duncan Abnormale was just the identity he “occupied” at the moment, the real Captain Duncan had died a century ago, and he knew it.

But he was the only one who knew it – or rather, the goat-headed first mate in the real world knew it too, but he never said it.

It was a fact that couldn’t be publicized on the Lost Country.

However, this goat head that was suspected to be the “Dreaming Skull” had directly stated this.

Duncan looked up and around the wrecked cabin, and out through the empty windows at the ragged masts, decks, and far side of the ship.

The wrecked Lost Country sailing through subspace hadn’t changed much because someone in the captain’s cabin had blown the whistle on the fact that the captain wasn’t Duncan.

Was it because this was subspace? Because the ship was a projection? Or was it because the Dreaming Skull that broke the story wasn’t part of the Lost Country, and so its perceptions didn’t affect the ship’s stability?
Duncan slowly withdrew his gaze, and it fell back to the goat’s head on the table.

And what exactly was this goat’s head, the Dreamscape Cranium proper, or a projection of the Dreamscape Cranium in subspace? Or …… was the Dreamland Skull originally split into two parts, one part was found by the cultists, and the other part always remained in subspace?
After frowning and contemplating for a moment, Duncan tentatively asked, “Who are you?” The goat’s head on the table fell silent, and after a long time, just when Duncan thought the other party would not respond to him, it suddenly opened its mouth, “I don’t know.”

Duncan suddenly felt a bit curious, “Then what do you know?”

The goat-head was silent for a much longer time this time, and finally answered the same, “I don’t know.”

“…… You don’t know anything, but you know that I’m the ‘captain’ of this place, and you know that I’m not Duncan,” Duncan’s expression was a little subtle, ” And do you know this ship? Do you know where you are?”

The goat’s head doesn’t respond at all anymore – it falls silent and still, as if it’s turned into an actual wooden statue.

It dawned on Duncan that the Dreaming Skull’s mind was incomplete.

Unlike the “first mate” in the real world, this dream skull seems to retain only a little bit of sporadic memories and fragmented thinking functions, even if it shows some communication ability in this side of the subspace, this communication ability is only limited to answering a few questions – – Once the questions “exceed the scope”, it will not be able to answer the questions. Even if it shows some ability to communicate on the subspace side, this ability to communicate is limited to answering a few questions – once a question goes “over the top”, it will fall into stasis.

But in this fragmented mind, the Dreaming Skull knew that the ship’s “captain” was not Duncan.

Duncan pondered, his mind already had a vague suspicion.

It could still have something to do with the deal the real Captain Duncan made with Sasloka a century ago in the depths of subspace.

In that deal, the Lost Country, which had been almost completely assimilated and swallowed by subspace, was reshaped by the King of Dreams, and the King of Dreams, who had been trapped in the depths of subspace and fragmented, was given a chance to get out of the trap – even though what was trapped was only a spine and a fragment of a head, and a piece of a head. Though it was only a spine and a fragment of a head, and almost all of its memories were lost, Sasloka did manage to return to the real world.

The Dreaming Cranium in front of him would be one of those fragments that had failed to get out of subspace in the first place – it had also been through that same transaction, and thus knew what had happened to the real Captain Duncan, but it had only tattered memories of it.

Duncan instinctively felt that the Dreamscape Cranium should know more – more things related to Sasloca, to subspace, to the Lost Country back then.

But its fractured and chaotic mind could not effectively organize those trivial memories.

However, just as Duncan’s thoughts were diverging in this direction, and he was beginning to think about how to guide this “Dreaming Skull” to answer more of his own questions, he was suddenly interrupted by a slight tremor and a strange noise that suddenly came from an unknown direction.

The Lost Country was shaking, and something seemed to be approaching from beyond the ship’s side!

Duncan instantly looked up from the table and subconsciously looked out the window not far away.

A huge continuous shadow, and a pale cracked “earth”, do not know when appeared in the endless darkness outside the window, the huge pale structure slowly moving outside the window, the surface in addition to shocking cracked wounds, can be seen as if the skin-like grain traces.

Duncan’s heart instantly moved, as if he thought of something, he quickly stepped to the window, and just at this time, the window of the slow-moving “pale earth” on the emergence of a new structure – first a widening crack, followed by a cloudy, dark yellow solidified crystals, and then Then there was a huge eyeball that occupied almost the entire field of vision outside the window.

A huge eye was slowly moving past the window of the captain’s cabin.

Duncan stood in front of the window, looking at the cloudy, one-eyed eye that was gradually moving across the room past his own eyes, and as his field of vision moved, he saw the structure surrounding the eye – a pale, inhuman face.

Then he looked farther, and saw the huge body rolling in the darkness, and the fragmented earth almost “embedded” in the body.

It was the pale Cyclops who had carried the shattered earth on his back in subspace!
Duncan suddenly recalled – he had seen this amazing “individual” from afar when he first entered subspace!
But then he had only skimmed from a distance, not even getting a good look at the giant and the earth on its back – this time, the Lost Country was sailing almost right up against the face of the giant’s remains.

The impact and shock of the scene was far greater than the last – even Duncan, for a moment, felt suffocated.

He just gazed out the window at the slow-moving giant, at the cloudy one-eye that had been dead for who knew how long.

The dead, muddy one-eye gazed at him silently as well – as the Lost Country moved, the eye slowly turned, gazing calmly at Duncan in the chaotic subspace.

Duncan: “……?!”

He blinks, reconfirming that the giant’s cloudy one-eye did indeed turn slowly as the Lost Country moved – the eye saw the Lost Country, and it was staring!

(End of chapter)