Duncan and Alice stood at the end of the stairs leading to the ship's bottom, staring at a strange and terrifying scene—the entire bottom of the Lost Ship was in a shattered state, and beyond the broken cabin, there was a dark, shadowy void filled with a faint, endless light.
Is this the true "bottom structure" of the Lost Ship? What lies beyond this broken cabin?
Could such a sight exist beneath the surface of the Endless Sea?
Duncan cautiously took two steps forward, stepping onto the largest piece of wood debris. He turned to look back at the way he had come.
The "final door" still stood quietly in place, fixed on a floating piece of wood. Behind the door was a dark staircase slanting upwards—but around the door, there were no walls, just emptiness.
This door floated alone in this space.
Duncan carefully walked around to the back of the door and found nothing there. Through the open door, he could see the opposite broken cabin clearly.
"Captain..." Alice's anxious voice came through. She looked around in fear and finally fixed her gaze on Duncan. "Is this... normal?"
Duncan felt less certain than this doll. After all, she could still blindly trust the captain. Where was he supposed to find confidence as the "captain" now? But seeing Alice's nervous expression and recalling the "crew rules" the goat-headed creature had mentioned, Duncan managed to suppress his unease and maintained his usual serious demeanor.
"Don't worry," he said calmly. "The Lost Ship is a vessel beyond your imagination."
"Indeed, it’s hard to imagine..." Alice marveled, her curiosity slightly eased by Duncan's calmness. She began to examine the broken ship's body and the chaotic light outside. "Captain, it doesn’t look like there’s any water out there, does it?"
Duncan thought for a moment and looked at Alice with curiosity. "Do you think this is below the surface of the Endless Sea?"
Alice was taken aback. "Huh? Why are you asking me?"
Duncan replied nonchalantly, "Because you have experience."
"That’s only because you threw me..." Alice instinctively started to say, but she quickly swallowed her words and answered honestly, "I don’t think so... There must be water in the sea. Even if the Endless Sea is strange, there should definitely be water below the surface. But out there, it looks like... like..."
"A void filled with chaotic light," Duncan shook his head and slowly moved forward. He reached the edge of the wooden debris beneath him and looked at the flowing light outside the cabin. "The bottom of the Lost Ship... is not within the Endless Sea."
Alice was stunned. "Huh? Then where is this?"
Duncan didn’t answer, appearing deep in thought—mainly because he didn’t know either.
But he had a vague guess: perhaps this ship was sailing in several different dimensions at once?! On the surface, it seemed like the Lost Ship was navigating the Endless Sea of the real world, but in reality, different parts of the ship belonged to different dimensions!?
This could explain why the deeper they went into the Lost Ship, the more bizarre and eerie the surroundings became. Perhaps the eeriness wasn’t due to the cabin itself...
So if the dark, chaotic space outside the cabin isn’t the Endless Sea, then what is it? It didn’t look like the spirit realm, nor did it resemble the dark space seen during spirit realm travel... Could it be something "deeper"? Profound? A subspace?
With countless guesses and hypotheses swirling in his mind, Duncan slowly drew out his pirate sword from his waist. With one hand holding the lantern and the other gripping the sword, he cautiously approached the edge of the debris beneath him—he was very careful. Even though the gaps between the debris looked like he could jump over them in one leap, he didn’t rush. Instead, he wanted to test with his sword first.
Heaven knows what might suddenly emerge from those cracks and swallow someone who jumps across without caution.
In the next moment, he widened his eyes in surprise.
He saw the tip of his sword disappear, and on the opposite edge of the crack, a sword tip suddenly appeared.
Duncan frowned and tested in different directions, experiencing the same phenomenon again.
He finally began to understand.
These areas that looked like cracks were actually still continuous in space! The seemingly shattered structure of the ship's bottom remained intact!
He straightened up and looked around at the cracks and the flowing light outside. He realized: these "broken" appearances were just an optical effect and did not affect the continuity of space. The body of the Lost Ship was not broken here, but for some reason, the "image" outside the ship's shell appeared inside it.
But what caused this? Was it a spatial overlap? Or a misprojection from a higher dimension to a lower one?
Duncan instinctively recalled all the reliable or unreliable knowledge in his mind, trying to explain the strange phenomena here. Meanwhile, Alice looked at the captain, confused, as he acted strangely at the edge of the crack—sometimes shining the lantern around, sometimes poking with the sword. After watching for a while, she finally couldn’t help but ask, "Captain... are you using a special calming ritual to... calm the cabin?"
Duncan, with his back to Alice, silently sheathed his sword and forced himself to say, "...yes."
"Oh! That's amazing!" Alice's eyes lit up. "Are you going to perform a calming ritual for all the pieces here?"
"...That’s enough," Duncan continued to maintain his serious expression and quickly shifted her attention before the curious doll could ask more. "Let's move forward."
As he spoke, he carefully took a step forward while holding the lantern—when he stepped out, he tensed every muscle and nerve in his body, ready for any unexpected situation as he crossed the crack, but nothing happened.
Just like when he tested with the sword, he simply "jumped over" the gap as if walking normally in a regular cabin, directly stepping onto the opposite piece of debris.
Alice watched in amazement as the captain walked ahead, seemingly ignoring the cracks beneath him. She tried to imitate him but felt nervous as she crossed the crack, ultimately unable to resist and jumped forward...
And naturally, she bumped right into Duncan.
Duncan felt a sudden gust of wind behind him, followed by something solid crashing into his back. Instinctively, he turned around and waved his hand—
In the next second, he looked expressionlessly at the headless doll behind him, where Alice's head rolled a few meters away, stuttering, "S-s-sorry..."
"Just stay here, I'll get you back," Duncan sighed, reflecting on why he had brought this useless doll along, and quickly chased after Alice's rolling head, picking it up with ease. "Have you considered getting a screw for your neck...?"
Alice's head seemed not to hear Duncan's complaint. She suddenly widened her eyes, pointing in a certain direction. "Th-th-there's... there's a d-d-door..."
Duncan frowned and turned to look in the direction Alice's head was desperately indicating.
A black wooden door stood quietly at the end of the debris.
A door... there was actually another door, indeed there was another door!
When Duncan first saw the hint on the door at the end of the stairs, he wondered if such a classic situation would occur. Now that he saw this additional door in the "bottom space," his heart couldn't help but leap!
At that moment, Alice's body stumbled over, and as Duncan returned her head, he looked at the door. "Was there a door over there before?"
Alice put her head back on with a "pop," moving her neck as she glanced over. "It seems there wasn’t. It appeared after we walked over."
Duncan nodded noncommittally and carefully approached the newly appeared door with the lantern in hand.
In this strange cabin, he actually didn’t need the lantern for light. The chaotic dim light seeping through the cracks was enough to maintain basic brightness in the space, but he still kept the lantern—this was necessary caution.
Although the goat-headed creature hadn’t warned him about this, Duncan had decided that as long as he was still in the cabin below the waterline, he would never extinguish this light.
The newly appeared door looked unremarkable, with a dark door panel similar to the "final door" at the end of the stairs, and it resembled most of the doors used in the Lost Ship's cabins.
Duncan looked up and saw a line of letters above the door frame, seemingly cast in copper:
"This door leads to the Lost Ship."
(End of Chapter)