Chapter 1 An Idol

A doll, a doll so exquisitely lifelike that Duncan almost couldn't tell the difference at first glance—she lay quietly in the ornate wooden box, like a lady sleeping in a coffin, waiting for someone to awaken her.

Duncan really felt that she would wake up in the next second.

But it was just an illusion. The doll lay quietly in the box, completely unresponsive to her surroundings.

Duncan warily and cautiously observed this strange... "thing." A doll itself was nothing strange, but her appearance, which was too close to that of a real person, and the coffin-like wooden box instinctively made him feel a sense of danger. Coupled with the inexplicable appearance of this box on the Vanishing, he couldn't help but be vigilant.

After observing for a long time, Duncan finally confirmed that this gorgeous gothic doll in the box would not suddenly jump up and give him a surprise, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. Then, frowning, he asked the Goathead, "What do you think is going on?"

"This should be the important cargo that the previous ship was escorting," the Goathead replied immediately. Although it had previously stated that it did not recognize the strange wooden box that suddenly appeared on the deck, its experience in maritime affairs was obviously richer than that of Duncan, the fake captain. "The outside of the wooden box has symbols pointing to the gods, and there are pins around the box for fixing chains, which may indicate that it was once in some kind of sealed state—transporting sealed objects on the boundless sea is an extremely risky thing. That ship looks like it has some background."

"Sealed?" Duncan's eyelids twitched subconsciously, and then he looked at the lid of the box, which had been completely opened by him. The lid was broken when it came to the Vanishing, so it could be easily pushed. Although he didn't understand things like seals, he believed that the seal on this thing had definitely failed. "So this thing is a dangerous object?"

"Very dangerous to those fragile ordinary people, but I don't think this will pose any threat to you—this kind of 'anomaly' that can be sealed with special techniques cannot resist Captain Duncan's power."

Duncan was silent, his expression serious, but his heart was surging.

The Goathead's compliment sounded quite pleasing—if he really were "Captain Duncan," he might have believed it, but he wasn't, so he was now panicking.

Because the Goathead's words had made it clear that this doll lying in the coffin was a "dangerous item"! It's just that it couldn't threaten the real captain!

Although he now bore the name of Captain Duncan, and even seemed to have taken over the other party's body and mastered some power, "Zhou Ming" was very self-aware—he didn't think this would make him the same as the "real Captain Duncan."

He still knew too little about this world, about this ship, and even about his current body.

In addition, he also keenly noticed a new strange word in the Goathead's words just now—"anomaly."

Something that doesn't conform to the norm is an anomaly. This sounded like a very ordinary word, but the Goathead's extra emphasis made him vaguely realize that this word seemed to have a special meaning here.

Perhaps, in this world, the word "anomaly" refers not only to the meaning of "beyond the ordinary," but it also specifically refers to a certain type of thing? For example... a doll lying in a coffin.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a suitable reason to ask about this kind of thing that should be "common sense."

After sighing in his heart that he still needed to carefully collect information and accumulate knowledge, Duncan frowned and took one last look at the doll, as if he had made some kind of determination: "I should throw it back into the sea."

When he said this, there was a trace of hesitation in his heart, especially when he looked at the doll, this hesitation was even more obvious.

This was of course not for the simple reason that "this doll is very beautiful," but because... "she" really looked too much like a living person sleeping in a coffin. When he thought about throwing her back into the sea, Duncan even felt like he was throwing a living person off the ship.

But this hesitation ultimately strengthened his resolve.

Because he already knew that there were many strange and bizarre things in this world—although so far he had only come into contact with one Vanishing in this world, even on this ship alone, he had already seen a talking Goathead, a mast that could raise its own sails, an eternal ship's lamp, and that strange and dangerous sea, the lingering spirit world and the endless sea fog...

And just now, he had also bumped into a mechanical ship transporting sealed objects on this strange sea, and the things that ship was "escorting" had strangely boarded the deck of the Vanishing.

As a rational and cautious person, he couldn't keep this thing, which was very likely to contain strange and dangerous power, by his side just because the doll looked pretty.

Regretful as he was, Duncan finally firmly closed the lid of the "coffin" again. Because he was worried, he found nails and a hammer from the cabin, and carefully nailed a circle of iron nails to the coffin.

Finally, he pushed this "sarcophagus" containing the doll to the edge of the deck.

The Goathead's voice came into his ears: "You can dispose of your spoils as you wish, but I will still humbly and humbly offer a suggestion, you don't need to be so cautious, the Vanishing hasn't increased its spoils for a long time..."

"Shut up." Duncan simply cut off the Goathead's blah blah.

The Goathead fell silent, and Duncan kicked the "sarcophagus" hard, kicking it directly into the sea.

The heavy wooden box fell straight down from the edge of the deck, plunged straight into the sea that had returned to its normal color, made a muffled sound, and then floated up from the water, gradually drifting towards the stern of the Vanishing.

Duncan watched the box drift away with the waves, and only after it was completely blocked by the stern of the ship did he breathe a slight sigh of relief. Then he looked up at the distance and saw that the mist on the sea had completely dissipated, and the blue sea was slowly undulating around the Vanishing.

The ship had completely left the "spirit world" and returned to the real dimension.

On the nearby sea, there was no trace of the mechanical ship that had briefly intersected with the Vanishing.

Duncan frowned slightly, and simply estimated the time that had passed after the two ships intersected and the respective speeds of the two ships.

According to the current situation on the sea, that ship should not have disappeared from sight so quickly.

"...Is this also because of this strange sea? Or is it related to the so-called 'spirit world navigation'?"

Duncan muttered to himself, but soon his attention was attracted by something else—

He saw a line of golden light suddenly appearing in the depths of the dark clouds that had never dispersed above the sea.

Bright golden sunlight gradually filled the air, and the cloud layer, like a heavy curtain, gradually dissipated as if swept away by an invisible hand. The sea, which had been gloomy for an unknown amount of time, was gradually being illuminated by the sun—Duncan stood at the bow of the Vanishing, widening his eyes and watching the scenery of the dark clouds dissipating. At this moment, he suddenly felt a strange touch.

Ever since he learned of the existence of "this side" many days ago, ever since he first explored this strange ship, the constant dark clouds had always shrouded the entire ocean, so much so that he almost thought that there was no sunlight in this world at all, that this world was always gloomy.

He had been separated from the sun for too long. Even on the other side of the "door," in Zhou Ming's single apartment, the thick fog outside the window had long blocked the sun.

But now, the Boundless Sea was clearing up.

After being separated from the sun for a long time, he finally had the feeling of seeing the light of day again in the world of "this side."

Duncan subconsciously took a deep breath and opened his arms towards the direction of the sunlight, and the thick clouds seemed to respond by quickly dissipating and fading away. In the most dazzling moment of the sky, a huge sphere covered by countless twisted golden light streams came into Duncan's eyes.

All of Duncan's expressions froze at the moment when he opened his arms to welcome the sunlight.

He stared at the sky with wide eyes. The sunlight was very dazzling, but not as dazzling as he was familiar with. He could clearly see the thing hanging in the sky, see its spherical shell that seemed to have countless dense textures, see the brilliant light streams overflowing around it, and against the background of the intertwined light streams, two circular structures distributed in concentric circles centered on the central sphere were slowly rotating.

Duncan narrowed his eyes, and he vaguely distinguished that the two circular rings seemed to be connected by countless fine and complex runes, as if some supreme power had engraved eternal bonds in the sky, imprisoning the "sun" in the sky.

Duncan failed to embrace the sunlight he had been looking forward to for a long time.

There was no sunlight in this world at all.

"What is that?" he said softly, his voice low and somewhat cold.

"That's of course the sun, captain," the Goathead's voice was as calm as ever.

(Ma Yeah!

I will try to maintain double updates these few days... until the manuscripts are exhausted or the energy can't keep up 23333)