Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 489 - Chapter 489 Chapter 490 Bizarre Mansion

Chapter 489: Chapter 490: Bizarre Mansion Chapter 489: Chapter 490: Bizarre Mansion Duncan stood at the top of the tall spiral staircase, looking down and surveying the ancient yet magnificent mansion, reconfirming his judgment: this mysterious estate was almost identical in style to the room where the Frost Queen, Lei Nora, had once slumbered!

A thought crossed his mind, and he immediately turned his head to look in the other direction at the top of the spiral staircase.

There lay a deep and shadowy corridor on the second floor, with indistinctly detailed, eerie paintings hanging on both sides of the walls, complemented by dark, thorn-like iron candelabras in between the frames. The pale light from the candelabras made murky shadows in the corridor, and at the very end of the passage, within the dim and obscure shadows, it seemed as though a doorway flickered momentarily.

Was that the master of the estate’s room?

Duncan immediately stepped forward, striding quickly towards the deep, dark corridor, the monotonous creaking of the old wooden floorboards sounding beneath his feet. The pallid candelabras on either side appeared to wobble irregularly with the breeze he stirred up, causing the already sinister corridor to flicker with shifting light and shadow, rendering it even more blurry and dim.

Duncan stopped at the end of the corridor, his brows tightly furrowed as he looked into the darkness before him.

There was no door–what had appeared as a door in the shadows was seemingly nothing more than a fleeting illusion. Before him, there was only a section of corridor that had come to an abrupt halt. The floor, walls, and ceiling here were fractured and broken, and across the divide, there loomed nothing but a hollow, terrifying void of darkness.

Duncan cautiously approached the edge of the fractured flooring, peering outwards for a moment, then turning his gaze to survey the surrounding edges of the break.

Beyond lay a boundless space of emptiness, with the corridor beneath his feet jutting out abruptly and isolated into the unsupported void. He could see no other parts of the mansion or the room and door that were theoretically supposed to be at the end of the passageway.

Duncan stepped back, quietly observing this void.

Something should have been here, a room, a door. However, it had now vanished, as if “ripped” from the mansion and disappeared into the void.

Suddenly, a rustling sound arose nearby, breaking Duncan’s reverie.

He sharply turned toward the source of the noise.

A headless figure in a black coat stood not far away, bending over as it carefully wiped a marble decorative table.

After a moment of thought, Duncan approached the headless figure.

The figure did not flee like the previous fleeting shadows; instead, it slowly straightened up. As Duncan neared, it even bent slightly at the waist, displaying the demeanor of a well-trained butler with appropriate manners.

Yet, the sheer barrenness of its shoulders and above only added a more sinister and horrifying aspect to this otherwise polite gesture.

“Guest, whom are you looking for?” asked a hollow, muffled voice emanating from the upper body of the headless figure, sounding polite and refined.

A weird sensation surfaced in Duncan’s heart, but having dealt with many strange entities in this world, he quickly disregarded the eerie feeling and casually addressed the headless entity before him, “What happened to the room at the end of the corridor?”

“It has left,” the headless body responded, “It left a very long time ago.”

Duncan frowned and pressed on, “And what about the person inside the room? There was supposed to be someone there, right?”

“The lady of the room has also left, departed with the room–a very, very long time ago,” replied the headless figure.

“A very long time ago?” Duncan struggled with the incongruity, “You mean to say it has just left?”

“Yes, guest, just left, which is a very, very long time ago,” the headless body politely answered, “Here, anything that has happened, occurred a long time ago–and the next thing will happen a long time from now.”

The words spoken by the headless body were bizarre and difficult to understand, yet they prompted Duncan’s mind to speculate wildly–was there a discontinuity in time? A fracture? Was the mansion situated within some sort of temporal rift?

Suddenly, Duncan thought of the brass key. He had come to this eerie mansion after turning that key, which had come from a lucid Doomsday Preacher–a group known for their discontinuous experience of time.

Brass key?

A thought struck Duncan, and he suddenly felt something, immediately looking at his own hand–the cool sensation seemed to have been delayed for a long while, only now abruptly spreading into his palm, where a brass key lay quietly.

“`

And as he saw the brass key, the headless figure standing opposite seemed to suddenly notice something as well. The body shook, and a muffled voice subsequently came from its chest cavity, “Ah, so you are the honored guest with the key–forgive my neglect. Are you here looking for the mistress?”

“Mistress?” Duncan said confusedly, “Didn’t you just say the mistress had left with the room a long time ago?”

“There are two mistresses,” the headless figure slowly said, answering like a butler patiently addressing a guest’s query, “One is the mistress of the room, who never steps out of the room. She has already left with the room. The other is the mistress of the mansion–who never enters the mansion.”

Duncan was even more perplexed by what the headless figure was saying, but he quickly guessed that the “mistress who never steps out of the room” referred to the Frost Queen Le Nora. He then had a vague idea about the identity of the other “mistress.”

“What is the name of the other mistress?” he asked, his gaze fixed on the headless figure.

“This is Alice’s Mansion,” the headless figure quickly replied, “The name of the mistress, of course, is Alice.”

Duncan lowered his eyelids without a change in expression, controlling the minute changes in his eyes.

Everything was as expected–the fact that he had entered the mansion after turning the keyhole on Alice’s back meant how could this bizarre mansion not be related to “Alice”?

The name of the mansion was “Alice’s Mansion.” Alice was indeed the true mistress of the mansion, while Le Nora was merely the mistress of that room–and since she never stepped out of it, it was more fitting to think of her as a special prisoner rather than a “mistress.” This fit with the information revealed by Le Nora:

She was confined in the “Drift Place” to control the “Ancient God Replication” from the depths of the sea.

Now, thanks to the “help” of a Subspace Shadow, this special prisoner had escaped with her prison.

So the “warden” of this prison was wandering outside it?

Duncan couldn’t help but visualize the innocently joyful smile of Alice; he couldn’t associate the simple doll with the identities of “mistress of Alice’s Mansion” or “warden of the Drift Place.”

He quickly controlled the rampant thoughts swirling in his mind, adjusted his expression, and raised his eyes to look at the headless figure, “Why does the mistress of the mansion never enter it?”

“She is resting in the garden,” the headless figure answered, “She has been resting for quite a while but it is not yet time for her to return to the mansion.”

Resting in the garden?

Duncan’s mind spun with thoughts while he remained outwardly impassive, “May I see this ‘mistress’?”

“Of course,” the headless figure immediately said, and though it had no head, Duncan felt as though a gaze was falling upon the brass key, “You are a guest holding the key, capable of unlocking any door in this mansion–including that leading to the garden. Please follow me, I’ll take you to the garden.”

Duncan nodded in agreement, following the headless figure toward the spiral staircase that connected the first and second floors of the mansion.

On the way to the garden, he tried to strike up a conversation in the hope of gathering more information, “What is your role here?”

“I am the butler, guest,” the self-proclaimed butler said, “The regular servants and maids dare not approach you, so I came.”

“Are there many servants and maids here?” Duncan recalled the whispers he had heard earlier in the hall and the occasional glimpses of phantoms, “It sounds like this place is usually quite lively?”

“The Drift Place welcomes all drifters and any spirits that have strayed here. Here, no one has a home to return to–so at the very least it serves as a decent Shelter.”

“What is your name?” Duncan asked.

“I do not have a name, guest. You may call me the butler,” the headless butler replied, “Most servants and maids here are nameless, and those who have names eventually lose them–people who have lost their homeland will, in the end, lose their names too, such is our fate, and I was one of the earliest to arrive here, having lost my name long ago.”

“People who have lost their homeland…” Duncan suddenly stopped his steps, unconsciously repeating the phrase.

“Guest?” The headless butler also stopped, curiously “looking” at Duncan.

“It’s nothing, just a bit distracted,” Duncan quickly recovered and shook his head.

But just as he was about to take a step again, a painting on a nearby wall suddenly caught his attention.

“`