Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 746 - Chapter 746 Chapter 743 Another Core

Chapter 746: Chapter 743: Another Core Chapter 746: Chapter 743: Another Core Fenna left. Even she, blessed as she was, needed to take a good rest at this point.

Duncan watched her leave the captain’s quarters, not taking his eyes off her until she vanished outside the door. Only then did he turn his gaze to the goat head, quietly sitting at the edge of the navigation table, “What do you make of the ‘revelations’ Gomona passed on to Fenna?”

“…The massive collapse and disintegration of the sun seems to be something the four gods knew would inevitably happen,” the goat head struggled to say, finally seizing the opportunity to speak, “I knew they were aware of it, probably have been for the past ten thousand years! When The Saint created the world in the age of shadows, it was all planned with them. But during the epoch of the deep sea, not one of them made a peep about the root of the problem of course, we must understand, because revealing this would scare to death more than just one or two City-States, even the high priests were kept in the dark… and now look, the sun is outright starting to disintegrate…”

Duncan looked up, simply reached out, and pressed his hand against the goat head’s rambling mouth, “I should not have asked you.”

With its mouth covered, the goat head made some muffled, incomprehensible noises, its obsidian eyes crafted like gemstones whirling vigorously on its wooden face, revealing an unprecedented liveliness in its gaze.

Duncan sighed and withdrew his hand, “I’m asking about the latter part of the revelation… ‘They’ intend to talk to me. What do you think they want to discuss? In what form might they appear?”

“…I have no idea,” the goat head spoke, this time with some restraint while shaking its head dejectedly, “Surely they won’t be trying to coax you into taking over something again?”

Duncan didn’t respond, merely contemplating in silence for a long time.

The state of ‘them’ did indeed seem dire. Gomona had previously been able to convey fragmented messages to him, but now she could only deliver revelations through Fenna, accompanied by such contamination…

Just then, a voice from far away suddenly interrupted Duncan’s thoughts.

His expression shifted slightly as he looked up toward an oval mirror hanging not far away on the wall–a layer of spectral flames spread under his gaze, turning the mirror’s surface pitch black as light and shadows slowly emerged.

The figure of Tirian appeared in the mirror.

“Father,” the “Iron Marshal” wore a solemn look; the background behind him likely near the harbor area, and a pervasive golden glow, clearly not that of a normal sunset, seemed to saturate the area behind him, “I apologize for the sudden interruption…”

“It’s okay,” Duncan waved his hand, his tone gentle, “What’s happened? Why so urgent?”

“…Our scholars have entered the core of the Luminous Geometric Body that fell in Frost. Using the data Lucricia shared before, we found its core, but the thing… it’s different from what the data showed, I hope you can see it with your own eyes.”

“Different?” Duncan frowned slightly, sensing from Tirian’s response that the situation might be complicated, immediately nodding, “I understand, I’ll be there shortly.”

He quickly cut off the connection with Tirian, his mind slightly tense, then turned around–

Outside the window of the graveyard keepers’ cottage, fine snow was silently descending, the setting sun casting the hazy snowscape over the entire world in a veil of silence.

Inside the keepers’ cottage, the stove crackled, and the tea kettle made a sharp and increasingly loud hissing sound as the water just began to boil, with steam rising.

Duncan stood up, closed the damper of the small stove, took down the black-brimmed hat hanging by the door, donned it, straightened his black long coat, and stepped out of the cottage.

Two young guards decked in black, clearing the graveyard paths and checking the streetlights, heard the noise and instinctively looked over–upon seeing the always dressed in black, bandage-wrapped, fearsome, silent keeper emerging from the cottage, they immediately stood straight and saluted in respect.

Duncan waved back at them. Then, snapping his fingers, a skeletal giant bird, blazing with ghostly flames, crossed the vast distance, landing directly on his shoulder.

“Fuel up, let’s go!” Ai Yi flapped its wings, emitting a piercing, unpleasant cry in its skeletal form, then burst into a fiercely rising ring of fire, enveloping Duncan’s figure. The ring of fire merged with Duncan, propelling them both into the sky, darting toward the direction of the harbor area…

To the east of Frost, the colossal golden glow still enveloped the entire harbor. This light seemed to have a crystal-like texture, silently permeating everything within its reach–bright, yet not blinding, gentle, yet unsettling.

The tall, bald-headed Aiden watched the golden radiance around him with some nerves.

He had shed his outdated pirate garb and now wore the new uniform of the contemporary Frost Navy–before his subordinates, he made an effort to maintain a dignified and reliable demeanor, but in front of Tirian, he did not conceal the unease in his heart.

“These ‘lights,’ are they truly harmless?” mumbled the bald man, “Looking at them, I feel as though I am ‘submerged’ in something, as if they are permeating my skin, and even breathing seems to fill my lungs with substance…”

Tyrion turned his head and glanced at Aiden.

“Firstly, you’ve got at least seven holes in your lungs now–have you ever skimped on what you pour into those holes?” he said offhandedly. “Secondly, the harmlessness of these ‘lights’ has been confirmed; in Light Breeze Harbor, Lucrecia has been studying this thing for quite some time.”

“…But the thing that fell here isn’t the same as the one in Light Breeze Harbor,” Aiden couldn’t help but mutter, “their ‘core’ is a stone sphere…”

The highly trusted undead commander, favored by Tyrion, shook his head; his gleaming, shiny head reflected a dazzling golden light in Tyrion’s field of vision.

Tyrion subtly stepped to the side without a word, opened his mouth as if he was just about to say something, but suddenly sensed the approach of a presence and promptly closed his mouth, turning back around.

Almost at the same time, a low, slightly hoarse voice reached both his and Aiden’s ears: “You mean to say, the core of the fallen object here isn’t a ‘stone sphere’?”

A silent emerald flame soared, and Duncan emerged from the flames. He walked past the startled guards and civil service staff, heading straight for Tyrion and Aiden.

Aiden was startled but quickly recovered, stepping forward to bow and greet him: “Old captain…”

A dazzling golden light swept Duncan’s field of vision; he subtly moved half a step to the side, avoiding Aiden’s gleaming head.

“Father,” Tyrion also reacted and hurried forward to greet him, “I didn’t expect you to arrive so soon.”

“I was very curious about the ‘special situation’ you mentioned,” Duncan waved his hand and said as he walked, “Don’t waste time, talk and walk–at what exact situation are we looking?”

Tyrion hurried to keep up, speaking rapidly as they moved: “Hard to describe it to you, it’s something we’ve never seen before… Even the most learned scholars of the City-State are at a loss. It’s indeed a sphere, but its surface is illusory, constantly shifting as if it’s some kind of living creature, and it emits a faint whistling sound… You’ll know when you see it for yourself.”

Listening to Tyrion’s description, Duncan just nodded slightly and quickened his pace.

They made their way through the pale golden light that covered the entire harbor area, passing docks and connecting bridges, until they reached the coastline–the entire area was eerily quiet since all personnel had been urgently evacuated, and long lines of cordons isolated the entire dock area from the city. And right there, at the edge of the harbor’s coastline, the center of the luminous body settled squarely.

From above, the irregular Luminous Geometric Body nearly covered a third of the City-State, as if a glowing structure had sprouted from the edge of Frost Island and lit up the nearby vast swathes of the Endless Sea as dusk fell.

Under the guidance of Tyrion and Aiden, Duncan finally reached the center of the Luminous Geometric Body, and beheld the “core structure” that confused and alarmed Frost scholars.

It floated at the end of the beach, with calm sea waters just a dozen meters beyond–a spherical orb with about a ten-meter diameter hung quietly there; crude scaffolding had been erected around it, with some workers bustling about nearby.

“You see, it’s like that…” Tyrion lifted his hand, pointing at the massive orb with its surface flowing with colors, seemingly alive and unnerving, “This thing doesn’t look like a stone.”

“…Of course, it’s not stone…”

Duncan raised his head, squinting his eyes in brief surprise before a sense of inevitability mingled with a subtle, inexplicable emotion rose within him. He looked at the “core” and his lips moved a few times before he softly responded to Tyrion’s question.

“This is a gaseous planet.”

Tyrion faltered, repeating the unfamiliar term with a hint of confusion: “Gaseous planet? What does that mean?”

Duncan, however, did not reply; after a moment’s observation, he simply took two slow steps forward, reaching right beneath the floating “gaseous planet,” and quietly gazed up at its surface structure.

The magnificent cloud belts, shining with a faint metallic luster, flowed slowly across its surface, outlining rings of “cloud streams” that encircled the entire body. There were small vortices and storms rotating within those clouds–slow and exquisite.

As he drew closer, he heard the faint “whistling” that Tyrion had mentioned, so faint it was as if it came through vast distances of time.

It was a sound emanating from within the planetary body–in the ancient times before everything perished, that whistling might have once been deafeningly loud, even carrying the might to rip apart a small celestial body. Back then, this planet had a massive, staggering scale, large enough to encompass tens of thousands of Endless Seas within its mists.

Yet now, this ten-meter diameter “star” could only emit a sound so faint it was barely distinguishable… like a lament.