Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 821 "Forgery"

Although in theory, Anomaly 077 is not a normal "dead person", everyone thinks it's okay - at least we should try it.

So more than ten minutes later, the sailor who was lazing in a corner of the lower deck opened his eyes startled by a lot of hurried and messy footsteps. He looked up and saw the captain and everyone on the ship running towards him in a hurry. Before he could react, Vanna rushed over and picked up the mummy by the collar.

The sailor had never seen such a scene before. After being picked up by Vanna, he noticed the murderous (and expectant) eyes focused on him. The mummy's back teeth were trembling instantly. He shrank his neck and tried to hide backwards: "I... I just need to find a place to take a nap. It shouldn't violate the crew rules... And even if it does, you can't all beat me up, right?"

"Don't close your eyes. You can't sleep anyway." Duncan walked up from behind the crowd and looked Anomaly 077 up and down. "I have something serious to talk to you about."

"Business?" The sailor was stunned when he heard that, and then he realized that the gazes from the surroundings did not seem to be murderous. He quickly stood up and straightened his clothes, while paying attention to Vanna's next move (he was still worried that this beautiful and strong woman would break his bones if she touched him casually), and asked curiously, "What business? Didn't we just arrive at the node of the God of Death? Are we going to return now?"

Duncan waved his hand and said bluntly: "It is because we have reached the node of the God of Death. We now need a dead person to try to reawaken the guide here."

The sailor was stunned for a long time and didn't understand what it meant. He turned his eyes to Agou in the corner for help: "...What do you mean?"

"To put it simply, due to the 'rot' of the God of Death, the death mechanism in the mortal world has disappeared. As a result, no more dead people arrive in this wilderness, so the gatekeeper and the path of no return that were originally used to guide the dead are gone," Agou explained patiently, even though he didn't know why the other party asked him. "The 'gate' of the God of Death is hidden in a place that can only be reached through a specific 'guiding ceremony'. We must now find a way to reawaken the gatekeeper here - to put it simply, we need a dead person."

The sailor blinked his eyes and finally understood the situation roughly. But after a few seconds of being stunned, he raised his hand hesitantly and pointed at himself, stating a fact: "I'm not completely dead yet... Although I have been working hard in this direction. Why don't you let Ms. Agatha try? She is much deader than me. At least I still have some bones and flesh, but she has lost her soul..."

"We've discussed this. Agatha, Vanna, and Shirley don't quite fit the bill," Morris sighed, and couldn't help but look at the mummy in front of him with a complicated expression. "But then again, you don't seem to fit the bill either. Although you are a corpse in nature, there are many corpses like you in the world right now, and these 'undeads' don't seem to attract the attention of the 'gatekeepers.'"

"After all, it's still unknown whether the 'gatekeepers' in the Death Field still exist," the sailor shrugged. "Maybe they all disappeared with Bartok's 'rot'. After all, strictly speaking, those 'gatekeepers' themselves are part of the death mechanism..."

Morris frowned and fell into thought. Duncan suddenly noticed that the vague black shadow on the wall next to him seemed to be shaking slightly. He asked curiously: "Agatha? What's the problem?"

"I was thinking..." Agatha broke the silence, "Perhaps we can use a ritual to forge a dead person based on the 'sailor'. As for whether the 'gatekeeper' here still exists, we will know then."

Duncan was stunned: "... Can this be forged?"

"I was also a 'gatekeeper' - although I was a gatekeeper on the side of the living world, but in a sense, the gatekeepers of the living world and the gatekeepers of the dead world are 'corresponding', which is also a manifestation of the 'symmetry' of the God of Death," Agatha said, "In my... in my memory, the training I have undergone includes the operation of 'dialogue' with the gatekeepers of the dead world after the soul leaves the body. Through those 'dialogues', I learned that the 'gatekeepers on the other side' are not so accurate in their judgment of the dead. Sometimes they even linger around the living. This kind of 'misjudgment'... can be guided by humans."

Shirley blinked and suddenly realized: "Wait, do you allow this? This sounds weird!"

"Of course not. This is heresy," Agatha shrugged and said casually, "Deceiving the Lord's messenger, blaspheming the order of life and death, and may even be used to induce death - under normal circumstances, this is punishable by death."

Upon hearing this, Shirley quickly spoke up: "Hey, I was just about to ask, if your death priest is sentenced to death, will he be promoted or lose his job..."

Duncan raised his hand and pushed Shirley behind him, interrupting her eloquent words (although he had asked this question before), and then looked up at Agatha: "Is everything okay?"

"No problem, because now even the order of life and death has disappeared, and even the old teachings and the Lord's authority... who else can remember them except me?" Agatha's shadow whispered. As the shadow swayed, she seemed to smile bitterly and shook her head. "And now no one can sentence me to death."

Duncan looked at the hazy shadow quietly for a moment, then nodded gently: "Okay, let's get started. What should we do specifically?"

"First, we need to leave the range of the Lost Homeland. On this ship, even the 'gatekeeper' can't easily penetrate," Agatha said immediately. "Second, I need the 'sailor's' help. I want to pretend that he is completely 'dead', but he doesn't need to do anything. He just needs to follow my instructions. The last part... is for the sailor."

Her eyes fell on Abnormal 077 not far away. "You need to remember, no matter what you see, don't follow it. The guidance of the gatekeeper is irresistible to the dead. Even though you are not a real dead person and have the ability to resist this guidance, it will still be difficult."

"Don't worry, I won't go with you," Anomaly 077 immediately patted his chest confidently, "I'm doing well on the Lost Homeland, why should I leave..."

"What if the crew of the Sea Anthem appeared at the end of the No Return Path?" Agatha said slowly, "What if you saw the captain of the Sea Anthem?"

The scene suddenly became quiet.

Even the sailor himself became quiet, and the mummy stood still. But just when Duncan thought he would waver in hesitation, the mummy shook his head even more firmly.

"I won't go with her."

"Are you sure? This is serious."

"I'm sure," the sailor grinned and laughed, "the captain told me to go to the city-state to deliver the letter and gave me the route - she wouldn't let me go with her. That's not her."

"...Okay, that's fine."

The cold and disorderly wind blew across the wilderness under the night sky. The black and white tall grass undulated and surged in the wind. An origami boat floated down from the side of the Lost Homeland and landed on the ground. Duncan was the first to jump off the boat and stepped on the solid ground of this wilderness of death.

Beside him, Agatha's hazy figure seemed to "float" down from the boat as if weightless, and landed lightly beside him.

The last person to jump out of the boat was the sailor—he jumped onto the ground awkwardly with his hips snapping at an odd angle.

"Tsk... I should have asked someone to install a metal joint before I set off," the sailor muttered as he reattached his dislocated joint, then limped over. "Is this all? What should I do next?"

Agatha looked back and saw that the small boat was still stuck among the weeds. Only Lucrecia was standing silently on the boat, while everyone else remained on the Lost Homeland - this was to prevent the situation on the "Isle of Ashes" from happening again.

Then she looked away, checked around, and pointed to a certain spot: "It's very simple, just come over and lie down."

"Oh." The sailor agreed, and without further ado, he immediately cooperated and lay down flat at the place Agatha pointed out - he didn't care about the cold ground and let himself be buried by the black and white weeds that were almost half a person's height.

"…It feels like a funeral," the sailor muttered as he lay there, "all this grass around is like a coffin surrounding it."

Agatha ignored the sailor's muttering.

After making sure that the other person was lying down, she took a deep breath, then began to calm her mind and concentrate. After a moment, her figure, which had been blurry and hazy like an illusion in the fog, gradually became clear.

A barely perceptible green flame flickered in her figure, as if briefly reflecting her entity. She transformed from a vague shadow into a translucent, ghostly individual. Although still illusory, it was enough for her to complete the next "operation".

A cane that appeared from her memory appeared in her hand at some point.

“…I miss it a little bit.”

Agatha looked at the cane in her hand, muttered softly, then stepped beside the sailor and slowly drew the ground with the cane.

The pale flame burned and rose in the traces she left, and on the land of black, white and gray, a triangular outline gradually took shape.

The sailor lay in the center of the triangle, the tension finally made him close his mouth, waiting for the next moment.

Agatha began to add many symbolic runes around the triangle, and she outlined them very carefully - this was something she hadn't done for a long time.

"From now on, don't speak or look around. The dead don't speak or look around. You may hear someone calling your name or see strange lights and shadows, but they are all illusions. Don't pay any attention to them." Agatha finally stopped near the sailor's head and looked down at the mummy lying in the center of the triangle. "Finally, you will see a dusk-like glow, the only 'color' in this land of the dead. At that time, the 'gatekeeper' on this side will come.

"Remember what I told you, don't follow him - let me negotiate with the captain for the rest."

(End of this chapter)