Deep Sea Embers.

Chapter 829 The Final and the Initial
The Brilliant Star slowly adjusted its angle near the coast, and the paddle wheels on both sides of the ship let out a low whimper. It began to gradually accelerate and slowly sailed into the boundless fog, going faster and faster, farther and farther, and finally completely disappeared from Duncan's sight.

Duncan stood at the bow of the Lost Homeland for a long time, looking in the direction where the silhouette disappeared in the deep fog. Until he could no longer see it, he still looked in that direction for a long time. Then he looked away and saw a Gothic doll in a gorgeous dark purple dress standing next to him.

The puppet was also looking into the distance, but almost at the same time, it withdrew its gaze.

The fat white dove landed on Alice's shoulder, tilting its head and looking at its owner with a pair of green eyes.

The Lost Homeland was now quiet. There was no more fighting between Shirley and Nina, no more Maurice who was always looking out to sea or thinking, no more Vanna who was always sitting on a wooden barrel carving amulets, and no more Agatha who was always appearing in strange places - on such a wide and empty deck, only the captain and the puppet were standing together.

And there is that abstract and greedy fat pigeon.

"They're all gone..." Alice muttered softly after a long time.

At first Duncan couldn't tell whether Miss Doll was expressing emotion or stating a fact after she had just realized it.

When everyone left, she was the only one who stayed without thinking about it, with a natural and logical attitude. Duncan never told her anything, and she didn't ask anything, as if she knew from the beginning that she had to stay, and even took "staying on the Lost Homeland" as a matter of course - this made Duncan a little curious.

"When everyone else left, you didn't ask me if you could stay," he looked into Miss Doll's eyes, "Have you never thought about this?"

Alice laughed, as if she hadn't thought for even a ten-thousandth of a second: "Of course I'm staying!"

She answered so simply, and apart from this answer, there seemed to be no other reason in her mind - or rather, she didn't think there needed to be any reason.

Deng looked at her steadily and suddenly laughed. Then he shook his head and pointed around: "Look, it seems to be back to the way it was at the beginning."

Alice looked around curiously and quickly realized, "Oh, right, it's just you and me on this ship again... ah, and the pigeons, and the first mate."

Ai, who was standing on the puppet's shoulder, tilted his head and suddenly flapped his wings vigorously while making a noisy and sharp female voice: "Initializing the settings, initializing the settings!"

Duncan took a deep look at the pigeon that represented one of the fragments of his hometown, and said softly and thoughtfully: "...Yes, the settings are being initialized. It's time to proceed to the next step."

As he spoke, he turned around and waved to Alice without looking back: "Let's go, Alice, it's time to fulfill the promise with Gemona."

"Aye, aye, captain!"

……

The mist slowly floated around, like a thin but endless curtain, gradually closing in on the scale of the entire world. The hazy shadow at the stern went from clear to blurred, and finally gradually disappeared completely in the depths of the endless fog - the Brilliant Star was about to reach the boundary of this "archipelagic waters". At this position, the Lost Homeland, which was left next to the "Temple Island", could no longer be seen at all.

Lucrecia stood on the highest deck of the Brilliant Star with the others, and no one was willing to look away until no familiar outline could be seen in the fog.

"…At first, I thought I would be 'cursed' and trapped on that ship for the rest of my life," Shirley muttered softly, "I was scared to death at that time…"

Next to a fence not far away, a clothesline was tied between the fence and the flagpole. The wet little doll Nilu was hanging on the clothesline. The rope passed through her sleeves, making her dangle on the rope. This little girl with an incomplete mind seemed to be able to sense the change in the atmosphere. She looked at the others who were silent with some uneasiness, and then looked at her mistress with a hint of worry, and whispered, "Mistress...unhappy?"

Lucrecia looked back at the little doll swinging on the rope and a gentle smile appeared on her face: "No, I'm just thinking."

"Think!" Nilu said immediately, but it was unclear whether she was asking a question or habitually repeating the last two syllables of someone else's words.

Lucrecia didn't care about it, and just said to herself: "Yes, think about it, think about what to do next, and you will think like this in the future, and your mind will grow, just like your sister - you both have the 'heart' I carefully made."

Nilu was in a daze on the rope for a while, and suddenly she started shaking happily: "Heart!"

At this moment, the sailor broke the silence: "We are close to the boundary of the physical sea area - Ms. Lucrecia, if we go any further we will fall into the disordered time flow. It's time to enter the next stage of the voyage."

Lucrecia nodded slightly and looked away.

In the slowly flowing mist, a hazy female figure was standing there and nodded to Lucrecia.

"I'll leave it to you and the sailor from now on, Ms. Agatha."

"You're welcome. These are all the captain's orders." Agatha's slightly ethereal voice came from the air, and then her phantom gradually dissipated in the mist.

Then, a strange and low roar suddenly sounded from the depths of the Brilliant Star and from under everyone's feet - as if some huge monster was awakening deep in the cabin and was floating up from the sea. The roar and vibration gradually enveloped the entire ship, and the "reflection of the Lost Homeland" taken away by Agatha also appeared in this physical dimension!

A huge phantom descended, it emerged from the kingdom of shadows, quickly rising from the surrounding mirror-like calm sea, and quickly merged with the Brilliant Star with unstoppable momentum.

Shirley widened her eyes as she watched the decks around her begin to burn. The false green flames devoured every part of the ship inch by inch. The towering chimneys turned into dark masts, and the steam and smoke floating in the air turned into spiritual sails. The wooden deck stretched out in her field of vision, and at the end of the deck stood the towering control platform and the dark steering wheel.

For a moment, she even felt like she was back on the Lost Homeland.

But this illusion only lasted for a moment. An illusion was just an illusion after all. At a very close distance, she quickly distinguished many details that should have been on the Brilliant Star from the shadow.

But this level of "projection fusion" is enough for Anomaly 077 to fulfill his duties as the "Helmsman of the Lost Homeland".

The shriveled and hunched corpse solemnly adjusted his sailor's uniform, nodded to Lucrecia, and walked towards the stern control platform that was towering in the phantom flames not far away. He walked up the projected steps to the platform and gripped the dark steering wheel - the hollow whistling and echoing seemed to come from the depths of this phantom, and finally turned into cheers for returning home.

"Go back!" The sailor turned the steering wheel hard and shouted in his characteristic hoarse voice, "Let's go home!"

……

A faint whistling sound seemed to be heard from the distant edge of the sea. Duncan, who was walking in the ruins of the "Pilgrim's Way", stopped and looked back in the direction where the auditory hallucination came from.

Alice, who was walking beside him, also stopped and looked at him curiously: "What's the matter?"

Duncan turned around and whispered, "...They returned, everything went well."

"Really? That's great." Alice laughed happily. "I wonder how things are going with Pland..."

"Prande...I'm fine now."

Duncan spoke slowly, sensing the distant and vague "signal" that came across time and space.

He could still sense Pland's situation. The "incarnation" staying in the antique shop was still executing the instructions he conveyed, but he could clearly feel that this connection was becoming increasingly unstable.

This is not affected by the environment, nor is it related to the "long distance" of the "end of the world"... This is a change that will inevitably occur over time as "Zhou Ming" continues to grow and awaken as part of the "anti-singularity".

The fragile shelter cannot withstand the direct observation of the "inverse singularity". A gaze beyond the boundless sea will annihilate the boundless sea in even a 0.002 second gaze.

This is why he had to let Nina, Morris and others return to the Vast Sea to act as his "eyes" - because he himself would soon lose the ability to observe the Vast Sea.

After a moment of perception, Duncan began to carefully control the connection between himself and those distant incarnations. He felt the degree of "awakening" in his essence and once again weakened the activity of the incarnation - now, he has shut down the incarnation's sense of taste and smell, blocked the perception of cold, heat and pain, and blocked all those fragile and complex feelings that belong to "human".

These feelings were once very important to him. The perception of cold and heat, the sharpness of pain, and the precious drowsiness and sleep all helped him maintain his cognitive baseline as a "human" for a long time. But now, he had to shut them down one by one to extend his observation time of the vast ocean as much as possible.

He wanted to hold on at least until Nina returned home safely.

"captain?"

A worried voice came from the side. Duncan turned his head and saw the puppet looking at him worriedly, grabbing his sleeve and shaking it carefully.

"Are you okay?" Alice asked worriedly, "You don't look well."

The expression on Duncan's face slowly softened.

He was able to maintain his human part even without relying on the "messages" conveyed by those incarnations.

"It doesn't matter," he whispered, "Let's go, they have already set off, and we still have a long way to go."

(End of this chapter)