Chapter 135: Chapter 139: The People Defending the Border
A century ago, the Brilliant Starship and Sea Mist, much like the Homeloss, were both escort ships.
However, few people knew what those two legendary warships had been through after parting ways with the Homeloss and how they gradually transformed into their current state.
Commanded by “Iron Marshal” Terrian, Sea Mist, after several handovers, became a main warship of Frost City-State, known to people as the “Unsinkable Ship” and the “Breathing Corpse.” The ship was heavily damaged multiple times in battle, yet it seemed as if a deathless soul dominated it, allowing it to struggle out of an almost certain fate of sinking time after time, slowly turning into an iron behemoth with almost every defiance of shipbuilding principles in its repeated transformations.
It was said that the ship would directly consume steel and seabed deposits for sustenance, growing out turrets and armor plates bit by bit during its unmanned night voyages.
As for the Brilliant Starship, inherited by the “Sea Witch” Lucresia, it maintained an even denser veil of mystery since it seldom approached the civilized world—in fact, apart from a few members of the Explorers’ Association and the church fleets that often patrolled the frontier, ordinary captains on the Endless Sea hardly had a chance to lay eyes on the ship.
Those who were fortunate enough to see the Brilliant Starship described it thus:
“It clearly no longer belongs entirely to our reality. That ship has truly sunk at least once, and during its journey in the Endless Sea, it lost half of its structure. One side of it remained like a ghost vessel, a remnant from a century ago, while the other half, under the power of the witch, twisted into bizarre shapes, with the bow draped with cursed objects from the deep sea. It was cluttered with clanking machinery and magical gear. The crew had long perished, replaced by soulless clockwork automatons and cursed dolls running about the deck.
“Without a doubt, that ship is a corpse sailing through the seas—or rather, half of a deformed corpse, dragging along its half soul.”
Lucresia’s gaze drifted slowly over her command ship, nodding slightly with satisfaction.
The Brilliant Starship was in good shape, and her crew was content.
She knew how the world described her ship—and how they described her brother’s Sea Mist. She knew many captains feared them, second only to their father who had returned from Subspace.
But she did not care; she rarely interacted with humans on a regular basis, and those she did engage with were either incredibly brave, possessed profound knowledge, or had at least experienced some true adventures. Those people could communicate with her in a rational manner, which was enough.
She and her brother were still considered part of the real world, seen as “standing with humanity,” despite many feeling that both Sea Mist and Brilliant Starship were cursed; the aforementioned perceptions would not change.
Ultimately, in a world teeming with curses, where nearly every City-State lived amidst countless abnormalities and apparitions, where even modern human civilization was described as “cursed,” it was reasonable to reserve some room for two such peculiar ships.
Lucresia walked slowly from her mechanical-flower-like “stage” toward the bow deck, where two clockwork puppets wearing comical masks clinked past her, and a large doll made of velvet, silk, and ribbons ran up to her, chirping in a thin voice, “Mistress! Mistress! Good morning! Good morning!”
“It’s almost noon,” Lucresia said offhandedly, bypassing the doll to stand at the bow and gaze into the distance.
There she saw a majestic gray-white wall of fog, standing like a colossal curtain at the world’s edge on the distant sea, connecting the sky and ocean in an imposing and grand posture.
That was the “Border.”
The grand wall of fog had many names—World’s Frontier, Grand Mist, Mist Barrier, but its most official term was the “Eternal Veil.”
However, Lucresia preferred to simply call it “Border.”
That’s how her father had once referred to it.
Normally, the Eternal Veil acted like a circular barrier, encompassing all known seas and undulating slightly within a fixed range, never shrinking nor expanding, just a constant natural phenomenon.
But on rare occasions, part of the barrier would suddenly “appear” within the boundaries of civilization and cause catastrophic disasters during its inward collapse, dragging nearby physical matter into the deeper realms of the world and even opening gateways directly to Subspace—these terrifying disasters were known as “Border Collapses.”
For captains frequently navigating the Endless Sea, Border Collapses were more dreadful than storms, turbulent currents, or mass hysteria.
The only good news was that such collapses were infrequent.
Lucresia spent most of her time in the Border regions, observing and studying the Border, and had even tried to deduce the underlying mechanisms of its sudden inward collapses—her father had done the same a century ago.
Yet, to this day, no one had unraveled the secrets behind this veil.
What had her father discovered, or “heard,” that made him suddenly decide to cross through the mist in search of Anomaly Zero?
Lucresia withdrew her gaze from the borderland.
In the borderland, one should not stare at the Eternal Veil for long. Although there was no clear evidence that the dense fog could devour one’s mind or influence thoughts, watching any target on the surface of the Endless Sea, especially in places far from the civilized City-States, naturally carried risks.
Heaven knew what things could spread with a “gaze.”
A melodious steam whistle broke the calm of this borderland sea.
Lucresia looked toward the sound and saw small silhouettes suddenly emerging from the edge of the thick fog wall. The silhouettes gradually approached and finally outlined ships.
There were three vessels, the newest steel warships powered by robust steam cores, heading towards the location of Brilliant Starship, but it was just a chance encounter.
The other party sounded the whistle first, a greeting—in this borderland, meeting anyone who wasn’t an Evil God from Subspace was a cause for joy.
“Mistress,” Luny approached, her clockwork maid’s voice mechanically emanating, “It’s the Church’s patrol fleet… visual confirmation, Fire Transmitters.”
“…Only the Fire Transmitters and Storm Cultists would patrol so close to the Eternal Veil,” Lucresia muttered softly, “A bunch of daredevils.”
“Should we respond?” Luny asked.
“… Sound the whistle in greeting,” Lucresia whispered, “To our civilization that still endures.”
…
Today, the antique shop had few customers, with only an unremarkable pair of ornaments sold in the morning, after which no one else stepped through the door.
Nina sat next to the counter with a mechanical engineering textbook, studying its intricate mechanical structures intently, occasionally picking up a sketchbook next to her to doodle in the blank spaces. Duncan sat inside the counter, curiously flipping through Nina’s history textbook while casually making notes in his own notebook.
Only Sherry had nothing to do. She wanted to go home but didn’t dare to leave. She wanted to chat with Nina but didn’t understand the material Nina was studying. Extremely bored, she wandered between the nearby shelves several times before finally muttering, “Is reading really that interesting?”
“It’s interesting!” Nina looked up, “And I have my final exams coming up. I need to hurry and revise.”
Duncan also glanced at Sherry. “If you’re really bored, you could find a book to read too… I have a Brief History of the City-State Era here, interested?”
Sherry looked at the books near Duncan, opened her mouth, and her face showing an awkward expression, “I… I can’t read…”
Duncan stopped reading abruptly, and Nina also looked up in surprise.
“Why are you so surprised,” Sherry, feeling somewhat hurt by their reactions, widened her eyes, “I… I’ve told you I sneaked into school, I… is it so strange that I never went to school, that I was raised by a dog…”
Duncan was indeed surprised, but seeing Sherry’s reaction, he felt more reflective, “You not knowing how to read but still managing to sneak into school confidently; I don’t know whether to call you overly confident or too trusting of Ardog’s unreliable cognitive interference capabilities.”
“Ardog’s cognitive interference capabilities are very reliable!” Sherry immediately defended, “It just… just…”
The girl’s face turned slightly red, seemingly hesitant to continue, but Duncan guessed what she wanted to say and showed a slight smile, “You’re already arguing with me—look, it’s not that scary, is it?”
“That’s right, my uncle is so kind,” Nina, the naïve girl, randomly chimed in, “He used to be a bit irritable for a while, but he’s all good now!”
“I…” Sherry opened her mouth but suddenly didn’t know how to communicate with the “uncle and niece” in front of her. After struggling for a while, she couldn’t even form a second word.
Duncan smiled and shook his head, but just as he was about to say something more, a slightly familiar scent suddenly appeared in his senses!
Duncan was momentarily startled. The next second, he recognized who the scent belonged to—
Fenna! The young Judge was approaching the antique shop… and quickly!