Chapter 1 Duncan felt his consciousness spreading throughout the ship, his perception expanding like a spiderweb. Every part of the vessel felt like an extension of his own body – smoother and clearer than before. This ghost ship, sailing on the edge of dreams, was revealing all its secrets without reservation.

His spirit began to descend, from the towering stern deck to the cabins below, to the compartments storing gunpowder and cannonballs, then to the warehouses holding anchor lines, and the water tanks… from every wall to every pillar, from every rope to every lantern…

The entire ship was gradually transforming into a detailed "projection," surfacing in his mind.

Duncan compared the structure surfacing in his mind with his memory, hoping to find some inconsistency – perhaps a beam not in the structural design, a cabin that didn't exist in the real world, or a hidden compartment never discovered – that would be the misalignment between the *Shixiang Hao* (Lost Country) and the Goathead's consciousness.

This had originally been just a thought that suddenly appeared in his mind. Duncan only realized that this ship was not the Goathead's own dream and that the Lost Country's own "memory" might also be playing a role in it, so he wanted to find evidence of the latter's existence. But as his perception continued to spread throughout the ship, this "let's give it a try" idea kept solidifying, as if an invisible voice was guiding him, telling him—

Something was really hidden deep within this ship. The Lost Country really wanted to tell him some secrets. In a place invisible from the real world, the Lost Country still "remembered" some things that had happened in the subspace.

And this hidden memory pointed to one of the most central secrets of this intricate dream—

The origin of the Goathead, and the connection between this dream ship and Xilantis.

Was it his intuition? Or was the Lost Country really whispering to him?

Vague thoughts surfaced in Duncan's mind, but he didn't dwell on the question. He focused on his work, searching for any possible clues.

This wasn't easy, because even with a ship as familiar as this one, Duncan wouldn't dare say he could clearly remember the location of every item on the entire Lost Country. He mostly hoped his "intuition" could play a role in the process, helping him find something out of place.

But he didn't expect that he wouldn't need any intuition at all – the inconsistency was more obvious and abrupt than he imagined.

He detected a large… "sensory discontinuity" below the third deck.

Duncan frowned. While tightly gripping the helm, he looked down at the place he "saw" in his perception: directly below him.

The keel?

Something suddenly occurred to Duncan. He hesitated for a moment, then released his grip on the helm.

His connection to the "helm" was severed.

But the perception transmitted to him by the entire ship didn't break. He could still feel the ship connected to him – this ship was still sailing rapidly in the boundless darkness and mist, and in the dark space outside the hull, those massive structures resembling plant roots and branches still existed and were constantly whizzing past.

Xilantis's "streamer" was also there, still circling restlessly around the bridge.

Watching this scene, Duncan had a slight understanding: it seemed that as long as a connection was established, it wouldn't be broken until the end of this dream.

Because he had entered the dream through a reflection, he was now a part of this dream – the various actions he took here would no longer be regarded as "foreign intrusions" and wouldn't be easily expelled or erased by the dream's own restorative power.

After confirming this, Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, then quickly left the bridge, but before heading through the depths of the ship, he turned back on the stern deck and returned to the captain's cabin.

Near the door of the captain's cabin, he saw the ancient lantern quietly hanging on the wall.

To go to the lower structures of the Lost Country, he needed to bring a lantern – although he didn't know if he still needed to follow this rule on this "dream ship," he decided to act cautiously.

Agatha's figure appeared in a nearby mirror, looking at Duncan curiously: "Captain, what are you going to do?"

"Going to the hold," Duncan said quickly, while glancing back at the navigation table – the Goathead was still sitting there quietly, seemingly without any reaction. "There's something in the hold."

Agatha was stunned, and her expression immediately became serious.

"We'll talk as we go," Duncan added. "Don't discuss it here."

With that, he picked up the ancient bronze lantern, opened the door, and walked out of the room.

He strode across the misty, empty deck. The "tinder" had ignited the lantern, causing the flame to emit a faint green glow. The swirling mist around him receded slightly in the lamplight, then closed in behind him – in the light and shadow outlined by the lamp, an extra shadow was also moving quickly beside him, almost overlapping his shadow.

Agatha's voice came from the shadow: "The hold you mentioned… is that the area you usually don't let me near?"

"That's right," Duncan nodded. He opened the door leading to the lower cabins, holding the lantern and quickly descending the stairs. "In the real world, the Lost Country's hold is connected to the subspace – there's a fragmented area there, and every crack reflects the scene of the subspace. Without my company, it's dangerous for anyone to get close."

"... Your description already sounds dangerous," Agatha's shadow seemed to tremble. Although her expression couldn't be seen, the shadow clearly faded a bit, as if indicating she was a little nervous. "Judging by your reaction, has the situation in the hold changed on this 'dream ship'?"

"There's a structure there that I've never seen before," Duncan said quickly. He passed through the stairs below the deck, through the empty, dim warehouses, delving deeper layer by layer. "Not far ahead, the fragmented area is at the bottom of the last flight of stairs..."

After passing through those dimly lit, eerily atmospheric, and even optically inverted corridors and stairs at top speed, Duncan and Agatha's shadow suddenly stopped.

They had arrived at the end of the last flight of stairs, and the door connecting to the fragmented area of the hold stood quietly in Duncan's sight.

Agatha's shadow "crawled" along the stairs to Duncan's side, then slowly rose along the wall. Judging from the silhouette, she seemed to be looking at the door in front of her cautiously and nervously.

"I can't feel anything on the other side of the door," she said in a low voice. "Even at this close distance, I can't feel anything… it's as if the other side of the door is a pure 'void'."

Duncan glanced at Agatha, then looked down at the lantern in his hand.

The radiance emitted from the lantern softly illuminated the surroundings, but when it fell on the door in front of him, it seemed to be absorbed by something, faintly leaving only half its brightness.

He took a light breath, stepped forward, and pushed open the door.

In the real world, the space behind this door was the most fragmented cabin at the bottom of the Lost Country – the structure where it floated in the subspace.

But here, what greeted Duncan's eyes was initially an endless darkness.

He almost thought he was going to fall into this boundless darkness.

Duncan subconsciously felt his nerves tighten. The contrast between this vast darkness and the scene in the previous cabins was too strong, catching him a little off guard, but soon, he saw that there were other things in the darkness.

His eyes gradually adjusted and made out the massive things that emerged from the darkness:

First, there was an extremely huge continuous structure, as wide as a road floating in the void, with slightly raised shapes at both ends. Then, what became clear were many "branches" connected to both sides of this continuous structure, neatly arranged in the darkness, extending all the way to the end of the horizon, just like… ribs.

Duncan was standing in the middle of this massive, continuous structure. He saw that besides the "main trunk" under his feet and the thin branches around the main trunk that resembled ribs, he couldn't see any outer walls of the cabin – not even the fragmented outer walls. Between those "ribs," there was only dark nothingness, and wisps of mist surged in the darkness, surrounding this vast space.

Duncan knew what this was.

At the same time, Agatha's shadow also "crawled" out of the door and landed beside Duncan's shadow. She looked at the incredible scene in front of her in astonishment, and after a moment, she suddenly realized: "Wait, this thing is..."

"The Lost Country's keel," Duncan nodded lightly, speaking in a deep voice.

"The keel… that's right, the Lost Country is a sailing ship built a century ago, of course it has a keel…" Agatha hesitated, her tone a little strange, "But it looks…"

Duncan ignored Agatha. His attention was almost entirely drawn to the amazing structure that curved and stretched in the darkness.

This was the first time he had seen the Lost Country's keel – because according to the shipbuilding regulations of this world, under normal circumstances, a completed sailing warship would not expose the keel in the visible area inside the cabin, and the original "bottom compartment" of the Lost Country where the keel could be seen was already broken and floating in the subspace, making it impossible to distinguish the structure of the keel.

He had never thought about what the keel of this ship would look like.

Now he knew.

He walked onto the "road" floating in the darkness, walked forward along it, and stopped in front of the first "segment".

The radiance emitted from the lantern illuminated the huge raised, connecting structure, and in the distance, there was the next "segment," and more "segments."

This segmented "connecting structure" certainly didn't meet the construction requirements of a sailing ship's keel. For ordinary old-era sailing ships, the keel had to be a complete piece of wood in order to withstand the wind and waves at sea.

But Duncan believed that the keel at the bottom of the Lost Country, with its many "connecting structures," was definitely stronger than any keel in the world.

Because it was the spine of an ancient god.

(End of this chapter)