Chapter 181 The Captain Has Arrived

Almost as soon as the white-robed, uninvited guest finished speaking, a swirling green flame erupted in the room, and a figure stepped out from within.

As soon as Shirley saw Duncan, she jumped up. "Captain, Captain! An Endseeker missionary suddenly popped up! This one seems sane. He said he wants to talk to you..."

"I know," Duncan said, raising his hand to interrupt Shirley's commotion. His eyes were fixed on the uninvited guest. "I was wondering when you would show up—didn't expect it so soon."

"You knew I was coming?" the white-robed old man asked casually, his expression still calm despite the questioning and surprised tone.

"You'd come sooner or later. Now that 'Twilight' has begun, any Endseeker Survey Team members who still have their sanity would be happy to meet me. And I happen to want to talk to you," Duncan said, glancing around. "...This isn't a good place to talk. We can go somewhere else."

As soon as he said this, Shirley, A Gou, and Morris, who was busy casting various blessings on himself, nodded in agreement...

The uninvited guest seemed oblivious to their reactions. He just looked at Duncan. "That's fine. Let's go somewhere closer to the subspace. I'll feel more comfortable there."

Go somewhere closer to the subspace? Duncan frowned slightly at this, but after a moment's silence, he slowly nodded. "Alright."

Morris's eyes widened slightly when he heard this. "Captain, are you sure you want to bring..."

"It seems you know a lot about us."

The brass lantern emitted a faint green light, dispelling the darkness. Only the sound of footsteps echoed in the empty hold corridor, mostly the sound of two people, but Duncan occasionally noticed that only his footsteps could be heard—the "Endseeker missionary" seemed not to be fully in the current reality. Sometimes he was like a weightless spirit, making no sound as he walked on the old wooden corridor. Sometimes his presence even faded, as if he had suddenly gone to a very distant place...

Soon, Duncan, holding the brass lantern, and the uninvited guest in his worn white robe, quietly walked through the lower deck of the *Lost乡*. They had passed through the light-inverted cargo hold and were now walking down the last corridor, at the end of which were the stairs leading to the bottom of the hold.

Duncan remained noncommittal. He had reached the last door and reached for the handle.

"Is it possible that I was also the one who first came into contact with you?" The white-robed Endseeker missionary had a strange smile on his face as he said calmly, "At least, one of them."

Duncan stopped suddenly. He was silent for a moment before continuing forward. "But this ship needs it."

Duncan retracted his gaze, turned his head, and continued walking forward. "I don't know. I don't remember your face—anyway, it doesn't matter if you were among those I grabbed onto the ship. What matters is that you are here, talking to me, at this moment."

"Not long ago, I never thought I'd be bringing an Endseeker missionary here one day—and in such a calm state," Duncan said casually. "My first contact with you wasn't pleasant."

An old traveler in a white robe, his body hunched, the lines on his face as if carved by the knife of time, a metallic, pale golden color in his sunken eyes. His expression was peaceful, his smile gentle, and only the passage of time flowed quietly in the depths of his eyes.

"It doesn't matter," Duncan waved his hand. "I know what I'm doing. Shirley, go to the captain's cabin and bring me my brass lantern."

As they approached the last door, the "Endseeker missionary" took the initiative to break the silence. "You don't actually need this lantern—it's for a mortal."

This was intriguing, but he politely refrained from asking.

Duncan turned back and carefully scrutinized the other man's face in the lamplight.

"...You are truly full of goodwill," the Endseeker missionary said in a low voice, seemingly with sincere praise.

"We're here. The place on this ship closest to the subspace."

As he spoke, he pushed open the dark wooden door—revealing the hold structure behind it.

The unquenchable light illuminated the hold. The shattered hold structure had been repaired during the Light Breeze Port incident and was now complete again. The sturdy hull grown from the spine of an ancient god closed in on all sides, blocking the chaotic light and murmuring whispers projected from the subspace—the eerie wooden door leading directly to the subspace still stood deep within the hold, tightly closed and silently standing.

Duncan led his "guest" into the hold. The Endseeker missionary followed closely behind him, then raised his head to examine the surrounding walls and roof, sighing, "Ah... you've repaired this place..."

"You know quite a bit," Duncan casually hung the lantern on a nearby pillar and looked back. "Did someone from your side come here in some timeline I don't know about?"

"I have seen its wreckage—perhaps in the past, perhaps in the future," the white-robed old man seemed to be recalling, his brow furrowed slightly. "...It disintegrated in the flames and fell in the darkness. The true and spectacular sight was breathtaking."

Duncan didn't respond to the topic. He had been thinking about all sorts of things on the way. After organizing his thoughts for a moment, he asked, "How many Endseeker Survey Team members like you, who have maintained their sanity, are there?"

He paused, then added, "I mean at this current point in time."

The white-robed old man was silent for a while, his expression still calm. "Only me."

Duncan felt his breath and heartbeat seem to pause for half a beat.

Then he heard the white-robed old man's voice again. "Captain, do you know what it's like to grope in the dark?"

The last Krit man who maintained his sanity and reason spoke calmly, slowly opening his hands, as if the eternal darkness was still looming before him—

"The Endseeker Survey Team... it's been a long time since I heard that name. The moment we set off, the name was reduced to dust in history.

"The 'time' of this world is limited. This is what we knew from the beginning. The entire Boundless Sea, the entire Deep Sea Age, is like a delicate clock with a preset running time. We know it can only run for a certain period of time, and our only hope is to find a chance to 'wind up' this world again before the hands stop...

"Your wise follower is about to construct the entire 'world'. He first added the coordinate axis of 'time' to the world model, and in our eyes, this coordinate axis seems more... real, solid, and cold.

"Our mission is to move along the timeline, and at the same time, observe and guide every possible historical divergence point on the timeline, doing everything possible to extend the life of the sanctuary, and at the same time, look for ways to continue forward at the end of time.

"From our own experience, this process is a bit like... walking against the light.

"The day when Anomaly 001 was first lit in the experimental field was the starting point of light. That was the most stable moment for the entire sanctuary. Everything had just been born, resources were abundant, the timeline was stable, everything was beautiful, and it even seemed like it could exist forever—we set off from that sunny morning, leaving the light behind us, and walked all the way to the darkness at the end.

"As we moved away from the 'starting point', we saw the world gradually decaying, and all the small and unavoidable hidden dangers left at the beginning of creation were gradually expanding, turning into all kinds of deadly dangers. The light faded, and the darkness grew. We walked towards the night with our backs to the sun, and the further we went, the darker it became—we did our best to adjust, observing the possibilities in the timeline in the dimming light, hoping to delay the arrival of darkness... In a sense, we succeeded.

"The original 'designed lifespan' of this sanctuary was eight thousand years—but by avoiding damage, reducing chaos, and reducing the load on the 'sun', it has now been running overtime for two thousand years.

"But in the face of the never-ending river of time, our success is insignificant and destined to be completely wiped out.

"At the end of the timeline, there is always only darkness. No matter how much we try to extend the light of the 'starting point' into the future, or pick up some scattered sparks on this increasingly dark road, we cannot illuminate the end of time, which is like an endless black wall... We crash into that boundless darkness, groping around, returning empty-handed, and then we recalibrate the entire timeline, re-verify all the possibilities, do everything possible to extend the future forward, and then crash into the darkness again, again and again... countless times."

The white-robed old man raised his head, staring at a dark corner of the dim hold. After a long while, he continued, "There is no road ahead—this was the last sentence left by the first of us to lose his sanity before he left. As the vanguard, he stayed at the end of time longer than all of us. He traveled through all the possibilities, and finally chose to give up, even choosing... to return to the past, to 'correct' those futile days.

"That is the 'Endseeker missionary' in the mouths of the first people... he just lost control not long ago, and it's been too long since I've seen him. I don't remember his name."

Duncan listened quietly, silent for a long time, before slowly speaking, "And you, maintained your sanity until the end, and even came to me soberly."

"Yes," the white-robed old man turned his head, his gaze falling on Duncan. "Because at the current time node, I entered your field of vision—when the order of the world is crumbling, the reason can be after the result."