Vanna had left, and even blessed as she was, she needed a good rest.

Duncan watched her leave the captain's cabin until her figure disappeared out the door. Only then did he withdraw his gaze and look at the goat head quietly waiting at the edge of the navigation table. "What do you think of the 'revelations' that Gomona conveyed to Vanna?"

"...The massive collapse and disintegration of the sun seems to be something the Four Gods knew would happen sooner or later," the goat head, having held back for a long time, finally seized the opportunity to speak. "I knew they knew about this! They must have been holding it in for ten thousand years! Even when the Abyss Saint created the world, he discussed it with them, but during the Deep Sea Era, they wouldn't say a word, wouldn't explain what was wrong. Of course, we have to understand that if this got out, it wouldn't just scare one or two city-states to death. Even those popes were kept in the dark, weren't they? But now, the sun is disintegrating..."

Duncan looked up, reached out, and pressed down on the goat head's balabala mouth. "I shouldn't have asked you."

With its mouth blocked, the goat head made a jumble of gurgling sounds in its throat. Its obsidian eyes rolled wildly in its wooden face, showing a rare spark of animation.

Duncan sighed and withdrew his hand. "I was asking about the second half of the revelation... 'They' want to talk to me. What do you think they want to talk about? And in what form?"

"...I don't know about that," the goat head said, finally showing some restraint. It shook its head sheepishly as it spoke. "They're not going to try to trick you into taking over something again, are they?"

Duncan didn't speak, but quietly pondered for a long time.

"Their" condition seemed to be truly bad. Gomona could previously transmit snippets of information to him, but now she could only deliver revelations through Vanna, and even then, they were accompanied by such pollution...

Just then, a voice from afar suddenly interrupted Duncan's thoughts.

His gaze changed slightly in an instant. He looked up at the oval mirror hanging on the nearby wall—a layer of illusory flame spread under his gaze, and the surface of the mirror immediately turned black, with lights and shadows slowly emerging.

Tyrian's figure appeared in the mirror.

"Father," the "Iron Vice Admiral" said with a hint of solemnity in his expression. The background behind him seemed to be near the port district, and an ethereal golden light covered it as if it were immersed in it. It was clearly not a normal sunset. "I'm sorry to interrupt you suddenly..."

"It's alright," Duncan said, waving his hand in a gentle tone. "What's the situation? Why so tense?"

"...Our scholars entered the interior of that luminous geometric object that crashed in Frost. According to the information Lucrezia shared earlier, we successfully found its core, but that thing... is not quite the same as in the records. I hope you can see it with your own eyes."

"Not quite the same?" Duncan frowned slightly. He realized from Tyrian's reaction that the situation over there might be somewhat complicated, and he nodded immediately. "I understand. I'll be there soon."

He quickly cut off the connection with Tyrian, his mind slightly focused. He turned his head—

Outside the window of the graveyard watchman's hut, fine snow was falling silently. The setting sun cast a hazy glow, enveloping the whole world in silence.

Inside the watchman's hut, the stove was crackling, and the tea kettle was hissing sharply, the water just having boiled and steam rising.

Duncan stood up, closed the damper on the stove, and took down the black-brimmed hat hanging by the door. He put on his hat, straightened his long black overcoat, and stepped out of the hut.

Two young guards in black, who were sweeping the paths and checking the streetlights in the cemetery, heard the movement and turned their heads in unison—they saw the silent watchman, always dressed in black and wrapped in bandages, whom they found so awe-inspiring, walk out of the hut, and they immediately stood straight and saluted.

Duncan waved in response, then casually snapped his fingers. A skeletal giant bird burning with ghost flames crossed the distant distance and landed directly on his shoulder.

"Oil's full, let's go!" A Yi flapped its wings, making a harsh, unpleasant cry in its skeletal form, then suddenly transformed into a fiercely rising ring of fire. The ring of fire wrapped around Duncan's figure, and the two merged into one, instantly flying into the sky and streaking towards the port district...

In eastern Frost, a massive golden light still enveloped the entire port. This light seemed to have a crystalline texture, quietly soaking into everything within its range—bright, but not dazzling; gentle, yet unsettling.

Aiden, a tall man with a shiny bald head, looked at the golden light around him nervously.

He had taken off his old pirate garb and was now wearing the new uniform of the modern Frost navy—when he was in front of his subordinates, he would try to maintain a dignified and reliable appearance, but in front of Tyrian, he did not hide his unease.

"Are these 'lights' really harmless?" the bald giant muttered. "Looking at them, I feel like I'm 'immersed' in something, like they'll seep into my skin, and even breathing feels like I'm sucking something into my lungs..."

Tyrian turned to look at Aiden.

"First, you have at least seven holes in your lungs—and you usually pour less stuff into those holes?" he said casually. "Second, the harmlessness of these 'lights' has been confirmed. In Light Breeze Port, Lucrezia has been studying this stuff for a long time."

"...But the stuff that fell down here isn't the same as the one in Light Breeze Port," Aiden couldn't help but mutter. "Their 'core' is a stone ball..."

The undead commander, deeply trusted by Tyrian, shook his head, his gleaming head reflecting a dazzling golden light in Tyrian's vision.

Tyrian unobtrusively took a small step to the side, opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but suddenly sensed an approaching aura and immediately closed his mouth and turned his head.

At almost the same time, a low and slightly hoarse voice reached his and Aiden's ears: "You mean to say that the core of the wreckage here isn't a 'stone ball'?"

A ghostly green flame rose silently, and Duncan's figure stepped out of the flame. He walked past the startled guard soldiers and administrative personnel around him and went straight to Tyrian and Aiden.

Aiden was taken aback, but reacted instantly and hurried forward two steps, bending down and bowing in salute: "Old Captain..."

A dazzling golden light swept across Duncan's vision. He unobtrusively took half a step to the side, dodging Aiden's gleaming head.

"Father," Tyrian also reacted and hurried forward to greet him. "I didn't expect you to arrive so quickly."

"I'm curious about the 'special situation' you mentioned," Duncan said, waving his hand as he walked forward. "Don't waste time. Let's talk as we go—what exactly is the situation?"

Tyrian hurried to keep up, speaking quickly as he walked: "It's hard to describe to you. It's something we've never seen before... even the most learned scholars in the city-state are at a loss. It is indeed a sphere, but its surface is illusory and constantly flowing, like some kind of living thing. It also makes a slight whistling sound... You'll know when you see it with your own eyes."

Listening to Tyrian's description, Duncan simply nodded slightly, while quickening his pace.

They traveled through the pale golden light that pervaded the entire port district, across the docks and connecting bridges, all the way to the coastline—the road was very quiet, and the personnel in the entire area had been evacuated in an emergency. A long cordon separated the entire dock area from the city, and the center of that luminous body was located, without bias, in a corner of the coastline of this port.

If one were to look down from the air at this moment, the irregular luminous geometric shape would cover almost a third of the city-state's area, as if a luminous structure had "grown" out of thin air on the edge of Frost Island, illuminating a large area of the nearby sea in the twilight.

Under the guidance of Tyrian and Aiden, Duncan finally arrived at the center of the luminous geometric shape and saw the "core structure" that puzzled, and even frightened, the Frost scholars.

It was floating at the end of the beach, a dozen meters away from the calm water—a sphere about ten meters in diameter floated quietly there. Simple scaffolding had been erected around its edges, and some staff were busy nearby.

"You see, it's like this..." Tyrian raised his hand, pointing to the huge sphere that seemed to be running like a living thing, with a surface of flowing colors that was unsettling. "This thing doesn't look like a stone."

"...Of course it's not a stone..."

Duncan raised his head, squinting slightly. After a moment of surprise, a matter-of-fact but subtly inexplicable feeling welled up in his heart. He looked at the "core," his lips moving a few times before he quietly answered Tyrian's question.

"This is a gas giant."

Tyrian paused, repeating the unfamiliar word in confusion: "Gas giant? What does that mean?"

Duncan didn't speak. After observing for a moment, he slowly took two more steps forward, stopping beneath the floating "gas planet" and quietly looking up to observe its surface structure.

The brilliant cloud bands with a slight metallic luster flowed slowly across its surface, outlining circles of "cloud currents" that surrounded the entire planet, and small vortices and storms swirled between those cloud bands, slowly and beautifully.

As he got closer, he heard the "whistling" that Tyrian had mentioned, very faint, as if across a distant time.

It was a鸣响 coming from within the star—long, long ago, in the years before the annihilation of all things, that whistling sound might have been deafening, even carrying the power to tear apart a small celestial body. At that time, this planet still had a huge and shocking scale, enough to fit thousands upon thousands of Boundless Seas into its clouds.

But now, this ten-meter-diameter "star" could only make that faint, almost imperceptible sound... like a whimper.

(End of chapter)