With three hours to go, the sun will rise over distant sea level, and the relatively safe and steady day will replace the unsettling nights – if the sun does rise normally.

Duncan glanced at the mechanical clock hanging not far away, the hands on which were beating unhurriedly.

"Are you going to wait for sunrise?" The goat's voice suddenly came, "There are still three hours." ”

“…… Waiting three hours is no more interesting than sitting here looking at a basically pale chart," Duncan shook his head, got up and moved his shoulders a little, and then slowly walked towards the bedroom, "I'll go back and rest for a while, and if I haven't come out before sunrise, you can call me directly." ”

"We're here to help."

Duncan nodded, pushed the door back to the bedroom, casually tossed the paper with the mysterious emblem on the table, and walked to the bed not far away.

His body doesn't need much rest, but every once in a while he still takes a nap before dawn – not to relieve any tiredness, but simply to "get up and welcome the sunrise."

This allows him to maintain a sense of "living" on the Lost Ship, so that he will not gradually lose his humanity on the ghost ship - although he does not know if there is any hidden danger in this regard, he has been consciously maintaining this habit of "maintaining the human way of life on the ship" after realizing that the state of the Lost Country is not as stable as he thought.

Duncan lay down like this, closed his eyes, listened to the whispers of the wind and waves coming from the sea, and felt the slight shaking of the big ship under him, and controlled himself a little bit to relax.

……

On the Bright Star, in the feminine captain's bedroom, Lucrecia, dressed in a silk nightdress, suddenly sat up from the bed.

Her hair was a little messy, her expression was a little tired and irritable, and when she got up, she was holding a huge rabbit doll that was half a man tall and had a funny shape and a hint of weirdness.

The doll was made of pink and blue fabric, with scars on its face and a strange red color like blood on its jagged mouth, and the rabbit doll moved slightly as soon as Lucrecia got up, then turned its head slightly, and looked at its mistress with button-studded eyes, and a little girl's voice came from its cotton-filled body: "Mistress, I thought you had managed to fall asleep......"

Lucrecia glanced at the clock next to her, and her tone was slightly annoyed: "Let's count it as a few dozen minutes of sleep, and then I was awakened by a strange dream...... When is it now? ”

"Two hours before sunrise," said the rabbit doll, jumping from the hostess's arms to the ground, it bounced to the nearby cupboard, opened the door with its seemingly soft plush palm, took out the captain's treasured wine, poured a small glass, and held it to Lucretia, "You can sleep for a while—it will help you calm down." ”

Lucretia took the glass and drank it down, but still stood up: "No need, continuing to lie down will only increase the irritability...... Clean up. ”

"Yes, Mistress."

The rabbit doll with the voice of a little girl replied crisply, then took the wine glass handed by the hostess and put it away, and then began to make the bed in a bouncing manner.

Lucrecia, meanwhile, snapped her fingers, and the lights in the room turned on, and she exhaled slowly, shuffling over to the dresser, where she tapped her fingernails on a drawer under the mirror, which opened.

A toy sailor carved out of wood, dressed in a classical navy uniform and holding a small command knife in his hand, first bowed to Lucrecia and then stood on top of a drawer brandishing the command knife and giving a sharp command.

A large group of toy soldiers ran out of the drawer, first quickly called the roll in a group, then ran to the side to pick up combs, hand mirrors, water glasses, and toothbrushes, and quickly and nimbly ran to Lucrecia or the backrest of the seat behind her, and began to wash the hostess in the morning.

Lucrecia sat listlessly at the dressing table, tossing the dolls around, while she struggled with the exhaustion of a night of insomnia and crankiness, and thought about the Lost Country for a while, before she took a deep breath and forced her mind to regain consciousness.

At this moment, a faint golden light suddenly spilled in through the gap in the curtain not far away, and reflected the vision of the "sea witch".

Lucrecia saw the light and didn't react at first, but after only two or three seconds, her eyes suddenly froze, and then she suddenly raised her eyes to the mechanical clock next to her.

There is still an hour before sunrise.

This is not the time for the sun to rise!

She stood up suddenly.

The toy sailors were briefly confused, and then they regrouped while tidying up, and the rabbit doll, who had already made the bed, noticed the hostess's movements, and ran up and down: "Mistress, it seems to be dawning outside!" ”

"It's not dawn," Lucretia said quickly, walking briskly to the window, "where are we now?" ”

"It's still on the course we scheduled last night," the rabbit doll said quickly, "and we're getting closer to where the 'big guy' I saw before falling!" ”

At the moment when the rabbit doll's voice fell, Lucrecia had already pulled open the thick curtains, and then pushed open the windows reinforced with a fine metal mesh.

Outside the window, a thin and hazy fog floated on the surface of the sea, which was the most common sight in the border area, and in the depths of that thin and hazy fog, a large, vaguely diffused pale golden shimmer was floating silently on the sea, and it was impossible to judge how far away the Bright Star was.

A glowing behemoth floating on the surface of the sea.

Lucrecia stared in that direction, then took a deep breath and her body suddenly dissolved into a scattered pile of colored paper—which swept out the window, flew over the deck, across the staircase, and into the wheelhouse on the upper middle level.

In the wheelhouse, the clockwork puppet Luni in the maid's costume was at the helm, she immediately noticed the approach of the hostess, and when the colored paper flew into the circle, she had already released the steering wheel, and the next second, Lucrecia's figure had condensed from the colored paper, and reached out to take the rudder.

"Mistress, I was just about to send someone to call you," Lunny said, stepping aside, "and suddenly a golden light appeared out of the fog, and it should be the 'falling object' we are tracking. ”

"At full speed, all on standby, the stern part of the ship ready to dive into the spirit realm at any time," Lucrecia said quickly, "Is there enough spiritual dust and witch oil?" ”

Luni quickly responded, "Well stocked, your orders have been delivered." ”

Lucrecia nodded, and immediately after, the Bright Star fully awakened at the captain's command.

A large number of clockwork sailors, puppets and ceramic soldiers rushed to their respective posts, and the special paddlewheel structures on both sides of the hull began to rotate at an accelerated pace, and the engine device that seemed to be behind the times gradually released more power than the modern propeller engine, making the speed of the whole ship increase rapidly, and in the second half of the hull, the ghostly "primitive hull" became more illusory and blurred, and there were jet-black hair-like stripes gradually spreading from the stern to the surrounding seas. It was as if a pitch-black wake wave was extending from behind the Bright Star.

Under Lucrecia's own helm, the entire ship is a mixture of magic and machinery, beautiful and elegant, and terrifying and ugly!

And as the speed of the Bright Star increased further, the huge golden luminous body floating between the mist and the sea surface finally appeared more and more clearly in Lucrecia's eyes.

And what it shows is its real scale, which is getting bigger and bigger.

Even the clockwork puppet Luni's eyes gradually widened, and she couldn't help but let out a low exclamation, "Oh my God...... Mistress, what's that? ”

Lucrecia didn't speak, just stared straight ahead, at the huge golden phantom that was emerging from the mist, already like a small mountain.

It was so large that it was almost impossible to discern its full outline from a single perspective, and it was so majestic and perfect that it didn't look like anything that a human could have built.

A large, intricate golden geometry floated silently on the surface of the sea, emitting a soft and moving pale golden shimmer, almost more than three times as tall as the tallest flagpole of the Bright Star, and its sides stretched out like a rampart, its upper part sloping slightly outward, like a terrifying cliff, and its appearance did not see any superfluous trivial bulges, and every place looked natural.

As they got closer, Lucrecia and Luni began to be able to observe the behemoth in more detail.

"It seems to be translucent?" The doll Luni curiously leaned in front of the open viewing window, "Looks ...... Like a glowing piece of stained glass? ”

“…… No, it seems like it's more than transparent......" Lucretia shook her head, her eyes staring straight ahead without blinking, as if to see something out of the edge of the massive glowing geometry, when a small black dot suddenly flew out of the nearby fog and entered her field of vision.

It was a seabird—something that existed even on the vast sea, even on the border of this strange phenomenon.

Rather, it is precisely because they do not possess the complex intelligence of humans that these "wild animals" live better than the brave and powerful explorers in the strange frontier waters.

Lucrecia's eyes were drawn to the seabird, and she noticed that the poor fellow seemed to be confused by the golden light on the sea, and rushed straight to the "mountain" that shimmered in his panic.

However, in the next second, the expected tragic impact and death did not happen - the bird flew directly into the slightly sloping "cliff".

After a few moments, out of the corner of Lucrecia's eye, she saw the bird fly out of the other direction, seemingly intact.

Luni saw this as well, and the clockwork puppet muttered in surprise, "...... Is that a phantom? ”

(End of chapter)