After leaving the Third Relief Shelter, the two hailed a carriage and rushed all the way to White Dike.
When the carriage wheels ground to a halt outside the old sea burial ground, Elias immediately pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it.
There were still four hours and twelve minutes left before the 【Moon Gate】 closed.
The old sea burial ground at White Dike was built adjacent to the sea.
Most of the white paint on the outer walls had long since peeled away, exposing the blackened masonry underneath.
The paving stones in the courtyard were uneven, pushed up by tree roots, and the gaps were clogged with silt washed up during the sea beast invasion.
Empty wooden crates left behind from the post-disaster temporary requisition were still stacked under the corridor, and the entire building was once again abandoned.
Theolan walked ahead, carrying a moonlight lantern, while Elias kept his hand resting on The Roaring Cane, warily scanning both sides.
The two walked through the empty personal effects registration room and quickly arrived at the deepest part of the sea burial ground.
The brass door of the sealing chamber was tightly shut.
The door lock, hinges, and frame were all completely intact, showing no signs of prying or forced entry.
“Where's the key?” Elias asked.
“Old-style sealing chambers don't use keys.”
Theolan removed the Waxing Moon holy emblem from his chest and pressed it into the groove in the center of the door lock.
A ring of black-silver moon patterns lit up around the keyhole.
Click.
The brass door swung inward on its own.
“Fancy!” Elias exclaimed in admiration, following Theolan into the sealing chamber as the latter held up the lantern.
The space inside was reasonably spacious, but there were only two empty stone pedestals.
Engraved on the front of the pedestals were the old serial numbers for the 【Dream Helm】 and the 【Return Bell】. Their surfaces were free of dust, and the indentations left by objects resting there for a long time were still visible on the edges.
The items had indeed been here, but they were gone now.
“The door lock isn't broken, and the seal wasn't forced open,” Elias remarked, squatting down to inspect the edges of the pedestals. “Whoever took them either had the same authority as you, or they didn't need to come through the door at all.”
“That's not the only problem.”
Theolan raised his lantern, casting light onto the wall.
The Waxing Moon array pattern originally used to purify the old ritual items was still there.
However, every line that formed the moon phase had been retraced from its end to its beginning.
The circuits that were supposed to vent the pollution outward were now all converging toward the sealing pedestals.
“The purification ritual was reversed,” Theolan's voice dropped. “It cannot allow physical ritual items to pass through the sealing chamber, but after they are removed, it can reawaken the 【Dream Helm】 and the 【Return Bell】, allowing them to connect to their past dream hull.”
Elias stood up.
This meant that the ship they were looking for possessed the ability to actively respond to the old ritual.
After checking the last reversed moon pattern, Theolan immediately turned and walked toward the pier behind the sea burial ground.
The pier was even more dilapidated than the building itself.
Several mooring posts were tilted, and the wooden planks, blackened from being soaked in the tide, groaned underfoot with a grating screech.
Theolan squatted down at the outermost edge and retrieved a small piece of 【Dream-Mourning Sealing Wax】 from an evidence bag.
“How do you plan on finding it?”
“The sealing wax was once attached to the mooring rope of the Moon-Returning Boat. It will still retain the dream-mourning imprint left by the vessel,” Theolan said as he pressed the sealing wax into the seawater.
The Waxing Moon holy emblem on his chest lit up in response.
A black-silver light seeped through his fingers. Instead of dispersing into the tide, it formed rings of ripples that extended into the distance, pushing against the current.
“The Moon-Returning Boat sails simultaneously in both reality and dreams. While its wake in reality is washed away by the tide, the dream-mourning imprint in the dream will linger much longer.”
“The way you guys look for ships is a lot like fishing,” Elias stood behind him and remarked. “Let me know when you get a bite.”
Theolan watched the expanding black-silver ripples without turning his head. “This is not fishing.”
“Same difference,” Elias waved his hand. “As long as we don't get skunked.”
“Skunked?” Theolan finally turned his head.
He seemed to recall the humor exercises Bishop Raymond had taught him, seriously pondering it for a moment.
Ultimately, he still couldn't understand. “The ship will not bite a hook.”
Just as the words left his mouth, the moon's reflection on the sea suddenly split down the middle.
A black-silver rift rapidly widened along the end of the ripples.
The groaning sound of squeezing wood planks echoed from within.
Immediately after, an old ferry slowly broke through the moon's shadow. Its bow emerged first from the dreamlike black water, before gradually squeezing its way into reality.
The hull was covered in blackened water stains.
There were no lights on either side, nor any visible crew.
“It took the bait that fast?!” Elias looked at the ship, feeling inexplicably annoyed.
In his previous life, whenever he went fishing, to avoid getting skunked, he would often forage for wild vegetables on the way home, or buy a fish from the market as a last resort.
Yet here was Theolan, who had barely cast his "hook" into the water before reeling in an entire ship.
Where was the justice in that?
“It is responding to the sealing wax,” Theolan warned, his vigilance unyielding. “The dream-mourning imprint can only bring it close to reality briefly. Once the ripples dissipate, it will likely retreat back into the dream route.”
“Can you confirm if Robert is on board?”
“No.”
Theolan stood up. “But this is the only Moon-Returning Boat we can track right now.”
They had no time to wait for it to appear again; Robert had already been missing for two nights.
Elias gripped his elemental revolver, his gaze landing on the ferry's deck. “Then let's go up and take a look.”
As if hearing his words, a mooring rope suddenly flew out from the ferry.
The rope crossed the water and automatically wrapped itself around the sea burial ground's mooring post.
Theolan touched the rope with his holy emblem. The black-silver moon pattern showed no signs of pollution, only a thin line extending back to the ship.
“It is inviting us aboard. The trail is uncontaminated.”
“Still doesn't sound like a good thing,” Elias took a deep breath. “Alright then.”
The two boarded the deck along the rope.
The moment his feet touched the deck, Elias sensed something was wrong.
Though he was clearly standing on the wooden planks of an ordinary ferry, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a decayed mast, black-silver gunwales, and tattered white sails overlaying it.
It was the dream hull of the 【Quiet Tide】.
Before Elias could examine it further, the pier behind them suddenly shattered like a reflection in water.
“Holy shit?!”
The ship lurched violently.
Elias lost his balance, his shoulder slamming into the outer wall of the cabin, and the elemental revolver in his hand almost slipped from his grip.
The rope cast to the pier untangled itself and slithered back onto the deck like a snake.
In reality, the ferry drifted away from White Dike with the tide.
At the same time, the surrounding scenery began to shift.
The lights of the pier, the coast, and Hastings Port did not truly vanish.
Instead, a scene resembling a pitch-black sea rose from beneath the ship, gradually overlaying them.
The distant lights were compressed into blurry smudges of light, and the moon overhead turned into a pale, flat disc.
“Where are we?” Elias stabilized his footing and looked around.
“This isn't an illusion either.”
“No,” Theolan answered immediately. “In reality, the ship is still floating on the actual sea. It is just that a shared dream has overlaid our perception and spirituality, allowing us to simultaneously see it sailing on another route.”
Elias glanced at the pitch-black, lightless water beyond the gunwale. “What if we jump off?”
“You will fall into the actual sea.”
“Got it. So we're sleepwalking.” Elias immediately backed away from the gunwale.
A bell suddenly chimed from deep within the cabin beneath their feet.
Dong—
The sound was dull and lingering.
Elias felt a jolt in his eardrums, and the dark sea before his eyes instantly grew a bit more solid.
Before the second toll of the bell could fade, a pale hand reached out from beyond the gunwale, gripping the edge of the deck.
Then came a second, and a third.
One after another, phantom projections of the deceased crawled onto the deck from the sea and the shadows of the cabin.
Some wore sailor uniforms, while others retained the appearance of disaster victims right before their deaths.
Their facial features were blurry, yet they bore rusty brooches, broken pipes, and small wooden toy boats on their persons.
Beside the 【Return Bell】, an old man dressed in an old-style Dream Mourner's robe also materialized.
The old man did not look at Elias.
Instead, he slowly bowed his head toward Theolan. “Thank you, my young brother. This ship finally has its Dream Mourner.”
Theolan's expression shifted drastically. “Damn it! He deliberately left the sealing wax behind, not because he didn't have time to clean it up. And reversing the purification ritual wasn't to let the ritual items escape on their own. They needed the holy emblem of an active ascetic to provide the final authorization for this reversed ritual!”
From the very beginning, that piece of sealing wax had been bait.
They had indeed hooked the ship.
But the ship had also hooked the person it wanted.
The phantom projections of the deceased turned their heads in unison and surged toward the two.
They did not swing punches or try to bite. Instead, they merely reached out with their pale hands, attempting to touch the foreheads and the backs of the two men's heads.
“Don't let them touch your head!”
Theolan removed his holy emblem and slammed it down onto the deck.
Black-silver moon patterns erupted from beneath his palm, instantly spreading across the deck.
One hundred and thirty-six fine dream connections manifested around the hull, each leading in the direction of the Third Relief Shelter.
Using the moon patterns, Theolan locked them all down simultaneously, forcefully halting the ritual from expanding further along the existing circuit.
His feet also seemed nailed to the spot, rendering him unable to move.
“These projections will extract memories related to the deceased from the brains of the living! Do not use 【Spiritual Dispelling】! If you destroy the projections, the memories they've taken will be destroyed along with them!”
“What a pain!” Elias raised his hand and deployed the 【Moonlight Barrier】.
Translucent moonlight enveloped him, instantly pushing several reaching hands to the sides.
The barrier only blocked physical contact without tearing apart those dream shadows of the dead.
At that moment, the phantom of the old man beside the bell reached out again to pull the bell rope.
Silver moonlight quickly crawled onto the elemental revolver.
Elias raised his hand and fired a shot.
Bang!
The moon-infused bullet zipped through the gap between two phantom projections, cleanly severing the bell rope.
The clapper, which had been about to strike, swung halfway before dropping back.
Deprived of the bell's chime, the phantom projections surging onto the deck instantly slowed their movements.
“By the way,” Elias asked Theolan while controlling the barrier to push back the phantoms, “why does it have to be an active ascetic? What, does that mean an unofficial guy like me can't be a Dream Mourner?”
“Is now the time to talk about this?!”
Rate on N.U.
