Though it had been a long ti since Duncan last entered the Subspace, he vividly rembered that in this side of the Subspace inside the "Holoss," there was no goat head in the captain’s chamber.
The only thing on the navigation table here was a chart depicting a strange and suspicious route.
But now, a pitch-black goat head quietly rested on the navigation table, silently watching him in the dim light—Duncan was sure that, in the mont he opened the bedroom door, the pitch-black goat head had made a motion to shift its gaze towards him.
It was alive, reacting to external stimuli!
Duncan quickly controlled his expression while cautiously watching the goat head that was intently staring at him. He stepped out from the bedroom and slowly approached the navigation table. As he did so, the goat head on the table indeed reacted—it slowly moved its gaze, always keeping Duncan in its sight.
Duncan suddenly frowned.
This goat head looked exactly like those in the real world, but it was out of place—the goat heads in the real world were placed on the left edge of the table, but this one was positioned more towards the middle.
Duncan rapidly recalled and soon rembered—before he had gone to rest in his bedroom, he had placed the "Skull of Dreams" right here.
The Skull of Dreams? Was this the "Skull of Dreams" he had brought back from the Heretics’ ship? Why was it in the Subspace?!
His mind burst with countless swirling speculations and thoughts as Duncan cautiously arrived at the navigation table. He leaned on the edge of the table, staring intensely at the "goat head," which likewise slowly raised its gaze, its hollow eyes eting Duncan’s.
This silent, hollow regard was sowhat eerie.
After several seconds of this quiet standoff, Duncan decided to break the silence—he pulled a stern face and greeted, "Hello, I am Duncan."
The bizarre goat head on the table spoke, "Hello, you are not Duncan."
In that instant, Duncan almost lost control of his expression!
But fortunately, dealing with a bunch of jocular fellows on the ship had toughened his nerves, and in a critical mont, he managed to keep his face stern. However, the shock inside was not so easily settled—the bizarre goat head had actually spoken!?
And more shocking than its abrupt speech was the content of its words!
While managing his facial expressions, Duncan firmly asked in a calm voice, "If I am not Duncan, then who am I?"
"You are the captain," the Goat Head, presumably "Skull of Dreams," calmly stated.
Its voice was almost identical to the sound of Duncan’s familiar "First Mate," but it had an eerie, gloomy brevity that was uncomfortable.
While acclimatizing to this uncomfortable feeling, Duncan gave the bizarre goat head a sowhat strange look, pressing further, "Isn’t Duncan the captain of this ship?"
"You are the captain," the goat head t Duncan’s gaze, "You are not Duncan."
It seed to only speak this way; no matter how Duncan probed or changed his questioning angle, its responses always remained the sa—the person it was talking to was the captain of this ship, but he was not "Duncan."
After several exchanges, Duncan ceased his probing and displayed a thoughtful expression.
He was the captain of this ship, but he was not Duncan—of course, he knew he wasn’t Duncan.
He was Zhou Ming, a wandering soul, and the great explorer nad Duncan Ebnomal was just the identity he had "occupied" for the mont. The real Captain Duncan had died a century ago, he knew that.
But until now, only he knew—or rather, the goat head acting as the First Mate in the real world also knew, but it never spoke of it.
This was a truth that could not be disclosed aboard the "Holoss."
However, this Goat Head suspected to be the "Skull of Dreams" had just outright declared it.
Duncan looked up, observing the dilapidated cabin around him and then peering through the hollow windows to see the broken masts, decks, and distant sides of the ship outside.
The ruined "Holoss" traveling in the Subspace had not changed because soone in the captain’s chamber had pierced the reality that "the captain was not Duncan."
Was it because this was the Subspace? Because this ship was just a projection? Or was it because the "Skull of Dreams" revealing this fact wasn’t part of "Holoss," so its awareness didn’t affect the stability of the ship?
Duncan slowly withdrew his gaze, his eyes falling again on the goat head on the table.
So what exactly was this goat head, the real Skull of Dreams, or its projection in Subspace? Or... had the Skull of Dreams originally split into two parts, one found by the Heretics, and the other always left in Subspace?
After frowning in thought for a mont, Duncan tentatively asked, "Who are you?"
The goat head on the table fell silent. After a long while, just when Duncan thought it would not respond, it suddenly opened its mouth, "I don’t know."
Duncan suddenly felt curious, "Then what do you know?"
This ti the goat head remained silent even longer, and its final answer was the sa, "I don’t know."
"...You don’t know anything, but you know I am the ’captain’ here; you also know I am not Duncan," Duncan said with a subtle expression, "Do you know this ship? Do you know where you are?"
The goat head made no response at all—it fell silent and beca still, as though it had turned into a real wooden sculpture.
Duncan gradually realized that the intellect of this "Skull of Dreams" was not intact.
Unlike the "first mate" in the real world, this Skull of Dreams seed to only retain a bit of sporadic mory and a fragnted and incomplete thinking capability. Even if it demonstrated so communicative ability in Subspace, this ability was limited to answering only a few questions—once a question was "off-script," it would fall into stagnation.
But within this fragnted and fragnted mind, the "Skull of Dreams" knew that the current "captain" of the ship was not "Duncan."
Duncan pondered thoughtfully, a vague speculation already forming in his mind.
This could still possibly relate to the "deal" made by the real Captain Duncan with Saslouka in the depths of Subspace a century ago.
In that deal, the Holoss, almost completely assimilated and devoured by Subspace, was reconstituted physically by the "Dreaming King" while the Dreaming King, trapped in the depths of Subspace and fragnted, gained an opportunity to escape—though the escape was only a piece of spine and a fragnt of a skull, and almost all mories were lost, Saslouka indeed returned to the real world.
This Skull of Dreams in front of him was likely one of those fragnts that had not escaped Subspace—it, too, had experienced that past transaction and thus knew what had happened to the real Captain Duncan, but it only retained broken mories.
Duncan instinctively felt that the Skull of Dreams probably knew more—more about Saslouka, about Subspace, and about the Holoss of yesteryears.
But its fragnted and chaotic thinking couldn’t effectively organize those scattered mories.
However, just as Duncan’s thoughts moved in this direction and he began to think about how to guide the "Skull of Dreams" to answer more of his questions, a slight tremor and a sudden strange noise coming from an unknown direction abruptly interrupted his thought.
The Holoss was shaking, and sothing seed to be approaching outside the hull!
Duncan instantly looked up from the table, his gaze instinctively drawn to the nearby window.
A continuous massive shadow, and an expanse of pale, cracked "ground," had appeared outside the endless darkness of the window. The massive pale structure moved slowly outside the window, its surface marked by shockingly cracked wounds revealing skin-like patterns.
A sudden thought flashed in Duncan’s mind—sothing occurred to him. He hastened to the window, and just then, new structures appeared on the moving "pale ground" outside—the widening crack followed by murky amber solid crystals, and then a gigantic eyeball tissue nearly filling the entire view outside the window.
A huge eye was slowly moving past the captain’s chamber window.
Duncan stood in front of the window, watching the murky, solitary eye as it gradually slid past. As his view shifted, he saw the structures surrounding the eye—a pale, non-human face.
Then his gaze extended further, and he saw the vast body undulating in the darkness and the fragnted land almost "embedded" around that body.
It was the pale, one-eyed giant bearing the shattered land in Subspace!
Duncan suddenly rembered—during his first entry into Subspace, he had seen this astonishing "entity" from a distance!
But at that ti, he had only passed by from afar and had not had ti to clearly see any details of the giant and its burdened land—this ti, however, the Holoss was nearly brushing past the giant’s facial remains.
The shock and awe of this scene were far greater than before—even Duncan felt suffocated in that mont.
He continued to watch the slowly moving giant outside the window, watching the murky, long-dead eye.
That dead, murky eye also quietly watched him—as the Holoss moved, the eyeball also slowly turned, calmly watching Duncan in the chaotic Subspace.
Duncan: "...?!"
He blinked, reconfirming that the giant’s murky, solitary eye indeed turned slowly with the movent of the Holoss—it was watching this place!
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