A century ago, the Brilliant Star, like the Sea Mist, was once the escort ship of the Lost Homeland.

However, few people know what happened to these two legendary warships after they broke up with the HMS Lost, and how they became what they are today step by step.

The Sea Mist, commanded by "Iron Vice Admiral" Tirian, once became the main warship of the Frost City-State after several twists and turns. People called it the "unsinkable ship" and the "breathing wreck". The ship had been severely damaged many times in the battle, but it seemed as if there was an immortal soul dominating it, allowing it to struggle out of the almost doomed fate of sinking time and time again, and after repeated modifications that almost violated the principles of shipbuilding, it gradually became a steel behemoth.

Legend has it that the ship would even feed directly on steel and seabed minerals, and would grow turrets and armor plates on itself bit by bit during its night voyages when no one was watching.

As for the Brilliant Star inherited by the "Sea Witch" Lucrecia, it is shrouded in even greater mystery due to its closer proximity to the civilized world. In fact, apart from a small number of members of the Explorers' Association and the Vatican's fleet that often patrols the border, ordinary captains on the vast ocean have never had the opportunity to see the appearance of this ship with their own eyes.

Those who have had the pleasure of seeing the Brilliant Star describe the ship as follows:

It obviously no longer completely belongs to our real world. The ship has actually sunk at least once and lost half of its structure in the vast ocean. Half of its hull is like a ghost, presenting the appearance of a century ago, and the other half of the hull has been twisted into a strange and bizarre posture under the power of the witch. Its bow is full of cursed objects from the deep sea, and there are clanging machines and magic equipment everywhere. The crew members on board have long been dead, and soulless clockwork robots and cursed rag dolls have replaced normal sailors, running around on the deck.

There was no doubt that the ship was a corpse on the move—or rather, half a deformed corpse, dragging half its soul along with it.

Lucrecia's eyes slowly swept across her ship and she nodded slightly with satisfaction.

The Brilliant Star was in good shape, and her crew were cheerful.

She knew how her ship was described - and how her brother's ship, the Seamist, was described, and she knew that many captains feared them, second only to their father, who had returned from the Warp.

But she didn't care about it. She only dealt with a few humans on a daily basis, and those people either had plenty of courage, or possessed rich knowledge, or at least had experienced some real adventures. Those people could communicate with her in a rational and normal manner, and that was enough.

She and her brother are still considered part of the real world and are seen as "on the side of humanity," even though many people believe that both the Sea Mist and the Brilliant Star are cursed.

After all, there are too many cursed things in this world. Almost every city-state is accompanied by countless anomalies and visions day and night. Even modern human civilization is described by some as "cursed" - in this world where everything is cursed, there can be some room for two strange ships.

Lucrecia slowly stepped down from her "stage" that was blooming like a mechanical flower and walked toward the bow deck. Two clockwork puppets wearing funny masks made a jingling sound as they walked past her. A large rag doll made of velvet, silk, and ribbons ran over and uttered a shrill voice in front of her: "Mistress! Mistress! Good morning! Good morning!"

"It's almost noon." Lucrecia said casually, she walked past the rag doll and stood on the bow looking into the distance.

She saw an extremely magnificent gray-white wall of fog, standing on the distant sea like a giant curtain at the edge of the world, connecting the sky and the sea, presenting an extremely majestic and spectacular posture.

That's the "border".

That magnificent wall of fog has many names - the world's border, the magnificent fog, the fog barrier, and its most formal name should be the "Curtain of Eternity".

But Lucrecia prefers to call it simply "the border."

That's what my father called it.

Under normal circumstances, this eternal curtain is like a circular barrier, covering all known sea areas and slightly fluctuating within a relatively fixed range. It will neither shrink nor expand, it is just a fixed natural phenomenon.

But in rare cases, part of its barrier will suddenly "appear" within the territory of civilization, and cause terrible disasters in the process of collapsing inward. This fog wall that suddenly appears and collapses in the real dimension will drag nearby physical matter into the depths of the world, and even open a door to the subspace - this terrible disaster is called "border collapse."

For captains who often sail on the vast ocean, border collapse is more terrifying than storms, turbulence and mass hysteria.

The only good news is that this collapse doesn't happen often.

Lucrecia spent most of her time in the border area. She observed and studied the border, and also tried to summarize the movement patterns of the thick fog and find out the reason why it suddenly collapsed inward - her father had done the same thing a hundred years ago.

But to this day, no one has been able to uncover the secret of this curtain.

What did my father discover or "hear" at that time that made him suddenly decide to go through the thick fog to look for Anomaly No. 0?

Lucrecia withdrew her gaze from the border.

In the borderland, don't stare at the Eternal Curtain for too long. Although there is no clear evidence that the thick fog has the ability to devour the mind and affect thinking, there are natural risks in staring at any target on the sea in the vast ocean, especially in places far away from civilized city-states.

God knows what is out there that spreads with “gaze”.

A melodious whistle broke the tranquility of the border waters.

Lucrecia looked in the direction of the sound and saw some tiny silhouettes suddenly emerging from the edge of the giant wall of thick fog. Those silhouettes slowly approached and finally took on the outline of a ship.

There were three ships, the most advanced steel battleships, driven by powerful steam cores. They were heading towards the location of the Brilliant Star, but this was just an accidental encounter.

The other party blew the horn first, which was a greeting - in this border area, no matter who you meet, as long as the other party is not an evil god from the subspace, it is something to be happy about.

"Madam," Luni came over, and a dull voice came from the clockwork maid's body, "It's a patrol formation of the Holy See... Visually confirmed, it's the Church of the Firebringer."

“…Only the Firebringers and Storm Cultists would come so close to the Eternal Veil while on patrol,” Lucrecia sighed softly, “They are a bunch of desperate guys.”

"Want a response?" Luni asked.

"…Hail them," Lucrecia whispered, "and salute our continuing civilization."

※※※

There were not many customers in the antique shop today. Apart from a pair of inconspicuous ornaments that were sold in the morning, no one had stepped into the shop since then.

Nina sat next to the counter holding a mechanics textbook, concentrating on studying the delicate and complex mechanical structures on it. From time to time, she picked up the draft book beside her and drew on the blank space. Duncan sat inside the counter, curiously flipping through Nina's history textbook and making some notes in his notebook.

Only Shirley had nothing to do. She wanted to go home, but she didn't dare to leave. She wanted to talk to Nina, but she couldn't understand what she was studying. After walking around the nearby shelves for several times out of boredom, she finally couldn't help but mutter, "Is reading really so interesting?"

"Interesting!" Nina raised her head. "Besides, my final exam is coming up soon, so I have to hurry up and review."

Duncan also looked up at Shirley and said, "If you are really bored, you can also find a book to read... I have a brief history of the city-state era here, do you want to read it?"

Shirley glanced at the books beside Duncan, opened her mouth, and said with embarrassment: "I... I can't read..."

Duncan suddenly stopped reading, and Nina next to him looked up in surprise.

"Why are you so surprised?" Shirley looked at this and widened her eyes as if she had been hurt. "I... I said I sneaked into the school. I... Is it strange that I never went to school? I was raised by a dog..."

Duncan was indeed a little surprised, but after seeing Shirley's reaction, he was more impressed: "You can sneak into the school without knowing how to read. I don't know whether to say that you are too confident or that you trust Agou's unreliable cognitive interference ability too much."

"Agou's cognitive interference ability is very reliable!" Shirley immediately defended, "It's just... just..."

The girl's face flushed slightly, and she seemed to be hesitant to say the following words. However, Duncan guessed what she wanted to say, and he smiled: "You have the courage to argue in front of me - you see, there is nothing to be afraid of, right?"

"That's right, my uncle is so kind," Nina, the ignorant girl, also chimed in, "Although he was very irritable for a while before, he's fine now!"

"I..." Shirley opened her mouth, but suddenly didn't know how to communicate with the "uncle and nephew" in front of her. She couldn't utter another word after trying for a long time.

Duncan smiled and shook his head when he saw this, but just when he was about to say something else, a slightly familiar breath suddenly appeared in his perception!

Duncan was slightly startled, and the next second, he figured out who this breath came from—

Vanna! The young inquisitor is approaching the antique shop... and very fast!