"What did you say? They pushed up a wooden sculpture of a goat's head?!"

Duncan's voice came from the mirror on the dressing table, with undisguised shock.

"Yes, a black wooden goat head," Lucrecia said quickly. She turned her head to look at the crystal ball on the table next to her, distinguishing the vague picture emerging in the crystal ball. It was the scene that the rabbi directly transmitted from the cult's gathering place. "It looks very similar to the 'first mate' on the Lost Homeland... No, it can't be said to be very similar, it's exactly the same!"

"Besides that? What did the goat head do after it was pushed up?" In the mirror in front of Lucrecia, Duncan's figure leaned forward slightly. "Is it communicating with those cultists?"

"...No," Lucrecia shook her head while looking at the blurry picture in the crystal ball. "This goat head seems to be 'dead'...It has been motionless since it was pushed up, and looks like a wooden sculpture...The cultists are holding a ceremony around the goat head. They are lighting candlesticks and burning incense, but the goat head they call the 'Dream Skull' is still unresponsive."

Duncan in the mirror frowned tightly.

He knew that the rabbi lurking in the cult's base would definitely be able to send back a lot of valuable information, but he didn't expect that the information sent back by the rabbit would be so valuable - from the cult's meeting until now, he and Lucrecia have been paying attention to the news that the rabbi kept sending, and among all this news, the most shocking was the current scene.

That group of Annihilation Cultists... actually also has a goat head that is exactly the same as the "first mate" on the Lost Homeland? !

And judging from the situation at the scene, this is the reason why they can freely enter and exit the Dream of the Nameless One?

In the mirror dimension connected by the mirror, Duncan stood in the dimness and fell into thought. After a long time, he raised his head and glanced around.

This is the world in the mirror - but according to Agatha, a more accurate description here is "the reflection of the Lost Homeland on the edge of the spirit world and reality."

As far as his eyes could see was the familiar Homelander, but the whole ship was shrouded in an ambiguous, incongruous and weird atmosphere. His eyes passed through the window beside him and he could see that the deck outside was shrouded in darkness, while the sky and ocean in the distance had a texture close to the spiritual world. There was a hazy glow near the side of the ship, and its outline seemed to be inexplicably disturbed, slowly rising and falling, shaking like a reflection in the water.

Behind him was the familiar scene of the captain's room, with a chart table, shelves, valuable tapestries on the walls, and... the goat's head lying silently on the edge of the chart table.

All of this was shrouded in a strange dimness. Even though there was an oil lamp hanging on the wall next to it and even though there were lights everywhere in the room, the dimness seemed to be imprinted in this space and lingered there, constantly reminding those who came here that this was not the real dimension.

There was only one thing in the room that emitted a soft, reassuring glow, and that was the oval mirror in front of Duncan at the moment - the mirror reflected the scene in Lucrecia's room and the "temperature" from the real dimension.

Duncan turned around and slowly walked to the chart table, looking at the wooden sculpture of a goat's head that was quietly lying on the table. The latter did not react to his approach at all, just like... the "Dream Skull" that the cultists used in their rituals at the gathering place.

After staring at the dark wood carving quietly for a moment, Duncan reached out and patted the goat's head.

If it were in the real world on the other side of the mirror, this action would definitely be met with overwhelming noise, and Goat Head would never miss this opportunity to speak.

However, here, in the "reflection" of the Lost Homeland, Goat Head still just stayed there quietly, as if... he had not yet woken up.

There were footsteps coming from the side, Duncan turned around and saw Agatha coming to his side.

"Captain, there are still thirty minutes until the Nameless One's Dream 'activates'," said the lady who "lives" in the mirror world. "Based on my last experience, by then the reflection of the Lost Homeland will transform into the ship sailing in the dark fog, and the 'wooden sculpture' in front of you will also 'come alive'."

"...Yes, alive, but still different from the 'First Mate' I'm familiar with. It's another goat head - and there's another goat head in the hands of those Annihilation Cultists," Duncan said slowly, with a thoughtful expression on his face, "They actually used a goat head they found from somewhere to enter the Nameless One's Dream. This... makes sense, but it's beyond my expectation."

Agatha hesitated for a moment, and couldn't help asking, "Are there a lot of 'goat heads'?"

"...I thought there was only one," Duncan shook his head. "It thought so too."

"I remember you said that you brought the 'First Mate' out of the Warp. If it is the Warp... perhaps everything is possible. Maybe the 'Goat Head' is even a tribe there..."

Agatha stopped talking, and it was obvious that she felt that her guess was a bit far-fetched.

Duncan did not speak. He just looked at the silent goat head on the table, which looked like a real wooden sculpture. He pondered for an unknown period of time before muttering softly, "Shattered into pieces..."

Agatha heard the captain's muttering, but was confused: "Huh?"

Duncan did not respond to her question, but shook his head slightly: "It seems that there is one more reason to capture those Annihilation Cultists alive... This time, we must not only find a way to capture their people alive, but also find a way to capture their ship."

"As long as we know where that ship is, no worldly ship can escape the pursuit of the Lost Homeland." Agatha said immediately.

Duncan looked at the former gatekeeper with some surprise and said, "You are quite confident. You probably didn't see the battle scene of the Lost Homeland with your own eyes."

"But the books of the Church of Death contain tons of horrific descriptions about the Lost Homeland," Agatha spread out her hands. "It is said that you once wiped out the warship that Pope Banster had just built in an instant - even in front of the Ark of the Pilgrimage, in front of an entire fleet. No matter how you think about it, it is impossible for those cultists to build a ship more powerful than the Ark of the Pilgrimage."

Duncan's expression froze for a moment. After two or three seconds of embarrassment, he trembled his lips and said, "I'll just take it as a compliment."

Agatha seemed to realize the awkwardness of this topic, and she quickly changed the subject: "Captain, what do you think of the purpose of those cultists?"

"Purpose? Do you mean the interest they showed in Shirley and Agou, or the goal of their cooperation with those 'Sun Followers'?"

"Both." Agatha nodded.

"It's expected that they would be interested in Shirley and Agou. No Annihilation Cultist with normal values ​​would not be shocked after seeing Agou. And judging from the performance of that saint, the phenomenon of 'the Deep Demon has reason' seems to have a special meaning to them," Duncan said while recalling the information sent by the rabbi. "That saint mentioned 'the last piece of the puzzle on the road to promotion'... This sentence really concerns me.

"As for their 'cooperation' with those Sun Followers..."

Duncan suddenly stopped talking here, and after thinking for a while, he broke the silence: "The target of those Annihilation Cultists is the 'Tree', which is easy to understand. It should refer to the World Tree Silantis, and the target of those Sun Followers is the 'Sun'..."

He frowned and raised his head, as if he wanted to look through the dimensions of time and space, looking at a "star" that was hanging high in the dreams of the nameless and existed in some ancient past memory.

"…How are they going to get the 'sun'?"

The captain's room fell silent for a moment, and Agatha didn't know how to answer the captain's question. After an unknown amount of time, Lucrecia's voice suddenly came from the mirror not far away, breaking the silence:

"Dad, the rabbi said that the cultists seem to be taking the final step of the ritual."

Duncan immediately raised his head and looked at the mechanical clock hanging on the opposite wall.

On the dial that is in a mirror-image state, the pointer is rotating counterclockwise and slowly pointing to nine o'clock.

The dream of the nameless is about to become active.

He withdrew his gaze and took another look at the nautical chart on the table next to him.

Even in this "reflected" world, the nautical chart in the captain's room at this moment showed the normal sailing trajectory of the Lost Homeland in the vast ocean - the Lost Homeland was now about a thousand nautical miles north of Breeze Harbor, and was still sailing northward, moving away from the city-state.

The "test" was about to come to a conclusion, but Duncan actually had a vague feeling that even if the Lost Homeland was moved away from Breeze Harbor and Goat Head ran to such a far place, the Dream of the Nameless Man would still appear - Breeze Harbor would still be shrouded in the dream, and the reflection of the Lost Homeland would still change as before.

Because evening is approaching.

Because the "sun" is becoming gentler, and those who were once exiled will return to the real dimension - just like the "warrior" who suddenly fell into reality and eventually turned into an indescribable mass. The so-called dream of the nameless is just a return to the real country from oblivion and exile.

At dusk, all these changes will occur irreversibly, and the arrival of the Lost Homeland at Breeze Harbor will only speed up the activation of the Nameless One's Dream.

Just as the "saint" claimed, today the so-called "deep sea era" is approaching its "last second".

"Lucy, report the progress observed by the rabbi." Duncan said suddenly.

Lucrecia's voice was heard in the mirror immediately: "Yes, those chosen cultists have gathered around the 'Skull of Dreams', and they are waiting for the final sacrifice ceremony...

“That saint is ordering the ‘blood meal’ to be brought into the hall.

"…They are two scarred elves."