Although a long time had passed since the last time he entered the warp, Duncan still clearly remembered that there was no goat head in the captain's room on the "Broken Homeland" on this side of the warp.
The only thing on the navigation table here is a nautical chart showing a strange and suspicious route.
But now, a pitch-black goat's head was quietly sitting on the navigation table, staring at him silently in the dim light - at the same time, Duncan could be sure that the moment the bedroom door opened, the pitch-black goat's head turned its gaze towards this side.
It is a living thing, and it responds to external stimuli!
Duncan quickly controlled the expression on his face. While carefully paying attention to the movements of the goat head that was staring at him, he walked out of the bedroom and slowly approached the navigation table. As he moved, the goat head on the table indeed reacted - it slowly turned its gaze, always keeping its eyes on Duncan.
Duncan frowned suddenly.
The appearance of this goat head is exactly the same as the goat head in the real world, but the position is wrong - the "goat head" in the real world is placed on the left edge of the table, but the goat head in front of him is placed closer to the middle.
Duncan recalled quickly and soon remembered that he had placed the "Dream Skull" in this position before returning to his bedroom to rest.
The Dream Skull? This is the "Dream Skull" that I brought back from the cultists' ship? Why did it appear in the subspace? !
Countless chaotic guesses and thoughts suddenly emerged in his mind. Duncan cautiously came to the navigation table. He supported the edge of the table with both hands, and stared at the "goat head" on the table with a gloomy face. The latter also slowly raised his eyes, and met Duncan's gaze with empty eyes.
This silent and empty gaze was somewhat creepy.
After a few seconds of silent confrontation, Duncan decided to break the silence. He greeted the other party with a serious expression and said, "Hello, I'm Duncan."
The strange goat head on the table spoke: "Hello, you are not Duncan."
At this moment, Duncan almost couldn't control his expression!
Fortunately, his strong nerves, which were honed from dealing with a lot of weirdos on the ship, came into play. He kept a straight face at the critical moment, but the turmoil in his heart was obviously not so easy to calm down - this weird goat head actually spoke? !
What is more shocking than the suddenness of this guy's words is obviously the content of his words!
Duncan tried to control the expression on his face and asked in a calm tone, "I'm not Duncan, then who am I?"
"You are the captain." The goat-headed creature suspected to be the "Skull of Dreams" said calmly.
Its voice when speaking was almost identical to the "first mate" Duncan was familiar with, but it revealed an eerie gloom and brevity that made people very uncomfortable.
While Duncan was getting used to this unfamiliar feeling, he looked at the strange goat head with a somewhat strange look. He thought what the other party said was very strange, and couldn't help asking again: "Isn't Duncan the captain of this ship?"
"You are the captain," Goat-head met Duncan's gaze, "you are not Duncan."
It seemed to only say this. No matter how it was questioned, no matter how it changed the method and angle of the question, its responses were always just these two - the person it was talking to at the moment was the captain of the ship, but that was not "Duncan".
After several exchanges, Duncan stopped testing the issue and looked thoughtful.
He was the captain of the ship, but he was not Duncan—and he certainly knew he was not Duncan.
He is Zhou Ming, a wandering soul. The great explorer named Duncan Abnormalmar is just an identity he "occupies" at the moment. He knows that the real Captain Duncan died a century ago.
But he was the only one who knew this all along - or rather, the goat-headed first mate in the real world also knew this, but he never said it out loud.
This is a fact that cannot be announced on the Lost Homeland.
However, the goat head in front of him, which was suspected to be the "Skull of Dreams", said this directly.
Duncan raised his head and looked at the ruined cabin around him, then looked through the empty windows at the tattered masts, decks and the side of the ship in the distance.
The dilapidated Lost Homeland sailing in the warp did not change at all just because someone in the captain's room revealed the fact that "the captain is not Duncan".
Is it because this is the Warp? Because this ship is just a projection? Or is it because the "Dream Skull" that pointed out this matter is not part of the Lost Homeland, so its cognition will not affect the stability of this ship?
Duncan slowly withdrew his gaze and his eyes fell on the goat head on the table.
So what exactly is this goat head? Is it the Dream Skull's true form, or a projection of the Dream Skull in the warp? Or... the Dream Skull was originally split into two parts, one part was found by the cultists, and the other part remained in the warp?
After frowning and thinking for a moment, Duncan asked tentatively: "Who are you?"
The goat head on the table fell silent for a long time. Just when Duncan thought that the other party would not respond to him, it suddenly opened its mouth and said, "I don't know."
Duncan suddenly felt curious: "So what do you know?"
The goat-head was silent for a longer time this time, and finally gave the same answer: "I don't know."
"...You know nothing, but you know I'm the captain here, and you also know I'm not Duncan," Duncan said with a subtle expression, "Then do you know this ship? Do you know where you are?"
The goat head did not respond at all - it remained silent and still, as if it had turned into a real wooden sculpture.
Duncan gradually realized that the mind of the "Dream Skull" in front of him was not complete.
Unlike the "first mate" in the real world, this dream skull seems to only retain a few scattered memories and incomplete and fragmented thinking functions. Even though it has shown a certain communication ability in the subspace, this communication ability is limited to answering a few questions - once the question is "out of scope", it will fall into stagnation.
But even in this incomplete and fragmented mind, the "Skull of Dreams" knew that the "captain" of the ship at the moment was not "Duncan".
Duncan was thoughtful, and he already had a vague guess in his mind.
This could still be related to the "deal" the real Captain Duncan made with Sasloka deep in the Warp a century ago.
In that transaction, the Lost Homeland, which had been almost completely assimilated and swallowed by the Warp, was reshaped into a physical entity by the "Lord of Dreams", and the shattered Lord of Dreams, who was trapped deep in the Warp, got a chance to escape - although all he escaped was a spine and a fragment of a skull, and he had lost almost all his memories, but Sasloka was able to return to the real world.
The Dream Skull in front of it should be one of the fragments that failed to escape from the subspace. It also experienced the transaction, so it also knew what happened to the real Captain Duncan, but it only had a fragmentary memory of it.
Duncan instinctively felt that this Dream Skull should know more - more about Sasloka, the warp, and the Lost Homeland.
But its fragmented and chaotic mind cannot effectively organize those trivial memories.
However, just as Duncan's thoughts diverged in this direction and he began to think about how to guide this "Dream Skull" to answer more of his questions, a slight tremor and a strange noise suddenly coming from an unknown direction suddenly interrupted his meditation.
The Lost Homeland was shaking, and something seemed to be approaching from the side of the ship!
Duncan instantly raised his head from the table and subconsciously looked towards the window not far away.
A huge continuous shadow and a pale and cracked "earth" appeared in the endless darkness outside the window at some point. The huge pale structure was moving slowly outside the window. In addition to the shocking cracks on the surface, traces of skin-like lines could be seen.
Duncan's heart suddenly moved, as if he thought of something, and he quickly walked to the window. At this moment, new structures appeared on the slowly moving "pale earth" outside the window - first a widened crack, followed by turbid dark yellow solidified crystals, and then a huge eyeball tissue that almost occupied the entire field of vision outside the window.
A huge eye was slowly moving past the window of the captain's room.
Duncan stood in front of the window, looking at the cloudy single eye that was gradually moving across his vision. As his vision moved, he saw the structure around the eye - a pale, non-human face.
Then his gaze extended further and he saw the huge body stretching and undulating in the darkness, and the fragmented land that was almost "embedded" around the body.
It's the pale Cyclops that carries the Shattered Earth on his back in the Warp!
Duncan suddenly recalled that when he first entered the subspace, he had seen this amazing "individual" from afar!
But at that time he just passed by from a distance and didn't even have time to see any details of the giant and the earth it carried on its back - this time, the Lost Homeland passed slowly almost close to the face of the giant's remains.
The impact and shock brought by this scene was far greater than the last time - even Duncan felt suffocated at this moment.
He just stared at the giant moving slowly outside the window, and at the cloudy one eye that had been dead for who knows how long.
The dead, turbid single eye was also staring at him quietly - as the Lost Homeland moved, the eyeball slowly turned around, and in the chaotic subspace, it stared at Duncan calmly.
Duncan: “……?!”
He blinked and confirmed again that the giant's cloudy single eye was indeed slowly turning as the Lost Homeland moved - the eye saw the Lost Homeland and it was staring at here!