With a loud bang, the ugly, shriveled "corpse" flew into the air from the deck and slammed heavily into a pile of debris not far away like a cannonball.

The sailors on the deck were startled by the huge noise. Lawrence, who was watching the situation not far away, jumped down from the platform and led a group of people to quickly run towards the direction where the "sailor" fell. In a pile of messy debris, the shriveled corpse in a sailor's smock was struggling hard. He finally pulled his head out of a broken box. After seeing the sailors gathered around, he shook his head dizzily: "I... I saw..."

First mate Gus pulled the corpse out with all his strength and asked, "What did you see?"

"I saw that I was too milky..."

The first mate kicked the mummy back again: "How can you be so cute if you are an anomaly?!"

Lawrence instantly determined that Abnormality 077 was nothing serious, so he turned and walked to the side, coming to the "person who fell into the sea" who had just been salvaged.

An elf dressed in southern-style clothing was half-lying on the deck, leaning on the winch used to tow the cargo, his expression looking a little dull and dazed - he was soaked and looked disheveled, but there seemed to be no obvious external injuries on his body.

But when Lawrence approached, the elf's reaction was obviously abnormal - he just turned his head slightly and slowly, as if he was still not fully awake. He glanced around with a dull look, and then turned back slowly.

Ted Lear was still in a daze, not knowing where he was.

He had been in this state since he instinctively knocked the ugly, shriveled corpse away - his head seemed to be stuffed with a large mass of sticky, chaotic paste, and strange noises kept echoing in the depths of his mind. Shadows kept shaking at the edge of his vision, interfering with his judgment and thinking.

He knew that he had left the warp, and the sea breeze and the sound of waves around him were undoubtedly from the real world, but the terrible "dark journey" still left a long-lasting burn mark in his mind. This burn mark was slowly spreading, becoming a terrible sequelae of witnessing the warp, and continued to paralyze his nerves.

He was already very lucky - almost no one could survive after witnessing the subspace, let alone retain human sanity and return to the real dimension after a terrible "shuttle". But he didn't have time to feel lucky for not surviving the catastrophe - his remaining sanity was urging him to regain consciousness as soon as possible and fix his mind in the real dimension as soon as possible, because the fatal pollution and shadows had not completely subsided. They were attacking from the cracks that humans could not perceive and understand, trying to drag him back to that chaotic and dark place...

A buzzing sound came from the side, sounding like thunder through a thick curtain. A man walked over. He was a strong old man with gray hair. He seemed to be talking, his mouth opening and closing, making sounds that humans could not understand.

"Wake up, wake up," Lawrence stretched out his hand and slapped the strange elf's face, trying to wake up this unfortunate guy who was drifting on the sea for some reason. "What's your name?"

A hazy shadow appeared beside him. Martha warned him from the shadow: "Be careful, Lawrence. This person is very suspicious. He drifted from the sea after the sun went out. Who knows what he is..."

"Don't worry, Martha. Anyway, even if it's something floating out of the subspace, it's not much more evil than us," Lawrence said casually, but he was still cautious. He put one hand on the pistol at his waist, and faint wisps of green flames jumped in the cylinder. "Did you see clearly when this man appeared from the edge of the darkness just now? How did he show up?"

"There was no sign," Martha's shadow carefully observed the suspicious elf who had his eyes open but did not look like he was awake at all, and replied in a low voice, "I have been paying attention to the surrounding situation in the spirit world since the sun went out. He suddenly appeared... Such a guy appeared out of thin air in the darkness."

“This is the first time I’ve encountered this situation…”

Lawrence muttered to himself, and subconsciously looked over the side of the ship, at the waves rising and falling around the White Oak - a small area of ​​sea water was illuminated by the light emitted by the White Oak, as if it still maintained the normal appearance of the sea before the sun went out, but beyond that limited sea area, there was an invisible boundary, and the boundless sea beyond the boundary was dark and strange, as if the whole world had become nothingness.

And this suspicious elf suddenly emerged from that invisible boundary.

At this moment, the "drifter" leaning against the capstan suddenly moved his eyes.

Lawrence turned his head suddenly and stared at the other person.

The elf opened its mouth, but what reached Lawrence's ears was a series of hoarse noises that humans could not understand or even make: "@##￥%...?"

Lawrence: “……?!”

The moment he heard this series of noises, alarm suddenly arose. The experience accumulated from most of his lifetime drifting on the vast sea made the old captain take two steps back and pull out his revolver at a speed that was almost invisible to the naked eye. Almost at the same time, the sailors on guard around him also reacted immediately, and all kinds of weapons were pointed at the "drifter". Even the "sailor", who had finally climbed out of the pile of debris again, pulled out a scimitar from somewhere and waved it around with gestures.

The Drifter on the deck opened his eyes wide, and seemed a little confused for a moment. He opened his hands to indicate that he had no weapons, and once again made that hoarse, piercing noise that seemed to be able to crush an ordinary person's mind: "%&＊＊%￥!!"

Then he stopped abruptly.

Ted Lear finally realized that what he was saying was not "human" language - it was not even language.

It was a vibration that even he could not understand, a meaningless sound.

That is the echo of the Warp.

He reacted instantly, and the next second, he noticed that the world in front of him was distorting - those people who looked like ordinary and innocent sailors gathered around him suddenly had expanding and contracting shadows, and countless malicious eyeballs appeared behind the gray-haired old captain. The nearby deck was gradually softening, showing a mud-like texture, and an invisible curtain was slowly opening. The erosion of the subspace was in an instant...

However, just as Ted Lear was about to sacrifice himself to stop the opening of the Warp rift, a dark green flame suddenly appeared in his eyes.

A ghostly flame emerged from Lawrence's body. Then, the flame, which seemed like a living thing, jumped and spread, rising and burning on every sailor nearby, turning them into ghostly forms, and then burning towards the surrounding decks, cables, bridges, chimneys...

The mummy that was waving a scimitar and joining in the fun nearby screamed the moment the spiritual fire rose, and jumped aside as if burned, but soon walked back as if nothing had happened. He carefully touched the flame on the nearby deck with his scimitar, lit a little fire on the tip of the knife, and held it above his head, pretending that he was also part of the burning flame.

The gate to the warp was completely exiled before it could even be opened. Ted Lear felt that all the noise and shadows in his body were burned and dispelled by the invisible flame - the flame isolated the last trace of the warp's entanglement with him, and the touch of the real world seemed to have never been as clear and stable as it was now.

He looked up in astonishment, looking at the old captain whose body was burning with dark green flames, feeling a little dazed.

Why does this fire look so familiar?

"What was that just now?" Lawrence was also a little confused. He muttered while continuing to look vigilantly at the "elf" opposite him, who was suspicious but did not look like a cultist or a filthy demon. He was a little unsure of what to do next. "Is it some kind of spell?"

"...Who are you?" Ted Lear suddenly spoke. This time, he made a sound that humans could understand. "Where is this place?"

"You can talk?!" Lawrence was shocked for a moment, but he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief after hearing the elf speak human language. Although he didn't know what was going on, the sense of crisis in his heart did subside a little. "...This is the White Oak, I'm the captain."

"White Oak?" Ted Riel frowned slightly, as if he vaguely remembered when he had heard this name before. However, the continuous mental trauma and severe fatigue made his mind still a little confused, and he couldn't remember the specific information of this ship for a while. "What is your relationship with the Lost Homeland? What is your relationship with Captain Duncan?"

"Captain Duncan?" Lawrence was stunned when he heard this. This was the first time he heard someone mention this name so frankly outside. But he quickly reacted and nodded, "That's my boss."

Ted Lear: “……?”

※※※

"Ted Lear is missing?!"

In the "Witch's House" of Breeze Harbor, Duncan, who had just returned to the city, was surprised when he heard the news brought by Lucretia.

"Yes, this is the news that just came from the academy," Lucrecia nodded. She had just gone outside a few minutes ago. "Ted Riel left the research station next to the 'Glowing Geometry' fifteen minutes ago through the portal, but he did not appear at the scheduled location at Breeze Harbor after that."

"Only fifteen minutes?" Shirley leaned over and said, "It doesn't seem that long. Let's look for it..."

"Use the portal to move - if the person doesn't arrive when the portal opens, something has gone wrong," Lucrecia glanced at Shirley, "This is probably because the sun went out and caused the spell to go out of control."