The captain has arrived.

Almost at the moment when the uninvited guest in a white robe finished speaking, a swirling green flame rose in the room, and a figure stepped out from the flame.

Shirley jumped up as soon as she saw Duncan: "Captain, Captain! A Preacher of the End suddenly came over here! He doesn't seem to be crazy. He said he wants to talk to you..."

"I know," Duncan raised his hand to interrupt Shirley's chatter, his eyes fixed on the uninvited guest, "I was wondering when you would show up in front of me - I didn't expect you to come now."

"Did you know I was coming?" the old man in white robe asked casually. Although he used questioning and unexpected words, his expression was still very calm.

"You will come sooner or later, because 'Dusk' has already begun. The members of the End Survey Team who are still rational at this moment should be happy to meet with me. And I also want to talk to you," Duncan said, looking around, "... This is not a good place to talk. We can talk somewhere else."

As soon as he finished speaking, Shirley, Agou, and Morris, who was blessing him, nodded in agreement...

The uninvited guest didn't seem to notice the reactions of the three people. He just looked at Duncan and said, "That's fine. Let's go to a place closer to the subspace. I'll feel more comfortable there."

Go somewhere closer to the subspace? Duncan frowned slightly when he heard this, but after a moment of silence, he slowly nodded: "Okay."

Upon hearing this, Morris subconsciously widened his eyes slightly: "Captain, are you sure you want to bring..."

"It's okay," Duncan waved his hand. "I know my limits. Shirley, go to the captain's room and get my brass lantern."

Soon after, Duncan, holding a brass lantern, and the uninvited guest in a shabby white robe, quietly walked through the cabin on the lower level of the Lost Homeland - they had passed the cargo hold with inverted lights and were now walking in the last corridor, with the stairs leading to the bottom of the cabin at the end of the corridor.

The brass lantern released a faint green flame, which dispelled the darkness around. In the empty cabin corridor, only footsteps could be heard. Most of the time, it was two people's footsteps, but Duncan would occasionally find that only his own footsteps could be heard. It was as if the "End Preacher" was not completely in the current real world. Sometimes he was like a weightless spirit, walking on the old wooden corridor without making any sound. Sometimes his breath would even almost dissipate, as if he had suddenly gone to a very far away place...

This was very curious, but he remained polite and did not ask.

When approaching the last door, the "End Preacher" took the initiative to break the silence: "You don't actually need this lamp - this lamp is prepared for a mortal."

Duncan's steps suddenly stopped. He was silent for a moment before continuing to move forward: "But this ship needs it."

"...You are so kind." The End Preacher whispered, with a tone that seemed to contain sincere praise.

"If it was not long ago, I would never have thought that one day I would come here with a Preacher of the End—or in such a calm state," Duncan said casually, "My first contact with you was not a pleasant one."

"Is it possible that I was the one who first met you?" The white-robed End Preacher showed an inexplicable smile on his face and said calmly, "At least one of them."

Duncan turned around and looked at the other person's face carefully in the light.

An old traveler in a white robe, with a hunched body, the lines on his face seemed to be carved by time, his sunken eyes were filled with a light golden, metallic color. His expression was calm, his smile was indifferent, and in the depths of his eyes, only time was flowing quietly.

Duncan retracted his gaze, turned around and continued walking forward: "I don't know, I have no impression of your face - anyway, it doesn't matter whether you were among the ones I captured on the boat or not. What matters is that you are here talking to me at this moment."

"It seems you already know us well."

Duncan didn't comment. He had already reached the last door and reached for the door handle.

"We're here, the closest point to the Warp on this ship."

As he finished speaking, he pushed open the dark wooden door, and the cabin structure behind the door came into view.

The unextinguished lights illuminated the cabin. The once shattered bottom structure was repaired in the previous Breeze Harbor incident, and now it has become complete again. The solid hull that grew from the spine of the ancient god closed around it, blocking the chaotic light and whispers projected from the warp - the strange wooden door that led directly to the warp still stood deep in the cabin, the door closed, standing silently.

Duncan led the "guest" into the cabin, and the End Preacher followed closely behind him. He raised his head and looked around at the bulkheads and roofs, and exclaimed: "Ah... You have repaired this place..."

"You know a lot," Duncan casually hung the lantern on a nearby pillar and looked back, "In a timeline that I don't know about, have any of you been here before?"

"I have seen its remains - maybe in the past, maybe in the future," the old man in white robes seemed to be reminiscing, frowning slightly, "...it disintegrated in flames and fell in darkness. The real and spectacular appearance was breathtaking."

Duncan did not respond to this topic. He had been thinking about various things along the way. He organized his words a little before asking, "How many members of the End Survey Team are there who are as rational as you?"

Then he paused and added: "I mean at this point in time."

The old man in white robe was silent for a while, his expression still calm: "I am the only one left."

Duncan felt as if his breathing and heartbeat seemed to pause for half a beat.

Then, he heard the voice of the old man in white robe again: "Captain, do you know what it feels like to grope in the dark?"

The last Cretan who remained sober and rational spoke calmly, slowly opening his hands, as if the eternal darkness was still lingering before his eyes.

"The End Survey Team... I haven't heard of this name for a long time. The moment we set out, this name had already turned into dust in history.

"The 'time' of this world is limited. This is something we have known since the beginning. The entire Infinite Ocean, the entire Deep Sea Era, is like a sophisticated clock that has been set to run for a certain period of time. We know that it can only run for a certain period of time, and our only hope is to find a chance to 'wind up' this world again before the hands of the clock stop...

"Your wise follower has almost constructed the entire 'world'. For the first time, he added the coordinate axis of 'time' to the world model. In our eyes, this coordinate axis appears more...real, hard, and cold.

"Our mission is to move along the timeline, and at the same time observe and guide every divergence point on the timeline that may produce historical branches, do everything possible to extend the life of the shelter, and at the same time find a way to continue forward at the end of time.

“From our own experience, this process is a bit like… walking with your back to the light.

"The day when Vision 001 was first lit up in the experimental field was the beginning of the light. That was the most stable moment for the entire shelter. Everything was just born, resources were abundant, the timeline was stable, everything was beautiful, and it even seemed like it could exist forever. We set out from that sunny morning, leaving the light behind and heading towards the darkness at the end.

"As we move away from the 'starting point', we see the world gradually decaying. All the tiny and unavoidable hidden dangers left at the beginning of creation are gradually expanding and turning into various deadly dangers. The light fades, and the darkness grows. We turn our backs to the sun and walk towards the night. The further we go, the darker it gets. We try our best to adjust, and observe the possibilities in the timeline in the increasingly dim light, hoping to delay the arrival of darkness... To some extent, we succeeded.

"The original 'design life' of this shelter was eight thousand years - but by avoiding wear and tear, alleviating chaos, and reducing the load on the 'sun', it has now exceeded its design life by two thousand years.

"But in the face of the endless river of time, our success is insignificant and is destined to be completely erased.

"At the end of the timeline, there is always only darkness. No matter how hard we try to extend the light of the 'starting point' into the future, or pick up some scattered lights on this increasingly dark road, we can't illuminate the end of time that is like an endless black wall... We bump into the endless darkness, groping around, but return empty-handed. Then we recalibrate the entire timeline, re-verify all possibilities, do everything possible to extend the future forward, and then bump into the darkness again, again and again... countless times."

The old man in white robe raised his head and stared at a dark corner in the dim cabin. After a long while, he continued to speak: "There is no way forward - this is the last sentence left by the first member among us who lost his mind before leaving. As a vanguard, he stayed at the end of time longer than all of us. He went through all possibilities and finally chose to give up, and even chose to... go back to the past to "correct" those futile days.

"That was the first 'End Preacher' mentioned by the people... He just lost control not long ago, and I haven't seen him for so long that I can't remember his name."

Duncan listened quietly. He was silent for a long time before he slowly spoke: "And you, remained rational until the end, and even came to me soberly."

"Yes," the old man in white robe turned his head and looked at Duncan, "because at this point in time, I have entered your sight - when the order of the world is crumbling, the cause can be found after the result."