However, some people claimed to be obedient to every word, but in truth, they only listened to what pleased them.
“Never mind him,” Cavendish said carelessly, lifting a hand to cover the back of Ode’s. He slowly slid his fingers between Ode’s, then gripped tight. “Let him wait.”
Like hell they’d wait! An entire cult gang was eyeing the clueless dignitaries on this ship like hungry wolves. What if they went all out and slaughtered everyone? Ode bit down hard, twisting away the moment Cavendish loosened his hold. He stepped sideways, slammed his palm against the door, and shoved.
Thud!
All anyone outside could hear was the dull smack of flesh against the door panel. Inside the cabin, Ode still clutched the handle—the lock had clicked open—but the door stayed jammed, pinned by the weight of two grown men.
“Are you some kind of animal?!” Ode winced, drawing in a sharp breath through gritted teeth. He could feel his spine bruising. “Can’t you hold it together for one second? Even a dog picks its spot to piss—mmph.”
“Doing it on purpose, aren’t you?” Cavendish murmured against his lips, only pulling back when Ode started thrashing for air. “Blowing a dog whistle is one thing, but now you’re calling me out in the open? If I don’t make good on it this once, wouldn’t I be the one losing out?”
【……】 The earpiece went dead silent, mirroring the ashen despair in Faust’s heart.
The knocking outside grew more frantic, more insistent. Bang bang bang!!
Inside the cabin, all was quiet save for the wet, inseparable sounds of a deep kiss. A few seconds later, Ode shoved his knee hard into Cavendish’s side, gasping for breath. “Enough! …We’ll talk after the trouble on this ship is sorted. Keep wasting my time, and you’ll be waiting on a coroner’s slab.”
“…” Cavendish paused, then sighed in helpless resignation and stepped back. “We really should pick a different safeword.”
“If it sounded good, would it work as one?” Ode muttered, tugging his rumpled shirt straight before yanking the door open.
But peering out, he saw no trace of the old man—just a burly man in his fifties decked out in a naval uniform, planted squarely in the doorway.
From the cut of the uniform, Ode pegged him as the ship’s captain. The man sported a thick beard and stood ramrod straight, his stern gaze raking down from head to toe like it could cow a line of troublemakers.
“You alright? We got a complaint from a guest saying a server was dragged into this cabin against his will. You—”
The captain’s eyes dropped, landing on the skintight tailcoat clinging to Ode’s frame. His stern face turned a sickly shade of green. He choked out the rest: “You’re coming with me! It’s working hours—what the hell are you doing running around?!”
Cavendish straightened his collar and stepped up behind, looking ready to chime in with some lofty opinion. But Ode frowned and glanced both ways first. “There was an old gentleman knocking here earlier. Did you see him?”
“No one was at the door when I got here. What’s with the questions? Think the guests are meddling too much?!” The captain snapped, turning on his heel. “Move it! I’ve got a ship full of problems—no time to waste on you.”
For some reason, Cavendish—who’d seemed poised to say something outrageous—clamped his mouth shut. His midnight eyes fixed on the captain, his head tilting slightly, like an owl spotting something invisible to human eyes.
A shiver ran down Ode’s spine at the uncanny vibe radiating from Cavendish. Without thinking, he edged closer to the captain, shooting a wary glare back at the guy whose loyalties and motives remained a mystery. Better safe than sorry—no repeat of the headmaster dropping dead.
Fortunately, Cavendish made no move as the captain marched him all the way from first class to the empty crew lounge. Instead, the captain hurled a fresh tailcoat at him. “Put it on! Now!”
He’d kept up appearances in front of guests, but alone now, disgust poured off the man like sweat. “Look at what you’re wearing! Do you look like a man with any dignity? Are you even a man?!”
The captain took a deep breath, steadying himself. His voice dropped to a grave rumble. “Fine. Part of me wants to boot you off the ship right now, but if you kick up a fuss, it’ll get messy. Finish your shift, and I’ll pay you out. But hear this—no more stunts like that one! Got it? Don’t make me come down on you. These guests have reputations to protect. No matter who you’ve cozied up to, if it blows up, no one’s saving you. Ruin your name and your wallet, blacklisted everywhere—or walk away with today’s pay. Your choice.”
Faust’s wicked cackle crackled through the earpiece. What could Ode say? He mumbled obediently until the captain stormed out, then kicked off the ill-fitting nightmare of a uniform. Slipping into the looser, comfier spare felt like heaven. He exhaled in relief. “Quit spectating. I got intel at least. What about you lot?”
【I haven’t been slacking either,】 Faust drawled, his voice cranked up enough to make the background chaos crystal clear: groans and whimpers from a beatdown. 【With your new tip, I nabbed six of them.】
【The Black Brotherhood’s only brushed them once or twice—no official ties. They’re just cannon fodder. But I rifled their pockets—pretty sure there’s a seventh.】
“Can’t we just ask these idiots who the last one is?” Ode hadn’t eased up. As a former go-between, he knew better than most: even perfect plans crumbled on one loose screw.
【Having Eva pull ship cams for ID confirmation.】 Faust snorted, tapping the earpiece with a clink. 【Hurry it up, Eva. You’ve been radio silent all day—what’s up?】
Ode nearly ripped the earpiece out, dreading Eva’s expression right then.
Two seconds ticked by before her voice cut in, cool as ever. 【Wanna die? Shut it. Open your phone—I’m screen-sharing.】
【Sure thing~】 Faust replied lazily, seamlessly. But the next instant, he flipped to a private line.
Ode caught him muttering like he had a toothache: 【This is bad—we’ve got a problem. Eva’s not acting right.】
Meanwhile, down in the lower third-class decks.
The captain trudged down the stairs, his steps heavier than usual, irritation gnawing at him.
He had no real purpose here—just wandering aimlessly. The ship wasn’t even at sea, so there wasn’t much demanding his attention.
But anxiety clawed at him anyway. He couldn’t stop obsessing over the people in the conference hall, over this summit.
Retirement loomed close. Assigning him as captain for this ship, at this juncture, was the brass’s quiet way of gilding his post-career life. Once the meeting wrapped, he’d get his promotion and title. Less than a year later, honorable discharge and home in glory.
Yet unease dogged him, like an invisible net closing in from the shadows—over him, over every VIP aboard.
Ridiculous. MI5 agents weren’t pushovers…
Tap-tap-tap.
A flurry of light footsteps suddenly skimmed through the empty warehouse ahead, jolting him upright.
Years of instinct kicked in. “Kid! You’re too close to the watertight doors—it’s dangerous—hey?!”
A little girl in a cream-colored dress, topped with a big red bow, popped out from under the metal stairs. She ignored him flat-out, her little white shoes pattering as she bolted upstairs. He eyed her skinny limbs, terrified she’d slip and catch a foot in the crude gaps of the warehouse stairs.
He scooped her up quick. “No running on these stairs! I’ll take you back to your parents. Which family are you from? What room number?”
“…” She turned her head slowly, woodenly, like it wasn’t quite hers to control.
The captain didn’t notice, eager just to offload the little rascal to someone responsible. He hoisted her with one arm and headed up. “This isn’t a playground—hey!”
He’d barely climbed three steps when she wriggled free like an eel, shedding her jacket. Her feet hit the deck unsteady, but she scrambled up hand-over-hand, vanishing down the third-class corridor without a backward glance.
“…Lord.” The captain rubbed his temple, helpless, and gave chase. “Wait—!”
“Captain.” A raspy voice, warped like screeching brakes, sliced from behind. His already jittery heart lurched into overdrive.
He whipped around. A man in his thirties, maintenance uniform, stepped from behind a cargo container, welding gear and cables in hand.
“What are you doing lurking here?” The captain’s brow furrowed on reflex, his tone sharpening. Clearly, he needed to patrol more—no telling what headaches piled up otherwise. “What in this warehouse needs a torch? Wait—you’re not trying to steal, are you? But everything here’s bulky freight, nothing small enough to—”
Dong…
A piano note rang out, long and trembling, from the upper rear of the warehouse.
The captain nearly jumped out of his skin. The worker quit mid-curse, whirling upstairs in a fury. “Damn it… people everywhere! One piano on this whole ship, locked in the lounge at night—who’s the idiot screwing around on the keys?!”
As he stomped up, the notes flowed into a coherent melody—elegant on the surface, but laced with melancholy. It conjured damp rain, rain-lashed seas, and—
“Time to say goodbye to this world.”
The welder’s arc hissed to life. An instant later, cold steel kissed the captain’s skull. He reeled backward in shock, collapsing.
In his final haze, he met bloodshot eyes. So… familiar.
Dong… The piano melody cut off abruptly, ending on a jarring final note—like the player’s hands had gone limp, crashing onto the keys.
At the same time, along the path from the crew lounge to third-class…
Ode sprinted forward in great strides, temporarily setting aside his earlier suspicions about Eva. That’s because she had spoken up in the communication channel just before Faust could: 【The captain’s been killed. In the warehouse area below the third-class cabins. The killer was a repairman… Hurry! He grabbed the Captain’s Key! He’s heading toward the captain’s quarters—】
【? What’s wrong? Talk to me! I’m almost at the captain’s—】
“??”
Ode, who could only rely on his legs to get around, sensed something was off from the way his teammates’ words cut off one after another. “Why isn’t anyone talking?”
【…Too late.】 Eva let out a sigh, her tone still calm. 【Is there a handrail nearby? Grab on tight.】
“?”
Ode reflexively gripped the railing to his left. Just as he opened his mouth to ask what was going on, the bright daytime seascape—fitting for just past ten in the morning—plunged into sudden darkness, as if the entire ship had been stuffed into a black sack.
The next second, the massive liner shuddered with a thunderous boom.
Amid the stunned stares of countless passengers, the front of the ship slowly tilted backward, hoisted up by some invisible force as if it were climbing a steep uphill road.
【Tell me Faust didn’t say something like ‘Good thing this ship doesn’t go out to sea, so we can evacuate anytime’ before we set off?】 Eva’s cold voice cut through the rising chorus of screams and cries with crystal clarity. 【If he did, learn from this. If we make it back alive, next mission, tape his mouth shut before we head out.】
“Wait… what’s happening right now??” Ode clutched the railing with both hands, straining to push forward amid the violent jolts and tremors. He wanted to see exactly what was lifting the ship. “Can’t Faust at least use the Alchemy Teleportation Array to send everyone on board down first?”
“Too late.” Faust’s voice appeared right behind him the next moment.
Unlike Ode’s frantic scramble, Faust didn’t need to cling to anything. His alchemy allowed him to stride across the pitching, tilting deck as steady as if it were flat ground. “Didn’t you notice how dark it’s gotten around us? We’re no longer in normal space.”
“What?” No sooner had Ode spoken than his palm grew slick and slippery beneath his grip. Luckily, Faust grabbed the back of his collar just in time, or he would have slid right over the railing.
Ode instinctively looked down at the suddenly treacherous railing. The once gleaming silver alloy was now pitted with rust, covered in moss and slimy seaweed.
The deck beneath his feet—and the entire ship—had undergone a total transformation. It looked less like the Royal Liner from 1980 and more like a rotting, ancient Ghost Ship!
“Don’t panic, don’t panic.” Faust was utterly nonchalant as he hooked a finger under Ode’s chin, tilting his head toward the bow. “Now that’s the real sight to see.”
“?”
Ode had no idea how Faust could be in the mood for sightseeing. It was as if he’d completely given up struggling.
Every hair on Ode’s body stood on end in the vast, pitch-black surroundings. His mind raced at unprecedented speed, desperately searching for any loophole to exploit. “—That repairman. If we kill that repairman, will all this weirdness stop?”
Faust clicked his tongue. “That’s why I told you to look ahead…”
The ship rocked heavily again, the decrepit hull creaking and groaning as if it might shatter apart at any second.
In the sway, Ode almost had the illusion that the ship had just plummeted onto a water surface blending seamlessly with the darkness, now slowly sailing forward—but what kind of water sloped upward?
He struggled to tug at his collar and lift his head, lest Faust actually choke him. As his gaze reached the bow, a hazy glow—neither quite gold nor white—shimmered in the distant direction, gently caressing the ship’s barnacle- and seaweed-crusted, rotting deck.
“What is that…”
“The moon?!”
The bewildered questions rose from the guests at the bow, their minds gone blank, reduced to raw instinct.
Faust dragged Ode along toward the front—or rather, up the slope. He didn’t even need to reach the very bow; midway there, he spotted a colossal sphere radiating pure white light, silently and slowly rotating in the darkness, gradually revealing itself from behind the much smaller ship.
“Impossible…” Ode forgot to breathe, his eyes wide as he stared at the massive planet coming into fuller view the closer they got to the bow. “How is this… We’re not suffocating or anything, and… does the moon really look like that?? It’s nothing like what I saw at the planetarium!”
“That’s what I’ve been saying—time to update those outdated school textbooks. What’s the point of just memorizing the divine spectrum?” Faust complained to Eva as if he’d never once questioned her. ” ‘Phantasmal Dream Realm’—you remember that lesson, right?”
“Yeah…?” Ode stared straight ahead, barely able to breathe. It wasn’t just because the ship was hurtling ever closer to the moon. Ahead of the ship, two figures—or rather, two corpses—hovered in midair.
They floated in poses like they were lying supine on water, legs slightly parted, arms naturally outstretched to the sides.
One stared with bulging, unclosed eyes, mouth agape: the captain they’d met once before.
The other had eyes peacefully shut, a serene smile on his face. Were it not for the blood trickling slowly from his severed carotid artery, forming a continuous crimson trail in the air, he might have seemed locked in a tranquil, pleasant dream.
The ship glided without engines or oars.
Its entire progress was powered by these two corpses towing it along—even though Ode saw no ropes connecting them to the vessel.
“…”
A chill raced from Ode’s spine to his tailbone at the solemn yet eerie sight of the corpse-drawn ship.
The enormous, slowly rotating moon cast the two black silhouettes in stark relief. In the surrounding dead silence, the scene took on an air of sanctity and grandeur.
The passengers gradually fell quiet. Part of it was sheer mental overload, leaving them speechless; the other part, sheer terror.
Beneath the vastness of the cosmos, beneath the moon’s own immensity, the once-opulent liner seemed utterly insignificant. They almost felt that one extra sound might summon a monster lurking in the dark to devour them.
“…”
Ode swallowed hard, forcing himself back to his senses from the hypnotic spectacle. “I remember the Phantasmal Dream Realm. Elder Zhong said it’s a real world constructed from the dreams of countless beings. …Are you saying we’re in the Phantasmal Dream Realm right now? And that—this is the moon from the Phantasmal Dream Realm?”
“Afraid so.” Faust sounded thoughtful. “We’ve lost all contact with the Intelligence Department. No clue why this dead repairman sacrificed himself to drag a whole ship full of people into the Phantasmal Dream Realm—or why he killed the captain.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore, though—he, the seventh man, is dead. Which means there are no more Black Brotherhood spies on board. Now we just have to deal with any enemies that might invade from outside the ship.”
【It still matters a little. Knowing the repairman’s story might help us figure out this ship’s final destination.】
Eva’s voice remained cool, even after being yanked onto the moon: 【Or maybe we’re just passing through.】
Ode caught on quick. “…You mean, he pulled us from the real world onto the Phantasmal Dream Realm’s moon—and now, heading downward from there will take us back to the real world, but somewhere else?”
“Brilliant deduction!” Faust, cigar halfway lit, slapped his thigh and pulled it from his mouth. “If that’s the case, when we return to reality, I can try rerouting us—ideally straight back home, or at worst, not wherever the repairman planned.”
Hearing that Faust had a plan eased Ode’s mind considerably. But the next moment, Eva’s icy voice—tinged with rare horror—crackled through his earpiece:
【Fog’s rolling in.】
·
Ode knew he was dreaming. He was back in his childhood.
It was a sunny afternoon. He and his father sat in the woods behind the manor, sunlight filtering through the sparse treetops onto them as they sewed an orange dress together.
“Father, why are your hands so nimble carving wood carvings but so clumsy with fabric?” Little Ode held up the worm-like stitches in dissatisfaction. “Keep messing up, and we’ll use up all the material!”
“Sigh…” His father propped his cheek on his hand atop a little stool. After a moment’s hesitation, his face clouded over. Then he scooped up tiny Ode with a grin and plopped him on his lap. “How about we do something I’m better at? How does an eagle fly, son?”
“You’re serious…” Tiny Ode wilted, flapping his little arms halfheartedly.
“Aw, so cute! Okay, how does a kitty walk along a wall? What about a little mouse—how does it dart through tons and tons of obstacles super fast?”
The whole afternoon, meant for making a gift for Mother, turned into little Ode’s forced colorful performance to entertain his father.
At the end, his father adjusted the limp, dead-fish-like Ode on his lap and beamed. “One last one—really, the last. Remember how fish swim?”
Tiny Ode sat listlessly on his father’s knee, kicking his little legs like a salted fish.
“Kick again, kick again, then tell Papa—Dwr-lus-sa.”
In the dream, tiny Ode kicked out once more, mumbling reluctantly in his childish lisp: “Dwr-lus-sa—”
Outside the dream.
Sprawled on the damp, salty, fishy deck, the adult Ode—his brows and lashes rimed with a thin layer of frost from the mist—suddenly shuddered. In his uneasy slumber, he murmured soundlessly: ‘Dwr-lus-sa…’
A nearly two-meter-long deep crimson fish tail whipped up abruptly, slamming the deck hard and sending veils of aurora-like mist surging dozens of meters into the air.
