Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 353: Chapter 357: The Counterfeit

Chapter 353 -357: The Counterfeit

The content on the paper was incoherent, as if it concealed certain equivocal metaphors; but upon closer examination, it only left one feeling unnerved. Even a widely learned scholar like Maurice had read the lines over and over but could not discern any traces of meaning.

What were the Forgotten Kings? What was this abandoned clan? And what about the “shelter” mentioned in the ashes and repeatedly brought up in those paragraphs?

Duncan furrowed his brow, his gaze sweeping over the ink that had spread slightly where the water had soaked the paper. Some words recorded there vaguely sparked associations, yet he couldn’t piece together any coherent thoughts. He had a faint feeling… it seemed that this was not just the ravings of a madman. Those passages, reminiscent of religious scriptures, seemed to be recounting something relevant to this current “Deep Sea Age.”

Or perhaps, the time before the Deep Sea Age.

“Is this Crow’s handwriting?” Fenna suddenly raised her head, looking towards Nemo standing nearby.

“It’s his penmanship,” Nemo said, squatting down to examine the writing and then nodding definitively. “He always elongates the last stroke of the last letter in his sentences. No one else has that habit.”

“What did he believe in?” Fenna asked again. “Outside of the orthodox faith, did he delve into any other kinds of spiritual guidance? It doesn’t have to be heretical beliefs—even gray societies like secret circles and scholarly hermitages count.”

“He was a devout believer of the God of Death, always had been since he was a child. Apart from the church of Bartok, I’ve never seen him at any other kind of gathering,” Crow contemplated before replying, “As for secret societies and scholarly hermitages… that’s even less likely. How could he get involved in such matters? A guy who had to be tutored three years to graduate from Lower City District public high school—those hermitages would have to want him first even if he wanted to join!”

“A devout orthodox believer, never exposed to any spiritual guidance beyond the true faith… now that’s intriguing,” Fenna pondered while looking at the paper in Maurice’s hand, her finger curved to her chin in thought. “The narrative style here clearly bears the hallmarks of the classical City-State era or even the earlier Dark Age and is typical of ‘Sacred Scripture.’ Such things aren’t conjured up by someone barely scraping by in public high school—and Crow kept it close on his person, which shows that he cared greatly about what’s on this paper.”

Duncan didn’t speak; he had been silently musing, when suddenly it dawned on him, “So, it’s possible that he copied this from somewhere.”

“Copied?” Nemo was momentarily stunned, then also caught on. “Do you mean that Crow might have stumbled into some place, and the writing on this paper… are ‘clues’ he transcribed from there?”

“Perhaps he himself didn’t know the meaning of what he had copied, but it was the most suspicious, most notable information he had seen there,” Duncan nodded slowly, “And sadly, he might have attracted a deadly fate while transcribing it.”

“Stumbled into some place…” Fenna slowly stood up, her arms crossed in front of her as she spoke thoughtfully, “That place must have been wholly unfamiliar to Crow, with potentially bizarre surroundings, such that the person could not determine his whereabouts in a short time, only managing to hurriedly record what he saw as clues. On the other hand, he might have been discovered and killed shortly after copying it down, without the chance to explore further—if he had, he might have been able to document more distinctive information to describe the environment he witnessed.”

With that, she glanced once more at the drowned body, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Where exactly did he go? And how was he brought back? A wet corpse should have left traces when it was transported…”

Nemo looked up, surveying the surroundings.

In the dry sewer corridor, there were no signs that a body had been dragged through here.

“Perhaps we should delve further along the route Crow usually patrolled; he might have left some signs before ending up in that place,” Maurice suggested, looking ahead into the depths of the corridor. “Did he normally go this way?”

“Yes,” Nemo nodded, “This corridor leads towards the Upper City District, but there’s a stretch where the lighting is unstable, occasionally consumed by darkness. While temporary blackouts aren’t a major issue, it’s still possible for something… not quite pleasant to emerge, so we need to patrol regularly and promptly detect any nascent shadows.”

“Then let’s go have a look. We might discover some clues if we go sooner rather than later,” Duncan agreed. “If there really is something that ran out from there, it can all be dealt with in one go.”

There were no objections.

The group took a temporary leave from Crow’s body, ready to venture deeper into the sewer corridor. As they crossed by the young man’s body, both Nemo and the old ghost instinctively bowed their heads.

“Wait here for us, we’ll come back for you,” Nemo said.

The old ghost bent down and, from seemingly nowhere, produced a triangular amulet, placing it on Crow’s chest. “Don’t wander off, kid.”

Duncan watched this scene in silence, waiting for Nemo and the old ghost to finish their farewell before turning and leading the team forward.

“We’ll tell Captain Tyrion what happened here after we go back,” Fenna suddenly said on the road, “That young man won’t die without reason.”

“Thank you,” Nemo said in a low voice, clearly in a poor mood, with melancholy and loss lingering, “That kid… he didn’t really accomplish anything great in his life, but being remembered by Captain Tyrion and Captain Duncan, I guess that’s an honor too.”

“Does he have any family?” Morris also broke the silence, asking softly.

“Family? He had none. He grew up in an orphanage and started apprenticing with me when he left the orphanage as a teen,” Nemo shook his head, “The orphanage head said the kid was found on the streets, in a trash can at the corner. When he was picked up, he was truly only as big as a crow from head to toe…”

“An abandoned baby,” Old Ghost grumbled as if with anger in his voice, “Back when the queen was alive, she would never allow such a thing to happen—abandoning babies would get you locked up in jail! Now people have become so corrupt they can throw children in trash cans… That kid had a stroke of luck, he was very scrawny when he first came to us from the orphanage, like a monkey even at his teens. I was always worried he’d catch a cold and die over the winter, but he still survived… survived…”

The old man suddenly stopped, seeming to choke up, and then shook his head in low spirits: “In the end, he still didn’t survive.”

The atmosphere within the group was exceedingly downcast, and even Alice, who was usually slow to catch on, felt the oppressive mood. She looked around, confused, and finally approached Old Ghost hesitantly as if wanting to comfort him: “You… don’t be sad.”

Old Ghost looked up, staring at Alice who wore a wig and veil, and after a moment, he sniffed forcefully: “Your Majesty, you need to take care of this…”

Alice looked at the old man before her, not knowing what to do.

But soon, her embarrassment was interrupted—the group suddenly stopped.

Ahead, the corridor was shrouded in dim light, with two gas lamps that seemed faulty embedded in the walls, their feeble glow barely managing to dispel the darkness. Fenna was looking up at the ground where the light and shadow intersected, her expression becoming more and more serious.

“Over there… there’s a person lying down.”

Her voice was solemn.

A somewhat frail figure lay motionless next to a drain at the edge of the hallway, bathed in the dim and weak light of the gas lamps, which cast a pale shine on the familiar thick blue coat.

The group approached the body on the ground, and upon seeing the face, Duncan felt no surprise—it was Crow.

However, unlike Duncan and a few others who were expecting this, Nemo and Old Ghost were shocked, even a little frightened, the moment they saw that face.

“Crow?!” Nemo’s voice trembled as he stared dumbfounded at the person on the ground, his body subconsciously stepping back half a step, “How… how could this happen…”

“It’s a fake,” Duncan interjected calmly, recognizing at first glance that the body before them was a fake crafted from Prime Element—because around this “corpse,” small amounts of a black viscous substance had already begun to appear, obviously indicating that the dissolution process had started.

It seemed there were differences among the fakes, even though they were also made from Prime Element. Some could move around the City-State for a fortnight, while others would start to fall apart by the time they were delivered to the cemetery, and this “fake”… Its dissolution rate appeared even faster.

Only a few hours at most had passed since Crow went missing.

Duncan’s mind raced—

If Crow indeed accidentally entered a dangerous and strange place—such as the nest of a cult and copied a suspicious “sacred textual narrative,” then the replication targeting him… must have also started there.

And now, his clone lay in this area, where he usually patrolled.

He was on the right track.

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Perhaps the source of the clone was nearby!