“…Before they set out, I cast a divination. In the crystal ball, I saw a thick, ominous gloom. A crow landed in the northwest, and black feathers scattered across the ground. This was destined to be a journey from which there would be no return… I tried to stop it, but I failed. So I did everything I could—using the disguises my teacher taught —to sneak aboard the Golden Anchor…”
Erica wrote this in her diary.
But neither the investigator couple nor Erica had anticipated that the heretics on the ship numbered far more than just Joroni.
Nearly half of the passengers on board were followers of the Dagon Covenant.
This cult proclaid that by worshipping their father god Dagon and mother goddess Hydra, one could obtain endless wealth and an extraordinarily long life—things that the powerful elite, who controlled everything yet could not achieve immortality, desired above all else.
Under Captain Joroni’s secret coordination, nurous wealthy and influential figures boarded the Golden Anchor. They planned to hold a grand ritual on the night of departure, offering all innocent non-believing passengers as sacrifices to the father god Dagon in exchange for his blessing.
The investigator couple had discovered this plot in advance. They tried to contact headquarters for help, but before they could act, the heretics scattered throughout the ship had already uncovered their disguises.
Erica was unable to stop the bloody and brutal massacre.
After the death of the couple who had raised her, Erica’s heart also died.
This ill-fated witch had lived many years, and the long span of her life had brought nothing but bitterness. It wasn’t until the encounter in 1994 that she briefly tasted happiness.
And now… the dream was over.
Erica was a ti witch. She could use the power of ti to make wilting flowers bloom again, or restore an aged body to youth—but she could not bring back a dead soul.
At the sa ti, due to the nature of her abilities, she specialized only in manipulating ti and was not proficient in the common witchcraft skills that other witches wielded with ease.
When she realized that she was not dealing with just one or two people, but nearly half the passengers on the ship, Erica chose to lie low.
She continued to disguise herself as an innocent little girl, wandering throughout the ship, secretly observing the movents of the Dagon Covenant. Learning that they planned to act that very night, Erica took out a dagger she always carried with her.
It was a dagger nad “Fiery teor.”
It had been forged in seventeenth-century Europe. A farr had stumbled upon a teorite that fell from the sky, and he forged it into a dagger. He discovered that, no matter how cold the environnt, the blade maintained a constant temperature of 20°C. However, any wound inflicted by the dagger would bleed uncontrollably.
The farr’s wife and child were accidentally cut by the dagger and died from the endless blood loss. Grief-stricken, the farr believed the Fiery teor was a cursed blade. He gave it to a passing monk, hoping the monk could contain its evil, but soon after, the monk also died during his travels.
The dagger disappeared for centuries, resurfacing in the United States only in the early twentieth century.
What the world did not know was that this dagger, while causing uncontrollable bleeding, also greatly amplified the strength of those it wounded, draining all the potential from their bodies until they died from blood loss. So people used this property to turn the dagger into a weapon of revenge.
Every ti the Fiery teor appeared, it left a trail of blood and terror—until it was eventually discovered and sealed by special affairs investigators.
This ti, feeling uneasy, Erica secretly brought the Fiery teor with her when she went out.
What was ant only as a precaution unexpectedly beca the key to turning the tide.
On May 26th, the first day they boarded the cruise ship, at 8:00 p.m., Erica hid in the closet of the investigator couple’s room and drove the Fiery teor dagger into her own chest.
Endless, gushing blood spurted from her wound, staining her white dress crimson. At the sa ti, centered on her body, an invisible ti-space circle rapidly unfolded.
—The Ti-Space Circle spell: a profound magic asured in units of “days,” where the beginning and end coincide, forming a shape reminiscent of an ouroboros.
At first, it was no larger than a pearl, but as her blood flowed, the circle expanded at a terrifying rate, eventually enveloping the entire massive cruise ship along with the surrounding sea.
To kill a witch, one must destroy both her soul and her body.
Death of the body alone does not bring an end. Erica’s ancient soul remained within her cold, lifeless form. Filled with hatred and curses, day after day, year after year, she sustained the ti-space circle on the Golden Anchor.
She hated—the ignorant, the shortsighted, the greedy humans who, for their own selfish desires, pushed their kin onto the sacrificial altar in exchange for blessings from an evil god.
She cursed the followers who had degenerated into monsters. They would be trapped in a perpetual 24-hour loop, confined within the narrow ti-space circle, like Sisyphus, like brains in jars, endlessly repeating the motions of plunging into the sea and sinking, yet never reaching the underwater city of R’lyeh, never freeing the god they served.
Her own happiness ended today.
Her enemies would also be trapped today.
—The body is immortal. The curse unending.
…
“Whoosh—!”
The old ship’s horn roared, and the creaking hull trembled with vibration.
Through the broken windows, the outlines of the harbor gradually appeared on the far side of the sea, ships coming and going.
Everly closed the notebook and placed all its contents back into the little bear backpack.
“Put it back where you found it,” she said. “The sacrifices of those who ca before shouldn’t be forgotten.”
“Understood.”
Mark received the instruction, lifted the little bear backpack, and left the cabin.
Everly leaned against the grimy wooden table and let out a long sigh.
Witches truly were a people whose love and hatred ran exceptionally deep—Natalie was like that, and so was Erica.
After her body died, Erica’s soul remained within it, sustaining such a vast and intricate ti-space circle for a full thirteen years. And yet, she had kept it perfectly intact, with only seven seconds of malfunction each day at 19:59:53. It was almost unimaginable.
The Fiery teor was gone.
Sretan, it seed, had hated the witch to the bitter end. After reducing her to ashes, he had soone scatter those ashes into the sea. Perhaps the cursed dagger had fallen into the ocean along with her.
Hopefully, in the vast sea that now buried all her enemies, Erica’s soul could finally rest in peace.
“Whoosh—!”
Another sharp blast of the ship’s horn echoed. Before the astonished eyes of everyone at the harbor, the rusted Golden Anchor completed its long, thirteen-year voyage and slowly pulled into the dock.
Along the shore, a crowd of over a hundred people—including the Coast Guard, the Carnival Cruise Line staff, insurance agents, police, dical teams, and dia who had caught wind of the story—had long been waiting, all eyes fixed on the ship.
Everly blended in with the other survivors, appearing like an ordinary lucky passenger, and descended the rusted gangway alongside everyone else.
Because of the involvent of supernatural forces, the survivors were intercepted by the Bureau on their way to the police station. They underwent investigation by the agency before reaching local authorities.
Everly had already coordinated with the conscious survivors in advance, making sure to remove herself from the official testimony.
Thus, what the survivors told the Bureau was a condensed version of the truth: the witch had died, the human sacrifices had begun, Dagon appeared, and a mythical creature—suspected to be a siren—suddenly manifested for unknown reasons. It fought Dagon to the death, sacrificing its own life to annihilate all of the evil god’s followers and drive Dagon back into the depths of the ocean.
After carefully questioning the survivors about the phantom siren’s features and cross-referencing with various sea demon legends that had appeared in the United States, the Bureau initially confird that the creature was Lamia, the infant-eating siren who had once appeared in a small town called Pukati in Yalijifu State.
Because the townspeople had long ago discovered a way to coexist with her, Lamia’s threat level was assessed as “extrely low.” As a result, the bureau, already stretched thin, had never acted against her. Over the past decades, Lamia had vanished from sight entirely; so reports suggested she had been dealt with by exorcists.
“If that really was Lamia… isn’t she supposed to be the sea demon that devours infants? Why would she fight Dagon?”
An investigator glanced at the wooden puppet on the table and murmured, puzzled.
The puppet appeared to be a simple desk ornant, but in reality, it was a small device with a lie-detecting function. A mischievous child, habitually lying, had accidentally died, and his ghost had possessed the puppet, causing it to wreak havoc. Whenever soone nearby lied, the puppet’s nose would grow longer. When a person told thirteen lies, the nose would transform into a sharp blade and pierce the liar’s chest from behind.
Of course, after being taken into the bureau custody, the puppet had undergone repeated “training” by several psychics and was no longer mischievous. Only its lie-detecting function remained, giving it a permanent place in the bureau’s interrogation office.
At this mont, the puppet’s nose on the table remained its original length, indicating that none of the ship’s crew had lied.
It was rely a matter of so key details being omitted; it wasn’t really lying.
Several of the interviewed survivors gave the sa account, which allowed the investigators to relax their guard.
In addition, one of the survivors, a caraman nad Gene, provided a mory card from his water-damaged cara. The footage on the card showed that even until the Mary Jane was hurled by Dagon, the caraman had stubbornly clutched his cara, capturing the mont Lamia’s enormous phantom appeared above the ocean.
This recording also corroborated the survivors’ statents.
The only unfortunate part was that the cara had only briefly captured Lamia’s phantom as it appeared; after that, it was damaged by the water, and no further footage existed.
In total, 58 people survived the cruise ship incident. The bureau, being a high-risk organization, had long suffered from staff shortages. The investigators had many tasks at hand and no ti to interview every survivor individually.
Thus, after verifying the information, the conclusion—“The sea demon Lamia, for unknown reasons, fought Dagon to the death, subduing him back into the depths”—was officially included in the investigation report, along with copies of Witch Erica’s diary and the footage from Gene’s mory card.
Everly and Misha, who had unfortunately been caught up in the incident, also signed confidentiality agreents and were allowed to leave the special affairs investigation bureau’s Yalijifu State branch without issue.
So existences, simply by having their nas known to the public, can invisibly bring contamination into the world.
Thus, the version of the incident released to the public was as follows: the small cruise ship Mary Jane, operated by the Arican Holland Cruise Line, encountered a rare storm while sailing near the waters off North Naradka State. To avoid the storm, the ship attempted to change course, steering into the open sea far from the coast. But the weather at sea was unpredictable. The Mary Jane not only failed to evade the storm but was instead capsized by its ever-growing fury.
Most of the passengers on board were killed or injured in the disaster. Just as the few remaining survivors drifted helplessly at sea, a rusted, massive cruise ship appeared through the wind and rain.
It was nothing short of a miracle—an extraordinary stroke of luck. The giant cruise liner, which had disappeared thirteen years earlier in the Pacific Ocean, had drifted across to the East Coast, appearing before the survivors!
People helped each other and scrambled aboard the battered yet still seaworthy ship. Against all odds, it plowed through the storm and brought them safely back to land.
“As for what truly happened thirteen years ago, where the original passengers went, and why the Golden Anchor ended up drifting to the East Coast—these mysteries remain unsolved. Perhaps the ship has a soul. Thirteen years ago, during its maiden voyage, nearly 4,700 passengers vanished without explanation. It may have beco a vessel of restless spirits. Thirteen years later, carrying the burden of redemption, it appeared like a ghost before those who needed help…”
“Oh, darling, that really is a romantic story.”
“Who would argue with that?”
On the train to Concord, a couple set aside their newspapers, embraced sweetly, and marveled at the tale.
Across from them, two young girls exchanged a glance, each with a trace of helplessness in her eyes.
Sotis, remaining ignorant is the only way to stay happy.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
—————————————————————————
Author’s Note:
Fiery teor Dagger: Ranked third among the world’s ten legendary cursed blades. In this story, a personal addition was made: it amplifies the abilities of the person it injures. Otherwise, its description remains consistent with legend.
Final important note on Ti-Space Circle magic: Its shortest unit is one day; it cannot be shortened further. It can only cycle in full-day periods. This ensures that the start and end of a cycle are fully contiguous, making it the most “energy-efficient” way to operate.
Original movie plot vs. novel: The trajectories are largely similar, but in the movie, there is no assistance from Everly. The ship’s crew notice the ti-space circle later, and by the ti they realize it, the rebellion has already begun. The outco is Dagon manifesting. The caraman records the final scene underwater and dies (showing that in pseudo-docuntary logic, as long as the caraman clings to the cara, he can survive for a long ti).
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