Ryan Moore

Stepping through the lighthouse door, it was just as Elias and Edmond had expected.

The whale oil barrels that had been piled like a small mountain under the stairs had now been pushed into the corner by Malcolm.

On the floor, the trapdoor was wide open.

The pitch-black opening gaped like a mocking mouth, announcing that this cellar, sealed away for God knows how many years, had finally been discovered by others.

Jack, standing off to the side, was dumbfounded.

He stared at the trapdoor, his expression complex.

He had just been here the day before yesterday, yet he hadn't noticed a cellar hidden here at all.

This was simply mind-boggling.

“There... there’s actually a cellar down here?”

Jack muttered to himself, his voice filled with disbelief.

Elias glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and quietly nudged closer.

“Hey, Jack.”

Elias nudged Jack with his elbow and asked in a lowered voice,

“What does the cellar you live in look like?”

“Uh... nothing much.”

Jack gave a hollow laugh, his gaze drifting elsewhere.

“It’s just an ordinary storage room, small and cramped, covered in cobwebs. There’s really nothing to see.”

“So it seems there is something then.”

Elias’s reply was transmitted through the 【Mental Message】 link, carrying a hint of undisguised slyness.

“Tell me once the old sea dog leaves.”

Jack stumbled, startled by the sudden voice inside his head.

He turned his head in panic and stealthily activated his Spirit Vision.

He wanted to see what kind of formidable figure this senior was.

However, the moment his Spirit Vision landed on Elias, Jack froze completely.

In Jack’s vision, the fire of spirituality swirling around the other man was exceptionally massive.

One look was all it took.

This was someone he couldn’t afford to mess with.

Jack silently deactivated his Spirit Vision and lowered his head, as docile as a newly tamed sheep.

Just as Jack was feeling uneasy, frantically calculating how to deal with Elias later,

old Crowley impatiently nudged him from behind.

“What are you lingering for? Get down there.”

The three of them walked down the stone steps into the cellar, step by step.

In the darkness, the faint light of a kerosene lamp cast distorted shadows on the walls.

When they reached the bottom, what greeted their eyes was Old Ed's mummified corpse lying on the floor.

The heap of bones and skin still maintained its previous desolate posture.

“Ah! Damn it!”

Old Crowley, walking behind Malcolm, suddenly covered his nose and mouth.

The stale, musty air in the cellar made the old captain want to curse.

“This godforsaken place.”

Crowley spat, his face grim.

Just then, in Elias's mind, the old ghost who had been hysterical for a while started acting up again.

“Look at this, look at this!”

Edmond's voice sounded full of disgust.

“Elias, you heartless bastard, you don't even know to help your dear friend up?”

“Just leaving me to lie on the floor like this?”

Elias looked at the pile of bones expressionlessly.

He replied coldly in his mind:

“I’d rather die.”

Touch a corpse that had been dead for who knows how many years?

What a joke.

He had absolutely no desire to touch Old Ed's corpse.

However,

what happened next caught Elias completely off guard, utterly deviating from everyone's expectations.

Ophelia was actually kneeling in front of the corpse, weeping bitterly.

Showing no regard for ladylike poise, the girl knelt before the mummified remains, her shoulders shaking violently.

A stifled, painful, and heart-wrenching sob echoed throughout the empty cellar.

Elias was somewhat dazed.

He frowned, staring at the weeping figure before the corpse, a strange sense of dissonance rising in his heart.

Elias muttered to himself. He really couldn't fathom what connection this corpse could possibly have with Ophelia.

An ancient mummy from fifty years ago shouldn't make a young female reporter from Hastings Port cry like this, no matter how one looked at it.

Could it be that this old ghost had left behind some romantic entanglement on land before he died?

That was simply too absurd.

Elias took a couple of steps forward, about to ask,

when Malcolm, standing beside the corpse, turned his head and glanced at him.

The first mate's face was filled with a heavy, complex emotion.

Malcolm’s subsequent reply, however, was like an invisible sledgehammer striking Elias right on the head.

“This is her brother.”

The sailor’s voice was low and raspy, ringing out with absolute clarity in the dead silence of the cellar.

“What?!”

At that moment, Elias felt a chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.

He felt his heart skip a beat.

At the same time, deep in his mind, Old Ed also let out a shriek filled with incomprehension, panic, and absurdity.

“What?!”

Malcolm knelt down and pointed at the tattered clothes clinging to the mummified remains.

“This should be Ryan Moore, the keeper who went missing here three years ago.”

How could this be...?

Elias felt goosebumps break out all over his body.

Cold sweat instantly drenched his back.

If this falling-apart mummified corpse, which had been lying on the floor for who knew how long, was Ryan Moore who disappeared three years ago...

Then...

Who exactly was Old Ed, who had been hiding in the spirit world coordinates bound to the bracelet all this time?

The guy who bickered with him every day, taught him supernatural knowledge, and claimed to be Edmond Russell, the old Firebearer who died here fifty years ago...

Was he just a fabricated ghost?!

Elias slowly lowered his head.

He completely ignored the confusion and fury Old Ed was transmitting into his mind.

That stream of consciousness had descended into utter chaos, screaming, panicking, and frantically refuting.

“No! Elias! Wait! This is wrong!”

Edmond screamed hysterically in his mind,

“I don't know! I don't know why this is happening! I... I clearly remember...”

Elias stared blankly at the metal bracelet on his wrist.

Then, he ripped it off.

“No, Elias, wait!”

Edmond was still screaming, his voice beginning to distort,

“I don't know, I...”

“My memory...”

“No!”

“That’s not me!”

Edmond's voice sounded near and then far, his mental state slipping into absolute derangement.

“I am Edmond Russell!”

“Damn it!”

“That’s me...”

“I...”

“Who am I then?”

“I am not... me?!”

“El—”

With Old Ed's final cry, his voice completely vanished amidst the fuzzy spirit world interference, just as it had out at sea before.

A deathly silence fell.

Elias could clearly feel that the mental link between the two of them had been severed entirely.

He already knew the answer.

This spiritual body that had been living in the spirit world—all of his memories were fake.

But what the hell was going on!

He looked at the bracelet in his hand with a complex expression, falling silent in the cold air for a long moment.

The weirdness and unknowns of this world materialized into a tangible fear at this very moment.

Ultimately, he took a deep breath and silently stowed it away inside his Gluttonous Stomach.

In the cellar, aside from Ophelia’s crying, only Elias’s heavy breathing could be heard.

The other three people present, completely in the dark, cast surprised glances at him from time to time.

Jack, in particular, had clearly felt the violent fluctuation of the fire of spirituality in Elias just now.

“I’m sorry...”

Elias lifted his head with some difficulty and pressed his hand hard against his temple.

“I’m feeling a bit unwell.”

Crowley and Malcolm nodded solemnly in agreement.

They thought the kid’s dream demon curse was acting up again in this gloomy cellar.

Meanwhile, Jack expressed his understanding.

As someone who harbored his own secrets, it was only natural that others had things they couldn't share.

It would actually be abnormal if a transcendent didn't have some quirks or bouts of temporary madness.

Elias forced down the spine-chilling shiver in his heart.

He walked over to the mummified corpse and examined it closely.

The body was like one of those moistureless mummies displayed in a museum, leaving behind nothing but a skeletal frame wrapped in shriveled skin.

“How did you identify him?”

Elias looked at the pile of bones, his voice somewhat dry.

Ophelia raised her tear-filled eyes to look at him.

Her delicate face was smeared with tears and dust, looking incredibly desolate.

Her hand rose slightly, pointing toward the chest of the mummified corpse.

Her voice carried endless despair and certainty:

“It’s... the birthmark on my brother’s chest.”

Ophelia Moore