"It was a moment of utter despair. You finally grew up—yet you never again had a day when you could raise your sails."
Another bolt of lightning tore through the night. At the edge of her vision, Eve caught sight of the others: the crew, led by Wall, moving busily across the deck. They worked in silence, bracing themselves against the storm.
"I drifted through life like that for a very long time. Though I grew old, I never forgot what I yearned for as a child. But it was only yearning—an obsolete relic discarded by time, something with no place left in the new age."
"I never married, never had children. I spent every coin I had to buy the Silverfish, and gathered a group of youngsters like myself—children who still longed for the age of pirates—to become my crew."
With an emotion that might have been nostalgia, or perhaps grief, the captain slowly turned around. His exhausted body was soaked through, and beneath his clothes, scales like those of a fish had spread across his skin.
"Child, do you know what it feels like—after living in darkness for so long—to suddenly glimpse the light? That overwhelming rush, pushed to the extreme? Reason vanishes. As long as you can escape the darkness, it no longer matters if something even more terrifying waits beyond the light."
"That's how it was for me."
Eve edged closer to the railing, deliberately shrinking her blind spots. She hadn't let the captain's words distract her.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Nothing more than the confession of a pitiful man. Someone ought to know the truth, shouldn't they?"
His clouded gaze churned like rolling storm clouds, yet within it flickered something called a dream.
"I always hoped someone would know. That way, my death—our deaths—might hold some meaning. But no matter how I called out, no one answered… until you came."
So that eerie summons had come from the man before her. From the moment the Radiant was forced to halt, it had been him, calling to Eve all along.
Whether fear or a strange sense of honor stirred within her, Eve had never imagined she would one day become such a singular exception.
"So you called me here just to listen to you ramble?"
"Perhaps. Humans are like that—born alone, yet unwilling to die alone. Even funerals are filled with strangers, all to prove that one was not alone."
Gripping the helm tightly, the captain spoke slowly, as if tracing the very beginning of the tragedy.
"It began a few months ago, when a man who called himself the Mentor sought me out. He claimed he could give me everything I hoped for—endless wealth, lofty status, even that forgotten age the world had cast aside."
"He said he would fulfill every one of our dreams, so long as we helped him salvage a single object."
"You may not understand that feeling—when you've already given up on something, and then one day someone tells you that hope still exists. Faced with such temptation, anyone would lose their reason. And that is where tragedy begins."
The wind and rain fell silent, as though the world itself were listening. He was the storyteller now, desperate only not to be forgotten—no matter whether the tale was noble or vile.
"You must be here investigating this, aren't you? To be honest, the first time I saw those creatures, I realized how vast and twisted this world truly is. That man—the Mentor—made us take something we never should have touched. But by then, there was no turning back."
"Three of my crew died in the sea. They were the ones who hauled that thing up from the depths. I don't know what they went through—when they returned, all three had lost their minds. They couldn't communicate. Then their bodies began to rot…"
"It's hard to imagine. They were still alive—breathing, speaking, even moving—yet their flesh decayed in that grotesque way, until all that remained was a twisted mass."
Regret and hatred trembled in his voice. In the darkness, something squelched and writhed. Eve turned her head and saw the grotesque blood-flesh crawling across the deck. The sheer visual shock nearly made her retch.
"That was when I realized my mistake. But humans are like this—if we stop then, all the sacrifices become meaningless. I pressed on, stubbornly, and led everyone straight toward death."
"And this is how it ended. We did obtain what we wanted… but only within a dream."
The captain sighed, then laughed softly, the sound thick with self-mockery.
"This is a dream?"
Just as Eve had suspected—it was a warped dream born of a colossal source of corruption.
The captain nodded.
"That's all I wanted to say."
"That's it? I thought you'd have some damned life philosophy to share."
"That sort of thing doesn't matter. I only wanted to talk to someone before I died, and then end it all. Do you know dominoes? One knocks down another, then another. That's how an ordinary person is driven mad—just a little temptation, followed by one mistake after another, and soon he becomes a lunatic."
A bitter smile crossed his face. This was his sin.
"In the end, everyone became neither human nor monster for the sake of my dream. I'm truly sorry."
As his words fell, the world surged once more. Endless gales and torrential rain battered the Silverfish, like Odin's wrath itself. The pitch-black sky split into savage white as thunder cascaded down like a waterfall.
Suddenly—Eve felt something strange. She slowly lowered her gun, as if she could finally see through everything.
"You don't actually want to pass your story on. You just want someone to confess to, don't you?"
The captain froze. In an instant, the entire world fell silent. Massive thunder halted midair, its blazing edges scattering frozen droplets, each raindrop reflecting the whole of reality.
No—this was not the captain's conscious thought. In that moment, he resembled Eve's father, Duke Phoenix: a man who would forgive her any sin, devote everything to her, as if ensuring her safe passage through life were his greatest atonement. This was no longer paternal love—it was confession.
"You made the wrong choice and brought about the wrong consequences. Everything you're doing now is simply to repent, to ease your guilt, even if only a little."
That was the captain's true heart. His young crew were dead—and even if they weren't, entanglement with demons promised no good end.
He had been seen through. The dam of his emotions finally burst, and his body began to tremble.
Eve gazed at the frozen world. This was his dream—and if nothing went wrong, the man before her was the very source of that corruption, the core of all dreams: the mysterious Dreamweaver.
The world churned with his emotions. The storm grew fiercer.
"So this is self-punishment?"
The captain was the Dreamweaver, the origin of everything. In this dream, he was a god—if he wished, the storm would vanish in an instant. Yet he did not. Instead, he allowed even greater suffering to descend.
"Perhaps."
He murmured. The Silverfish surged forward through wind and waves. Suddenly, boundless sunlight poured from behind the dark clouds—a land bathed in radiance, only one step away. But at that very moment, a colossal tide crashed down, severing its path.
Eve felt only the cold, crushing weight of the sea. When her vision cleared again, the Silverfish had been torn in two, water swallowing the pitiful vessel. Eve shouted hoarsely,
"What are you doing?! Weren't you going to sail into the new age?!"
This was his dream—and now it was dying. The captain was destroying everything.
He looked at the girl and shook his head.
"This is his gift to me—a beautiful dream, where I can have everything I ever wanted. But the price is too high. Even Odin would be shamed to have a child like me. The gates of Valhalla would be sealed shut, and I would wander this frozen sea like a lonely, unclaimed spirit."
"I am a relic of the old age. The new era has no place for someone like me."
There was sorrow in his expression. And at last, Eve understood: this was not merely confession—it was atonement. He was dying. The vast, terrible dream was collapsing. With the sinking of the Silverfish, everything would end.
"This is the last thing I can do. I hope it can make up for my mistakes, even a little."
And so, in the real world, the girl's body moved under the dominion of the dream, like some grotesque ritual. Her feet stood rigid as iron nails, lifting her body in a way no human should be able to, shuffling forward like a corpse. She reached Red Falcon, who was likewise trapped in the dream, and picked up the still-burning thermite rifle.
Within the dream, Eve felt it—the bond between dream and reality tightening. She could sense her body moving, acting. And in reality, after a long climb, Eve finally reached the place that had been calling to her all along. This was the captain's true goal: he needed someone to end it all. This was his repentance.
Before her lay a twisted, hideous mass of flesh. A man's face slept within the crimson gore, as if immersed in a blissful dream. Guided by that unseen force, the girl raised the thermite rifle—and pulled the trigger.
This was the end of everything. Endless darkness met its conclusion. The sea seemed to boil under the sun, and the captain stared toward the rising light. At last, a hint of relief appeared on his bitter face.
It was a beautiful night. Before her stood the captain of the Silverfish—transformed into the Dreamweaver by demonic power, builder of this vast dream. He had spent what might be called a happy night here. He confessed, atoned, fulfilled a dream he had carried for decades—raising his sails upon a raging sea.
Though it was a dream riddled with flaws, a story of self-deception, he accepted it nonetheless. It was both the darkest and the finest day of his life.
The Silverfish sank into the sea alongside her captain.
When Eve awoke, she still held the thermite rifle, its magazine empty. Before her, the enormous twisted flesh had been reduced to ash. The dream that had dominated the entire region was over, and countless demons surged toward the lonely lighthouse from all directions, as if summoned.
Yet none of it drew Eve's attention.
She looked at the burning remnants of flesh. On the blurred face, an expression of release appeared. One by one, the tendrils anchoring it to the wall snapped, and at last it fell into the deepest darkness beneath the lighthouse.
The light vanished in an instant.