Chapter 50: Two Looming Dark Clouds

Chapter 50: Two Approaching Dark Clouds

The gods reside in the Kingdom of God far away from the real world, and the world believes that this special dimension is the cornerstone of the world, and contrary to common sense, this “cornerstone” is not located at the bottom of the world, but at the apex of all dimensions.

The ancient Cretan kingdoms described the structure of the world as they perceived it in their surviving texts:
The cornerstone of the world is at the top, guarded by eternal truth and order, and the Kingdom of God is within the cornerstone, with its own eternal existence;

From the Kingdom of God downward, there is the reality where all beings are located, and the earthly beings enjoy the afterglow of order at this level, and can survive in the relatively stable and rich reality;
From reality downwards, there is the spiritual world, which is gradually deviating from the perception of mortals. In the spiritual world, the blessings of the gods have become diluted, and the distorted and grotesque forces have begun to take the upper hand;
From the Spirit World downwards, there is the Deep Sea, which is no longer suitable for living creatures and is dominated by strange and weird forces, which can no longer be considered part of the material world, but is more like a reflection of nothingness;

Beyond the deep sea, there is the bottom of the world – the depth of subspace where the shadows of all things coexist, and where the bodies of extremely dangerous ancient gods and all kinds of sinister things coexist.

In the account of the ancient kingdom of Crete, the gods made a pact in the cornerstone, and this pact is the source of all the laws of the world and the criterion, and this order flows down, defines the laws of the world, and also infiltrates all things in the world, and as the “depth” continues to fall, the power of the order will begin to weaken, and gradually by the sub-space to take the upper hand! –The “cornerstone” and the subspace where the gods are located are like the upper and lower endpoints of the world, and the “order” flows unidirectionally in these two endpoints.

This is an ancient gift left to the world by the brilliant civilization that pioneered in the deep sea era 10,000 years ago, and in the long years, countless scholars have studied this “layered structure” without finding out the errors of this model, and now it has become the world’s recognized “standard model of the world”. Standard Model”.

In this standard model, earthly mortals will fall into deeper places, but few people can return from the “deep” to the “shallow”, and even if there are occasionally one or two lucky people who can return to reality from the spiritual world, I have never heard of any heavenly being who can reach the place where the gods are from reality. reality to the “cornerstone” dimension where the gods reside.

It is for this reason that the Lost Country, which returned to reality from subspace, has become the most outrageous phenomenon in the world – its return defies the world’s standard model.

But on the other hand, the existence of the Lost Country is in line with the classic thesis of anomalies and visions: the law of permanent misalignment of anomalies and visions.

But in any case, neither Bishop Valentine nor Vanna thought that the spectral captain was capable of taking revenge on the Storm Goddess – even if he had the heart to do so, he couldn’t do such a thing.

Because the “cornerstone” and the real world is not continuous, it is not like reality and the spirit world, the spirit world and the deep sea like the relationship between the continuous fall, the material interoperability, so far, no scholars have found the “cornerstone” and the real world can be directly connected to the evidence, even the gods Even the gods can only descend their influence indirectly through projection, metaphorical orders and other methods, so how can a ghost ship …… counterattack the kingdom of the gods?

Since it is impossible to find the storm goddess herself to take revenge, the only remaining option is of course the goddess’s believers in the earthly world.

As the headquarters of the Church of the Deep Sea, the Storm Cathedral is a “parade ark” that sails hidden in the boundless sea, coming and going without a trace, and the Pope Coronet who sits in the ark has the power to rule the storm on behalf of the Lord, so it’s not a very good target to start with.

Then fixed in the sea, the target is obvious, open to the outside world of the Prand city state naturally became a better choice: 80% of the people in this city state are storm goddess believers.

Vanna had already decided that the Ghost Captain was here for revenge – after all, the Lost Country had crashed into subspace in a storm a hundred years ago – and other than that, she couldn’t think of any other reason why the Lost Country, which had disappeared for so many years, would suddenly return to the real world, and also point the finger at the city-state of Prand.

But what exactly was that Ghost Captain planning to do?
Vanna’s brows furrowed as she slowly spoke in thought, “Bishop Valentine, do you think …… the Lost Country ship has anything to do with that gang of Sun Believers’ dissension in the city-state in recent times?”

After saying that she paused and added, “In last night’s dream, I saw the burning sun and the Lost Country ship appearing together in Prand, and the simultaneous arrival of the two catastrophes might be the omen that the goddess gave me ……”

“But don’t you forget that in the underground sacrifice field, that tainted ‘sacrifice’ killed the Magus of the Dark Sun, that was a baptized ‘messenger’,” the Bishop shook his head, “At least at that sacrifice site, the position of the Lost Country and the Dark Sun seemed to be hostile.”

Vanna didn’t say anything for a while, just falling into deep thought at the bishop’s words, while the old man across from her continued after a short silence, “Regarding those worshippers of the Dark Sun, I did get some tip-offs from the side of Lunsar City State this morning ……”

Vanna immediately raised her head, “Tips?”

“The Sun heretics are not just resurgent in Prand, they have been making movements in many city-states lately, a large group of Sun heretics have been transiting through the ports of Lunsar and Moco lately, in the process of converging on Prand, and some of them have fallen into the net,” the old bishop nodded his head, “During the interrogation, those heretics mentioned the ‘Shards of the Sun’.” “Sun Shards …… the flayed remains of the ‘true Sun God’ after the disintegration of those heretics?” Vanna snapped, “They think there’s a sun shard hidden in Prand?”

“It seems so at the moment, I don’t know where the heretics got their information, or maybe it was a ‘revelation’ they got in their madness, in any case, they are now convinced that a part of the remains of their ‘Lord’ is hidden in this city,” Bishop Valentine had a stoic expression, “and they see this as the hope for the Dark Sun’s recovery.”

“…… Those madmen,” Vanna couldn’t help but curse under her breath, “How many lives they have maimed to resurrect that dark, blasphemous sun!”

“The dark sun is what we call it, the sun god in their minds is bright and represents the truest order na – you can’t expect that group of unhinged cultists to have any conscience when their hands are full of blood,” Valentine shook his head, “They are convinced that everything they say and do is righteous, and there are only two languages that work best when dealing with them – caliber and pound for pound.”

Listening to the bishop’s rather deep-sea church style statement, Vanna couldn’t help but quiver at the corners of her mouth, “Looks like we’re going to have our hands full.”

“There is never peace on the Boundless Sea, and the City-States are in the Boundless Sea,” Valentine said, “Captains face the storms of the ocean, and we face the storms brought on by earthly fools, Inquisitor, prepare yourself, the City-States of Prand may be in for a challenge.”

“Two challenges,” Vanna corrected thoughtfully, “In addition to the adherents of the Black Sun, there’s a secretive and terrifying Ghost Captain – and if the Lost Country and the Black Sun really aren’t all the way out there, then we’ve gone from one trouble to two.”

Bishop Valentine pondered slightly, “Perhaps there’s another possibility – based on the situation at the Sewer Sacrifice Ground, the Lost Country might fight with the Black Sun’s believers?”

“…… Those two troubles merge into one ruinous one, Bishop Valentine,” Vanna looked at the old man in front of her, who had clearly begun to think out of the box, “A ghost ship returning from subspace and a group of contending sun shards of cultists fighting in the city-state of Prand, with the possibility of a divine descent from the Dark Sun in between, I can’t think of a worse scenario than that.”

Valentine sighed, acknowledging that Vanna was right.

“Anyway, working with the vigilante forces first to capture all those solar heretics who have infiltrated the city-states and neutralize the threat of the Dark Sun before things get serious is the easier goal to achieve,” Vanna said, her mind noticeably Active, “As for that ghost ship …… we don’t know its next action, for the time being, there is no way to start, we can only do a good job of monitoring the spirit world as well as the sea around the city-state first ……”

Speaking of this, the young Inquisitor couldn’t help but shake his head, looking serious and helpless, “Damn, who can know what a ghost captain will do next ……”

……

“I’d like some more ketchup ……” Duncan waved to Nina across the table, “You hand it over I’ll just get it myself.”

Nina immediately handed over the ketchup, “Okay Uncle Duncan.”

It was now noon, Duncan and Nina were eating lunch in the small kitchen on the second floor, the meal in the antique store was very simple – a kind of salty pancake, a local specialty of Prendergast, with ketchup or hot sauce, and vegetable gumbo, it couldn’t be said that it was a tasty dish, but no matter whether it was Duncan or Nina, both of them ate it with gusto.

It had been a long time since Duncan had eaten a normal lunch like this, and it had been a long time since Nina had eaten a normal lunch like this.

Duncan felt like he was starting to like this place.

(End of chapter)