Chapter 174: The Fire is Spreading
Chapter 174: The Fire is Spreading
The contamination of subspace wouldn’t subside on its own, just as justice wouldn’t serve itself – after so many years of battling the world’s deep, twisted shadows, Vanna knew that all too well.
If this church had been contaminated by subspace, and the nuns on duty in the church had been defeated by the contamination, then what had invaded this place in the first place would never just die out on its own – considering the strange nun’s “ringing” in the main hall of the church and the atmosphere of the entire sixth neighborhood, it was not a good idea. Considering the strange nun’s “sound” in the main hall of the church and the atmosphere of the entire sixth block, the door of the underground sanctuary obviously failed to stop the invaders of this place, so …… where did the invading subspace force go now?
Vanna lifted the lamp in her hand, the whale blubber containing sacred power burned quietly in the lamp, and where the light shone, everything in the underground sanctuary was reflected in her eyes, and those sharp blade slashes and bullet bullet traces all over the walls were just like words carved over and over again in closed space and time, calmly telling her some secrets.
…… text?
Vanna suddenly frowned, as if there was a flash of electricity in her mind.
If this nun, who had died in battle in the underground sanctuary, had foreseen her fate when she closed the gates, wouldn’t she have attempted to leave some record of it somehow, so that she could warn later investigators?
It was the proper reaction of a trained acolyte!
“Check this place again,” she snapped her head up, commanding the warriors beside her in a loud voice, “All marks, sword cuts, bullet wounds, blood, all of it – there’s a good chance that this sister left some sort of message before she died in battle! ”
“Yes!”
The guardsmen acted swiftly, each scattering in all directions with a carrying lamp in hand, and began to launch a more detailed and targeted search in this underground sanctuary that had already been inspected once.
Vanna herself was certainly not idle, and after realizing that the fallen nun might have left a message on her deathbed, she returned to the place where the other had died, back to the entrance of the underground sanctuary, carefully inspecting the floor and walls near the door.
–She had just completely shattered the door to the sanctuary, but she believed that there would be no message on that door, because the sanctuary door was part of a precision seal, with the sacred symbols of the goddesses engraved on the door, and leaving a mark on that would weaken the sanctuary’s protections, and a nun wouldn’t do that.
The nun with the sword in her hand remained still on the ground, the blood that had not yet coagulated flowing slowly beneath her.
Vanna knelt down beside the other woman’s remains, examining the nun’s entire body carefully, then surmising her position and orientation at the time of her death based on the angle at which the nun had fallen when she had broken through the door a moment ago, she bent down at a most likely angle and broke the nun’s clenched hand again, examining the state of the long sword.
Suddenly her movements stopped.
Vanna’s eyes fell to the ground next to the nun.
There was a series of sword marks there, which at first glance appeared to be nothing more than messy carvings, as if they had been made on the ground by a dying man who had held his sword unsteadily.
In previous inspections, Vanna and her subordinates had overlooked them, but this time, the young inquisitor finally realized that these seemingly haphazard scratches were in fact “messages” that had been carved over and over again after being badly out of shape.
“Here.” She raised her head and spoke loudly to the guardsmen who were searching around, and then lowered her gaze, carefully distinguishing the information in those sword marks.
It took half a day of reading before she could make out a few words from it:
“1885.”
It was, after all, just a string of numbers.
The guards had gathered, they stood beside Vanna and also discerned the string of numbers from those sword marks, the short-bearded guardsman at the head obviously didn’t understand the significance of the string of characters, he looked to his officer in confusion, “Inquisitor, this string of numbers …… Inquisitor? ”
He saw the look of dismay on Vanna’s face – the latter’s eyes widened the moment she saw the string of numbers, as if a shocking thunderbolt had exploded in her heart, causing the Inquisitor, who had always acted calm and collected in front of his subordinates, to fail to control his expression.
Vanna, on the other hand, woke up with a start at her subordinate’s shout, and she inhaled sharply, feeling her heart thumping, and the memories of her previous solitary rummage through the archives surfaced along with it, recalling those odd heretical worship records, recalling the archives from 1889 forward and that missing record from 1885… …
All of these memories, ultimately focused on this underground sanctuary, on these messy sword marks in front of her eyes: 1885.
“It’s 1885 …… She reminded us on her deathbed that she actually died in 1885 ……”
Vanna mumbled softly to herself, while the guardsmen around her looked at each other in disbelief, one of them frowning, “But why did she emphasize this specifically?”
“To prove that she didn’t die in 1889 ……” Vanna spoke subconsciously, but just halfway through her sentence she suddenly reacted with the same incomprehensible expression on her face, “Yeah Why did she emphasize that year specifically …… If she died in 1885, then there’s no way she could have known that there would be another catastrophe in the city-state four years later …… “
The young Inquisitor was in a state of confusion, a large number of clues had surfaced and it seemed as if they were about to be vaguely fused together in one place, but a huge gulf appeared in the middle of it, making it impossible for her to fully connect her thoughts. If the number left by the nun was to indicate the year of her death, then this year must have a special significance, and the “warning” she wanted to convey was hidden in this year, but what kind of warning is ……, which would be “strongly related” to the year of 1885? “What was the warning that was so strongly associated with the year 1885?
Did the nun see something on her deathbed? Had she foreseen that the 1885 record would disappear from the Cathedral archives? Or did she know why this record would disappear?
Unfortunately, the truth has already disappeared with the cold blood of the years, and the moment the doors of the underground sanctuary were closed, the secrets the nun knew were destined to remain unknown, and the only thing she passed on to Vannah across time and space with her life was this string of incomprehensible numbers.
Vanna looked up and saw that the guardsmen accompanying her were focusing their eyes on her, a few of them had not only concern in their gaze, but also cautious observation.
“I made a trip to the Cathedral Archives earlier,” she said to her men after organizing her thoughts, “and in the archives, all the information from 1885 was missing for some reason, and now it seems that the year is definitely …… “
She stopped abruptly.
An image of rummaging through the materials in the archives somehow came back to her once again, as if another force was constantly reminding her of it, causing her to repeatedly recall those memories of walking amongst the huge shelves of books, and in between these reminiscent images, she suddenly heard a soft sound of the waves.
Vanna slowly opened her eyes wide.
She still hadn’t been able to recall anything other than consulting the archives alone, but she had realized that something might have gone wrong with her memories of her time in the archives – her psychic gifts were signaling a warning, and the Goddess was signaling it to her!
“Return to the Cathedral,” she said suddenly to the minions beside her, “I’m going to the Archives!”
The guardsmen looked at each other in disbelief, wondering for a moment why the Inquisitor was so tense and serious, but they soon ceased to hesitate and immediately led the way.
And just as these guardsmen were about to leave, one of them glanced down at the ground next to them again, but suddenly let out a startled cry, “The words are disappearing!”
Vanna immediately followed the sound and a subtle cluster of ghostly green color was reflected in her eyes.
Her breath caught instantly.
On the ground, the traces carved by the nun before her death were gradually disappearing, as if the pencil writing on the paper had been erased by an eraser, and at the place where the sword traces disappeared, there was a constant jumping of subtle greenish sparks so small that it was almost hard to be detected by the naked eye – these “sparks” came from nowhere, as if they had been spreading in a dimension that was imperceptible to the naked eye, and these “sparks” had no idea where they were coming from. These “sparks” came from nowhere, as if they had been spreading in a dimension that was imperceptible to the naked eye, and now they suddenly appeared in the field of vision of the people of reality.
Vanna was all too familiar with the green sparks!
It was the owner of this flame that had guided her to this church!
Her mind was filled with endless conjectures about the Lost Country, about the Ghost Captain, about subspace, and about the number “1885”, but none of them matched up.
No one could explain what role the Ghost Captain was playing, and Vanna couldn’t figure out why the flames of the other side would erase the trace in front of her, but one thing was clear to her – this was not the place to stay, and she had to get back to the Cathedral immediately.
In the blink of an eye, the traces on the ground had already disappeared, and the ethereal green flames that came from nowhere also faded away from everyone’s view.
“Do not approach this ground, beware of the flames still spreading beyond what is visible to the naked eye,” Vanna reminded her men, “withdraw from this church now – those of Team Two will remain outside the church and set up a blockade in place Wait for orders, the rest of you will return to the cathedral with me.”
The guardsmen spoke in unison, “Aye!”
Vanna nodded, then after a moment’s thought, commanded, “Also, go inform the standby units in the nearby neighborhoods …… to block off the entire sixth block.”
Inside the main hall of the chapel, Vanna led the guardsmen through.
One of the guardsmen subconsciously glanced in the direction of the goddess’s icon, and suddenly let out a startled cry, “That praying ‘nun’ is gone too!”
(End of chapter)