Chapter 193 – The Ark of Promise
Chapter 193 – The Ark of Promise
In the chart room, as always, the sunlight from the infinite sea poured into the room through the porthole, making those old objects that condensed a century of time reflect a glittering light, the black goat’s head sculpture quietly stayed in a corner of the chart table, controlling the direction of the Lost Country ship, while the ancient chart surface was rolling in mists, and in the layer after layer of surging mists, the trajectory of the known voyage was expanding straight ahead in a certain direction, and it was moving forward, and it was moving straight ahead. straight ahead, expanding.
The end of the track was the city-state of Prand, and that flickering point of light had now appeared in the mist ahead and was gradually closing the distance between it and the Lost Country at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye.
The gate opened and Duncan’s figure appeared in the doorway.
The goat-headed sculpture immediately stirred, its wooden neck creaking as it turned its head in the direction from which the voice had come, “Ah, it is His Excellency, the Great Captain, coming to the side of his loyal second-in-command! Are things still going well for you? You have been busy since yesterday, have you had a good day? Today’s weather ……”
“Stop, stop, stop, similar greetings don’t need to be repeated several times a day.” Duncan raised his hand to interrupt before the other man could finish, and immediately afterward his gaze lingered for a moment on the goathead’s face as if unnoticed.
The goathead, as always, neither expression showing, nor obsidian-carved eyes still eerily cold, gazed this way from the table, an inhuman quality filling its gaze.
But there was no aura of danger, nor anything different from the usual.
The creature seemed to have been taking Duncan’s orders seriously, and when Duncan told it to focus on steering the ship, it was just focusing on steering the ship.
“Sir Captain, you look preoccupied?” Goathead’s voice rang out with a familiar, doggedly unique enthusiasm, “You seem to have captured some prisoners back …… but they don’t seem to be on board anymore?”
“They disappeared after the sun came up,” Duncan said lightly as he made his way nonchalantly to the nautical table and sat down, “It was a couple of Terminal Preachers.”
“Ah, the Terminal Preachers …… are troublesome and dangerous fellows, and they are very hard to catch indeed, always appearing and running away somehow,” chimed in Goathead at once, and as Duncan was well acquainted with, as soon as a subject was opened, the fellow would pop up with a string of nonsense, but the nonsense often contained useful information that didn’t take much effort to interrogate, “But how did they provoke you? Those crazy preachers don’t usually show up much, compared to the Sunists or Annihilationists, they’re low profile and rare ……”
“They attacked a human I was watching, and took it in hand to use to test Alice’s powers,” Duncan said casually, while watching the goathead’s reaction, “They also said a lot of godly things, something to do with subspace… . what do you know about these cultists?”
“I would advise you not to pay too much attention to their crazy ‘preaching’,” Goathead said immediately, “Just calling out the name of Subspace frequently could draw dangerous stares, let alone having to deal with the kind of crazy people who follow Subspace? Let alone having to deal with the kind of crazy people who follow Subspace. Of course, great existences like you may not be affected by them, but it’s never good to hear it too much ……”
It then paused and then continued to speak, “Let me tell you, I don’t know much about those lunatics, and not many people in this world even know about them… The Final Preachers should be considered as the most eccentric group of guys among all kinds of cultists, they’re good at being godly, their thinking is fragmented, and they don’t have a large number of bottom-level rabble like the ordinary cultists do –They can be much smaller in number, and there just aren’t any that can interact with people properly ……”
The goat-head rambled on, more and more nonsense the further he got, but it was in the middle of this barrage of nonsense that Duncan still heard some key bits of intelligence.
According to Goathead, the number of Endbringer Preachers was far less than the other two cult forces (i.e. Sun Followers and Annihilationists) that also served as civilization’s heartbeat, and judging from the present-day records and trajectories of their activities, their number might only be in the thousands, or perhaps even less.
In general, cults have a large number of ordinary people who serve as the “underclass”, a group of people who have little power, but also have a normal social life, and are basically the same as ordinary people except that their minds have been corrupted, but there is no such underclass in the End of Life Preachers – they have no such underclass. -Whenever they appear, they must be “magi” with great power.
No one knows how a cult group can operate and maintain itself in the absence of such an underpinning, just as no one knows the exact process by which the Suns and Annihilators were transformed among the general population.
In addition, despite having the word “preach” in their name, the Ultima Preachers seem to have little success in “preaching” – their sanity has long since evaporated, and their language and logic are alien to the norm. Their language and logic are different from normal people, and even though they will always recite some “truths” related to subspace whenever they show up, no sane person will listen to their compulsion, and those with weak wills …… have already been contaminated into monsters by subspace before being compelled by their compulsion. The weak-willed have already been contaminated into monsters by the subspace before being compelled by them.
In other words, it is theoretically impossible for the Ultimate Preachers to increase their numbers by “preaching”.
Lastly, the Ultimate Preacher is very, very unpredictable.
Duncan had already experienced this himself.
The goat’s head professed that it knew little about the Final Preacher, but it spoke of no shortage of information.
“A bunch of preachers so deranged that they’ve run out of ‘preachers’?” ……” Duncan muttered thoughtfully, rubbing his chin, “And where did the original Final Preachers came out of nowhere again?” “And who knows?” Goathead’s neck creaked and wiggled, “Maybe it grew straight out of subspace ……”
Duncan didn’t care about Goathead’s obviously made-up “subspace joke”, and likewise, he didn’t mention his “non-linear conjecture” about the Final Preacher to the other side.
He only pondered, if he, a first-time contact with the Ultimate Preacher, could come up with this kind of conjecture, then what would the guardians and bishops in the human city-states, who had long been fighting against the heretics, know about that group of subspace believers? Would they have a more refined theory to explain the weirdness of that group of lunatics?
“Captain, you seem to be very concerned about those Endbringer preachers?” In the silence, Goathead’s voice suddenly broke the quiet in the room, “It’s rare to see you show such a serious expression ……”
Duncan raised his head and gave Goathead a quiet look.
“Do you think a city-state can be saved if its history is tainted?”
He said this suddenly.
It was frank and casual, as if he was just discussing an ordinary “academic speculation” in his spare time.
The goat head froze for a moment (although its hard face didn’t have much expression in the first place), and it took two or three seconds before he responded, “Historical pollution? Oh, that’s a high end topic, sounds like something only subspace can get up to ……”
“Something that can only be messed with in subspace?” Duncan raised an eyebrow, “Why do you say that?”
“What else could casually contaminate the history of a city-state other than a dangerous contraption like subspace that is itself a mess of time and space, cause and effect?” Goathead said casually, “There are no earthly things with that kind of power …… Oh, it’s not like there aren’t any if you have to say so, in terms of power alone, there’s probably one that’s good enough for the job, but that thing’s hanging in the sky …… “
While listening to Goathead’s ramblings, Duncan’s heart jumped.
Subspace itself was chaotic in terms of space-time and causality?
This was the first time he had ever heard such a clear and direct piece of information related to subspace.
And along with this piece of intelligence that surfaced in his mind was the words that he recalled the Frost Queen had said to him in that vision back then-
Please don’t pollute history.
He frowned, temporarily suppressing the tumultuous thoughts in his mind, and returned his gaze to the goat’s head, which also immediately noticed the captain’s gaze, instantly stopping its ramblings and quickly responding, “Ah, no wonder you suddenly paid attention to those Final Preachers …… Could they be ……”
“They’ve likely got a big job on their hands,” Duncan said quietly, “and it’s got me a little …… annoyed.”
He gazed silently into the eyes of the goathead, who gazed back at him expressionlessly, as if observing each other, but as if there was no additional communication.
“The City-State has its own guardians, and the gang of Fire Preachers keeping an eye on the veins of history,” Goathead spoke up, “Anyway, that gang of Terminal Preachers can’t threaten you no matter how much they mess with you, and even if they can contaminate history, they can’t contaminate you or the Lost Country… …”
Duncan raised an eyebrow, “Can’t pollute me or the Lost Country?”
“…… We have returned from subspace, Captain,” Goathead said slowly, “Everything in this world can be contaminated – except subspace, and we …… have been in subspace long enough.”
Duncan frowned, and for some reason, some of the crazy things those Endbringer preachers had said popped into his mind.
After a moment of silence, he couldn’t help but mumble softly, “The Ark of Promise ……”
(Book Push Time! Book title “I Stand Beneath Billions of Lives”, author name: Chen Wright. In fact, this book was milked once before, and unfortunately was reported to be autistic for a period of time, and now the content is refurbished and reborn, and the new content is a psychotic guy who refused to work overtime without pay and left home, and an interesting story in a magical world, if you are interested, you can check it out.)
(End of this chapter)