Chapter 149.
Chapter 149 – Diego
A swift white shadow swept through the old and dirty streets of the lower city, over the pipes and pressure relief structures crisscrossing over the factory complexes, over the deserted stations and cold streets, and finally into a narrow, ugly alley.
Ghostly green flames blossomed suddenly, spreading through the air like a doorway, and the vortex in the gate suddenly rose and contracted as Duncan stepped through it.
He was followed by Shirley, who was still a bit baffled.
Duncan glanced back at the girl following him, looking her up and down before speaking in a hushed voice, “How do you feel? Anything uncomfortable?”
“I …… am okay, “Shirley was still dizzy, but this dizziness was more of a kind of discomfort caused by suddenly being led by a big brother to fly rather than physical discomfort, she looked up at Ai who had already reverted to the form of a white dove and landed on Duncan’s shoulder, after a After half a day, she suddenly used her spiritual connection to communicate with Dog, who was in a state of invisibility and hiding in her soul, “Dog, can you beat this pigeon?”
“…… Don’t ask, asking means you can’t beat it,” Ah Gou’s voice sounded muffled, “Let alone a bird raised by a big brother, I can’t even beat a fish stewed by a big brother… …”
Shirley froze, “Why the sudden mention of fish?”
“Because I can see it, I’m afraid this being just doesn’t have anything around him that conforms to common sense ……”
Duncan didn’t know that Shirley was muttering to Dog, he just visually confirmed Shirley’s condition again and felt the feedback from the mark he had left on the other person before settling down completely.
In fact, he was sure about the matter of Ai transporting a living person, not only because last time he used this mortal body of his own to carry out the test, but also because after that he let Ai carry out a large number of “live experiments” with all kinds of birds and beasts and other small animals outside, and all of the tests were perfect, and it could be confirmed that this pigeon was able to transport a living target without any damages – but But even with so many tests, he still subconsciously confirmed Shirley’s condition.
After all, Ai body is full of mysteries, who knows how many special features it is waiting for their own discovery, in the use of “bone pigeon courier” when a little more cautious naturally no harm.
After confirming Shirley’s condition, he also focused on his surroundings.
In front of his eyes, there was a cold and quiet alley, at the end of which he could vaguely see the dilapidated streetscape, with old and dilapidated pipeline facilities spanning from both sides of the houses, and some of the pipeline connections still had subtle hissing and leaking of steam.
It was a common sight in many parts of the lower city.
Still, Sherry was the first to realize what this place was.
“This is the …… sixth neighborhood?” Her eyes widened in some surprise, “Mr. Duncan, you sensed that mark appearing here?”
“That’s right, the sixth block, we’re back here again, but ……” Duncan breathed out, followed by a slight frown, “but the imprint’s sensing has faded a minute ago.”
“…… Faded? Is it extinguished?”
Shirley asked with a surprised look on her face, but Duncan didn’t answer anything, just looked thoughtfully in a certain direction.
In Shirley’s “dream”, he had implanted a flame into the fragment that remained after the assailant’s split, and at that time he had given the fragment the order to return to its “body”, and shortly after that, he lost his sense of the flame with the end of Shirley’s dream, until just now. Soon after that, he lost his sense of the flame with the end of Shirley’s dream, until just now, when the mark suddenly appeared in his senses again, but guided him here.
The sixth neighborhood located in the real world.
The fire of the spirit body that should have spread in the dream world, but suddenly sent back a signal in the real world, Shirley’s own dream world, its fringe but connected to the light in Nina’s dream, the umbrella monster that attacked Shirley in the nightmare, had appeared at the scene of the museum fire in the real world ……
Unconsciously, a number of contradictory yet vaguely connected threads strung together in Duncan’s mind, and he felt as if he was about to reach the unseen curtain.
Or rather, despite the fact that this grand curtain enveloped the entire city, there was still a gaping hole, and it was in the Sixth Ward – somewhere he and Shelly had overlooked the last time they were there.
He was looking in the direction where he perceived the last “signal” from the seal.
The scent of the mark had only been there for a short time, and had faded quickly a minute ago, but Duncan didn’t think the flame he’d left behind had gone out – despite not being able to pinpoint its location, he could still sense it was still burning, and had even grown considerably larger than it had been before.
Since the flame was still burning and growing, it meant that its “mission” was not yet over – it was still chasing, devouring and assimilating the assailant, and it might have even spread into a huge fire. It is possible that its brief appearance in the sixth block, and then its rapid disappearance, may be due to the fact that the “curtain” here is unstable, and that a gap is opening and closing briefly, resulting in the intersection of the two dimensions.
He wanted to find that gap, the one that seemed to connect dream and reality.
A few days later, Duncan once again led Sherry through the cold, crumbling streets of the Sixth Borough, and this time they didn’t waste any more time asking the locals about anything, but headed straight for the deepest part of the neighborhood.
“That abandoned factory is in the other direction ……” Halfway there, Shirley raised her arm and pointed to a large building in the distance. “We’re not going to that factory,” Duncan said quickly, “we’re going this way.”
“Oh. ……”
Shirley answered and followed Duncan’s lead with her short legs in tight reverse.
The yellowed leaves drifted in the wind and landed at Shirley’s feet, and as she stepped forward, she heard a slight clicking and crunching sound coming from underneath her feet, sounding as if she were crunching pieces of burnt wood, or as if it were the subtle crackling of a fire.
She looked up and around, but all she saw were ordinary streets, old houses of years lined up along the street, standing against the wind amidst the fallen leaves, facing the uninvited guests who had trespassed into the area with indifference.
Shelly suddenly realized that something was wrong.
Since when, she hadn’t seen a single passerby.
The sixth neighborhood was indeed very cold, most of the places were sparsely populated, and the only residents appeared to be listless and aloof, but it was by no means so cold that she couldn’t see a single person!
A very uncomfortable feeling pervaded from the bottom of her heart, a feeling that actually made her vaguely think of the dream she had been trapped in, and she subconsciously moved a little closer to Duncan, but she didn’t expect him to suddenly stop – and with a thud, she ran headlong into the latter’s waist.
In the next second, Shirley drew up the full text of her last words and conceptualized three styles of tombstones, but it soon occurred to her that by and large, those who were crushed by the shadows of subspace would not be able to leave their bodies behind ……
Duncan’s calm voice interrupted the girl’s momentary ramblings, “Looks like we’re here.”
“I’m very, very sorry I really didn’t mean to please …… Ah?”
Sherry subconsciously popped out a string of curtries before reacting to the fact that the big man in front of her didn’t seem to be angry, and it was only immediately after that that she noticed that she had stopped in front of a building that looked deserted for who knows how long.
It was a church.
A community church that could be found everywhere in the city-state of Prand stood at the end of the trail.
It had the trademark slender spire of a deep-sea church, but the black roof tiles and white stone walls were covered with drooping dead vines and decayed and dirty attachments, and the door depicting complex sacred runes was slightly open, while the stained-glass windows on the side were already in a state of disrepair, with almost nothing but bent and deformed iron outlines remaining, and from the cracks of the door and broken holes of the windows, one could vaguely see a dim scene inside.
It had once been a sacred building, but now the air of decay and oblivion had filled every crack in its bricks.
“…… Is this the ‘church’ that the old man near the intersection mentioned last time?” Shirley recalled the last time she came to the sixth neighborhood to check things out, “I remember him saying that a nun lived here, but that nun was often absent from the church ……”
“Being in such disrepair isn’t something that can be explained by ‘often absent’,” Duncan said casually, and with a step, he headed for the church’s front door, “Instead of that nun being out and about a lot, this place looks like it’s been forgotten for eleven long years.”
Shirley watched the other man walk towards the church, instinctively tensing a little against the building, but after a moment’s hesitation followed Duncan’s lead.
The next moment, Duncan pushed open the hidden church door as soon as he could, and the inside of the chapel was clearly visible to both her and Shirley.
Warm and bright candlelight fell into Shirley’s eyes, the clean and tidy chapel was brightly lit, and at the end of the neatly arranged pews, the icon of the storm goddess, Gemona, stood silently in the light.
A nun who was kneeling in front of the icon and praying devoutly heard the movement of the door opening and got up to turn around.
She saw the visitor standing in the doorway and a gentle smile appeared on her face, “It has been a long time since anyone has visited this church.”
“Oh …… it does look like this is the place,” Duncan said softly with a calm expression as he looked at the nun who was wearing a smile in front of him, “The gap in the curtain.”
He blinked, and as he watched, the smiling nun maintained the appearance of a living being in one moment, only to turn into a humanoid pile of writhing ashes in the next, while behind her the church took on an eerie iteration of the bizarre in the extreme – flames blazing in the intact pews, ashes and sparks drifting from the roof, the aftermath of the fire’s destruction of the scene and the intact church overlapped at the same time, presenting an eerie yet ripping light.
It was as if two very different facts had been forcibly blended together in this church.
(End of chapter)