Chapter 173 – Vanna’s Discovery
Chapter 173 Vanna’s Discovery
Vanna stood silently in front of the steps leading to the underground sanctuary, looking at the black door that had just been restored in front of everyone’s eyes.
Three hours ago, she had arrived at the deserted church with her team and saw the warm and bright lights, the main hall where everything was as usual, the nuns praying quietly, and the clean and tidy sermon table inside the church.
Two hours ago, she got rid of the nun who was clearly not quite right, led the guards to this underground sanctuary, and saw the truth of what was inside after opening its doors – an underground space plunged into darkness, sword-carrying nuns who appeared to have died in battle just a short time ago, signs of battle all over the basement, and intruders who were nowhere to be seen.
Two minutes ago, she finished her detailed exploration of the underground sanctuary and brought the nun’s body out of the underground sanctuary with her men, preparing to send it to the Central Cathedral for autopsy and burial.
Then, the remains of the nun taken outside the sanctuary turned to ashes in the wind in full view of everyone, while the basement door, which had been violently pried down two hours ago, was restored to its original state in the blink of an eye, and now stood silently at the end of the steps, as if mocking the explorers who stood on them.
“Inquisitor ……” a short-bearded Guardian warrior approached Vanna’s side, his voice low, “there seems to be some sort of temporal closure here …… “
Vanna nodded softly, saying nothing.
What came to her mind was last night’s frightening dream, and the Captain Duncan who had invaded and contaminated it.
Captain Ghost’s words from the dream echoed in her mind, “…… If you really care about the safety of the city-state, you might want to go to the sixth neighborhood and take a look at the chapel ……
“I’m looking forward to what you find there ……”
Is this what Captain Duncan wanted to show himself? A closed space-time, a chapel tainted and isolated by some unknown force, a nun who died fighting a mysterious intruder? Why would he want him to see this? And what did everything here mean?
Vanna frowned tightly; when she had set out this morning, she had been full of thoughts about the Lost Country and what the spectral captain was up to, about whether or not the other side was trying to corrupt and attack herself as an Inquisitor in some way by directing her to this chapel, but now she suddenly had doubts about what she had started out with.
Is it hard to believe that …… that ghost captain really just wanted to give himself a clue? Like a passionate passerby …… was reporting to himself about heresy in the city-state?
This thought floated through Vanna’s mind – not so long ago, she had said the same thing to Bishop Valentine in a joking tone, but now she couldn’t help but go over this joke, which was so absurd as to be on a subspace level, in her mind again.
In the next second, the young Inquisitor winced, her expression glazed over.
I was actually thinking of the ghost captain in the direction of “harmless”, this must be the other party’s mental pollution in effect! Mustn’t continue to think about it ……
“Judge?” The voice of a subordinate once again came from the side, snapping Vanna out of her trance, the short-bearded guardsman had a worried expression on his face, “Did you …… hear or see something?”
“…… No, I am quite lucid.” Vanna shook her head and said to this reliable looking subordinate, who she knew had been in contact with Bishop Valentine before she left, and was probably tasked with “supervising” her own officer at the moment, and she had no complaints about that – she herself After all, she had been tainted by Captain Duncan, and it was only natural that she should be in shackles at this time.
“Time and space reset here, shall we go down and take another look?” The ministry asked again.
Vanna pondered briefly and turned her head to ask, “What are the ‘nuns’ over in the main hall doing?”
“She’s still praying,” one of the guardsmen who had just returned from the main hall said immediately, “It seems that any activity we do outside of the main hall doesn’t get her attention.”
“Hmm,” Vanna nodded softly, her gaze falling on the door at the end of the steps for a long moment before biting her lip, “Go down there again.”
She led the guardsmen to the entrance to the underground sanctuary once more, stepping forward to push on the door and once again feeling the familiar resistance – the opposite side of the door was held against the remains of the nun.
Last time, she’d had her men use a crowbar to pry open the shaft of the door, opening access with as little damage as possible to the runes of the door. This time, she pressed her hand against the door panel, and after taking a soft breath, she suddenly clenched her hand into a fist and banged on the door extremely quickly.
Within a hundredth of a second, the entire door shook in a way that was imperceptible to human senses, and then the sturdy door suddenly shattered into endless dust, with wood shavings and metal dust drifting down and being repelled and blown away by the aura that surrounded Vanna.
The nun’s remains collapsed behind the door, without the slightest excess damage beyond the original injuries on her body.
And it wasn’t until then that the guardsmen on the scene heard an extremely low hum, which permeated as if drilling into one’s brain and dissipated in the blink of an eye.
While the warriors cast awe-struck glances at the young Inquisitor, Vanna took them in stride, carrying her longsword on her back and removing her carrying lamp from her waist with her left hand, and stepping forward once the gates had shattered.
The lamp’s glow once again illuminated the dark, subterranean space, and the scene was exactly the same as the first time she had entered; as expected, time and space had returned to their original point.
After another careful exploration, Vanna and the warriors returned to the nun who had died in battle.
Not long ago, Vanna had tried to take the nun’s body out of the underground sanctuary, but now she had realized that the body might have become part of the “circular lock” just like the time and space that had changed here, and could no longer leave this place.
Silently staring at the nun’s bloodstained face, Vanna pondered for an unknown period of time before suddenly whispering, “…… Are you still fighting in this cycle of space and time ……?”
A brief silence fell in the underground sanctuary until the voice of one of the guards suddenly broke the silence, “Inquisitor, what do you think …… she is fighting against?”
Vanna pondered quietly, and only after a long time did she raise her head thoughtfully, analyzing the available intelligence line by line:
“Underground sanctuaries make excellent sealing environments, and this place is a prison when the doors are closed;
“The whereabouts of the church’s Guardian forces are unknown, but they were obviously not involved in the battle in the underground sanctuary;
“The fact that the nun locked herself in here and came in armed suggests that she anticipated a fight before she entered the place;
“There are no traces of the intruder left here, and considering that the space-time here is a closed structure, it is only right that the intruder should be constantly circulating here as well, even if the intruder ran as fast as he could, the TA couldn’t have had time to erase all the clues the moment we opened the gate …… “
The guardsmen next to us listened to one of the officer’s analysis, and one of them suddenly reacted, “There’s only one situation in which an Acolyte would actively block themselves off and prepare for the ‘final battle’ like this …… “
“Yes, there is only one circumstance,” Vanna said softly, slowly rising to her feet, “when the Acolyte realizes that a subspace door is about to open in her soul.”
“Subspace invasion!” One of the guardsmen exclaimed in a low voice, “She’s fighting against …… her own shadow here? But …… but how is that possible, this is a church and ……”
“And no one has ever received an alert from this church,” Vanna spoke in a hushed voice without waiting for her minion to finish, she certainly knew how much was wrong here, “Acolytes who are completely tainted by subspace become carriers and open doors to subspace in their souls, but usually There’s a process for this, especially in an environment like a church, even if things are urgent, the guards on duty here should have had the chance to send out an alert to the outside, but right now it seems that the contamination suffered by this nun is progressing very quickly …… Even so quickly that she only had time to grab a longsword and then lock herself up in this place ……”
At this she paused and added thoughtfully, “…… It’s also possible that the alarm went out, but it didn’t reach beyond the church due to subspace interference.”
“…… But this isn’t a ship sailing on the sea,” the Guardian warrior next to her muttered incredulously, “This is land, the church is under extensive protection, how could subspace forces so quickly corrupt a cleric and cut off the entire region from external contact?”
“You’re right, it’s not right, it’s not right everywhere here, but what’s even more wrong is ……,” Vanna said softly as she looked around this underground sanctuary, the glow of the tiki lamps illuminating the dark walls and columns, the light seeming to hide a myriad of sinister hidden secrets , “If subspace once contaminated this place, where has it gone now?”
(End of chapter)